PRESS
DEPARTMENT OF STATE

[lc]

December 3, 1976

No. 579

REMARKS BY
THE HONORABLE HENRY A. KISSINGER
SECRETARY OF STATE
MRS. ROSALYNN CARTER, WIFE OF THE PRESIDENT-ELECT
AND JACK FORD, SON OF THE PRESIDENT
ON DEPARTURE FROM MEXICO CITY
BENITO JUAREZ AIRPORT
DECEMBER 2, 1976

**THE SECRETARY:** Ladies and gentlemen, Nancy and I want to express our great pleasure at being able to have been here on the occasion of the inauguration of your new President. Our two countries symbolize many of the challenges of our period. We represent somewhat different histories. We are developed. Mexico is almost developed. We sometimes go through difficulties that affect each other. But basically the progress of each of our countries depends on our ability to work together on the basis of dignity, respect and equality. We were very impressed by the courageous and far-sighted speech of President Lopez Portillo, and the United States will do its utmost to work with Mexico on the solution of all our common problems. Let me take this personal opportunity to say how meaningful it was for Nancy and me to be here in this country that we love so much and which we are certain to visit often again.

Now we have had the great honor that Mrs. Carter, the wife of our President-elect, has also been here at the inauguration, which symbolizes continuity of the commitment of the United States, and we are very grateful to the President-elect and to Mrs. Carter that this was possible. I think it would be very nice if Mrs. Carter would say a few words.

**MRS. CARTER:** It has been a very special honor for me to be here in Mexico at this important and historical time of the transfer of powers ceremony which was most impressive, and I want to thank both the President and Mrs. Lopez Portillo for their gracious hospitality to me. I bring to them Jimmy's commitment to maintain close ties between our two countries. I take home to him the warmth and friendship with which I have been received. I extend to the President of Mexico my best wishes for much success in the coming years. Thank you very much.

**QUESTION:** Some members of your Congress have indicated that Mexico was on its way to Communism. Do you feel that this is a true reflection of the facts?

For further information contact:

-2-

PR#579

**THE SECRETARY:** This is not the view of the Administration. It's not the view of the overwhelming majority of the American people and it cannot be held by anybody who knows anything about Mexico.

**QUESTION:** What is your opinion, Mr. Secretary, of the statements made by President Lopez Portillo at the time of the inaugural address?

**THE SECRETARY:** As I pointed out, it was a very farsighted, very courageous and a very comprehensive statement of the problems and opportunities that Mexico faces, and the United States will always cooperate with Mexico in solving the problems of its future.

I would also like to introduce the son of our President, Jack Ford, who came here as the personal representative of his father.

**JACK FORD:** It's very difficult for me to add anything more to the words of Dr. Kissinger and Mrs. Carter, other than to express my personal satisfaction, enjoyment and a great warmth that I received on my visit here as the personal representative of my father, who has always felt very close to our Mexican neighbor and looks forward to every opportunity in the future, working towards helping, increasing and building on the understanding our two countries share.

* * * * *

PRESS
DEPARTMENT OF STATE

December 3, 1976

No. 583

STATEMENT BY SECRETARY OF STATE
HENRY KISSINGER
MADE ON HIS BEHALF BY STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESMAN

ROBERT FUNSETH

DECEMBER 3, 1976

President-elect Carter has made an outstanding choice in choosing Cyrus Vance as his Secretary of State. I have known Mr. Vance for many years and have had the privilege of working with him. He is exceptionally well qualified for his new responsibilities. I wish him well; his success will be the success of all Americans.

My colleagues in the Department of State and I will do everything we can to assist the Secretary-designate during the transition period. I have ordered that all cables and other information available to me as Secretary of State be made available immediately to Mr. Vance. I look forward to meeting soon with the Secretary-designate to work out this and other details of the transition.

Mr. Vance deserves the support and prayers of all Americans, for the peace, progress, and prosperity of the United States -- which will so much depend upon him -- are crucial to the realization of a better world for all mankind.

* * * * *

PRESS
DEPARTMENT OF STATE

December 8, 1976

No. 590

REMARKS TO THE PRESS
FOLLOWING A BREAKFAST MEETING
BETWEEN
THE HONORABLE HENRY A. KISSINGER, SECRETARY OF STATE,
AND
SIR CHRISTOPHER SOAMES, COMMISSIONER OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITY,
BRUSSELS, BELGIUM
DECEMBER 8, 1976

**SECRETARY KISSINGER:** Since we are both retiring from public life we had a good review philosophically.

**COMMISSIONER SOAMES:** Speak for yourself (laughter).

**SECRETARY KISSINGER:** I mean retiring from our present positions (laughter). We had a chance to review the state of European-American relations and really how we can strengthen them and European unity, which of course the United States strongly supports and which Christopher has jealously guarded while he was in office. We are old friends so we always have a lot to gossip about.

**COMMISSIONER SOAMES:** We have had a talk about how far we have travelled in terms of US-EEC relations in the last four years. Four years is not very long in the perspective of history, but this new animal of the Community -- the enlarged community -- that was parachuted into the world on the first of January 1973 now has a personality in the world and has a contribution to make -- is making some contribution. And the important thing is that right at the top of the list of priorities all the way along has been the relationship which the Community could have with the United States and the ways in which we could both help each other in ensuring the future of those things that we hold dear in life. There is a lot yet to do but I think that when we look back at what the relationship was in '73 and the anxieties that were existing in '73 or what it could become, that four years later we can look back with some satisfaction, realizing that there is, of course, as always, a hell of a lot still to be done.

**SECRETARY KISSINGER:** This is why I never appear with a graduate of the British educational system, they are so much more eloquent than we are.

**COMMISSIONER SOAMES:** And talk so much longer (laughter).

**SECRETARY KISSINGER:** But say more (laughter).

PR 590

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**QUESTION (TO THE SECRETARY):** Sir, do you spend more time talking about the past or the future when you meet an old friend like Sir Christopher?

**SECRETARY KISSINGER:** Well, we talked about the past and about -- you know we are not immediately involved in the future -- so we discussed future events, but from the point of view of people who will soon be infallible (laughter).

* * * *

PRESS
DEPARTMENT OF STATE

December 8, 1976

No. 591

REMARKS TO THE PRESS FOLLOWING A MEETING BETWEEN
THE HONORABLE HENRY A. KISSINGER, SECRETARY OF STATE,
AND CROWN PRINCE HASSAN OF JORDAN

BRUSSELS, BELGIUM

DECEMBER 8, 1976

QUESTION: Could you give us a statement Your Excellency?

PRINCE HASSAN: Well, it is always a pleasure to see Secretary Kissinger. He is an old friend and my visit to Belgium coincided with his being here. Certainly it was an opportunity I could not miss to see him again and to have a very friendly and cordial discussion.

SECRETARY KISSINGER: I agree with His Highness. We have spent many happy occasions together when I was his guest in Jordan. We have gone through a lot of difficult periods in the process of peace in the Middle East. I was very glad to get the views of His Highness and of His Majesty.

We have always been committed to peace in the Middle East and it was a great pleasure to have an opportunity to exchange ideas, which of course I will pass on to my successors.

* * * * * * * *

INTERVIEW BY
THE HONORABLE HENRY A. KISSINGER
SECRETARY OF STATE
FOR
BILD ZEITUNG
BRUSSELS, BELGIUM
DECEMBER 8, 1976

**QUESTION:** You enjoyed being Secretary of State. Do you find it difficult to leave?

**SECRETARY KISSINGER:** In a democratic government it is inevitable that changes occur. I have gotten used to my position, my successor is an excellent man and I feel that policies will be conducted along the same main lines. Thus I am leaving with inner peace.

**QUESTION:** You are coming from academia, are you returning to academia, Harvard?

**SECRETARY KISSINGER:** As long as I am in office, it is difficult for me to make a decision, but I would presume that I would do different things, not just one career.

**QUESTION:** Has there been a period during your term when you said, "Now, I would like to leave the scene," when you were disappointed -- Vietnam, Middle East?

**SECRETARY KISSINGER:** There are always times in these complicated situations when you wish you were not there. But in general, there was no point at which I was seriously thinking that I would not be able to cope.

**QUESTION:** Was there one point during your term at which you believed: Now we are really close to war, namely during Yom Kippur?

**SECRETARY KISSINGER:** There were certain times when I thought that the danger of war was greater than before. But during the Yom Kippur war, there was at least one night when I believed that a certain danger was there.

**QUESTION:** Could you sleep?

**SECRETARY KISSINGER:** The strange thing in that situation was that I always knew that I had done everything I could. Perhaps I had not done the right thing, and I cannot remember whether at some point I could not sleep, but during that particular night I had to be in the office until 4 A.M. anyway. So it was an abstract problem.

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**Question:**

**The Secretary:**

**Question:**

Has there been a period during your term when you said: "Now, I would like to leave the scene," when you were disappointed -- Vietnam, Middle East.

**The Secretary:**

**Question:**

**The Secretary:**

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Question:

Could you sleep?

The Secretary:

The strange thing in that situation was that I always knew that
I had done everything I could. Perhaps I had not done the right
thing, and I cannot remember whether at some point I could not
sleep, but during that particular night I had to be in the office
until 4 a.m. anyway. So it was an abstract problem.

Question:

Dr. Kissinger, what does your wife say? Is she happy to see more
of you?

The Secretary:

My wife is somewhat relieved.

Question:

One always heard that she said you were never at home, always at
the office or travelling.

The Secretary:

By and large she has been very courageous, but I think she is happy
that I ~~am leaving~~ now.

Question:

One last question with respect to politics. Do you believe that the
policies that you have conducted -- the European policy, the defense

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policy -- will continue to be conducted along the same lines.

The Secretary:

I would expect so, yes.

Question:

You have been cited as believing that in ten years Western Europe
would turn socialist, in a Marxist sense.

The Secretary:

I have never said that. It is not my opinion. I think that the
West has all the material possibilities to solve its problems
if we do psychologically and politically what is necessary. If
we explain to our people that they have to make sacrifices for
security and at the same time conduct a detente policy, and that
the cohesion of the Western hemisphere is of the utmost importance.
Then I believe that we will be able to solve our problems. I
have never predicted, and I do not believe, that the future of the
world will be Marxist.

Question:

If this is so, then our children will still grow up and live in
freedom?

The Secretary:

This is our duty, and this should be our purpose.

Question:

One last question: Are you writing your memoirs? Sometime soon?

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PRESS
DEPARTMENT OF STATE

December 9, 1976

No. 593

REMARKS TO THE PRESS FOLLOWING A MEETING BETWEEN
THE HONORABLE HENRY A. KISSINGER, SECRETARY OF STATE,
AND DUTCH FOREIGN MINISTER MAX VAN DER STOEL,
BRUSSELS, BELGIUM
DECEMBER 8, 1976

SECRETARY KISSINGER: The Foreign Minister and I had an extremely friendly and substantively good talk. As you know The Netherlands are functioning as the presiding country in the European Community and Mr. van der Stoel is President of the Council of Ministers, which means that the already close dialogue between our two countries is reinforced by the dialogue that always goes on between the European Community and the United States. I would like to say that Mr. van der Stoel has discharged this function with enormous skill and in the interest of course, first, of all the European Community, but the benefit of the West as a whole. We reviewed a whole host of issues in which our two countries and the European Community are interested -- the Middle East, the problems of the Eastern Mediterranean, especially Greece, Turkey, North/South dialogue and of course the future of NATO -- all of it, as I said, in a very cordial atmosphere and in a very positive spirit.

FOREIGN MINISTER VAN DER STOEL: I have very little to add to this apart from underlining on my side that during the period of the Dutch Presidency, I have very much appreciated the contacts with the United States. We have the framework of European political cooperation. The United States and the Community have had frequent contacts and these contacts have always been most fruitful and useful. I have also taken this opportunity to express to Secretary Kissinger our appreciation for the way he has contributed to the solving of many difficult international problems; also especially the way he has contributed to the debate on arms control, which I think was really an admirable effort.

Thank you.

* * * * *

PRESS
DEPARTMENT OF STATE

[L]

December 10, 1976

No. 595

TEXT OF
A MESSAGE FROM U.S. PRESIDENT-ELECT CARTER
TO
FOREIGN MINISTERS OF THE NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANIZATION
DELIVERED ON HIS BEHALF BY
THE HONORABLE HENRY A. KISSINGER
SECRETARY OF STATE
BRUSSELS, BELGIUM
DECEMBER 9, 1976

SECRETARY KISSINGER: Our NATO alliance lies at the heart of the partnership between North America and Western Europe. NATO is the essential instrument for enhancing our collective security. The American commitment to maintaining the NATO alliance shall be sustained and strengthened under my administration.

Over the past month, I discussed a number of challenges that face NATO -- that we maintain a common strategy against common threats, that we have efficient and strong military forces, and that we consult closely as we negotiate with others on both European and global issues. I have no doubt that these challenges can be met.

I take the opportunity of this message to reaffirm that belief. I am convinced that NATO's mission and the North Atlantic alliance are no less important today than when NATO was originally established. I look forward to working closely with all the governments represented at this meeting.

