(The following is a speech delivered by former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger Nov. 20 to the winter conference of the Republican Governors Association in Austin, and his responses to some of the questions asked by the governors.)

Fundamentally, foreign policy of the United States cannot be a partisan issue. The fundamental interestes and values of the United States do not change every four or eight years. We have an obligation to put before the American public a strategy and a set of purposes that all Americans can support and that will become basic principles of the conduct of our international affairs.

"I think it is essential that all of us make clear that that the 80s will be a period of great crisis, requiring strong leadership and a perception of international affairs that is relevant to our dangers and our opportunities. If we do not furnish this, then the sort of crisis that we have been living through in the last few weeks will become more and more frequent, occur more and more unpredictably and will be less and less in our control. The disintegration of America 's ability to shape events cannot be an accident. The challenges to the United States

[L.C.]

simultaneously in so many different parts of the world did not
just happen. When we face turmoil from Central America to
Southeast Asia, when proxy forces of the Soviet Union march through
Africa and move to the Middle East, when energy becomes increasingly
a political weapon, then we have to ask ourselves how we got into
this position. And even more importantly, we have to ask ourselves
and offer answers to how we can escape this decline and regain
mastery over our destiny.

I would like to discuss three issues that we must deal with,
and that are at the heart of many of our challenges.

The first is the problem of the balance of power and of our
security.

We will face in the early 80s, according to all studies that
have been made on this subject, a situation in which we will be
at best, barely even in strategic forces, significantly behind
in theater nuclear forces, and far behind in conventional forces,
while declining in our naval forces. This at a moment when all
over the world a series of crises that may not even be generated
by our adversaries create

[L]

opportunities for intervention that will undermine
vital American interests. If these trends are not
immediately reversed, it is absolutely predictable
that the 80s will witness a period of mounting difficulties.

It has never happened before that a nation was
behind in so many significant strategic categories with-
out having to pay a political price, without suffering a
foreign policy decline. If one studies the capacity for rein-
forcement in critical areas of the world, any nonclassified
study will come to the conclusion that the United States is
behind and falling further behind. This must be remedied,
and this is why so many of us are of the view that SALT (II),
without a major increase in our defense program, would serve
to lull the American people. Nobody is asking for an increase
in defense as a payment for his vote. The increase in national
defense is imposed on us by our national necessities.

We should not play numbers games of what the percentage
is. It is quite possible for the administration to put before
the public an articulate statement of the nature of the

gap and what they propose to do to close it. Nothing
less than that will do. And if that is done, it will have
bipartisan support. But nothing less than that can get
bipartisan support.

Secondly, we have to pay closer attention, not just
to the military balance in the world but to the political
balance in the world. You look at a map and you see the pressure
points. You see radical pressures in Central America en-
couraged by Cuba and the Soviet Union and accelerated by our
misperceptions about the scope and the possibility of our
intervention in the domestic affairs of other states. The
Straits of Aden (leading from the Red Sea to the Gulf of
Aden and thence to the Indian Ocean) already have Cuban forces
on both sides, in Ethiopia and in South Yemen, aimed straight
at the heart of Saudi Arabia and the Emirates which represent
one of the most vital sources of our oil supply. Or traditional
friends in Morocco are under attack with Soviet weapons from
Algeria and Libya and if they should be going the way of Iran,

then this southern shore of the Strait of Gibraltar will be in
hostile hands, and both exits from the Mediterranean to
the Indian Ocean and to the Atlantic, will be in hostile
control. And we will have to ask ourselves about the future
of the Sixth Fleet, which has maintained the peace in the
Middle East.

The biggest foreign policy debacle for the

[L.C]

United States in a generation was the collapse of the govern-
ment and of the Shah of Iran without support or even understanding
by the United States of what was involved. If we want to know
the real causes for the radicalization of the Middle East, it is
the demonstration that a friend of 37 years could disappear
from the scene without the United States being able or being
willing to offer him support or even understanding.

That is what has shifted the balance of power in the Middle
East dangerously toward the radical forces. This is one of the
fundamental reasons why the price of energy has become more
politicized than at any period in the postwar years, because
the moderate regimes in that area now are no longer sure that
we are either willing or able to support them against internal
upheaval or external aggression. This is the fundamental prob-
lem which cannot be rectified until there is a reassertion of
American will, and until we stop to declare impotence a prin-
ciple of foreign policy.

