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NEWMAN: Sorry.

Dr. Kissinger, this, you say is a situation in which one historic act can change the course of history. Sadat has taken this historic step.

KISSINGER: Yes.

NEWMAN: Can he go back to Cairo without something specific?

KISSINGER: No, I do not -- I think the facts are these: If this visit fails Sadat's position in the Arab world can be salvaged only by his taking an extremely radical course. If it can be salvaged at all. If this visit fails, Israel will go back into isolation and the tendency towards radicalization of the whole situation will accelerate.

Since both sides know this, I cannot believe that they will lose the significance of this occasion in a lot of legalistic arguing.

NEWMAN: You're saying that if Sadat does not get something useful in Israel, he will have to take up a strongly anti-Israel position.

KISSINGER: Well, I would hate to say -- to give the impression that Israel has to give something to Sadat. The problem is to emerge from this meeting with the sense on both sides that they have some sacrifices for the sake of a peace that -- and a relationship that opens a new era. Nobody should leave with the sense that he made a concession or that he gained a victory.

So I don't want to put it in terms of what Israel has to give. I would like to put it in terms of what both sides can do to lift it above the debate of the last 30 years. That opportunity still exists. I didn't expect much different from these people. And -- except maybe the length. But the content didn't surprise me. And I still believe the opportunity exists and must be seen.

HART: Dr. Kissinger, if nothing more occurs concretely between these two leaders than what we have heard from them today -- nothing more -- is that failure? What is failure?

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KISSINGER: Well, if they both said at private meetings nothing than what they have said publicly; and if they leave without having agreed on how to proceed, I don't -- it isn't necessary for them to have an agreement on substance. But it is necessary for them to have an agreement on how to proceed from here.

If the two sides leave with confidence in each other that a genuine effort will be made for peace and a knowledge of how that will be made, then that will be progress. But if they should leave without either of those things, then we will see a rapid worsening of the situation.

VALERIANI: Dr. Kissinger...

KISSINGER: I don't expect that. I'm just telling you what might happen.

VALERIANI: Dr. Kissinger, this is Dick Valeriani in Washington. Do you think it was significant that Sadat did not mention the Palestine Liberation Organization, since there's been so much focus on that?

KISSINGER: I think it was significant that he did not mention the Palestine Liberation Organization. And that in effect he stated the formal position without great detail and great passion, and without a particular time reference. So that the -- that -- one of the problems may be how to relate the objectives which he stated with the necessities of Israel over a period of time. And that does not seem to me precluded by his remarks.

NEWMAN: Dr. Kissinger, how does it come about that after a period in which your version of diplomacy, called Shuttle Diplomacy, played such a key part in the Middle East, we are now in a situation where the two are meeting face to face with no intermediary?

KISSINGER: Well, of course, Shuttle Diplomacy was, again, like Geneva, not an end in itself. It was the only means of proceeding at the time when even low level Arab diplomats would not meet with Israelis. At the first Geneva...

NEWMAN: Which Sadat mentioned today.

KISSINGER: Which Sadat mentioned.

At the first Geneva Conference which I attended its opening was delayed for an hour because no Arab present would sit next to the Israeli Foreign Minister, and we had to find a

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seating arrangement where even in peace conference they wouldn't
sit next to each other.

So this is what made Shuttle Diplomacy necessary.

I think what made Sadat decide on this tremendous step
was his conviction that a Geneva Conference that was prepared on!y
in a procedural way was bound to lead to a deadlock and was bound
to leave no way out except an explosion, which he doesn't want,
as he explained. And this led him into this direction.

NEWMAN: Dick Valeriani, another question?

VALERIANI: Well, would you say, Dr. Kissinger, that if
President Sadat had a great deal of faith in Geneva Conference --
American diplomacy's ability to get us there, that he would have
taken a step like this?

KISSINGER: No. No, I think that -- I think that Sadat
believes -- he didn't doubt that we could get it to Geneva. My
instinct is that he had some question about what would happen
once everybody got to Geneva and whether we would not be spending
an enormous amount of time on procedure without having any idea
on substance. And that if the substance had to be negotiated
by instructed diplomats, it was bound to lead to a deadlock.

NEWMAN: Thank you very much, Dr. Kissinger.