* * * * *

PRESS
DEPARTMENT OF STATE

[ic]

December 10, 1976

No. 596

REMARKS TO THE PRESS FOLLOWING A MEETING BETWEEN
THE HONORABLE HENRY A. KISSINGER, SECRETARY OF STATE,
AND FOREIGN MINISTER IHSAN CAGLAYANGIL OF TURKEY,
BRUSSELS, BELGIUM

DECEMBER 9, 1976

**SECRETARY KISSINGER:** The Foreign Minister, my old friend, and I reviewed the situation in the world with particular emphasis on the eastern Mediterranean. The United States is interested deeply in peace and stability in the eastern Mediterranean and in a just solution of the disputes in that area. And of course we have always attached great importance to our friendship with all of our allies in that area and therefore I have always considered my meetings with Mr. Caglayangil to be of the greatest consequence and I shall miss them.

**FOREIGN MINISTER CAGLAYANGIL:** First of all I would like to begin by presenting my thanks to my distinguished colleague, Dr. Kissinger, for the efforts the American Government and he himself exerted after the Congressional decision. Really Turkey does not want to add another issue to the problems already existing in the eastern Mediterranean. I am convinced that with good will and good intentions we can solve our problems with our neighbor, Greece. The only way to find a solution to these problems is to negotiate. The best way to solve a problem is not to stipulate pre-conditions at the beginning, but to sit around the table and negotiate the issues themselves. I can say with great satisfaction that the avenues for negotiation have improved in recent times. With my distinguished colleague I have discussed our bilateral relations as well as international problems. And I have also stressed to him my deep conviction that he will continue to be very influential in world matters even when he leaves office. I have always given great importance to and placed great value on his viewpoints, his suggestions, proposals, and I have every intention to do so even when he leaves office. This is why I found this morning's talks very constructive and valuable.

**QUESTION:** Is it your last breakfast or are you going to have more in the near future?

**SECRETARY KISSINGER:** Well, I am sure I will continue to have breakfast for the years ahead (laughter). But whether I will have future breakfasts with the Minister depends on whether he has breakfast with private people or whether he is so rank

PR 596

- 2 -

conscious that he only sees ministers (laughter).

**FOREIGN MINISTER CAGLAYANGIL:** I invite His Excellency privately. Very soon he will have a new request.

**QUESTION:** You are not going to have a kind of, let us say, shuttle diplomacy between Turks and Greeks when you leave office?

**SECRETARY KISSINGER:** When I leave office the only shuttle diplomacy I will carry out is between New York and Washington.

**QUESTION:** Mr. Kissinger, what do you recommend to Cyrus Vance to become perhaps "Mr. Peace the Second"?

**SECRETARY KISSINGER:** I think that Mr. Vance, just as I, will be deeply interested in finding a solution to the problems between Greece and Turkey. They are both valued allies of the United States. Mr. Vance has great experience with that problem. He is a just and fair and able man and I know he will exert himself to the fullest to find a solution. I will urge my present colleagues to give him their cooperation.

**QUESTION:** How do you feel yourself -- because I think this is your farewell meeting at NATO?

**SECRETARY KISSINGER:** I feel very fine and I look forward to seeing my colleagues and I know I am leaving the foreign policy of the United States in excellent hands.

**QUESTION:** Dr. Kissinger, Mr. Caglayangil talked about an improvement of the situation regarding the differences between Turkey and Greece. Does this improvement also concern the Cyprus question?

**SECRETARY KISSINGER:** I have now lived with this problem for so many years that I would not want to make a prediction. I think that the most important thing is for negotiations to start again and with good will I believe that the problem can be solved.

**QUESTION:** Mr. Secretary, just one last question. You met President-elect Carter. Do you think that the Turkish and Greek agreements with the United States have any chance of getting through the Congress as soon as possible?

**SECRETARY KISSINGER:** I think that President Carter will really have to speak for himself and/or through the people that he has appointed. But I know that President-elect Carter is interested in an improvement in both peace and security in the eastern Mediterranean and that he will exert his efforts in that direction.

* * * * *

PRESS
DEPARTMENT OF STATE

[10]

No. 597

December 10, 1976

REMARKS TO THE PRESS
BY
THE HONORABLE HENRY A. KISSINGER
SECRETARY OF STATE
AND
LOUIS DE GUIRINGAUD
FRENCH FOREIGN MINISTFR
FOLLOWING A BREAKFAST MEETING

BRUSSELS, BELGIUM

DECEMBER 10, 1976

**SECRETARY KISSINGER:** The Foreign Minister and I had an extremely friendly review of the international situation and of the relations between France and the United States, which I consider excellent. Indeed, as I look back on our term I am particularly pleased by the enormous improvement that has taken place in the relationship between France and the United States in our conceptions of the international situation. Our conversation was a tour d'horizon of all issues of mutual concern to our two countries. It is always a pleasure to meet with my French colleague.

**MINISTER DE GUIRINGAUD:** I had a very interesting conversation with the Secretary of State. We have established personal relations of great confidence and I hope and I am certain that they will continue with the new administration. The relations between Paris and Washington have never been better than they are now. We discussed a wide range of problems, as the Secretary of State said. We felt we were in agreement on every subject. Thank you, Henry.

**QUESTION:** Mr. Foreign Minister, does this mean that France is going to be taking a more active part in NATO affairs?

**MINISTER DE GUIRINGAUD:** I do not think there is any change in the stand of France towards NATO. As you know we are in the Atlantic Alliance. We are very active in the Alliance, but we have left the integrated command that is NATO and we are not considering going back into it.

**QUESTION:** What is your impression of your last visit here in Brussels as Secretary of State?

**SECRETARY KISSINGER:** I think the Alliance is in good shape. It needs to extend its military effort, but in terms of political confidence and common purposes it is in very good shape.

**QUESTION:** What is your opinion about the specific place of Belgium in NATO?

**SECRETARY KISSINGER:** I think that Belgium as the host country of NATO has a useful and important role to play, and exercises it in the NATO Council.

PRESS
DEPARTMENT OF STATE

[lc]

December 10, 1976

No. 598

REMARKS TO THE PRESS FOLLOWING A MEETING BETWEEN
THE HONORABLE HENRY A. KISSINGER, SECRETARY OF STATE,
AND FOREIGN MINISTER HANS-DIETRICH GENSCHER
OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY

BRUSSELS, BELGIUM

DECEMBER 8, 1976

**SECRETARY KISSINGER:** The Foreign Minister and I had our regular meeting in this period. You know we have been working very closely on all issues of common interest, which means almost all world problems. We reviewed the international situation, the situation in Central Europe -- the United States, of course, strongly supports the position of the Federal Republic with respect to Berlin -- East-West relations, NATO, the Middle East. I think we had a review of the whole world situation in the friendship and cooperation that has characterized our entire relationship. We also discussed a possible political future for me in the Federal Republic. (Laughter)

**QUESTION:** In Bavaria, Mr. Secretary?

**SECRETARY KISSINGER:** Why limit it to one state? (Laughter)
Mr. Genscher, do you want to say something?

**FOREIGN MINISTER GENSCHER:** I can only confirm that we have discussed all issues, in the usual climate of understanding and cordiality, which are of concern and interest to both of us. And we did not succeed in finding one point on which we have different opinions.

**QUESTION:** This is German television. You may remember us from Oslo. May we have a short interview?

**SECRETARY KISSINGER:** I am not used to presenting myself with your Foreign Minister on television, but I shall make an exception, which will be of advantage to both sides.

**QUESTION:** Mr. Kissinger, this is your last visit to Europe in your capacity as Secretary of State. May the Europeans assume that after your term of office, the European policy of the U.S. will continue as before?

**SECRETARY KISSINGER:** I have to assume that the foreign policy of the U.S. will be inspired by the basic interests of the country and that therefore, the basic guidelines of policy will not change. I know Mr. Vance very well. I have worked with him, and for him. The relationship

- 2 -

with Europe will be as important for our government as
in the past.

**QUESTION:** Mr. Genscher, the Quadripartite dinner meeting tonight will, amongst other things, have as its subject the point that the Berlin Treaties may not be viewed separately but have to be included in the overall framework of East-West detente. Do you consider such a signal to Moscow as necessary?

**FOREIGN MINISTER GENSCHER:** During all NATO meetings and previous discussions, we have always noted that Berlin has represented a touchstone for detente, and the same has been noted this time.

**QUESTION:** Mr. Kissinger, how do you judge at the end of your term, the relationship of the U.S. to Western Europe?

**SECRETARY KISSINGER:** I am of the opinion that the relationship of the U.S. with Western Europe has never been better. Consulations between Western European countries and the U.S. are intimate and the personal relationships of the ministers and chiefs of government are full of trust. I think this is a good basis on which relationships in the North Atlantic Community can be constructed more intensively.

**QUESTION:** Viewed from Washington, do you have the impression that the European Community is continuing to develop?

**SECRETARY KISSINGER:** Slowly, but I believe that it is continuing to develop and that this development is in the interest of the West.

**QUESTION:** If you look back on your term in office, can you tell me what you consider to be your greatest success and your greatest failure?

**SECRETARY KISSINGER:** I don't quite understand your second point. (Laughter) I have never answered this question in America. I believe, now, at the end of my term, that the record is there, and each one has to draw his own conclusions.

**QUESTION:** During the election campaign, the new American President occasionally criticized your style of "secrecy and travel diplomacy." Are you of the opinion that this

- 3 -

should change, or are you of the opinion that a super-power
should conduct its foreign policy as you have done?

SECRETARY KISSINGER: The foreign policy of a country always depends partly on personalities. I do not want to propose to my successors how to conduct policy. However, I am certain that the basic guidelines of policy, whatever the tactics may be, will go in the direction which we have started; that is, in a close relationship between the Federal Republic and the U.S. leading to the closest possible relationship between the countries of the North Atlantic Alliance.

QUESTION: Mr. Kissinger, have the Soviets made progress in the negotiations on force reductions dependent on concessions regarding Berlin?

SECRETARY KISSINGER: No.

QUESTION: Reportedly, Mr. Gromyko has made remarks to this effect.

SECRETARY KISSINGER: I am not aware of this. At any rate, we would never accept this under any circumstances.

QUESTION: You would not accept this. You have brought a message from Mr. Carter. Does this ensure the continuity of American Alliance policy also after the change of administration in Washington?

SECRETARY KISSINGER: I am sure that American policy with respect to NATO will be handled along the same lines as by all American administrations since the foundation of NATO. This is not a partisan issue.

QUESTION: Mr. Genscher, how do you judge the continuous Soviet arms buildup? Does this endanger Western safety more than has been the case so far?

FOREIGN MINISTER GENSCHER: I think that the meeting that we will have tomorrow will serve to evaluate developments. Our efforts to make progress in Vienna have to be seen from this perspective.

QUESTION: What possibilities do you see to counter Soviet aspirations for domination?

PR#600

SECRETARY KISSINGER: I will go right to your questions.

Q: Mr. Secretary, don't you think that the purchase by the Libyan Government of 15 percent of the major Italian industry, Fiat, could influence in some ways the foreign policy of Italy which is still a NATO country?

SECRETARY KISSINGER: In the waning days of my public career I dare not take on both the Italian and Libyan public opinion.

Q: Mr. Secretary, during the course of the talks, did the situation in southern Africa come up and if so were any proposals made for further action by you or the United States?

SECRETARY KISSINGER: The situation in southern Africa came up in the sense that I gave an account of the situation as I saw it and Mr. Crosland made an English interpretation of my remarks. We substantially agreed in our analysis of the situation. As you know, I am going to meet Mr. Crosland and his associates this afternoon in London and again tomorrow. No recommendations were made by NATO with respect to southern Africa but there was a discussion of the situation as we saw it.

Q: In which areas did you and the Foreign Secretary not agree in your analysis on Rhodesia?

SECRETARY KISSINGER: I would say that the Foreign Secretary and I agree completely in our analysis of the situation in Rhodesia. We greatly appreciate the role that Britain is playing under great difficulties at Geneva. It is a complicated negotiation which proceeds through a series of crises and dramatic headlines but in which we believe that progress remains possible. The United States, as Great Britain, supports majority rule in Rhodesia and supports a transition government in which the African component is in the majority. Now, how to work out the relationship of the various components to each other is the subject of the negotiations. But there is no disagreement whatever between the United States and the British point of view.

Q: Mr. Secretary, do you feel that you can still play any role at all in helping break the deadlock by meeting Mr. Nkomo in London or any of the other participants?

SECRETARY KISSINGER: I have no plan to meet Mr. Nkomo -- I will not meet Mr. Nkomo because I know that some of the exegetists here will misinterpret the word that I have no plans. I believe that we can continue to play a useful role in remaining in contact both with the parties in Geneva and with the front line Presidents, who have such an important

PR#600

- 2 -

responsibility. We are indeed in frequent contact with all of these parties and we will continue to use our influence in the direction of the basic principles of the transfer of power to the black majority under conditions in which minority rights are protected.

Q: Mr. Secretary, how do you think your policy regarding the Middle East, or let us say American policy regarding the Middle East, will continue after you and with the new Administration. Can you give us a general assessment about the situation as you see it?

