THE SUNDAY TIMES 200 GRAY'S INN ROAD LONDON WCIX 8EZ 01-837 1234

Harold Evans

9th March, 1979

Dr. Henry Kissinger,
1800 K Street,
Washington DC,
U.S.A.

Dear Henry,

With this letter there should be, delivered by me, Oscar
Turnill (my associate) or a divine meteor, the following
material:

Chapter 17: An Invitation to Peking

Chapter 18: The Journey To Peking

Chapter 21: Vietnam 1970 - 71: Forcing Hanoi's Hand

Chapter 23: Nixon Goes to China

And also: Chapter 3

I suggested in a note last year that we should incorporate
the European essay of Chapter 4: "The Nature of the Challenge"
into the general essay in Chapter 3. I was reminded that this
had not been done by the letter from Bradford; who also feels
it spoils the flow of Chapter 4; and I have now done it. The
Soames affair stays in Chapter 4 as a prelude between departure
from Washington and diplomacy in Brussels. The old section
"Nature of the Challenge" I have knitted into the end of Chapter
3, with some compression so that it does not get out of hand.
It's all explained in notes with the chapters. I've also
restored the two opening paragraphs you wanted.

I prefer this arrangement. If you do not, you still have
your copy of all this reworked material.

As I write, I am working on: and may finish this weekend:

Vietnam 1970-71

I am awaiting the revised Moscow chapter and also the
Harbour mining chapter, though we've done some work on both
originals.

1/2

TIMES NEWSPAPERS LIMITED

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- 2 -

My next task therefore after Vietnam, will be to complete Europe,
saving what I can of the remnant from Chapter 4.

Are you still with me? In short, I am almost level with the
great writing machine.

There are a number of queries in margins, but the main need
is a short passage explaining why you were opposed to China's admission
to the UN. I can understand why, but the reader needs to be told -
because at this passage of time it seems rather odd, such is the
effect of the opening to China, etc.

Other comments on the Bradford letter:

1. The India-Pakistan chapter and the US Soviet 1970-71, which he suggests needs simple typing treatment, I have already done. He won't have any demur when he sees the revisions;

2. I feel the same about the Vietnam chapters I have so far edited and somewhat simplified (I hope you can interpolate the odd personal touch I mentioned when you do a news narrative summary - I have digested them a bit).

3. Bradford has a point, of course, about some of the verbatim quotes and footnotes. I have, I think, already met it by incorporating long footnotes, occasionally deleting, and taking a view also on the verbatim quotes. But I would _not_ want to lose what is retained. The memoranda to RN are essential for the record and the flavour of your relationships. The typographical style I have suggested (slightly smaller typeface set indented) will enable the lighter reader to skip without disappointing the more diligent.

Finally, a thought on Rockefeller. I hear your eulogy
was outstanding. You may feel you want to add something to the
Rockefeller in Chapter 1. I'd counsel against that. May I suggest
that you refer to an appendix in the book - which will be a reprint
of your memorial address?

Harold Evans

9th May, 1979

Dr. Henry Kissinger,
Suite 520,
1800 K. Street, N.W.,
Washington D.C.,
U.S.A.

Dear Henry,

I hope you had a good trip. Various bits and pieces came out in what passes for the world's news system. One of them had Sihanouk saying that he had found you a very affable chap, or words to that effect. In your absence, of course, William Shawcross has published his book and I hope somebody will show you the Time Magazine review which hedges its bet pending your own memoir.

I haven't heard any more from anybody since despatching the final section from here, so I hope everything is all right with the publishers and everybody. I am currently contemplating coming to the States in July. We are offering to swap our house or rent somewhere in New England and it is therefore entirely possible that we should be able to meet again soon. The news from England, of course, needs some elaboration. I will have to give you a complete run down on how to deal with the Iron Lady.

Finally, I promised Bernard Donoughue that I would write and tell you he was coming to Washington. He is, of course, probably known to you as Callaghan's think-tank man, but they are now all out of work. Like all good Englishmen in this position he is going to California to lecture about it and then come back via Washington to try and teach Edward Kennedy something about Irish politics.

We are still without a paper and you may yet find yourself dragged into it. Heaven knows we need both guile and inspiration.

Harold Evans
TIMES NEWSPAPERS LIMITED

MAY 14 1979

ANSWERS TO QUERIES

1. How did you meet Peter Bessell and when?

Answer: I may have met him socially occasionally once or twice as a professor, before I entered government at the beginning of 1969. I have not encountered him since then.

2. How did you meet Jeremy Thorpe and when?

Answer: I do not remember the first time I met Mr. Thorpe, but it was probably socially, before I entered government. When I was Secretary of State, Thorpe occasionally called on me in his capacity as leader of the Liberal Party on my many visits to London. (Other opposition leaders often did likewise, including David Steel, Mrs. Thatcher, and Harold Wilson when in opposition.)