This has been compounded by the third problem, which I want

[L.C]

to put before you, which I would like to express in the question,

Who are our real friends in the world? Is it really true, as

so many in the administration seem to believe, that every change

is in our interest, that we must court all the radical forces

in the world, because sooner or later history will do our work

for us. Or is it not rather true that we have a tendency to

undermine governments without having any idea of what we want

to put in their place, with the result that as a practical con-

sequence it is the radicals that take over. Aren't we running

the danger, from Central America across the whole world, that

the ultimate victors will be forces supported by Cuba and the

Soviet Union, hostile to market economies, opposed to the Uni-
ted States?

Should we not ask ourselves how it was possible that after
three years of courting the so-called non-aligned (nations),
the Havana Conference (during the late summer) passed a set of
resolutions that were the most viciously anti-American of any
in their whole history? Could it be that there is no penalty

for opposing the United States and no reward for friendship
with the United States?

This is the fundamental structure of the crisis we face,
of which one of the most worrisome symptoms is the fact that
a little island 90 miles off our shores can send expeditionary
forces all over the world, supported by the Soviet Union,
threatening not only our vital interests but the vital supplies
of our

[L.C]

9

allies, and that we have proved unable or unwilling to put
an end to this. In the same week in which we accepted the
presence of a Soviet combat force in Cuba we sold 25 million
tons of grain to the Soviet Union. That can hardly be a
deterrent to irresponsible conduct.

Now, having described the nature of the crisis
that we will face, and then I think we have an obligation
to put before the American public so there will be no doubt
about what needs to be done, we should also be aware of our
opportunities.

We face an adversary whose gross national product is
about a third of ours, a country that in 60 years of communist
rule has yet to have a legitimate change of rulers. The
first two leaders died in office. The third took a vacation
without taking his colleagues with him. And the fourth
would like to emulate the first two. There is no means of
replacing leaders. The average age of the politburo is
approaching 70. These are not the wave of the future.
This is a group of entrenched bureaucrats fighting bitter

10

[LC]

internal struggles and specializing primarily in the
acquisition of military power. Nowhere in the world have
planned economies done nearly as well as market economies.
Whenever under comparable conditions you have had a reasonable
competition -- East, and West Germany, Austria and any of
its satellite nations, North and South Korea -- it has always
been the tree economy that has not only outproduced but ful-
filled the aspirations of its people incomparably better than
those of our opponents.

There is no inherent necessity for a state so rigid
with so many domestic difficulties to be able to keep us
under pressure everywhere in the world. In the 80s we
will face this problem: The military capacity of the Soviet
Union will be very great but its domestic difficulties will also
mount. When that point is reached it is our duty to see to
it that when they confront their future they will choose
domestic reform rather than foreign adventures. And once they
begin that process they will face so many complexities that
it will be clear which of the societies represents the true

[LC]

aspirations of humanity. But this cannot be done if the
United States is forever apologetic. It cannot be done if
the United States abdicates in front, of every change and
trusts history to do its job for us. It cannot be done if in
the name of restraint, impotence becomes the ruling principle
of our foreign policy.

Yes, we have learned through bitter lessons the limits of
our power. But, a nation is judged not by a

[L]

constant incantation of what it cannot do but by what it will
declare it is able to do. This country was not built by people who
doubted their capacity. This nation did not become the hope
of mankind by proclaiming its incapacity. This nation remains
the hope of all of those who wish to live in freedom. Without
us there can be no security. Without our dedication there can be
no progress. And with this attitude we can build in the 80s a world
which is both secure and free, that avoids nuclear war but that
does not permit nuclear blackmail, that has a vision of the future
not borrowed from the radical movement, and not appealing to every
resentment, but appealing to the well springs of the truly free,
that is not embarrassed to be moderate and that recognizes that
alone among all the great nations of the world, the kind of
future we are going to have depends crucially on our vision and
on our faith.

END OF SPEECH

13

[L]

QUESTION: Should food be used as a diplomatic tool?