SECRETARY KISSINGER: Well, I am sure you know that I am not the spokesman that has been chosen for the new Administration, so I would not want to make pronouncements about their policies. Mr. Vance is an old friend of mine. I believe that the foreign policy of the United States can never be based on the personal preferences of individuals and to the extent possible we attempted to analyze the basic realities and the basic interests and purposes of the United States. In that sense, if our conclusions were substantially correct, I would believe that a new Administration would follow a similar course. There might be differences in tactics, differences in personalities. I believe the main commitment towards a just peace in the Middle East is dictated by American interest and by world interests and finally by the best interests of the parties concerned, and I am convinced that the United States will continue to play a major role in the search for peace in the Middle East.

Q: What is your assessment?

SECRETARY KISSINGER: My assessment, which I have been making for months, both before and after our election, is that the objective conditions that make for peace in the Middle East are better than they have been in perhaps decades. I believe that all of the parties have come to a realization that there is no military solution to their conflict and that some negotiated peace must be sought. An endless conflict will have profound consequences for the peoples involved and profound global consequences and, therefore, I believe that the parties are now more ready and the conditions are now more ripe for a significant effort towards peace than has been the case in a long time.

Q: Mr. Secretary, should the PLO be represented at those negotiations?

SECRETARY KISSINGER: The United States has stated repeatedly its attitude towards the PLO which is that until the PLO

PR#600

- 3 -

accepts the existence of the state of Israel and the
resolutions on which the present negotiations are
being conducted--that the United States cannot address this
sort of a question.

Q: Is there any prospect of that acceptance?

SECRETARY KISSINGER: That is for the PLO to answer.

Q: But I take it that you say unless they do, they will not be
at Geneva, so far as the United States is concerned?

SECRETARY KISSINGER: Until January 20th, anyway (laughter).

Q: That is all I could ask.

Q: Do you agree with the idea that your period of service for the American Government has served to reinforce the Atlantic Alliance and at the same time to destroy (sic) European political unity?

SECRETARY KISSINGER: I believe that the Atlantic Alliance
has been greatly strengthened in recent years. I believe
that the system of consultation that now exists within
NATO and between the countries of NATO, even outside the
NATO framework, is intimate and substantial and it reflects
the realization by all of the countries that we are united
not only for security but as the repositories of freedom
in the world today. And I believe that NATO in its political
aspect is stronger than it has been and that the political
unity of the western countries has been greatly enhanced.

Q: And Europe?

SECRETARY KISSINGER: And the unity of Europe? The United
States is strongly in favor of the unity of Europe. I believe
also that in the last eight years significant concrete
progress has been made towards the unity of Europe in both
its economic and, even more importantly, in its political
aspects and I hope very much that this will continue.

Q: Mr. Secretary, looking back what do you consider to be your
most satisfying achievements and your greatest disappointments?

SECRETARY KISSINGER: Well, I have told the NATO Council that
it is too early to write obituaries, and having such a
distinguished group of people here that have been analyzing
my drawbacks and achievements, with emphasis on the former,
I would not want to interfere with your work (laughter).

Q: Mr. Secretary, could I pursue this question along these lines?
You have been asked many times since you have been here for you

PR#600

- 4 -

to volunteer some of your thoughts and you have handled
this usually with humor and with a jocular aside. I wonder,
sir, if at this time in your farewell news conference here
in Europe, whether you would take a moment and share with us
some of your thoughts at the present time, as you prepare to
step down.

SECRETARY KISSINGER: I expressed some of these thoughts,
in answer to the previous question. I have always believed
that the ultimate test of whatever an American Secretary of
State or President does with respect to any other part of
the world will be the degree to which it contributes to the
unity and vitality and strength of the free peoples,
especially the peoples of the North Atlantic area. Security
by itself is not enough. We have to ask security for what
and for what purpose? We therefore owe it to our peoples,
as we seek security, to make clear that we are also seeking
peace; and we also owe it to our peoples that, as we develop
our cohesion, we define the purpose that this cohesion is to
serve in terms of a better world. This I consider the
permanent task of American foreign policy, and history will
have to judge how any one administration carried it out.
But I am positive that any new administration will address
itself to the same agenda.

Q: Mr. Secretary, under what conditions do you think that one day we can control the current armaments race and enter into a real organization for peace?

SECRETARY KISSINGER: I believe that nuclear weapons have the characteristic that will make the traditional reflections about military power substantially irrelevant and that they impose on all statesmen an obligation to bring the armaments race under control. We have made considerable progress in the control of strategic armaments and I believe that a further agreement on the limitations of strategic arms is within reach. There are other discussions going on on the limitation of forces in central Europe. We have the obligation to conduct our policy between two extremes. On the one hand, not to disarm ourselves either by unilateral actions or by theories that produce a paralysis of will, but on the other hand not to believe that the mere accumulation of armaments is in itself a policy. Therefore, there is a necessity to conduct negotiations on the limitations of arms soberly, realistically, but with great dedication.

Q: Mr. Secretary, what role do you anticipate playing in the Carter Administration in formulating foreign policy?

SECRETARY KISSINGER: I do not anticipate playing any role
in the Carter Administration in formulating foreign policy.
On January 21st I will achieve infallibility (laughter) and

PR#600

- 5 -

will join all of you in my capacity to analyze problems. I am always prepared to assist in specific circumstances and to offer advice in specific circumstances because I believe that the foreign policy of the United States is a nonpartisan enterprise, but I do not anticipate playing a role in the formulation of the policy of the new Administration.

Q: Mr. Secretary, under which conditions can you foresee a positive contribution of China to the world balance?

**SECRETARY KISSINGER:** Well, China is a great country and a major power and by its existence, its strong dedication to its independence and the talent of its people and leadership, it will always make a contribution to the world balance. Whatever contribution China makes will derive from its own inherent convictions, and not the prescriptions of Americans; and our cooperation with China derives from a parallelism of interest and not any formal arrangement.

Q: On Rhodesia, Mr. Secretary, do you consider the proposals that you put to Mr. Ian Smith are still just a basis for negotiations or, as he insists, a program to be accepted or rejected as a package?

**SECRETARY KISSINGER:** I have always believed that they should serve as a basis for negotiations, and that all parties in Geneva have an obligation to take into consideration the views of the others. This is true of Ian Smith, it is also true in my judgment of the black negotiators in Geneva.

Q: There has apparently been a leak from you to the western delegations at the CIEC talks in Paris. Could you give us your assessment of the possible damage that this leak might incur?

**SECRETARY KISSINGER:** Well, to tell you the truth, I read an extract of that cable in a newspaper this morning and it had the sort of bureaucratic obtuseness which would make it sound as plausibly having been developed in the Department of State (laughter). I have been looking for the cable ever since, so I cannot vouch for its accuracy. In the present state of our capacity to guard classified information it is always possible that documents appear out of context. I would not think that this particular document should do any significant damage. The United States believes -- indeed it was one of the organizers of the North-South dialogue -- we believe that an international order can only be built on the cooperation between the developed and the developing nations.

PR#600

- 6 -

We believe that the developed nations have a special
obligation to put forward constructive, concrete proposals
and that the developing nations have a obligation to
proceed in a spirit of discussion rather than a spirit
of confrontation. It is true that we did not think
that this was the best moment for the conference. An
outgoing Administration would be in the extremely
difficult position of having to put forward proposals that would
have to be implemented by another Administration, and, therefore
it did not seem to us to be the right moment to have a
conference because either we would confine ourselves to the
period for which we had responsibility and would therefore
disappoint the developing countries, or we would commit
a new administration to a program which it had no part
in shaping. There were other reasons that other
countries had for the postponement, but as far as the United
States is concerned, this was the reason why we favored
a postponement, whatever extracts from obtuse documents
may appear in newspapers. But I will track down
that document if it exists.

Q: If Spain joins NATO have you studied what might be the next response of the Soviet Union to this disequilibrium?

SECRETARY KISSINGER: They might ask Albania to join the Warsaw Pact (laughter). The United States has favored the participation of Spain in NATO and the political progress that is being made in Spain, which we welcome, in our view should speed the day when that situation is possible. I do not believe that this will bring about a change in the military balance because we have already a bilateral arrangement with Spain and clearly it is not a part of any offensive intention against the Soviet Union. So we believe that it is a matter that should not affect Soviet dispositions.

Q: Mr. Secretary, one of the differences that is frequently cited between the kind of foreign policy that you have conducted and the type of foreign policy that President-elect Carter may conduct has to do with morality. Do you believe that President-elect Carter may be making a mistake by giving too much emphasis to the subject of morality, or do you feel in fact that you have conducted a foreign policy with full regard to that?

SECRETARY KISSINGER: I made a rather extensive speech on that subject before our election. I believe that the relationship between morality and foreign policy is not a simple one. I agree with what my successor said at a press conference -- that is, it is necessary to have strong moral convictions, but it is also necessary to bring into relationship the realities of the situation with moral purposes. It is the essence of moral purposes that they appear absolute. It is the essence of

PR#600

- 7 -

foreign policy that any individual step can only be partial. It is the essence of morality that it is asserted to be universal. It is the essence of foreign policy to take into account the views of others that may also be claimed to be universal. Now, I do not believe that what I now assert about my conduct of foreign policy will be decisive. I believe that a foreign policy without moral convictions lacks a sense of direction and a sense of purpose, but what balance is struck in each Administration is very hard to predict and very difficult to foretell from abstract statements.

Q: Economic questions have appeared more prominently in your deliberations this week than they have at some previous Alliance meetings. Could you give us your thoughts on the extent to which there is a danger that the global economic situation might deteriorate to the point where economic, social and political stability in the Alliance was brought into some question -- to what extent that prospect is brought nearer by a substantial increase in oil prices?

**SECRETARY KISSINGER:** The United States is strongly opposed to any significant increase in oil prices, precisely because it believes that the impact of those on the global economy would be extremely unfortunate and would have consequences which in the long run, or even in the medium run, would affect the very countries that are now raising or thinking of raising the oil prices. I believe that the last three or four years have made clear that one can no longer compartmentalize foreign policy into security, political and economic concerns. The social cohesion of all our societies, our capacity to act with conviction internationally, depends on growing and vital economies and these economies in turn depend on the mutual sense of responsibility for each other of the free countries. This is why these economic summits have been both symbolically and substantively important and why I believe and hope that they will remain a feature of the international scene and why one can no longer separate the security concerns.

Q: An easy question for you, sir. What kind of advice, as we sit here at NATO today and you prepare to step down, do you have for Cyrus Vance.

**SERETARY KISSINGER (laughter):** We will take one more question after this one but since you will all stampede out to report the monumental news that you have been imparted here, I want to take this opportunity to thank you for the relative courtesy with which I have always been treated here and the fairness which you have shown. As far as advice for Cyrus

PR#600

- 8 -

Vance is concerned, I wish him well. I have repeatedly stated that he is extremely well qualified for his position. I have already made available to him all communications that come to me. He will be given a schedule of all my activities in Washington, and he is free to participate in any of them and at any meetings that I have. I will be spending most of the day with him next Wednesday, and we will be meeting regularly and frequently after that. I do not think it would be appropriate for me, however, to give public advice to my successor before I have had an opportunity for full discussions with him. But I do want to say that he deserves the confidence of the American people; that he deserves the confidence of all foreign countries who are concerned with the direction of American policy.

Q: Would you like to say something, sir, about the future of East-West relations in the light of the large commercial debts that the Soviets are acquiring towards the West, and the continued extension of easy credit and transfer of western technology to the Soviets?

SECRETARY KISSINGER: Well, let me separate the two questions. One, the extension of credit and transfer of technology; the second, the future of the East-West relations. With respect to the extension of credit, I advocated last year at the OECD meeting -- and I repeated it at the NATO meeting -- that it is essential for the industrial democracies to develop a common approach and a common concept. It makes no sense for these countries to compete with each other on credit terms without taking a look at the overall picture and the overall consequences of their actions. So I believe on the technical and economic issue that this is an area in which great coherence among the industrial democracies is essential. As for the future of East-West relations, in the nuclear age there can be no question that we have a dual responsibility. One is to prevent any temptation of the part of those countries that continue to multiply their armaments to believe that they can achieve political or economic solutions by the use of arms, and we therefore have to see to our security and make the necessary efforts. At the same time, the future of world peace, and, indeed, perhaps the survival of humanity depend on whether we can, in the relationship between East and West, find solutions to our common problems and a code of restraint, lest we slide again -- as has happened so often before in history through a series of miscalculations and the accumulation of marginal advantages -- into a perhaps unimaginable catastrophe. So we have the task of security and the task of construction of peace. And the challenge to the western societies is whether they can pursue both policies simultaneously, or whether they will slight one at the expense of the other.

Thank you very much.

* * * * *

PR#600

PR#600

- 2 -

Q: What is your assessment?

PR#600

- 3 -

Q: That is all I could ask.

Q: And Europe?