3. Were you involved in the negotiations between Mobil Oil Corporation and Bessell/Thorpe for the proposed sale of the Freeport properties on Grand Bahama Island?

Answer: I do recall that on one of my occasional meetings with Thorpe he surprised me by bringing up a project of some sort in the Bahamas. The details were vague, the subject matter improper, and I never took any action whatsoever with respect to it.

4. Peter Bessell was for several years obsessed with a story about the disappearance of Tsar Nicholas in the Russian revolution. Bessell claimed that an aide of Dr. Kissinger's told him of the existence of secret documents (and helped him to see them) that suggested the Tsar and his family escaped. Any truth in this?

Answer: Bessell's claim is nonsense. No one named Robert Miller ever worked on my staff during my service as Presidential Security Adviser (as Bessell claims). Nor does the State Department or NSC have any knowledge of the existence of any secret historical documents proving the survival of any of the Romanov family. On various occasions during my tenure in government, searches were made at State and the NSC because of inquiries by authors writing books on the subject; no such documents were ever located.

ANSWERS TO QUERIES

Page 2

5. Did Peter Bessell ever act in any intelligence/secret diplomatic role for the United States? (Note: Bessell has hinted at such a role, particularly with regard to his visit to Rhodesia in 1966 and Vietnam in 1968.)

Answer: I have no knowledge of Bessell's ever acting in such a role. In any case the dates mentioned antedate my government service.

6. Did Jeremy Thorpe ever act in any intelligence/secret diplomatic role?

Answer: I have no knowledge of Thorpe's ever acting in such a role.

THE SUNDAY TIMES

P.O. Box 7 200 Gray's Inn Road London WC1X 8EZ Telephone 01-837 1234 Telex 22269

From the Editor

June 19th, 1979

Dr. Henry Kissinger,
1800 K. Street NW,
Suite 520,
WASHINGTON DC.
USA.

Dear Henry,

I am hoping to come over for the first two
weeks of July and I'll let you know later.

I am enclosing some questions that my journalists
working on the Thorpe affair would very much like to
put to you. Basically, we believe that most of this is
nonsense, but it would be very helpful if we could get
a steer.

I was, of course, somewhat involved in early
reports on the Thorpe affair and it's still uncertain
what's going to happen, but we are doing a book to try
and put the whole thing in perspective.

Dictated by the Editor
and signed in his absence.

JUL 5 1979

TIMES NEWSPAPERS LIMITED

Reg. Office P.O. Box 7 New Printing House Square Gray's Inn Road London WC1X 8EZ
Reg. No. 894646 England

TIMES NEWSPAPERS LIMITED
MEMORANDUM

From: David May

To: The Editor

Date: 15.6.78.

Can you put the following questions to Dr Kissinger?

1) How did you meet Peter Bessell and when?

2) How did you meet Jeremy Thorpe and when?

3) Where you involved in the negotiations between Mobil Oil Corp and Peter Bessell/ Jeremy Thorpe for the proposed sale of the Freeport & properties on Grand Bahama Island.

(Note: Thorpe wrote to Hayward on April 10 1974 as follows:

(1) **KISSINGER** : We had an extremely useful and friendly talk at the American Embassy. I gave him a full brief and he has shown definite interest. He wants to contact me again and still wants me to lunch with him in Washington. Ironically I had a session with Nixon at the Reception following Pompidou's Memorial Service, but didn't think that I could quite raise Freeport on that occasion! I will give you more news on this when we meet. I am hopeful. "

Hayward has told us that Thorpe is a dredful name dropper but that it was hoped Kissinger would be able to help if Mobil Oil required American government guarantees in order to take over the Freeport properties. The value of the deal was put anywhere between 70 million and 90 million dollars.

4) Peter Bessell was, for several years, obsessed with a & story about the disappearance of Tsar Nicholas in the Russian revolution. Bessell claimed that an aide of Dr Kissinger's told him of the existence of secret documents (and helped him to see item). that suggested the Tsar and his family escaped. Any truth in this?

5) Did Peter Bessell ever act in any intelligence &/ secret diplomatic role for the United States.

(Note: Bessell has hinted at such a role, particularly with regard to his visit to Rhodesia in 1966 and Vietnam in 1968)

6) Did Jeremy Thorpe ever act in any intelligence/ secret diplomatic role ?

(Note: ZThis is based purely on the rumour that Thorpe would often combine overseas visits with some work for M16. I have no knowledge on this. &)

Ends.

Harold Evans

15th November, 1979

Dr. Henry Kissinger,
Suite 520,
1800 K Street, N.W.,
Washington D.C.,
U.S.A.

Dear Henry,

I hope I will be seeing you this weekend but this is
just a precaution.