Kissinger: "I believe that our economic strength in general is one of the political assets that we possess. I believe that it is essential that we insist that those who want to benefit from our economic potential conduct themselves in a restrained and responsible international manner. I do not believe it is asking too much of the Soviet Union that if it must have our food that it must not supply proxy forces all over the world. When I was in office, I favored the linkage of economic and foreign policy and I favor it today. Of course, one has to study each individual case as it arises. One cannot make an abstract declaration and one should not cut off food for minor provocations. But I also did not think that the sale of 25 million tons of food in the same week in which the President accepted what two weeks earlier both he and the Secretary of State had declared unacceptable was designed to produce Soviet moderation, but rather tended to make the Soviets believe they could have all the benefits of detente and all the benefits of expansionism, which is a very dangerous course."

[L.C.]

QUESTION: How is the Soviet offense compared to the American defense?

Kissinger: "I do not believe in the theory that there is a detailed Soviet masterplan that is being carried out with magnificent cunning by a group of super planners who are maneuvering with extraordinary skill. If they have them they keep them hidden from foreigners. My impression of the Soviet leaders is that they are a group of individuals who came up through a very hard school. The penalty for failure in the bureaucratic fights in the Soviet Union is not retirement to some sinecure but rather something more drastic. And having gotten to the top by eliminating all their rivals they can hardly believe that foreigners will treat them any more gently than they treat their own colleagues. This produces an almost compulsive suspiciousness.

But the Soviets, however, have two great qualities. One is they are enormously persistent. The Soviet diplomats are not embarrassed to make the same proposal at conference after conference in exactly the same language. While the American negotiators feel that they are letting down the side if they don't come up with something and are almost compulsively incapable of just sticking to one position. So if the Soviets sit there long enough maintaining their point of view, sooner or later

[LC]

the United States will see whether they can adjust its position
a little bit here, a little bit there. And while any one of
these adjustments itself may not be very important, the cumu-
lative impact of it tends to favor the Soviets.

The second category in which the Soviets show considerable
ability is in the accumulation of military power. Part of it
has probably bureaucratic reasons. Nobody can settle any dis-
pute without the support of the military. Therefore, no mat-
ter what the issue is, the military tends to get paid off and
therefore their capacities increase.

Therefore, this debate on whether Soviet intentions are
defensive or offensive is almost irrelevant. Even if their in-
tentions started out as defensive, they have increased their
military capacity at 5% a year for 17 years now. You compound
interest at 5% a year for 17 years and you develop a tremendous
military power. Now they have the capacity, whatever they aimed
for in 1962, when they started this program. By 1982, 20 years
into that program, they will have a capacity for intervention

[L.C]

globally, that will exceed ours in addition to a strategic
capacity which at a minimum neutralizes ours and, therefore,
takes away from us the one counter we had during the whole
postwar period and the one weapon which multiplied their risks.
Under these conditions, whatever they started out to do, they
will be sorely tempted to exploit situations that they will
either create or that will occur spontaneously.

And if you look at events since 1975 it cannot be an
accident that you have Cuban troops in Angola, Cuban troops in
Ethiopia, Cuban troops in South Yemen, communist upheavals in
Afghanistan and in South Yemen, Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia
with Soviet arms and bakced up by Soviet friendship treaties,
the fortification of Cuba, turmoil in Central America, pressure
on Morocco. All of these result from a capability, whatever its
original intention was, and the cumulative effect of those will
be disastrous. If the side armed by the West always loses and
the side armed by the Soviets always wins, then the number of those
who rely on us is bound to shrink and at some point will catastroph-
ically collapse. That is the danger we face. For that it is not
necessary to postulate that every last move is planned out by the

[Lc]

Soviet Union because many opportunities will arise out of turmoil
that is inherent in the process of development and in the internal
politics of many countries. But certainly the record since '75
shows that the Soviet Union has encouraged many of the trends that
I am describing.

[LC]

QUESTION: To what do you attribute the apparent lack of the ability
the the elected leadership on the national level, in the
Congress and in the executive branch to perceive the
real mood and feeling of the American people for greater
national security. Just what is it that they're not
getting the message?