[w]

PR#600

- 4 -

**SECRETARY KISSINGER:** I expressed some of these thoughts, in answer to the previous question. I have always believed that the ultimate test of whatever an American Secretary of State or President does with respect to any other part of the world will be the degree to which it contributes to the unity and vitality and strength of the free peoples, especially the peoples of the North Atlantic area. Security by itself is not enough. We have to ask security for what and for what purpose? We therefore owe it to our peoples, as we seek security, to make clear that we are also seeking peace; and we also owe it to our peoples that, as we develop our cohesion, we define the purpose that this cohesion is to serve in terms of a better world. This I consider the permanent task of American foreign policy, and history will have to judge how any one administration carried it out. But I am positive that any new administration will address itself to the same agenda.

**Q:** Mr. Secretary, under what conditions do you think that one day we can control the current armaments race and enter into a real organization for peace?

**SECRETARY KISSINGER:** I believe that nuclear weapons have the characteristic that will make the traditional reflections about military power substantially irrelevant and that they impose on all statesmen an obligation to bring the armaments race under control. We have made considerable progress in the control of strategic armaments and I believe that a further agreement on the limitations of strategic arms is within reach. There are other discussions going on on the limitation of forces in central Europe. We have the obligation to conduct our policy between two extremes. On the one hand, not to disarm ourselves either by unilateral actions or by theories that produce a paralysis of will, but on the other hand not to believe that the mere accumulation of armaments is in itself a policy. Therefore, there is a necessity to conduct negotiations on the limitations of arms soberly, realistically, but with great dedication.

**Q:** Mr. Secretary, what role do you anticipate playing in the Carter Administration in formulating foreign policy?

**SECRETARY KISSINGER:** I do not anticipate playing any role in the Carter Administration in formulating foreign policy. On January 21st I will achieve infallibility (laughter) and

PR#600

- 5 -

SECRETARY KISSINGER: Well, China is a great country and a major power and by its existence, its strong dedication to its independence and the talent of its people and leadership, it will always make a contribution to the world balance. Whatever contribution China makes will derive from its own inherent convictions, and not the prescriptions of Americans; and our cooperation with China derives from a parallelism of interest and not any formal arrangement.

SECRETARY KISSINGER: I have always believed that they should serve as a basis for negotiations, and that all parties in Geneva have an obligation to take into consideration the views of the others. This is true of Ian Smith, it is also true in my judgment of the black negotiators in Geneva.

SECRETARY KISSINGER: Well, to tell you the truth, I read an extract of that cable in a newspaper this morning and it had the sort of bureaucratic obtuseness which would make it sound as plausibly having been developed in the Department of State (laughter). I have been looking for the cable ever since, so I cannot vouch for its accuracy. In the present state of our capacity to guard classified information it is always possible that documents appear out of context. I would not think that this particular document should do any significant damage. The United States believes -- indeed it was one of the organizers of the North-South dialogue -- we believe that an international order can only be built on the cooperation between the developed and the developing nations.

PR#600

- 6 -

Q: Mr. Secretary, one of the differences that is frequently cited between the kind of foreign policy that you have conducted and the type of foreign policy that President-Carter may conduct has to do with morality. Do you believe that President-elect Carter may be making a mistake by giving too much emphasis to the subject of morality, or do you feel in fact that you have conducted a foreign policy with full regard to that?

PR#600

- 7 -

SECRETARY KISSINGER: The United States is strongly opposed to any significant increase in oil prices, precisely because it believes that the impact of those on the global economy would be extremely unfortunate and would have consequences which in the long run, or even in the medium run, would affect the very countries that are now raising or thinking of raising the oil prices. I believe that the last three or four years have made clear that one can no longer compartmentalize foreign policy into security, political and economic concerns. The social cohesion of all our societies, our capacity to act with conviction internationally, depends on growing and vital economies and these economies in turn depend on the mutual sense of responsibility for each other of the free countries. This is why these economic summits have been both symbolically and substantively important and why I believe and hope that they will remain a feature of the international scene and why one can no longer separate the security concerns.

SERETARY KISSINGER (laughter): We will take one more question after this one but since you will all stampede out to report the monumental news that you have been imparted here, I want to take this opportunity to thank you for the relative courtesy with which I have always been treated here and the fairness which you have shown. As far as advice for Cyrus

PR#600

- 8 -

Thank you very much.

* * * * *

PR#601

**FOREIGN SECRETARY CROSLAND:** Dr. Kissinger is paying a valedictory visit to London, which he has long since planned, following the NATO Conference in Brussels. He will be doing a number of important things -- going to a football match tomorrow, going to the theatre tomorrow night; more importantly he is being given a farewell dinner, farewell only in his role as Secretary of State, by the Prime Minister this evening at No. 10. And we are very glad to welcome him here. This, in fact, was arranged -- this visit -- a long time before we also arranged by coincidence a roundup review of the Rhodesian situation with Mr. Ivor Richard, who has come back from Geneva for this. It has been a very helpful accident that the two have fallen together because we have been able to exchange views with Ivor Richard as well as with Dr. Kissinger's officials and my officials on Rhodesia. And I think that we approached that problem with a very wide measure of agreement. We have not taken any decisions this evening -- did not intend in fact to take any decisions this evening. We shall be meeting again privately and bilaterally for further talks tomorrow morning, and I do not doubt that in any event I shall make a statement to the House before Parliament recesses for Christmas. Now, we are rather pushed for time, so I will not say any more than that at the beginning of the conference, and simply answer any questions.

**QUESTION:** I would like to ask Dr. Kissinger how he sees the Rhodesian situation at the moment?

**SECRETARY KISSINGER:** Well, I think that the conference has been very ably conducted by Mr. Richard, that in a conference between parties where the distrust is so profound inevitably many disagreements will emerge. The United States has supported majority rule in Rhodesia and continues to support this. And I believe that from what I have heard from Mr. Richard and from what I know through our constant contacts during the negotiations that a possibility for progress exists and will be explored to the fullest by the British Government.

**QUESTION:** Dr. Kissinger, Mr. Smith said in Geneva this afternoon that he had been brought there under false pretences, that he had understood he was there to implement the solemn, firm and binding agreement. Do you think he has any reasonable grounds for saying that?

**SECRETARY KISSINGER:** I think we have gone over this allegation repeatedly. We gave Mr. Smith our best judgment of a framework for negotiations. These negotiations are now going on and obviously, in any negotiation, the views of all the parties must be considered.

PR#601

- 2 -

**QUESTION:** Mr. Crosland, when you say that no decisions have been taken, what kind of decisions might you have taken?

**FOREIGN SECRETARY CROSLAND:** It is not a question of taking decisions week by week, I do not think. We constantly review the progress of the conference with Ivor Richard. He comes back here periodically, as you know. And we have to decide to take different decisions according to the period of time. We did take a decision ten days ago that I would give a Parliamentary answer saying that the British Government would be prepared to have the British presence in Rhodesia, for instance. It is not a question of specific decisions being required, but a question of regular review of how the Geneva conference is going to see whether there is something further which we, the British Government, or the Chairman should do in order to bring it more successfully to a conclusion.

**QUESTION:** Is there any chance that you would ask Dr. Kissinger to once again take an active part in the negotiations?

**FOREIGN SECRETARY CROSLAND:** Well, I mean, I love Dr. Kissinger deeply...and I would love him to live a full and active life. But I do not think I have any intention and I do not think he has any intention that we should agree together that the United States should resume the critically important role which they pursued -- Dr. Kissinger pursued on America's behalf -- last summer. No, I think that it is agreed between the two governments, and certainly the two of us, that the American role, which was critical and crucial during those months last summer, should at a certain point give way to a role that could be only exercised by Great Britain as the power that had some sort of legal, constitutional and even colonial responsibility. And so it has not been a matter of discussion between us.

**QUESTION:** In view of the many stories that come out about what Mr. Smith has understood or not understood, are you prepared to meet him again before you retire as Secretary of State to clear this up?

**SECRETARY KISSINGER:** I do not think there is any need for me to meet Mr. Smith to clear this up. We have repeatedly communicated with him our understanding of what was discussed. I do not think there is any need for a further meeting.

**FOREIGN SECRETARY CROSLAND:** We do not want too much of a re-run on this. Surely, both Dr. Kissinger and I have answered questions on this subject now for a period of two months, I should think about five hundred times.

**QUESTION:** Mr. Secretary, you referred before to negotiations being a time for an exchange of views.

PR#601

- 3 -

**QUESTION:** In reference to your answer before that negotiations are a time for considering the views of all parties, have the black leaders changed their views or their positions since you went to Africa, and do you consider this insincere or inconstant or just a normal course of events in negotiations?

**SECRETARY KISSINGER:** First of all, when I went to Africa I dealt with, primarily with, two of the front line states. Because of the agreement we had made with President Nyerere we did not deal with the nationalist leaders directly. Secondly, this is the first time that all of the nationalist leaders have been together in one negotiation, and it is therefore understandable that points of view will evolve and that points of view would be presented that we had not heard previously from parties with which we had not been in contact. It is not a question of good faith: it is a question of finding a solution to a problem that has existed for a decade or more, that needs the serious concern of all of the parties. This is what I understand Mr. Richard is doing. And, again, I want to compliment him and to make clear that the United States fully supports the British conduct of the negotiations and the actions taken by the Foreign Secretary and Mr. Richard.

**QUESTION:** Would you say, sir, that Mr. Smith's delegation has also been playing fair as you described the blacks as playing fair?

**SECRETARY KISSINGER:** I think the Rhodesian delegation has also within its lights played fair. I do not think this issue can be settled by accusing each other of fairness or unfairness. Obviously, both parties are approaching this problem from totally different points of view which produced the dilemmas to begin with. It is now to arrange for the transfer of power from the white minority to the black majority, which is the essence of the problem, under conditions in which the white minority has an opportunity to adjust to the new-changed conditions. It is obviously an enormously delicate and complicated issue, very painful to some and probably very painful to all, for one side to give up power, for the other to take it in stages, and I do not think any purpose is served by accusing any of the parties of bad faith, but rather to look, as I understand Mr. Richard is seeking, for some way by which the impasse can be broken. And from what I have heard I believe that possibilities exist which require exploration.

**QUESTION:** The black nationalist leaders in Geneva are clearly very anxious to have spelled out to them what the direct role Britain might be prepared to take during the transitional government period. Are you yet prepared to reveal anything about that?

**FOREIGN SECRETARY CROSLAND:** No, I am not at the moment. I stick to what I said when I made the statement about the British

PR#601

- 4 -

presence, which was this: that having expressed our willingness
to have a British presence, that we wanted to elicit from
the black African leaders, that we wanted to elicit from
them what useful role they thought the British could play.
In other words, we want to get a sense of how they see a British
role, before we commit ourselves to the detail of what kind of
a role we will be prepared to play.

QUESTION: (Inaudible)

FOREIGN SECRETARY CROSLAND: No, not as yet, but mind you, some interesting points have come out.

QUESTION: Do you see the recess as a helpful development, or
does it mean negotiating from some kind of trouble?

FOREIGN SECRETARY CROSLAND: What recess is this?

QUESTION: From the Geneva conference.

FOREIGN SECRETARY CROSLAND: I have not decided on a recess.
I might make a statement about that next week.

QUESTION: You said earlier that you hoped to make a statement
on Rhodesia before the Christmas recess. In that statement
will you spell out the direct role that you envisage?

FOREIGN SECRETARY CROSLAND: I should wait for the statement.
It will be lucid and very interesting.

Thank you very much indeed.

* * * *

EXTEMPORANEOUS REPLY BY SECRETARY KISSINGER TO REMARKS
ON HIS BEHALF MADE BY SECRETARY GENERAL LUNS DURING FINAL
PLENARY SESSION OF 58TH MINISTERIAL MEETING OF THE NORTH
ATLANTIC COUNCIL, DECEMBER 10, 1976.

"I want to take this opportunity to thank the Secretary General and all of my colleagues for some of the friendly things that were said on my behalf. Some of them had the character of an obituary (laughter).

I would like to point out that at the end of the
Mondale Administration, I will only be 69 years old and
that without doubt Joseph will still be in the chair
here. (laughter) And so the future is not entirely
closed to me, Joseph.

I have to correct a few things Joseph said yesterday.
We have known each other in fact 20 years. He has for-
gotten it because he did not pay attention to insignifi-
cant professors at the time. I had written a book of
which I was inordinately proud and somebody introduced
me to him in the lobby of the hotel and I thought I heard
him mumble that I had just written the most unread best-
seller since Toynbee.

At any rate, I remember my first meeting here in
1973, and I recall there are only very few of us left.
On that occasion, my French colleague was sitting across
the table from me ready to spring at me before I had even
reached the verb in my sentence. (laughter) The Belgian

- 2 -

Foreign Minister insisted despite all of this that there were no differences. Max Van Der Stoel was desperately attempting to move matters to a higher moral plane.

(laughter) And Gaston Thorn was insisting that if only the smaller countries were running things, such vulgar displays of bad temper could not occur. (laughter) Since then, NATO has greatly strengthened its cohesion.

I appreciated the comments of Joseph. Maybe what my European origin has done for me is to help me understand that not all things are possible and that nations can suffer tragedies if they do not act with wisdom and dedication and foresight. The greatest change that has taken place in America in the last eight years is the realization that we too now are inextricably part of a world in which our choices and not simply our resources determine our future. This is why I feel that this group, which has just now gone through one of its annual exercises, has a profound moral responsibility.