We got a shock on Wednesday when the New York Times
sent round to all the London newspapers a long interview
with you about the Shah which had originally appeared in
U.S. News and World Report. Our distress was because any
newspaper might have seized that article and presented it
in such a manner as to confuse the whole issue of our major
serialisation of your book. The Observer, in particular,
would have been delighted to do that.

I knew nothing about the interview and it would be
very nice if we could reaffirm our tacit understanding that
anything you do might be offered to us first. It would
certainly be an enormous facility during this period. In
the end, I had to buy the interview to protect your and my
interests in the launching of the book and serial for $750.

You have been very good in letting me know about other
matters such as the Economist letter and I hope we can go
back to that kind of arrangement.

NOV 20 1979

NOV 20 1982

TIMES NEWSPAPERS LIMITED

THE SUNDAY TIMES

With the Compliments of

HAROLD EVANS
Editor

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☐ for your approval

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THE SUNDAY TIMES

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From the Editor

1st November, 1979

PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL

Mr. Bernard Levin,
10 Devonshire Place,
London W.1.

Dear Bernard,

You mentioned last night how you occasionally felt like screaming and racing to the typewriter. I had the same emotions on watching John Pilger on ATV doing an hour long programme on Cambodia. Did you see it? I am acting as a fink here, suggesting that it might be an admirable column for you.

I had better come clean and say that I cannot stand the cant of people like Pilger who now want to blame the Americans for every single thing that went wrong in Cambodia and Vietnam. Pilger's line was that the American bombing of the border sanctuaries in 1969 - he didn't distinguish and seemed to suggest the whole country was flattened - encouraged the Khmer Rouge and therefore the Americans took the blame for what the Khmer Rouge did and for everything else since. He collapsed about ten years of history in South East Asia and made not mention of the fact that at this time the North Vietnamese - his hosts for his visit to Cambodia - were killing at a fantastic rate in South Vietnam in a new offensive.

Some of my feeling of disgust at Pilger's phony hysteria is because I have read the Kissinger memoir and can see the thing in a different perspective. If you thought of doing a piece about this new piece of trendy wisdom about Cambodia you would probably find the Kissinger memoir invaluable. I watched David Frost interviewing Kissinger the other week and he was following a similar line, though nothing so outrageously as Pilger. Max Hastings attacked the television-programme but generally it seems to have gone down without the howl of outrage at its distortions that it ought to have produced.

NOV 13 1982

/2

TIMES NEWSPAPERS LIMITED
Reg. Office P.O. Box 7 New Printing House Square Gray's Inn Road London WCIX 8EZ
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THE SUNDAY TIMES 200 GRAY'S INN ROAD LONDON WC1X 8EZ 01-837 1234

Harold Evans

7th December, 1974

Dr. Henry Kissinger,
Suite 520,
1800 K. Street,
Washington D.C.,
U.S.A.

Dear Henry,

Here are four more reviews from Britain. One is a preview of what Dahrendorf will say in The Sunday Times in a week or two. It is not my favourite review, you will be unsurprised to learn, but there is a brilliant one by Peter Jay and in this week's issue of The Sunday Times James Callaghan has chosen "The White House Wars" as his book of the year. I am sending a proof of that.

I also hope to include something from the Review of Books over here which have trumped the review in their parent publication as you will see (I hope you are familiar with the English expression trumping). I hope also you are receiving copies of our serialisations it proceeds. I have asked for them to be sent to you in case there are any difficulties in distribution at your end. We will be doing Nixon in Moscow next week, Cambodia the following week and then concluding with your successful mission in Paris to end the Vietnam war.

DEC 20 1974

TIMES NEWSPAPERS LIMITED
Reg. Office: P.O. Box. 7, New Printing House Square, Gray's Inn Road, London WC1X 8EZ
Reg. No. 894646 England

Kissinger's
Crises

Christopher Serpell

The White House Years
by Henry Kissinger.

Weidenfeld/Michael Joseph, 1,476 pp.,
£14.95

In spite of its length—1,476 pages of text concerning only the first four years of Dr Kissinger's life inside US government—and the immensely detailed coverage of events which that length implies, *The White House Years* is hard to lay aside. This quality of readability will come as a surprise to those who have tackled the turgid prose of some of Dr Kissinger's earlier works, which combined the worst excesses of the American academic style with an uncertain approach to the English language. These defects provided an almost impenetrable disguise for the personality of a man who has now revealed himself to be not only an intelligent interpreter of events but also humorous and sympathetic, and an excellent raconteur. It is possible that Dr Kissinger has found more fulfilment as a reporter of events than as a theoretician; it is also possible that the years of attempting to write confidential briefs which would make those events intelligible to the mind of President Nixon have been a valuable discipline. But at least part of the explanation for this metamorphosis from professorial exposition to lucid narration lies in a sentence found in the foreword to the present book: 'Harold Evans, assisted by Oscar Turnill, read through the entire volume with a brilliant editorial eye; they taught me what skilled and intelligent editing can contribute to organisation and to lightening prose.'