I think that fist of all the conduct of foreign policy is a
rather new experience to Americans and the essence of foreign
policy is you must act on the basis of assessments that you cannot
prove true when you make them. When your scope for action is
greatest, your knowledge on which to base such action, is at
a minimum. When your knowledge is greatest, the scope for action
has disappeared. In 1975, some of us felt that if we once permitted
Cuban forces to become active in Africa, that regardless of the
intrinsic importance of Angola, this would set in motion a series
of events for which we would have to pay a horrendous price.

But we couldn't prove it, and therefore we were stopped by Congress
from carrying out this perception. It has been complicated
by the experience of the Vietnam war in which I think it is safe
to say that the majority of the intellectual community took the
view that American over-extension and American interventionism
contributed to this and indeed the conduct of the war and even

[LC]

maybe the original decision did not consider all of the aspects.

The fact of the matter is, however, that there seems to me now
to be a gap between what passes for conventional wisdom and what
is the perception of the American people, which we have seen
in rather elemental form in the reaction of the American people
to events in Iran, in which my impression is that without any
clear idea of what can and cannot be done, they have tried to
convey the message that they are sick and tired of getting
pushed around and they're sick and tired of seeing America.

forever on the defensive. However, the average person does
not know how to translate this into an operating foreign policy.

And so, there is a gap between the perceptions of the leaders
and the feelings of the public and certainly many of those who
came into office in 1976, entered with the conviction that we
were going to prevail through the purity of our motives at the
precise moment when the balance of power was beginning to turn
against us which they then accelerated by weapons decisions
the belief that we had an infinite capacity to change foreign
governments without recognizing that the beneficiaries of these

[L.C.]

20

changes very often were going to be forces hostile to us
and that if we wanted to bring forces favorable to us into
office, we needed instruments that again, like the Central
Intelligence Agency, that had previously been dismantled and
that are looked down upon by many of these groups. These
are our dilemmas that must be addressed if we want seriously
to change the situation.

QUESTION: What do you see as our future relationships with China -- of this nation of nearly ¼ of the world's population?

I think that our relationship with China depends importantly on
the Chinese perception of how ably we maintain the overall
balance of power. What brought the Chinese to a rapprochement
with the United States was not a sense of isolation. I have
been present at many banquets and I am sure many of you have
at which endless toasts were drunk to the proposition that
it was unnatural for Chinese and Americans not to be in contact
with each other. I think the fact is that the Chinese lived
happily for three thousand years without contact with the United
States and would probably have lived another three thousand

years in perfect contentment without contact with the United
States were it not for two elements. Their fear of the Soviet
Union and the necessity of modernization. Those two fundamental
requirements are in fact linked and in this respect, our interests
and those of the People's Republic coincide. If the 42 Soviet
divisions that are on the Chinese border would suddenly appear
in Western Europe or the Middle East, the security problem would
become unmanageable. Conversely, if the forces that were in
Europe showed up on the Chinese border, that security problem
would become unmanageable. So what the Chinese want from us,
is to maintain a global balance within which their security is
maintained even without any formal relationship in that field
with us and secondly, some American understanding and assistance
in the process of modernization by which they want to be able
to stand more on their own feet. This will be the key test of
our relationship. If it transpires that the Chinese think they're
doomed to impotence because the West cannot or will not help
them in the categories that most concern them, they will not
let us be the ones that negotiate their impotence, they will

[LC]

do that themselves. On the other hand, I think we have
parallel interests, we don't have a China card which we can play
to suit us, we are dealing here with a major country that has
parallel interests and an opposed ideology so we should not
delude ourselves that this relationship will last for all
eternity, but in this present period that I am describing
for the next decade, there is a parallelism of interest
in which each of the two major countries pursuing their
own interests can support each other without being tempted
to use each other for petty tactical ploys.

[LC]

QUESTION: What events led up to our current crisis in Iran and what are its effects?

Kissinger: I think it is crucial for the United States to remember the question of national honor; that Iran was a friend of the United States in very postwar administration from Truman on. Every American President of both political parties benefitted from the support of the Shah of Iran. If you wanted to do some research, you should look at the toasts and speeches that were made by American presidents from 1947 to 1979—the fullsome praise, the expression of gratitude, the tribute to the modernization tendencies of the Shah, expressed by presidents of both political parties, and including the current president, who on January 1st, 1978, said, that of all the people in the world, there was no one with whom he would rather spend New Year's Eve than the Shah of Iran who represented an island of stability in a sea of turmoil.