We are responsible for the security of freedom, but we are also responsible for the content of freedom. It is this group of just a few other countries of humane institutions that now represents the conscience of free men. This is why my association with you has meant so much to me and why I am so grateful for the comments you have all made. Thank you."

STATEMENT OF FAREWELL TO
THE HONORABLE HENRY A. KISSINGER, SECRETARY OF STATE,
BY NATO SECRETARY GENERAL
JOSEPH LUNS
AT THE NORTH ATLANTIC COUNCIL MEETING

SECRETARY GENERAL LUNS: We have dealt with several important Alliance issues during the last day and a half. But there has been one thought which has appeared again and again -- that this is the last time that the Council has Dr. Henry Kissinger here as his country's representative. This will not be an easy idea to get used to.

Mr. Secretary, for many years you have been, after the President himself, the main architect of American diplomacy. You have had an enormous influence on the shape of international relations of our time. You have been essentially a man of action -- a man who has made things happen -- a man who has been instrumental in bringing peace and security to many parts of a very troubled world.

But it is not so much your overall career that I would like to address, Mr. Secretary; rather it is your relationship with us here in the Atlantic Community. That it has been so successful is perhaps due in part to the fact that you are a man of both Europe and America with a very special and deep understanding of the relationship between the two. Even in difficult moments, we could be sure that you understood our wishes and aspirations, as well as the complex political and economic realities of our various countries.

Yesterday, you stressed that the North Atlantic Alliance is the bedrock of American foreign policy. Mr. Secretary, you have given repeated proof of that by the initiative and creativity with which you have defended the interests of our Alliance. As a leading member of the past two American Administrations, you have resolutely and successfully opposed any unilateral withdrawal of American forces from Europe or any weakening of your country's commitment to our defense. But the Alliance is much more than its military strength. Equally important is the combined political will to respond to the challenges which face us. You have worked tirelessly to give life to the essential concept of full consultation among allies on the basis of equality. And you have practiced what you have preached as your personal consultations with us here on many occasions have demonstrated.

- 2 -

We have had our difficult times, but I believe that we have
come through them revitalized. The commitment to the Alliance
is greater now among our governments and among our peoples
than it has been for many years. And this is largely due to
the positive and inspiring leadership which you have given us.

I see no harm to your well-known modesty if for a moment I add
my contribution to the wave of praise which is showering
down on you from all sides.

We in the Alliance have been privileged to work with a man
to whom the adjective "great" can be applied with sincerity.
Mr. Secretary, I am convinced that you will stand in history
as one of the most effective foreign ministers of our century.
You have understood the underlying realities of our time.
You have known how to influence those realities. Your goals
have been the goals not only of the free world, but of ordinary
men and women everywhere -- peace, security and prosperity. And
to this task you have brought your extraordinary energy and
outstanding brilliance -- as well as a well-known refusal
to take no for an answer. To work with you has been an
experience which has inspired us all.

For me personally your departure is indeed a sad event. I
have the privilege of having known you for many years, in fact
for more than 15 years. Your warm personality, your neat
sense of humor, have always enchanted me and your exceptional
power of analysis has commanded my greatest respect. I hope
we will remain in touch.

Members of the Council, as we say goodbye to this great
Secretary of State, may I summarize our common feeling by
quoting Shakespeare: "He was a man, take him for all in all,
I shall not look upon his like again."

* * * *

REPLY BY
SECRETARY OF STATE HENRY A. KISSINGER
TO
SECRETARY GENERAL LUN'S
FAREWELL STATEMENT

SECRETARY KISSINGER: I want to take this opportunity to thank
the Secretary General and all of my colleagues for some of the
friendly things that were said on my behalf. Some of them had
the character of an obituary.

I would like to point out that at the end of the Mondale
Administration, I will only be 69 years old and that without doubt
Joseph will still be in the chair here. And so the future is not

I have to correct a few things Joseph said yesterday. We have known each other in fact 20 years. He has forgotten it because he did not pay attention to insignificant professors at the time. I had written a book of which I was inordinately proud and somebody introduced me to him in the lobby of the hotel, and I thought I heard him mumble that I had just written the most unread bestseller since Toynbee.

At any rate, I remember my first meeting here in 1973, and I recall there are only a very few of us left. On that occasion, my French colleague was sitting across the table from me ready to spring at me before I had ever reached the verb in my sentence. The Belgian Foreign Minister insisted, despite all of this, that there were no differences. Max van der Stoel was desperately attempting to move matters to a higher moral plane. And Gaston Thorn was insisting that if only the smaller countries were running things, such vulgar displays of bad temper could not occur. Since then, NATO has greatly strengthened its cohesion.

Thank you.

* * * *

REMARKS BY
THE HONORABLE HENRY A. KISSINGER, SECRETARY OF STATE,
AT THE
TOUCHDOWN CLUB LUNCHEON

WASHINGTON, D. C.

DECEMBER 13, 1976

Mr. Chairman Tereshinski, Mr. Hauss, Mr. Fischer:

After you have heard me talk for a minute or two
you will understand the true significance of Mr. Campbell's
remarks that what I do requires no accenting (laughter).
I had my doubts when I was invited to come here to present
an award. Of course, I have tremendous admiration for
the Redskins, as well as, particularly, for the two
honorees, but I honestly think that Georgians have been
winning entirely too much for my taste this year (laughter).
Of course, your President is such a typical representative
of the deep south that I couldn't resist him, but I know
the value of imports myself (laugher).

As you all know, I am playing out my option (laughter), and
the other day I told a television interviewer who asked,
"What would you really like to do?"--I said I would like
to play quarterback. There are many reasons for this
including that that is a position which has many attributes
of the one that I have been playing -- people constantly
sending in plays and always calling for a second quarterback.
The only difference is that I have rarely seen quarterbacks
tackled by their own team (laughter and applause). Well,
after I made this remark I received a letter from Mr. Iselin
of the New York Jets suggesting that I come by for a try-out
and offering me the same salary as I did as Secretary of State.
So the Jets would have made half a million dollars right off
the bat (laughter). And frankly I don't think their record
would have been much different (laughter and applause). But,
I had to refuse it reluctantly because I did not think New
York could handle two sex symbols in a row (laughter and
applause).

Now, as I get to the end of my term of office, I first of
all would like to point out that people should not celebrate
prematurely because at the end of the Mondale Administration
I will still only be 69. But I can afford to give away
some intelligence information which is that, if any enemy
of the United States had chosen to start a crisis over a weekend,
we would never have gotten around to it before Tuesday
morning. The head of our Policy Planning Staff, who is
sitting at table one which made him extremely proud--he didn't
realize he was way in the corner (laughter)--usually was
in a state of catatonic shock from noon Saturday
until Monday evening, whether the Redskins won or lost. If
they lost he went through the whole week in a state of

- 2 -

[y]

advanced bewilderment (laughter). I do not want to describe
how that differs from the normal state of our bewilderment.
But, at any rate, I want you to know the Department of
State was--well, sometimes I thought more dedicated to the
Redskins than to the foreign policy of the United States.
So, I hope that the next three games you will settle early
in the game, because I will still be in office at the time
of the Super Bowl. But seriously, I think the essence
of this team, the essence of the two players we are honoring
today, was summed up by the coach of the Cardinals, who made a
comment which I read over the weekend. He was asked, "Who
is going to win the game, Dallas or the Redskins?" He said,
"Dallas is bound to win; they have the better team, but then
the Redskins have been beating teams all year that they had
no business beating." I think this underlines that character,
integrity and dedication cannot be measured. This team which has
given us heart failure week after week this year has shown
the importance of character and the importance of team spirit
and of dedication. We are all extremely proud of you.

Len and Pat have been tremendous all year long. Of course
I have to lean a little bit towards Pat, since I like to pick
on somebody my own size. I was shaken a little bit when
Mr. Campbell said he was five feet nine and one-hundred and
seventy pounds. I am five feet eight and I am not one-hundred
and seventy pounds (laughter). But all year long we have been
admiring their performances. They have represented the
dedication of this team, they have been coming back from
seemingly hopeless situations, and I think their greatest
game this year, and perhaps in several years, was yesterday,
when they always kept their poise and when they pulled out
a victory at the end of a very complex season in which they
prevailed over all odds.

So, it gives me great personal pleasure to be able to give
these awards--I don't have them here (laughter)--to Mr. Hauss.
When you say that he--you said factitiously, Mr. Campbell,
that he is next door to Plains, 175 miles away--I flew into
Plains and I can testify that that is next door to Plains
(laughter). See how bitter a man can get when he doesn't
win (laughter). Len, it gives me great pleasure to give you
this award, and all the best in the next three games
(applause). Pat, congratulations and all the best (applause).

* * * *

12/11/76

DONORS AND LENDERS RECEPTION

Diplomatic Reception Rooms

December 14, 1976

-- You may have wondered why I have spent so much time
as Secretary of State travelling.

-- The reason is simple. Since I first came up to these
rooms and saw the magnificent results of the vision and generosity
of you and the other donors and lenders, I have been badgering
my friend Conger to redo my office in the same grand and
impressive style.

-- He always said that I would have to stay away from the
office long enough for him to get the work done. So I made nine
trips to China, the Middle East shuttles, numerous trips to
Latin America, Africa, Europe and so on. But Clem never
seemed to have enough time.

-2-

-- Now I'm going to be away for a *very* long time. I hope
you're satisfied, Conger.

-- When the Thomas Jefferson State Reception Room
was being reconstructed, I used to admonish Clem Conger,
"What are you doing to my room?" I liked it the way it was.
But now it is a triumph, the most beautiful room in Washington--
perhaps in the nation.

-- Indeed, these diplomatic reception rooms are becoming a
symbol of our country to leaders who come here from all over
the globe. They are a living reminder of what America stands
for: of the confident, purposeful, determined people who forged
this country and held out to it history's grandest vision of a
better world for all mankind. And that reminder was never more
important than in this Bicentennial Year, when many of the
world's leaders came here.

-3-

-- My friend Fahmy, the Deputy Prime Minister and
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Egypt, coming from the oldest
culture on earth, criticized me for having modern art in my
office when the objects in these rooms so beautifully and vibrantly
express America's great cultural heritage.

-- Justice Holmes once said that "historic continuity with the past is not a duty, it is a necessity." The continuity which these rooms represent is more than antiquarianism. This Bicentennial Year has taught us that to demonstrate concern for and pride in our past is not to look back, but to draw from the deepest wellsprings of our national strength so that we may encounter the future with success. The great achievements of our past were the adventures of their times. And only the adventurous of today can truly understand the greatness of our past.

-4-

-- As I approach the end of my tenure as Secretary of State, I am comforted by the thought that Clem Conger will still be here to continue this important project -- for there is much left to do -- even when I'm not around to keep an eye on him.

-- Clem has done a superb job, even if he didn't fix my office up. He also refused to put a statue of me over there (pointing to the right, toward the Jefferson Room) where Jefferson stands -- he said that unless I lost weight, they would have to round out the sides of that niche and spoil the proportions of the room.

-- No one else in the Department has matched me in coaxing, threatening, cajoling and fast-talking others out of things they value so highly. I'm jealous -- numerous foreign countries have sent high-level representatives here to study his methods of diplomacy while most countries try to ignore mine.

-5-

-- Ladies and Gentlemen, on behalf of the Department of State, I want to express our admiration and gratitude for the contribution you have made to our nation's diplomacy and to the way America presents itself to the leaders of the world.

And, speaking for Nancy and myself, I want to thank you for coming -- many from very long distances -- and to say that no matter where we go in the future, we'll never forget the feelings of happiness and pride we have had in these diplomatic rooms.

PR#607

SECRETARY GENERAL KURT WALDHEIM: Ladies and gentlemen, I'm grateful to the Secretary of State for having given me the opportunity for an exchange of views on the international situation before Dr. Kissinger is leaving the State Department.

We had, as usual, a rather frank and a most useful exchange of views in regards to the Middle East, Cyprus, southern Africa, and the economic and social problems in the world. I deeply appreciate this frank exchange of opinions and I wish to take this opportunity, since this is probably the last time that we are standing here publicly together, to pay tribute to my friend, Dr. Kissinger, for the way in which he maintained contact with the United Nations and for the help and cooperation he has extended to the United Nations and to me personally. I wish Dr. Kissinger for the future whatever his intentions are, good success, good health and all the best.

SECRETARY KISSINGER: I paid a visit on my friend, the Secretary General, first of all to congratulate him on his recent election to a new term and I pointed out to him that he handled his election more skillfully, or at least more successfully, then we handled ours. And I regret now that we never asked him for technical advice before November 2nd. Our discussions concerned a review of the international situation, particularly those issues in which the United Nations is so intensely interested: the Middle East, Cyprus, southern Africa, and the relations between the developed and the developing countries, that is to say the North-South dialogue. I also want to use this occasion to emphasize the indispensable role that the United Nations has played, despite occasional disappointments, in my term in office to peace and progress in the world. And I want to pay tribute to the fairness and impartiality and goodwill of the Secretary General and I know that my successor will feel the same way about the United Nations. I am confident that he and the Secretary General will develop the same friendly and constructive relationship.

QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, do you feel the PLO should participate in the Geneva Conference?

- 2 -

PR#607

**SECRETARY KISSINGER:** I haven't given a final press conference for three days. I thought that on this occasion I would not make any pronouncement on policy that will have to be carried out by the new administration but rather to pay tribute to my relationship with the Secretary General, the importance of the United Nations, and the importance of peace and progress in the world in general.

**QUESTION:** (Inaudible question regarding the Secretary's reaction to the Halperin case.)

**SECRETARY KISSINGER:** Well, I frankly have not seen the actual decisions. A ticker was handed to me as I was leaving the Secretary General's office. And I am gratified by the decision with regard to my role. I do not, however, want to comment beyond that.

**QUESTION:** (Inaudible question regarding the Caribbean.)

**SECRETARY KISSINGER:** Well, I do not know any colleagues of mine who have that view -- with respect to the independent foreign policies of countries in the Caribbean, we have our well-known concerns with respect to the role that Cuba has played in various parts of the world, but we can work cooperatively with Mr. Manley.

**QUESTION:** (inaudible.)

**SECRETARY KISSINGER:** There is no alternative to the cooperation of the industrial democracies. With respect to the North-South dialogue, it is one of the fundamental problems of our time. The reason why we felt that December was not the most opportune moment was that a long-term program has to be put forward at this conference. And it seems to us inappropriate as an out-going administration to put forward a program that a new Administration that had no role in formulating it, would have to implement. I am, however, confident from the public speeches that the President-elect has made that the importance of the relationship between developed and developing countries will be well understood by the new Administration and I told the Secretary General that I am hopeful as to the future of the North-South dialogue.

**QUESTION:** (Inaudible question regarding Prime Minister Callaghan of Great Britain.)

**SECRETARY KISSINGER:** Prime Minister Callaghan? No, I did not. My meeting with Mr. Callaghan was more a nostalgic affair -- he invited the various British Ministers that have

PR#607

dealt with me over the years to take a look at me and
see that their suffering was reaching a terminal point.
So the admission of Spain was not discussed on that occasion,
but the United States has long believed that when domestic
institutions of Spain became more compatible to the rest
of Europe -- to Western Europe -- that the admission
to NATO would be forthcoming.

QUESTION: (inaudible.)

SECRETARY KISSINGER: We believe that there are a number
of propositions on basis of which progress can be made,
and we are hoping that Mr. Nujoma will leave Luanda at
some appropriate point and travel to some other African
country so that a dialogue can be continued. We have
attempted for the last few weeks, even months, to elicit
some more clearcut propositions in response to the
propositions we have put before him. I believe even more
strongly than I did on September 29, that progress on
Namibia is both necessary and very possible. And I hope
that in the new year progress will be made. But I am trying
to avoid a situation where I am giving a general press
conference.

QUESTION: Mr. Kissinger, you did discuss southern Africa with the Secretary General? At this point how do you assess developments on the question of Rhodesia, particularly in Geneva.

SECRETARY KISSINGER: The Rhodesian Conference, as you know, has recessed and the United Kingdom has announced that Mr. Richard will take a trip through Africa at the end of December into January in order to talk to the necessary various parties in the countries concerned to see how the various issues that have been put forward in Geneva can be reconciled. I believe that a solution is possible, that with all the difficulty some progress has been made. It stands to reason that when four different nationalist groups that have not always worked together have to find a common position and then negotiate that common position with the set of authorities that they have been combating for 11 years, it is a difficult process. I look forward next week to having further talks with Mr. Richard. We have a delegation at London today to discuss the issues and I think that progress is possible. Now, the last question.

QUESTION: (Inaudible question on the Middle East)

SECRETARY KISSINGER: I have said previously that the
only shuttle that now will take place is between Washington
and Boston -- I mean Washington and New York. (Laughter)

PRESS
DEPARTMENT OF STATE

December 20, 1976

No. 613

AMERICA AND THE WORLD: PRINCIPLE AND PRAGMATISM

TEXT OF BICENTENNIAL ESSAY
BY THE HONORABLE HENRY A. KISSINGER
SECRETARY OF STATE
PUBLISHED IN TIME MAGAZINE

DECEMBER 27, 1976

America has perennially engaged in a search of its
conscience. How does our foreign policy serve moral ends?
How can America serve as a humane example and champion of
justice in a world in which power is still often the final
arbiter? How do we reconcile ends and means, principle and
survival? Today the challenge of American foreign policy is
to avoid the illusion of false choices: we must live up to
this nation's moral promise while fulfilling the practical
needs of world order.

OUR HISTORICAL EXPERIENCE

From its beginning, Americans have believed this country
had a moral significance that transcended its military or
economic power. Unique among the nations of the world,
America was created as a conscious act by men dedicated to
a set of political and ethical principles they believed
to be of universal applicability. Small wonder, then,
that Santayana concluded: "To be an American is of itself
almost a moral condition."

But this idealism has also been in constant tension with
another deep-seated strain in our historical experience.
Since Tocqueville, it has been frequently observed that we
are a pragmatic people -- commonsensical, undogmatic and
undoctrinaire, a nation of practical energy, ingenuity and
spirit. We have made tolerance and compromise the basis
of our domestic political life. We have defined our funda-
mental goals -- justice, liberty, equality and progress -- in
open and libertarian terms, enlarging opportunity and freedom
rather than coercing a uniform standard of conduct.

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PR# 613

[lc]

America has been most effective internationally when we have combined our idealistic and our pragmatic traditions. The founding fathers were idealists who launched a new experiment in human liberty. But they understood the global balance of power and manipulated it brilliantly to secure their independence. Franklin and Jefferson perceived that the European powers saw the conflict in North America as part of a global struggle. Their diplomacy led to the involvement of Britain's enemies -- France, Spain and Russia -- in ways that favored the rebellious colonies, and then cut loose from them in a separate treaty of peace by which John Jay won the British Crown's recognition and liquidated the residual problems of the Revolution.

Thus America's energies were released to populate and build a continental nation and to perfect domestic institutions. As we did so, both our pragmatic nature and our moral commitment took deeper root in the national character -- but often as seemingly separate and even contrasting factors. When faced in 1802 with the attempt of France to control the mouth of the Mississippi, Thomas Jefferson was above all concerned with the future prospects of French control over trade in and out of the American heartland.

But as our practical needs were served, so too was our idealistic strain. James Madison declared that "the free system of Government we have established is so congenial with reason, with common sense, and with a universal feeling, that it must produce approbation and a desire of imitation... Our country, if it does justice to itself, will be the workshop of liberty to the civilized world, and do more than any other for the uncivilized." The implications of this outlook would lead both to the advocacy of interventionism, as in Edward Everett's 1823 case for supporting the Greek revolution, and isolation, as in William Seward's 1863 rebuttal of requests to oppose Russia's mistreatment of Poland.

Yet throughout the 19th century, our greatest achievements came through efforts marked by both moral vision and practical purpose. Theodore Roosevelt noted that long before Jefferson negotiated an end to the French claim to Louisiana, that and other foreign claims had been effectively undermined by the great western movement of Americans and the free communities they quickly founded. But the consolidation of their pioneering achievements was made possible by those negotiations and by subsequent diplomatic successes. The annexation of Florida, the Oregon boundary settlement with Great Britain, the treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, the Gadsden Purchase, the purchase of Alaska from Russia -- all were triumphs of diplomacy during decades when most citizens believed America did not have, or need, a foreign policy.

- 3 -

PR# 613

Indeed, our very achievements in dealing with the world brought most Americans under the sway of a shared mythology. As a society of men and women who had fled the persecutions and power politics of the Old World, Americans -- whether Mayflower descendants or refugees from the failed revolutions of 1848 -- came to assume that we were beyond the reach of the imperatives of traditional foreign policy.

With our security assured, we became bemused by the popular belief that President Monroe's obligation to defend the Western Hemisphere, and indeed almost any obligation we might choose to assume, depended on unilateral American decisions to be entered into or ended entirely at our discretion. Americans never paid attention to British Foreign Secretary George Canning's justification of the Monroe Doctrine: "We have called the New World into existence to redress the balance of the old." Shielded by two oceans and enriched by a bountiful nature, we proclaimed our special situation as universally valid, even for nations whose narrower margin of survival meant that their range of choices was far more limited than our own.

It was, as C. Vann Woodward has called it, "the age of free security." As usual, Abraham Lincoln depicted it most vividly. "Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant to step the ocean and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth in their military chest, with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force take a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years."

We disparaged power even as we grew strong; we saw our successes as the product not of fortunate circumstances and considerable effort, but of virtue and purity of motive. The preoccupation of other nations with security only reinforced our sense of uniqueness. Arms and alliances were seen as immoral and reactionary. Our native inclination for straightforwardness brought increasing impatience with diplomacy, which often calls for ambiguity and compromise.

In this atmosphere even the purchase of Alaska -- which excluded Russia from our continent -- was regarded in its day as a folly. Congress was prevailed upon only with the greatest difficulty to provide the $7 million to complete the deal. The mythology of American ineptitude in its diplomatic pursuits carried into the 20th century. Will Rogers always got a laugh when he cracked, "America never lost a war and never won a conference."

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PR# 613

THE 20TH CENTURY

Forgetful of the wisdom and skilled statecraft by which
the founding fathers won our independence and secured our
safety, and disdainful of the techniques by which all nations
-- even the U.S. -- must preserve their interests, we
entered the 20th century largely unprepared for the part
we would be called upon to play.

As our power grew, we became uncomfortable with its uses
and responsibilities, and impatient with the compromises
of day-to-day diplomacy. Our rise to great power status
was feared and resisted by many Americans who foresaw a
process of deepening involvement in a morally questionable
world. In the early decades of this century, we sought
to reconcile the tension between indeals and interests by
confining ourselves to humanitarian efforts and resorting
to our belief in the pre-eminence of law. We pioneered in
relief programs; we championed free trade and the cause
of foreign investment. We attempted to legislate solutions
to international conflicts,

These efforts to banish the reality of power were aborted
by our involvement in two world wars. While we had a clear
security interest in a Europe free from domination by any
one power, Woodrow Wilson argued the case for intervention
in wholly idealistic terms. He described it in 1917 as
"the opportunity for which the American people have sought
to prepare themselves ever since the days when they set
up a new nation in the high and honorable hope that it might,
in all that it was and did, show mankind the way to liberty."
Thus we would do battle for universal moral objectives,
not a peace in which victors and vanquished sought a balance
of their interests.

Disillusionment set in as the outcome of the war necessarily
fell short of expectations, and indeed as the one-sided
nature of the peace required ever greater efforts to main-
tain it against countries with no stake in the settlement.
A tide of isolationist sentiment rose, in which moral
proclamations were coupled with an unwillingness to under-
take concrete commitments. We were loath to face a world
of imperfect security, alliances of convenience, recurrent
crises and the need for a political structure that would
secure the peace.

In the decades after World War II, we undertook our first
sustained period of peacetime world leadership with a
supreme self-assurance fortunately matched by overwhelming
material superiority. And we faced an antagonist whose
political system and actions on the world scene explicitly
threatened the very existence of our most cherished principles.

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PR# 613

In a period of seemingly clear-cut divisions, we saw little need for an explicit definition of the national interest. We saw economic problems around the world of the kind we had solved successfully in our own country, and sought to overwhelm them with the weight of resources, assuming that economic progress automatically led to political stability. In short, without making a conscious design to do so, we were trying to shape the world to our design.

Our postwar policy was marked by great achievements. America found within itself extraordinary capacities of vision and creativity. Leaders of both parties and many backgrounds -- Truman and Eisenhower, Vandenberg and Marshall, Acheson and Dulles -- built a national consensus for responsible American world leadership based on both principle and pragmatism. The recovery of Western Europe and Japan, the creation of peacetime alliances, the shaping of the global trade and monetary system, the economic advance of newer and poorer nations, the measures to control the nuclear arms race -- these constitute an enduring record of American statesmanship.

OUR CONTEMPORARY CHALLENGE

We face an equally great challenge today. America is thrust into the role of global leadership with a dual responsibility. We must maintain our security and global peace by the traditional methods of power and diplomacy. But we know that nuclear war could destroy civilization, and therefore we must go beyond traditional foreign policy to shape a world reflecting the imperatives of interdependence and justice.

We remain the strongest nation and the largest single influence in international affairs. For 30 years our leadership has sustained world peace, progress and justice. Our leadership is no less needed today, but it must be redefined to meet changing conditions. Ours is no longer a world of American nuclear monopoly, but one of substantial nuclear equivalence. Ours is no longer a world of two solid blocs and clear-cut dividing lines, but one of proliferating centers of power and influence. Ours is no longer a world amenable to national solutions, but one of economic interdependence and common global challenges. Ours is a world where moral affirmation can be carried out only through stages, each of which is by definition imperfect.