Obviously the book's main claim to attention must be based on the importance of the events and the personalities which it describes, and on the value of having a detailed account

of them from a man who was both a trained analyst and a participant. For later historians it will be like having Clarendon's *History of the Great Rebellion* transposed to the 20th-century scale of world politics. And until you look at the table of contents, it is difficult to recall how many and how 'portentous were the international developments unfolding between January 1969 and January 1973. The main theme is inevitably the painful and laborious effort of the United States to extricate itself from the war in Vietnam, if possible in a way that would save the national face and avoid compromising the electoral prospects of the Nixon Administration. Since the book ends with the second Nixon Inauguration and the initialling by Kissinger of the ironically named 'Paris Agreement on ending the war and restoring peace in Vietnam', those aims can be said to have been achieved at a heavy cost not only in human lives but also in national self-esteem. But the Vietnam War, while it overshadowed American politics and diplomacy during those four years, by no means limited the vast field through which Dr Kissinger, as Presidential Assistant for National Security, had to range.

There was the continuous and hazardous dialogue which he had to maintain, on the President's behalf, with the Soviet Union, involving, on the one hand, Moscow's desire for a summit agreement on the limitation of strategic nuclear armaments and, on the other, Washington's determination to make the Russians pay for it by using their influence with their clients in Hanoi to put an end to hostilities. Underlying these exchanges was Kissinger's own 'doctrine of linkages' - an attempt to convince the Russians that all issues of policy between the two super-powers were interconnected. There was at the same time the exciting and eventually rewarding adventure of re-opening United States relations with the People's Republic of China. There was the fidgety fence-mending to be done inside the Nato alliance with West European governments united only in their

demand for a continued American military presence in Europe and in their insistence on their right to be consulted over United States dealings with the Soviet Union. There was the labyrinthine tangle of the Middle East, with its perpetual threat of war. And during what he calls 'the Autumn of Crises' of 1970, Dr Kissinger had to advise his President on three explosive issues almost simultaneously. There was the situation in Jordan, where King Hussein was confronting not only the rebellious Palestinian element in his own country but also the threats of his bellicose neighbours, Iraq and Syria. There was the clumsily surreptitious attempt by the Soviet Union to establish a nuclear submarine base in Cuba. There was the coming to power in Chile of what was seen as the radical and anti-American government of President Allende.

But the major events it describes do not by themselves account for the fascination of Dr Kissinger's book. It is the story of how a first-generation German-Jewish immigrant found himself taken up into the inner sanctum of American power with full opportunities to shape the destiny of the nation that had received him. It is an account of how an academic specialist in international affairs found himself confronted with the practical day-to-day conduct of those affairs. Although his emphasis is naturally enough on his successes, he does acknowledge his fallibility and does not always place the blame for mistakes on colleagues. *The White House Years* is also an illuminating description of the byzantine complexities of modern United States government, and, above all, of the elaborate rivalry between the executive staff of the President and the professional bureaucracy of government departments headed by the Secretaries appointed by the President. The bureaucracy with which Kissinger found himself constantly at odds was, of course, that of the State Department, headed by William Rogers, though he had his occasional brushes with Melvin Laird, who controlled the Pentagon hierarchy. And he is sharply critical of the

'breath-taking effrontery' of lower-level civil servants who used their professional skill to frustrate Presidential directives of which they disapproved: since he was, as often as not, the real author of those directives, his resentment is understandable. The solution encouraged by Nixon and welcomed by his Assistant was the use of 'backchannels'. Kissinger explains this device:

> Essentially a backchannel is a communications system that seeks to circumvent normal procedures; it requires, however, somebody's facilities. Usually the excluded party was the State Department which had victimised itself by technology and habit: by technology because its computers automatically distribute even the most sensitive cables through the building by pre-established criteria; by habit, because diplomats live on trading information and are infinitely ingenious in getting round formal restrictions. This is why even the State Department has set up its own system of internal backchannels, and why almost every modern President has sought to evade State's formal communications machinery.