Therefore, I think it is the height of bad taste now to start accumulating criticisms of a man that every American leader of both parties courted for 37 years and that scores of American Cabinet members visited always to the mutual benefit. In 1972, when President Nixon made his decision to increase arms to Iran, the situation was that Britain had just withdrawn from the area

and that the Soviet Union had started a large arms program to
Iraq, so that the radical forces in that area were in danger
of gaining the upper hand and exercising the sort of pressure
on the moderate forces that now exists.

In 1973, Iran was the one country in that area that did not join
the embargo, the one country bordering the Soviet Union that
did not permit overflights of Soviet troops and Soviet planes,
that fueled our fleet, that in all negotiations we conducted
in that area played a significant role. Now the danger that
has existed, regardless of the immediate situation, in this
total collapse of the pro-American structure, is that all the
radical forces in the Middle East have been impotent, and (now)
have

[L.C.]

been objectively strengthened because a counterweight to them
has been removed. Indeed, anyone familiar with the currents
on the Arabian peninsula knows that they (moderate states) are not
only afraid now of the Arab radicals, they're afraid also of the
radicalism in Iran, which is a country they have always been
suspicious about, but now they fear might spread into their
territory as soon as they get some domestic stability. (This
statement was made by Kissinger prior to word of the Shiite
Moslem invasion of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, which is located
in Saudi Arabia, one of the moderate Arab states to which Kissinger
refers.)

One reason negotiations are so difficult in the Middle East
today is because our natural friends find it very hard to run the
risks that are involved in supporting a peaceful solution. One
reason the oil price keeps sliding up is because our moderate friends
dare not stand up to the radical forces, and therefore it is fair
to say that the oil price now of some of the countries is the most
moderate that the radicals permit. And it is one reason why the spot
price is nearly double the OPEC price and why almost a third of the

[LC]

oil production is sliding into the spot market.

All of this was foreseeable, and this is a fundamental
consequence of the collapse of Iran and is something we have to
face. And if the same thing happens in other countries in the area
or near the area that are also under pressure, the shock waves will
be equally great. And until we are prepared to face that we
have some vital interests in certain countries and that we cannot
hide behind the imperfections of their rulers, until we are willing
to face the fact that you cannot be on the defense and look for
perfect causes, because your opponent will always bring you under
pressure in difficult circumstances. And it's always the difficult
circumstances that explode. Until that happens, Iran will not
remain an isolated case. As to the current situation (the hostages),
I think all anyone can do is support the administration and present
the picture of a united America in the face of that challenge.

[L.C.]

QUESTION: Would you share with us some of your views and observations about the Russian troops in Cuba?

I think the issue of the Soviet troops in Cuba should not be analyzed in terms of whether they present a clear and present danger to the United States, whether, in other words, they are capable of landing in the United States, because if we make that the test of a Soviet presence in Cuba they can put 100,000 troops in Cuba and they still won't be able to land in the United States. The issue posed by the Soviet combat troops in Cuba is twofold. One, it is the transformation of what previously had been military advisors into a combat force.

Secondly, the establishment of a hostile combat force in the Western hemisphere for the first time since the establishment of the Monroe Doctrine. And in the conduct of this crisis, what has concerned me most is that it is the first time in the postwar period that the United States directly confronted the Soviet Union on an issue and the Soviet Union, in effect, told us to go to hell. The Soviet Union has done other things that we didn't like but it is the first time that we have directly declared something unacceptable. Moreover, in the Western

[L]

hemisphere, and the Soviet Union has given us not even a face-
saving formula. I believe that intelligence would sustain that
this combat force was created in conjunction with the Cuban
enterprises in Angola, Ethiopia, South Yemen and elsewhere.
That it is, in other words, a Soviet reassurance for Cuban
imperial activities and, therefore, it cannot be looked at as
an isolated force because one could just as well say if it is
of no significance, why are the Soviets putting it there and why
are the Soviets not altering its status even in the face-saving
manner that the administration suggested it might do? It must
be seen in the context of the Mig-23s that are there, the naval
base that is being built in Cienfuegos and the Cuban activities
on a global scale. It's danger is the symbolic effect of their
presence, of the courage they give the Cubans to engage in these
actions inimical to us from Central America to the Horn of Africa
and spreading now into the Middle East. And, it is part of a
pattern that cannot remain acceptable for the indefinite period
and it is not compatible with any definition of detente that I
have ever thought of.