Thus for the first time in American experience, we can neither escape from the world nor dominate it. Rather we -- like all other nations in history -- must now conduct diplomacy with subtlety, flexibility, persistence and imagination. We must fuse our great national assets of idealism and realism, our moral convictions and our pragmatic bent. We can no longer impose our own solutions; yet our action or inaction will influence events, often decisively. We cannot banish power

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PR# 613

from international affairs, but we can use our vast power wisely and firmly to deter aggression and encourage restraint and negotiation. We can help construct a wider community of interest among all nations. We must continue to stand for freedom in the world.

These are worthy goals. They can be achieved. But they summon a different dimension of moral conviction than that of a simpler past. They require the stamina to persevere amid ambiguity, and the courage to hold fast to what we believe in while recognizing that at any one time our hopes are likely to be only gradually fulfilled. It is the essence of moral purposes that they appear absolute and universal. It is the essence of foreign policy to take into account the views of others who may also see their values in this manner.

Clearly, we must maintain our purposes and our principles. But we risk disaster unless we relate our moral convictions to concepts of the national interest and international order that are based not on impulse but on a sense of steady purpose that can be maintained by the American people for the long term.

## AMERICA'S AGENDA

America -- and the community of nations -- today faces inescapable tasks:

- We must maintain a secure and just peace.

- We must create a cooperative and beneficial international order.

- We must defend the rights and the dignity of man.

Each of these challenges has both a moral and a practical dimension. Each involves important ends, but ends that are sometimes in conflict. When that is the case, we face the real moral dilemma of foreign policy: the need to choose between valid ends and to relate our ends to means.

Peace is a fundamental moral imperative. Without it, nothing else we do or seek can ultimately have meaning. Averting the danger of nuclear war and limiting and ultimately reducing destructive nuclear arsenals is a moral as well as a political act.

In the nuclear age, power politics, the struggle for marginal advantages, the drive for prestige and unilateral gains must yield to an unprecedented sense of responsibility. History teaches us that balances based on constant tests of strength have always erupted into war. Common sense tells us that in the nuclear age history must not be repeated. Every

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PR# 613

President, sooner or later, will conclude with
President Eisenhower that "there is no alternative to
peace." But peace cannot be our only goal. To seek
it at any price would render us morally defenseless and
place the world at the mercy of the most ruthless.
Mankind must do more, as Tacitus said, than "make a desert
[and] call it peace."

There will be no security in a world whose obsession with
peace leads to appeasement. But neither will there be
security in a world in which mock tough rhetoric and the
accumulation of arms are the sole measure of competition.
We can spare no effort to bequeath to future generations
a peace more hopeful than an equilibrium of terror.

In the search for peace we are continually called upon to
strike balances -- between strength and conciliation;
between the need to defend our values and interests and
the need to consider the views of others; between partial
and total settlements.

America's a second moral imperative is the growing need for
global cooperation. We live in a world of more than 150
countries, each asserting sovereignty and claiming the
right to realize its national aspirations. Clearly, no
nation can fulfill all its goals without infringing on
the rights of others. Hence, compromise and common
endeavors are inescapable. The growing interdependence of
states in the face of the polarizing tendencies of nationalism
and ideologies makes imperative the building of world
community.

We live in an age of division -- between East and West
and between the advanced industrial nations and the
developing nations. Clearly, a world in which a few nations
constitute islands of wealth in a sea of despair is
fundamentally insecure and morally intolerable. Those
who consider themselves dispossessed will become the
seedbed of upheaval. But the tactics of confrontation
with which some of the developing nations have pursued
their goals are as unacceptable as they are unproductive.

The objectives of the developing nations are clear: economic
development, a role in international decisions that affect
them, a fair share of global economic benefits. The goals
of the industrial nations are equally clear: widening prosperity,
an open world system of trade, investments and
markets and reliable development of the resources of food,
energy and raw materials.

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PR# 613

The process of building a new era of international economic relationships will continue through the rest of this century. If those relationships are to be equitable and lasting, negotiation and mutual regard among diverse and contending interests will clearly be required. On the part of the industrial nations, there must be a moral commitment -- now, while there is still time for conciliation -- to make the sacrifices necessary to build a sense of community. On the part of the developing nations, there must be an end to blackmail and extortion -- now, before the world is irrevocably split into contending camps -- and a commitment to seek progress through cooperation.

Our third moral imperative is the nurturing of human values. It is a tragedy that the very tools of technology that have made ours the most productive century in history have also served to subject millions to a new dimension of intimidation, suffering and fear. Individual freedom of conscience and expression is the proudest heritage of our civilization. All we do in the search for peace, for greater political cooperation and for a fair and flourishing international economy is rooted in our belief that only liberty permits the fullest expression of mankind's creativity. Technological progress without justice mocks humanity; national unity without freedom is a hollow triumph. Nationalism without a consciousness of human community and human rights is likely to become an instrument of oppression and a force for evil. As the world's leading democracy, it is our obligation to dedicate ourselves to assuring freedom for the human spirit. But responsibility compels also a recognition of our limits. Our alliances, the political relationships built up with other nations, serve peace by strengthening regional and world security. If well conceived, they are not favors to others, but a recognition of common interests. They should be withdrawn when those interests change; they should not, as a general rule, be used as levers.

There is no simple answer to the dilemma a great democracy faces under such circumstances. We have a moral as well as a practical obligation to stand up for our values and to combat injustice. Those who speak out for freedom and expose the transgressions of repressive regimes do so in the best American tradition. But there are times when an effort to teach another country a moral lesson can undermine the very values we seek to promote. When sensitive issues are transformed into tests of strength between governments, the impulse of national prestige may defeat the most worthy goals. Thus we must take care not to elaborate a doctrine of universal intervention. We must remember that in our history such concepts have as often led to abdication as to overcommitment, both with disastrous results.

- 9 -

PR# 613

[lc]

America's most profound contribution to world affairs has derived from our conviction that while history is often cruel, fate can be shaped by human faith and courage. Our optimism has enabled us to understand that the greatest achievements were a dream before they became a reality. We have learned through experience, as few people have, that all that is creative is ultimately a moral affirmation -- the faith that dares in the absence of certainty, the courage to go forward in the face of adversity.

Americans must learn the inescapable need to relate our moral aims -- which of necessity are stated in universal terms -- to the imperative choices imposed upon us by competing goals and finite resources. Foreign policy is, like life, a constant effort to strike the right balance between the best we want and the best we can have -- between the ends we seek and the means we adopt. We need moral strength to select among often agonizing choices, and a sense of ethical purpose to navigate between difficult decisions. But we need as well a mature sense of means, lest we substitute wishful thinking for the requirements of survival. The ultimate test of morality in foreign policy is not only the values we proclaim but what we are willing and able to carry out.

As the greatest democracy in the world, America is a reminder to all that there is an alternative to tyranny and oppression. The revolution begun two centuries ago goes on, for much of the world still seeks the freedom and the dignity of the individual, the sanctity of law that this country has never ceased to seek, enjoy and perfect. The surest path to our own greater success, and the brightest hope for others, is to remain true to the American tradition -- a heritage where reality is a point of departure but never our final horizon, and where ideals ennoble reality and enable us to shape our future.

*****

The Harlem Globetrotters
presentation to Secretary Kissinger

Tuesday, December 21, 1976

8th Floor, Benjamin Franklin Room

SECRETARY KISSINGER: I haven't seen so much press here since November 2nd. (Laughter.)

MR. GREESON: Mr. Secretary, because you are already indeed a globetrotter who has accomplished so very much of monumental import during your world travels and because the Harlem Globetrotters have become known as America's ambassadors of goodwill in short pants as a result of our travels through 94 countries, we're here today to join forces. We've decided that this is the time to make you an honorary Globetrotter, the first in our 50-year history. And, Meadow -- we have your player bag, Mr. Secretary. (Laughter.) (Presentation.) Your jersey with the numeral No. 1 and with your name on the back, sir. (Laughter.) (Presentation.) (Applause.)

And, also, we have your warmup jersey. There are your socks, your shoes, your warmup pants and so forth. (Presentation.)

Do you think it might be wise to determine whether

2

the uniform is properly sized?

VOICES: Yes.

(Secretary Kissinger removes suit jacket.)

VOICE: How about the jersey?

VOICE: Give him the ball. (Laughter.)

VOICE: May we see it again, Mr. Secretary?

SECRETARY KISSINGER: You can.

MEADOWLARK: We also have a basketball from all twenty of the Globetrotters.

VOICE: Gaither, perhaps you can warm the Secretary up.

SECRETARY KISSINGER: These guys won't rest till they ruin me. (Laughter.)

VOICE: Spin the ball with your finger, right?

VOICE: We'll give you a chance to try it, O.K.?

VOICE: One finger, right?

VOICES: One more time.

VOICE: Hey, he's got good reflexes.

MR. GREESON: You're going to have to practice a little if you're going to join us on January 21st, Mr. Secretary. (Laughter.)

SECRETARY KISSINGER: Well, I appreciate this honor very much for a number of reasons.

First of all, the numeral that's on the back of this jersey accords exactly with my estimate of myself. (Laughter.) And I'm glad that it has received official recognition.

Secondly, I feel a certain affinity with your

3

style of play because I too like to make up the rules
as I go along. (Laughter.)

And, thirdly, I have appreciated the fact
that the Globetrotters don't belong to any league, that
they play wherever they want. Indeed, it might be
called the Lone Ranger style (laughter) of basketball.

Now, your presence here has brought out some of the
worst tendencies in my staff. I've asked some of my
colleagues to see whether they could produce some humorous
remarks that I might make. And one person suggested
that because you have somebody called "Meadowlark,"
another called "Geese," I should call attention to
your "fowl" style of playing. (Laughter.) But I didn't
dare to do this on my own, and I give full credit to the
Policy Planning Staff of the Department of State.
(Laughter.) They developed this joke as a joint enterprise.
It goes down from there. (Laughter.)

I have admired what you have done around the
world. You really have been ambassadors of goodwill.
You travel more in one year than I did during my whole
tenure as Secretary of State. And you have one advantage
over me: You get applauded (laughter) wherever you go.

4

MR. GREESON: We also get laughed at, Mr. Secretary. (Laughter.)

SECRETARY KISSINGER: So, as you know, I've been called for traveling and I'll be out of the game for a while; but I am delighted to know you're going to keep up your work of goodwill, that you're going to amuse us all and give us so much joy; and I am honored to be a member of the Globetrotters. And while I'll teach -- when I'll tell Cy Vance all I know about the Middle East, I am not going to teach him how to dunk. (Laughter.)

Thank you very much.

MR. GREESON: Thank you, Mr. Secretary.

(Applause.)

CORRESPONDENTS ASSOCIATION
ANNUAL CHRISTMAS PARTY

Thank you Dick -- and fellow travellers:

This is the high point of Valeriani's year. He's finally got
an audience that can't switch to another channel.

Well gentlemen, you won't have Henry Kissinger to kick you
around anymore.

I appreciate your inviting me tonight -- even though I refused
to come as Santa Claus. But you all got your Christmas wish already
-- back in early November.

In remembrance of our association together, we've designed
a tie clip for you all -- in the shape of a piranha.

In Koppel's case, we've designed it as a pectoral medallion.

-2-

And also, just for the memories, the wine we're serving
tonight is that same great vintage we always had on the 707
-- from the Air Force's own vineyards out at Andrews.

You know Cyrus Vance has said he doesn't intend to travel
as I did. So the Air Force has announced that they will retire 970
and turn it into a museum out at Andrews. In fact, its going to be
a tourist attraction mausoleum -- like Mao's. We're going to
embalm Funseth and put him in there. It's only appropriate, since
he's usually pickled in there anyway.

The stewards on the plane have proposed embalming the travelling
press and putting them in their preferred seats: Berger next to
O'Leary -- Growald next to Freed -- and so forth.

-- You all know that I have trouble concealing
my affection and admiration for you and your
profession. Not insurmountable trouble, mind you,
but trouble.

-- One of the things I will always remember about
this group is the horse that some of you bought and
named after me. I've always assumed that your real
purpose in doing so was to make sure that whatever
you got in the way of information from the horse's
mouth--namely the Department spokesman--you would
have the other end of the animal available as a
check and balance.

-- But I envy my namesake, Henry the K.--at least
his career is just beginning.

-3-

I know that many of you feel that with my departure it just
won't be the same -- so you have decided to take up new and
different challenges:

-- Olympia Press has announced that the Kalbs are at work
on a book to be called "Brzezinski."

-- Koppel is going to be interviewed in his kitchen by
Barbara Walters.

-- The "Style" section says Barry Schweid will replace
Barbara Walters.

-- Murray Marder is going to host "Saturday Night" -- and
rename it "one more question."

-- And Peckarsky is opening a Kurdish rug store in Clarendon.

-4-

Although our association has at times been disconcerting to
foreigners -- especially when I tell them that the boys in the back of
the plane make more money than I do -- it has, I believe, been in
the great tradition of our open society.

Arthur Miller once said that the press "is a nation talking to
itself." There has been a lot to talk about over the past few years
and you here in this room have done much to articulate the concerns
and the contributions of the American people to our foreign policy.