There is one more aspect of *The White House Years* of consuming interest: Kissinger's own relationship with and understanding of Richard Nixon. Obviously the time limits of this volume preclude any anticipation of Watergate, apart from one or two hindsight hints. But Kissinger makes no secret of his awareness, from the start of their association, of the President's psychological disabilities. There is a revealing description of Nixon at his first Inauguration:

> He was dressed in a morning coat, his pant legs as always a trifle short. His jaw jutted defiantly and yet he seemed uncertain, as if unsure that he was really there. He exuded at once relief and disbelief. He had arrived at last after the most improbable of careers and one of the most extraordinary feats of self-discipline in American political history. He seemed exultant, as if he could hardly wait for the ceremony to be over, so that he could begin to implement the dream of a lifetime. Yet he also appeared somewhat spent, even fragile, like a marathon runner who has exhausted himself in a great race. As ever, it was difficult to tell whether it was the occasion or his previous image of it that Nixon actually enjoyed.

Another of these insights is occasioned by Nixon's reaction to the national uproar over Vietnam:

He had taken initiatives that reversed the course of his predecessor; he had withdrawn troops and de-escalated the war – all steps urged on him by the Establishment groups whom he simultaneously distrusted and envied. And instead of being acclaimed, he was being castigated for not moving more rapidly on the path on which they had not even dared to take the first step. It was not a big leap to the view that what he really faced was not a policy difference but the same liberal conspiracy that had sought to destroy him ever since the Alger Hiss case. Here were all the old enemies in the press and in the Establishment uniting once again; they would even accept, if not urge, the military defeat of their country to carry out the vendetta of a generation.

At close quarters with this complex man, Kissinger could still give him credit for his abilities, and above all for an intuitive apprehension of a line of policy. On the opening to Peking, he writes:

> I doubt whether the rapprochement could have occurred with the same decisiveness in any other Presidency. Nixon had an extraordinary instinct for the jugular. He was less interested in tactics or the meticulous accumulation of nuance; too much discussion of details of implementation, indeed, made him nervous. Once he had set a policy direction, he almost invariably left it to me to implement the strategy and manage the bureaucracy. But though I had independently come to the same judgment as Nixon, and though I designed many of the moves, I did not have the political strength or bureaucratic clout to pursue such a fundamental shift of policy on my own. Nixon viscerally understood the essence of the opportunity and pushed for it consistently.

Perhaps it was because Kissinger was himself a newcomer to the United States and a mere novice in American politics that Nixon trusted him and generally accepted his advice. At times their relationship reads like that between a manic-depressive patient and a sympathetic male-nurse.

The book includes several set-piece studies

of personalities which will certainly be quoted
by historians. Both Chou En-lai and Mao
Tse-tung are sensitively and convincingly
depicted. The study of Mao, involving both
the powerful aura of the man himself and an
analysis of the inner conflict which beset him,
is too long to quote. But there is an
entertaining snapshot of President Brezhnev:

His hands were perpetually in motion: twisting
his watch; flicking ashes from his ever-present
cigarette; clanging his cigarette-holder against an
ash-tray. He could not keep still. While his
remarks were being translated he would restlessly
bound up from his chair, walk around the room,
engage in loud conversation with his colleagues,
or even leave the room without explanation and
then return. Negotiations with Brezhnev thus
included the bizarre feature that he might
disappear at any moment, or while you were
being most persuasive he could be concentrating
not on your remarks but on forcing food on you.
On one occasion he brought along a toy cannon
to the conference-room normally used for meet-
ings of the Politburo. It refused to fire. Making it
work preoccupied him far more than whatever
profundities I might be uttering at the moment.
Finally the contraption went off with a roar.
Brezhnev strutted round the room like a prize-
fighter who has knocked out his opponent.

One cannot help wondering here whether the
imperturbable Dr Kissinger was not being sub-
jected to gamesmanship tactics of a subtlety
with which he did not credit the Russians,

Sometimes he betrays a notable lack of sen-
sitivity in special areas. There is no recognition
or acknowledgment of the Palestinian case in
the Middle East. In the chapter on Chile, there
seems to be total unawareness of the counter-
productive effects of the so-called 'covert
operations' - with which the United States
Government has sought to protect its interests
in Latin America. Occasionally there are
inconsistencies: on one page he writes, 'There
does not seem to be any unifying thread to
Soviet policy'; on another he speaks of
'the durable impulses of nationalism and
ideology that lie behind Soviet policy'. But
these are minor flaws in a remarkable book. ☐

Incandescences

# Kissinger the raconteur

PETER JAY

HENRY KISSINGER has manifestly been the most influential wold statesman of the 1970s. His two and a half years out of office writing this account* of the foreign policy issues, personalities and operations of President Nixon's first term, when Kissinger served in the White House as Adviser on National Security, are by no means the least valuable of the contributions he has made to the theory of foreign affairs and the practice of diplomacy.

For a man who played a central part in so many of the key global events of the era to have such a highly developed habit of explicit thought, not only about the day-to-day tactics and aims of diplomacy, but also about the conceptual framework and the strategic purposes of what he did, is as rare as it is beneficial to students of the period and of the broader nature of statecraft in the late twentieth century. The book, indeed, is so superbly written that, despite its enormous bulk (1521 pages), the reader can hardly put it down and is left constantly with the feeling that the treatment has, if anything, been too racy, too anecdotal and too compressed to be in any way definitive. At times its very lightness makes it indigestible to the heedless glutton.