[L.C.]

29

Governor Clements: There has been some talk by the Carter administration that this combat unit has been there for a number of years. I want to declare once more, and Henry will confirm it, that from January, 1973, when I went to the Department of Defense, to January, 1977 when I left, I defy anyone to show me an iota of information from any intelligence source of our country that says there was a combat force in Cuba. There was not, I guarantee you.

Kissinger: I completely agree. In the period from 1969 to 1977 when I had access to all intelligence reports I never say a single intelligence report that suggested that there might be a Soviet combat force in Cuba at a time when we were overflying the island twice a month, something that was stopped when the new administration came in. I would extend what Bill Clements said, it is not only that I didn't see it and that he didn't see it. I am certain that there did not exist an intelligence report that anybody saw that asserted this for the very simple reason that there wasn't a combat force there.

RESPONSE: You're not saying there were not troops, you're saying that the complexion of those troops has changed.

Kissinger: I am saying there were no troops in the organized sense.

I'm saying there were advisors and trainers. There were no combat

50

[LC]

units in Cuba. That makes an important difference. There may
have been 3,000 advisors scattered in little packets of 10 men
per Cuban company. But there was not an organized Soviet
establishment that trained as a unit, that had its own organic
equipment and whose primary function was combat. This unit
in Cuba now is not training Cubans, it is training itself.
It has next to no contact with the Cubans, it is a totally
different matter from what existed when we were in office and
the point is we can play games with ourselves but the Cubans
know when they put them there. If you read the administration's
statements carefully they have put out a statement that sums up
the state of their knowledge. They say that the Soviet forces
in Cuba, have changed their character three times since they
were first introduced there. The third time was around the end
of '76 or '77 when they became a combat force. So the numbers
may be more or less the same but the character has totally changed
and that is the crucial element.

End of questions

Fundamentally, foreign policy of the United States cannot be a partisan issue. The fundamental interestes and values of the United States do not change every four or eight years. We have an obligation to put before the American public a strategy and a set of purposes that all American can support and that will become basic principles of the conduct of our international affairs.

"I think it is essential that all of us make clear that that the 80s will be a period of great crisis, requiring strong leadership and a perception of international affairs that is relevant to our dangers and our opportunities. If we do not furnish this, then the sort of crisis that we have been living through in the last few weeks will become more and more frequent, appear more and more unpredictably and will be less and less in our control. The disintegration of American's ability to shape events cannot be an accident. The challenges to the United States

[LC]

opportunities for intervention that will undermine
vital American interests. If these trends arenot
immediately reversed, it is absolutely predictable
that the 80s will witness a period of mounting difficulties.

It has never happened before that a nation was
behind in so many significant strategic categories with-
out having to pay a political price, without suffering a
foreign policy decline. If one studies the capacity to
reinforce in critical areas of the world, any nonclassified
study will come to the conclusion that the United States is
behind and falling further behind. This must be remedied,
and this is why so many of us are of the view that SALT (II),
without a major increase in our defense program, would serve
to lull the American people. Nobody is asking for an increase
in defense as a payment for his vote. This increas in national
defense is imposed on us by our national necessities.

[LC]

gap and what they propose to do to close it. Nothing less than that will do. And if that is done, it will have bipartisan support. But nothing less than that can set bipartisan support.

Secondly, we have to pay closer attention, not just to the military balance in the world but to the political balance in the world. You look at a map and you see the pressure points. You see radical pressures in Central American encouraged by Cuba and the Soviet Union and accelerated by our misperceptions about the score and the possibility of our intervention in the domestic affairs of other states. The Straits of Aden (leading from the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and hence to the Indian Ocean) already have Cuban forces on both sides, in Ethiopia and in South Yemen, aimed straight at the heart of Saudi Arabia and the Emirates which represent one of the most vital sources of our oil supply. Or traditional friends of Morocco are under attack with Soviet weapons from Algeria and Libya and if they should be going the way of Iran,

[L]

[LC]

[LC]

ted States?