For the United States, public communication is indispensable.
All the lessons in this regard have been retaught us by the fateful
events of recent years. The foreign policy of this country must be
understood by the public or it will fail for want of support. And our
efforts in the world ultimately cannot be either responsive or
effective unless a creative tension between the public and the
policymaker is maintained.

-5-

I want to take this opportunity to thank you and to express my
admiration and appreciation for the job you have done. The con-
frontations as well as the conviviality we have shared means a lot
to me. Together, I believe we have done some good work -- for the
country, and for the world.

Of course your job has been easier. I recall that someone
once asked Chester Gould, the creator of Dick Tracy, how he
wrote such successful comic strips. He said, "It's easy, I just
start with a repulsive character and go on from there."

BICENTENNIAL ESSAY

[LC]

# America & the World:
## Principle & Pragmatism

by HENRY KISSINGER

*The following Bicentennial Essay is the ninth in a series that has been appearing periodically, surveying how the U.S. has changed in its 200 years.*

### OUR HISTORICAL EXPERIENCE

But this idealism has also been in constant tension with another deep-seated strain in our historical experience. Since Tocqueville, it has been frequently observed that we are a pragmatic people—commonsensical, undogmatic and undoctriнаire, a nation of practical energy, ingenuity and spirit. We have made tolerance and compromise the basis of our domestic political life. We have defined our fundamental goals—justice, liberty, equality and progress—in open and libertarian terms, enlarging opportunity and freedom rather than coercing a uniform standard of conduct.

America has been most effective internationally when we have combined our idealistic and our pragmatic traditions. The founding fathers were idealists who launched a new experiment in human liberty. But they understood the global balance of power and manipulated it brilliantly to secure their independence. Franklin and Jefferson perceived that the European powers saw the conflict in North America as part of a global struggle. Their diplomacy led to the involvement of Britain's enemies—France,

Spain and Russia—in ways that favored the rebellious colonies, and then cut loose from them in a separate treaty of peace by which John Jay won the British Crown's recognition and liquidated the residual problems of the Revolution.

Thus America's energies were released to populate and build a continental nation and to perfect domestic institutions. As we did so, both our pragmatic nature and our moral commitment took deeper root in the national character—but often as seemingly separate and even contrasting factors. When faced in 1802 with the attempt of France to control the mouth of the Mississippi, Thomas Jefferson was

But as our practical needs were served, so too was our idealistic strain. James Madison declared that "the free system of Government we have established is so congenial with reason, with common sense, and with a universal feeling, that it must produce approbation and a desire of imitation ... Our country, if it does justice to itself, will be the workshop of liberty to the civilized world, and do more than any other for the uncivilized." The implications of this outlook would lead both to the advocacy of interventionism, as in Edward Everett's 1823 case for supporting the Greek revolution, and isolation, as in William Seward's 1863 rebuttal of requests to oppose Russia's mistreatment of Poland.

Yet throughout the 19th century, our greatest achievements came through efforts marked by both moral vision and practical purpose. Theodore Roosevelt noted that long before Jefferson negotiated an end to the French claim to Louisiana, that and other foreign claims had been effectively undermined by the great western movement of Americans and the free communities they quickly founded. But the consolidation of their pioneering achievements was made possible by those negotiations and by subsequent diplomatic successes. The annexation of Florida, the Oregon boundary settlement with Great Britain, the treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, the Gadsden Purchase, the purchase of Alaska from Russia—all were triumphs of diplomacy during decades when most citizens believed America did not have, or need, a foreign policy.

Indeed, our very achievements in dealing with the world brought most Americans under the sway of a shared mythology. As a society of men and women who had fled the persecutions and power politics of the Old World, Americans—whether Mayflower descendants or refugees from the failed revolutions of 1848—came to assume that we were beyond the reach of the imperatives of traditional foreign policy.

JEFFERSON WRESTLES WITH FEDERALIST EAGLE IN 1800 CARTOON

TIME, DECEMBER 27, 1976

41

BICENTENNIAL ESSAY

transatlantic military giant to step the ocean and crush us at a
blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa com-
bined, with all the treasure of the earth in their military chest,
with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force take a
drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial
of a thousand years."

We disparaged power even as we grew strong; we saw our suc-
cesses as the product not of fortunate circumstances and consid-
erable effort, but of virtue and purity of motive. The preoccupa-
tion of other nations with security only reinforced our sense of
uniqueness. Arms and alliances were seen as immoral and reac-
tionary. Our native inclination for straightforwardness brought
increasing impatience with diplomacy, which often calls for am-
biguity and compromise.

In this atmosphere even the purchase of Alaska—which ex-
cluded Russia from our continent—was regarded in its day as a
folly. Congress was prevailed upon only with the greatest difficul-
ty to provide the $7 million to complete the deal. The mythology
of American ineptitude in its diplomatic pursuits carried into the
20th century. Will Rogers always got a laugh when he cracked,
“America never lost a war and never won a conference.”

THE 20TH CENTURY

Forgetful of the wisdom and skilled statecraft by which the
founding fathers won our independence and secured our safe-
ty, and disdainful of the techniques by which all nations—even
the U.S.—must preserve their interests, we entered the 20th
century largely unprepared for the part we would be called
upon to play.

As our power grew, we became uncomfortable with its uses
and responsibilities, and impatient with the compromises of
day-to-day diplomacy. Our rise to great power status was
feared and resisted by many Americans who foresaw a process
of deepening involvement in a morally questionable world.
In the early decades of this century, we sought to reconcile
the tension between ideals and interests by confining our-
selves to humanitarian efforts and resorting to our belief
in the pre-eminence of law. We pioneered in relief pro-
grams; we championed free trade and the cause of foreign
investment. We attempted to legislate solutions to inter-
national conflicts.

These efforts to banish the reality of power were aborted by our involvement in two world wars. While we had a clear security interest in a Europe free from domination by any one power, Woodrow Wilson argued the case for intervention in wholly idealistic terms. He described it in 1917 as “the opportunity for which the American people have sought to prepare themselves ever since the days when they set up a new nation in the high and honorable hope that it might, in all that it was and did, show mankind the way to liberty.” Thus we would do battle for universal moral objectives, not for a new equilibrium—a war to end all wars, not a peace in which victors and vanquished sought a balance of their interests.

Disillusionment set in as the outcome of the war
necessarily fell short of expectations, and indeed as the
one-sided nature of the peace required ever greater ef-
forts to maintain it against countries with no stake in
the settlement. A tide of isolationist sentiment rose, in
which moral proclamations were coupled with an un-
willingness to undertake concrete commitments. We
were loath to face a world of imperfect security, alliances of
convenience, recurrent crises and the need for a political
structure that would secure the peace.

In a period of seemingly clear-cut divisions, we
saw little need for an explicit definition of the nation-

al interest. We saw economic problems around the world of the
kind we had solved successfully in our own country, and sought to
overwhelm them with the weight of resources, assuming that eco-
nomic progress automatically led to political stability. In short,
without making a conscious design to do so, we were trying to
shape the world to our design.

Our postwar policy was marked by great achievements. America found within itself extraordinary capacities of vision and creativity. Leaders of both parties and many backgrounds—Truman and Eisenhower, Vandenberg and Marshall, Acheson and Dulles—built a national consensus for responsible American world leadership based on both principle and pragmatism. The recovery of Western Europe and Japan, the creation of peacetime alliances, the shaping of the global trade and monetary system, the economic advance of newer and poorer nations, the measures to control the nuclear arms race—these constitute an enduring record of American statesmanship.

OUR CONTEMPORARY CHALLENGE

We face an equally great challenge today. America is thrust
into the role of global leadership with a dual responsibility. We
must maintain our security and global peace by the traditional
methods of power and diplomacy. But we know that nuclear war
could destroy civilization, and therefore we must go beyond tra-
ditional foreign policy to shape a world reflecting the imperatives
of interdependence and justice.

We remain the strongest nation and the largest single influ-
ence in international affairs. For 30 years our leadership has
sustained world peace, progress and justice. Our leadership
is no less needed today, but it must be redefined to meet
changing conditions. Ours is no longer a world of American
nuclear monopoly, but one of substantial nuclear equiva-
lence. Ours is no longer a world of two solid blocs and clear-
cut dividing lines, but one of proliferating centers of power
and influence. Ours is no longer a world amenable to na-
tional solutions, but one of economic interdependence and
common global challenges. Ours is a world where moral
affirmation can be carried out only through stages, each
of which is by definition imperfect.

Thus for the first time in American experience, we
can neither escape from the world nor dominate it.
Rather we—like all other nations in history—must now
conduct diplomacy with subtlety, flexibility, persistence
and imagination. We must fuse our great national assets of
idealismand realism, our moral convictions and our prag-
matic bent. We can no longer impose our own solutions; yet
our action or inaction will influence events, often decisive-
ly. We cannot banish power from international affairs, but
we can use our vast power wisely and firmly to deter ag-
gression and encourage restraint and negotiation. We can
help construct a wider community of interest among all na-
tions. We must continue to stand for freedom in the world.

These are worthy goals. They can be achieved. But
they summon a different dimension of moral conviction
than that of a simpler past. They require the stamina to
persevere amid ambiguity, and the courage to hold fast
to what we believe in while recognizing that at any one
time our hopes are likely to be only gradually fulfilled. It
is the essence of moral purposes that they appear ab-
solute and universal. It is the essence of foreign policy to
take into account the views of others who may also see
their values in this manner.

AMERICA'S AGENDA

America—and the community of nations—today faces in-
escapable tasks:

► We must maintain a secure and just peace.

► We must create a cooperative and beneficial interna-
tional order.

42

LINCOLN IN 1864 CARICATURE

CULVER

TIME, DECEMBER 27, 1976

► We must defend the rights and the dignity of man.

In the nuclear age, power politics, the struggle for marginal advantages, the drive for prestige and unilateral gains must yield to an unprecedented sense of responsibility. History teaches us that balances based on constant tests of strength have always erupted into war. Common sense tells us that in the nuclear age history must not be repeated. Every President, sooner or later, will conclude with President Eisenhower that "there is no alternative to peace." But peace cannot be our only goal. To seek it at any price would render us morally defenseless and place the world at the mercy of the most ruthless. Mankind must do more, as Tacitus said, than "make a desert [and] call it peace."

In the search for peace we are continually called upon to strike balances—between strength and conciliation; between the need to defend our values and interests and the need to consider the views of others; between partial and total settlements.

America's second moral imperative is the growing need for global cooperation. We live in a world of more than 150 countries, each asserting sovereignty and claiming the right to realize its national aspirations. Clearly, no nation can fulfill all its goals without infringing on the rights of others. Hence, compromise and common endeavors are inescapable. The growing interdependence of states in the face of the polarizing tendencies of nationalism and ideologies makes imperative the building of world community.

We live in an age of division—between East and West and between the advanced industrial nations and the developing nations. Clearly, a world in which a few nations constitute islands of wealth in a sea of despair is fundamentally insecure and morally intolerable. Those who consider themselves dispossessed will become the seedbed of upheaval. But the tactics of confrontation with which some of the developing nations have pursued their goals are as unacceptable as they are unproductive.

The process of building a new era of international economic relationships will continue through the rest of this century. If those relationships are to be equitable and lasting, negotiation and mutual regard among diverse and contending interests will clearly be required. On the part of the industrial nations, there must be a moral commitment—now, while there is still time for conciliation—to make the sacrifices necessary to build a sense of community. On the part of the developing nations, there must be an end to blackmail and extortion—now, before the world is irrecoverably split into contending camps—and a commitment to seek progress through cooperation.

America's most profound contribution to world affairs has derived from our conviction that while history is often cruel, fate can be shaped by human faith and courage. Our optimism has enabled us to understand that the greatest achievements were a dream before they became a reality. We have learned through experience, as few people have, that all that is creative is ultimately a moral affirmation—the faith that dares in the absence of certainty, the courage to go forward in the face of adversity.

Americans must learn the inescapable need to relate our moral aims—which of necessity are stated in universal terms—to the imperative choices imposed upon us by competing goals and finite resources. Foreign policy is, like life, a constant effort to strike the right balance between the best we want and the best we can have—between the ends we seek and the means we adopt. We need moral strength to select among often agonizing choices, and a sense of ethical purpose to navigate between difficult decisions. But we need as well a mature sense of means, lest we substitute wishful thinking for the requirements of survival. The ultimate test of morality in foreign policy is not only the values we proclaim but what we are willing and able to carry out.

As the greatest democracy in the world, America is a reminder to all that there is an alternative to tyranny and oppression. The revolution begun two centuries ago goes on, for much of the world still seeks the freedom and the dignity of the individual, the sanctity of law that this country has never ceased to seek, enjoy and perfect. The surest path to our own greater success, and the brightest hope for others, is to remain true to the American tradition—a heritage where reality is a point of departure but never our final horizon, and where ideals ennoble reality and enable us to shape our future.

From a professorship in government at Harvard, Henry Kissinger went on to serve as National Security Adviser to the President from 1969 to 1975 and as Secretary of State since 1973. He is the author of Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy and A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh and the Problems of Peace, 1812-22.

WILSON (1912)

BETTMANN

TIME, DECEMBER 27, 1976

43