Anyone who has served in government will heartily concur with Kissinger's observation that 'one of the paradoxes of the age of the memorandum and the Xerox machine, of proliferating bureaucracies and compulsive record-keeping, is that the writing of history may have become nearly impossible'. Yet, if it is possible to escape that paradox, Kissinger has done so in the only sensible direction. He has written a fluent and consecutive narrative, firmly subordinating quotations from the written record to the essential minimum. The tribute in Kissinger's foreword to Harold Evans' 'brilliant editorial eye' and to 'what skilled and intelligent editing can contribute in organisation and to lightening prose', is obviously merited in full measure.

Kissinger would not be the towering figure that he is were he not condemned now and for a long time to be surrounded by controversy. His congenital sensitivity to it—whether because his pride will not tolerate criticism or, as I find more plausible, because the academic and the intellectual in him cannot let him leave a rebuttable attack unanswered merely on the grounds that it is not important—is a flaw, perhaps an attractive one, in so otherwise realistic a statesman. The don is constantly visible behind the mask of the shrewd operator.

Each reader will choose his own controversy. For those who have made the arguments over the Vietnam war a life-work, the book will provide limitless opportunities for raking over those coals. For it starts from the new Nixon administration's determination to end the war and ends with the Christmas bombing and the final peace agreement in January, 1973. Kissinger is adamant throughout that Nixon's and his aim was a genuine peace which would enable South Vietnam to survive as an independent country without American support. He rejects repeatedly the notion that he was merely seeking a 'decent interval' between American withdrawal and the collapse of Saigon and claims that, but for Watergate, the peace he finally negotiated would have enabled South Vietnam to survive.

I am prompted to wonder how much of this is hindsight by my clear recollection of a conversation with the late Stewart Alsop in the Spring of 1969. Alsop had just written a forceful column in *Newsweek* based on a private interview with the new President, the first which Nixon had given to any journalist since his in-

auguration. In his column Alsop portrayed Nixon as recalling Churchill's defiant statement that he had not become the King's first minister to preside over the destruction of the British Empire. Nixon's attitude to Vietnam was portrayed as being equally determined.

I pressed Alsop about why he had gone out of his way to put his own high reputation on the line by stating so emphatically, as he had, that he believed Nixon. It seemed so obvious that the new administration's aim—and the US's imperative need—was to get out of Vietnam by almost any means. Was it because Alsop saw it as his patriotic duty to corroborate the credibility of a President engaged in extremely difficult foreign negotiations or because he really believed that Nixon was that determined to win in Vietnam? And what did 'win' mean anyway? Alsop then explained that he certainly believed what he had written, but that to Nixon 'win' meant ending the war in a way which would prevent a right-wing backlash, probably led by George Wallace, and a McCarthy-style witch-hunt in the US, a possibility which Alsop took extremely seriously. And that, he concluded, means that Nixon thinks he has to ensure a decent interval of at least two years between American withdrawal and the fall of Saigon.

Such second-hand and hearsay evidence cannot, of course, be set against Kissinger's categorical account; but it remained in my mind ever after, seeming to explain very effectively almost everything that subsequently happened. It certainly prefigured with uncanny precision the eventual outcome, although it always struck me as exceptionally dumb of Hanoi not to have seized the countless earlier opportunities they were offered for starting the two-year clock.

It will, however, be a great pity if the book is seen mainly or exclusively as an occasion for rehashing the Vietnam debate. It will be a waste, too, if attention focuses just on the vivid pen-portraits of leading personalities, which are perceptive if somewhat over-generous, and the hilarious anecdotes that have inevitably caught the eye of the serialisation editors. The book itself, unlike the extracts, addresses the central conceptual and practical issues of the aims and methods of American foreign policy in the transformed world of the 1970s.

In the long view of history Kissinger may be seen to have failed, despite all his negotiating triumphs. If so, it will be because of the gulf between the conception of a new American foreign policy which he so brilliantly advocated in 1968 and the actual state of America's relations with most of the rest of the world which he bequeathed to the Carter administration. It has been struggling ever since to implement the change of stance that Kissinger urged so eloquently before the fateful 'phone call came from Nixon's transitional headquarters in December, 1968.

We know exactly what Kissinger thought in 1968 because he wrote it all in a seminal article, *Central Issues of American Foreign Policy*, in the Brookings Institution volume *Agenda for the Nation* published to coincide with the election that year. Nor has he sought to rewrite history in the present volume, since the article turns up again in almost identical wording as much of the key chapter (III *The Convictions of an Apprentice Statesman*), though rationing itself to only two direct quotations, self-plagiarisation being probably venial.

What Kissinger then understood was the eventual bankruptcy of a US geopolitical strategy of mere containment of communism. For it supplied the US with no positive political appeal in the overwhelming majority of areas where US-Soviet competition was played out, not directly and bilaterally, but across the terrain of other countries whose behaviour and responses would be determined by their own political and economic preoccupations rather

HENRY KISSINGER

*The White House Years

1521PP ILLUS WEIDENFELD & NICOLSON/MICHAEL JOSEPH £14.95

20

[lc]

than by any matching enthusiasm for the ideological or geo-
political concerns of the military superpowers. He wrote in 1968:

The age of the superpowers . . . is nearing its end. The
current international environment is in turmoil because
its essential elements are all in flux simultaneously . . .

Our deepest challenge will be to evoke the creativity
of a pluralistic world, to base order on political multi-
polarity even though overwhelming military strength will
remain with the two superpowers . . .

Atlantic relations, for all their seeming normalcy, thus
face a profound crisis . . . the present structure en-
courages American unilateralism and European irrespon-
sibility . . . If the United States remains the trustee of
every non-communist area, it will exhaust its psycho-
logical resources . . . Political multipolarity, while diffi-
cult to get used to, is the precondition of a new period
of creativity . . .

The forces unleashed in the emergence of so many
new states may well affect the moral balance of the
world—the convictions which form the structure for the
world of tomorrow. This adds a new dimension to the
problem of multipolarity . . .

The problem of political legitimacy is the key to
political stability in regions containing two-thirds of the
world's population . . . Nor should we define the problem
as how to prevent the spread of communism. Our goal
should be to build a moral consensus which can make
a pluralistic world creative rather than destructive.
Irrelevance to one of the great revolutions of our time
will mean that we will ultimately be engulfed by it.

A clearer understanding of America's interests and the
requirements of equilibrium can give perspective to our
idealismand lead to humane and moderate objectives,
especially in relation to political and social change. Thus
our conception of world order must have deeper pur-
poses than stability, but greater restraints on our be-
haviour than would result if it were approached only in
a fit of enthusiasm.

In other words, America must stop thinking that 'good geo-
politics' (preventing the spread of communism) is 'good region-
alism' (how to get on with a hundred-odd independent states).
It must start realising that good regionalism is good geopolitics
(ie the way to outflank the Russians is to build stronger, more
lasting and more legitimate multipolar relations based on regional
and local realities).

If Kissinger were a lesser man or if he had issued a less per-
ceptive and ambitious manifesto, it would indeed be unjust to
criticise one who achieved so much in propping up day-to-day
peace and stability for not having transformed the basis of
America's relations with the rest of the world. One man can only
do so much. But Kissinger saw the need so clearly and preferred
above all to deal in the conceptual and the strategic. Yet he
never managed to shift American policy to 'a deeper purpose than
stability', 'to build a moral consensus', at home even less than
abroad, to resolve the smouldering 'crisis' of Atlantic relations,
'to evoke the creativity of a pluralistic world', to go beyond being
'trustee of every noncommunist area', to replenish the us'
'psychological resources' or to align us diplomacy with 'humane
and moderate objectives, especially in relation to political and
social change'.

The Carter administration has tried hard to put some flesh on
these bare bones through their new emphasis on 'human rights'
(criticised by Kissinger), through Andy Young's more mature
relationship with sovereign African nations, through Brzezinski's
dynamic concept of a 'framework for change' as a more realistic
and optimistic formula for world order than Kissinger's emphasis
on equilibrium and through Vance's masterful restraint in re-
acting to shocks in Indonesia, the Persian Gulf, the Horn of
Africa, Southern Africa and Central and South America.

Yet, the Havana conference of the nonaligned states in
September, 1979, for all of its bogus theatre and shameless cant,
showed that 'the moral balance of the world' had still not tilted
significantly from the old communist rationalisation of political
change to any creative and serviceable ideal emanating from the

us or the West.

So, as Kissinger well explains in the Brookings article
and again in the book, the Russians still bat on the
better wicket in their competition with the us: 'By an
historical jcke, a materialistic philosophy that has solved
no country's economic problems has spread because of its moral
claims, while the West, professing an idealistic philosophy, has
bemused itself with economic and technical remedies largely
irrelevant to the underlying political and spiritual problem',
namely that 'Marxism has proved attractive to developing nations
not because of the economic theory on which it prides itself but
because it has supplied an answer to the political problem of
legitimacy and authority', while 'democracy has less appeal, not
because of the West's sins but because leaders in most developing
countries did not undergo the risks of the anti-colonial struggle
in order to make themselves dispensable' (p 69).

It is an equal, if less global, irony of history that at the end of
the first half of Kissinger's high service (so far) to his country
(and at the end of the present volume), as he sat waiting for
Nixon to broadcast the news of the final Vietnam settlement and
as the Watergate timebomb was already ticking inaudibly but
inexorably away, Kissinger's own ruminations were all of new
opportunities and new optimism for tackling this broader agenda
of America's relations with the world:

We stood, I fervently hoped, at the threshold of a period
of national reconciliation that would be given impetus by
the unique opportunity for creativity I saw ahead.
Perhaps America had found the way to merge the
idealismand of the early Sixties with the sterner pragmatism
of the recent past. China was now an important friend;
we had built a new basis for stable relations with the
Soviet Union through a Berlin agreement, the first
strategic arms limitation treaty, and an agreed code of
international conduct. The diplomatic revolution that had
been brought about opened up an extraordinary oppor-
tunity for American diplomacy. This, in addition to the
dispelling of our Vietnam trauma, was a reason for
enormous hope. We had eased relations with adversaries;
It was now time to turn to reinvigorate relations with
friends, and to resolving unsolved problems. We had
decided to make 1973 the Year of Europe . . .

How the Year of Europe and these broader and more imagina-
tive aspirations for a more creative American role in world affairs
turned to ashes will doubtless be told in the next volume with
the same mixture of disarming candour, scholarly detail, personal
apologia, intellectual analysis, raconteurial skill and political
manifesto.

Nr.

TLCJ

SONDER-BLOCK ZUR ERINNERUNG AN HELMUT SCHÖN

Geboren am 15. September 1915 in Dresden. Abitur.-Seine Fußball-Karriere: Mit 17 Jahren spielte er in der 1. Mannschaft des DSC und wurde 1933 zum ersten Mal zu einem DFB-Lehrgang eingeladen.-Sein erstes Länderspiel: 21. November 1937 in Hamburg gegen Schweden. Beim 5:0-Sieg schoß er zwei Tore. Länderspiele insgesamt: 16. In den Länderspielen geschossene Tore: 17-Zweimal Deutscher Meister (1943 und 1944), zweimal Deutscher Pokalgewinner (1940 und 1941) mit dem Dresdner Sportclub.-Trainer der Fußballauswahl der Sowjetischen Besatzungszone (nach 1945) Studium an der Sporthochschule Köln: 1950-Trainerverpflichtungen: 1953: beim Saarländischen Fußballverband. 1956: Trainer-Assistent unter Sepp Herberger bei DFB. 1964: Bundestrainer des DFB.-Helmut Schön befreute die National-Elf in über 120 Länderspielen.-Seine Erfolge: Mit der deutschen Nationalmanschaft 1966: Vizeweltmeister in England (2:4 nach Verlängerung gegen England) 1970: Dritter der Weltmeisterschaft in Mexiko. 1972: Europameister nach Endspielsieg über die UdSSR (3:0) in Brüssel. 1974: Weltmeister nach Endspielsieg über Holland (2:1). 1976: Zweiter der Europameisterschaft in Belgrad. Erst nach Eurometschießen gegen die CSSR. 1978: W...

Helmut Schön, erfolgreichster Nationaltrainer der Welt.

Nr.

ELEJ

Geboren am 15. September 1915 in Dresden. Abitur.-Seine Fußball-Karriere: Mit 17 Jahren spielte er in der 1. Mannschaft des DSC und wurde 1933 zum ersten Mal zu einem DFB-Lehrgang eingeladen.-Sein erstes Länderspiel: 21. November 1937 in Hamburg gegen Schweden. Beim 5:0-Sieg schoß er zwei Tore. Länderspiele insgesamt: 16. In den Länderspielen geschossene Tore: 17-Zweimal Deutscher Meister (1943 und 1944), zweimal Deutscher Pokalgewinner (1940 und 1941) mit dem Dresdner Sportclub.-Trainer der Fußballauswahl der Sowjetischen Besatzungszone (nach 1945) Studium an der Sporthochschule Köln: 1950-Trainerverpflichtungen: 1953: beim Saarländischen Fußballverband. 1956: Trainer-Assistent unter Sepp Herberger beim DFB. 1964: Bundestrainer des DFB.-Helmut Schön betreute die National-Elf in über 120 Länderspielen.-Seine Erfolge: Mit der deutschen Nationalmellschaft 1966: Vizeweltmeister in England (2:4 nach Verlängerung gegen England) 1970: Dritter der Weltmeisterschaft in Mexiko. 1972: Europameister nach Endspielsieg über die UdSSR (3:0) in Brüssel. 1974: Weltmeister nach Endspielsieg über Holland (2:1). 1976: Zweiter der Europameisterschaft in Belgrad. Erst nach Europameisterschießen gegen die CSSR) 1978: W...