NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO

APR 20 1982

April 21, 1982

MAY 4 1982

Mrs Selden Sutton
Publicity Department
Little, Brown and Co.
747 Third Avenue
New York, NY 10017

Dear Mrs. Sutton,

We have just received the rush copy of the transcript of our COMMUNIQUE program on the latest volume of Henry Kissinger's memoirs.

As you can see, we covered a great deal of ground, and spoke with a number of top authorities on U.S. foreign policy and the Kissinger era.

The program enjoys a wide and diverse audience on most of the 260 NPR stations around the country. We have already started to receive a fairly large mail response for the transcripts, which we distribute to interested listeners.

Perhaps in a future discussion with Dr. Kissinger, you might mention to him that we had produced this overview of the book and its times. Maybe, he might find a few minutes in his busy schedule to talk with us for a program in the near future.

By the way, segments of this COMMUNIQUE were also used on the NPR daily program MORNING EDITION, broadcast April 19.

Please let me know if you would like to receive a cassette of the programs.

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NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO

PROGRAM Communique

STATION WAMU-FM
NPR Network

DATE April 16, 1982 10:05 P.M.

CITY Washington, D.C.

SUBJECT Henry Kissinger, Years of Upheaval

ANNOUNCER: From National Public Radio, this is Communique.

PRESIDENT RICHARD NIXON: ...to fight through the months ahead for my personal vindication would almost totally absorb the time and attention of both the President and the Congress. Therefore, I shall resign the presidency effective at noon tomorrow. Vice President Ford will be sworn in as President at that hour.

HENRY KISSINGER: Needless to say, here was a man who all his life had geared himself to become President, organized his personality in that direction. And suddenly, within the space of three months after one of the greatest electoral triumphs in electoral history, when everything seemed to be going his way in foreign policy, it all came crumbling down in circumstances, largely due to actions his associates and maybe he had taken. Put still, it was a crushing experience.

ANNOUNCER: Henry Kissinger served as Richard Nixon's Secretary of State and National Security Adviser during the turbulent second term, 1972 through '74, as the Watergate scandal grew in size and scope, forcing Nixon from office.

Now, Kissinger has published the second volume of his memoirs, titled "Years of Upheaval," detailing his version of the controversial issues and events surrounding the presidency and the making of U.S. foreign policy. On this edition, Communique examines his latest book.

Our host is Peter Osnos, National Editor of the Washington Post.

OFFICES IN: WASHINGTON D.C. • NEW YORK • LOS ANGELES • CHICAGO • DETROIT • AND OTHER PRINCIPAL CITIES

Material supplied by Radio TV Reports, Inc. may be used for file and reference purposes only. It may not be reproduced, sold or publicly demonstrated or exhibited.

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PETER OSNOS: The second volume of Henry Kissinger's memoirs, like the first, is a remarkable record of a remarkable public career. The latest book covers a period that began with Richard Nixon's gala second inaugural and ended with his resignation in disgrace. Those two years, 1973 and '74, witnessed one major event after another: war in the Middle East, the rise of OPEC, two Soviet-American summits, the bloody coup in Chile, just to name a few.

In the midst of it all, Kissinger was elevated to the rank of Secretary of State, while continuing to serve as National Security Adviser, thereby amassing more personal authority in the field of foreign policy than any other figure in our age.

Kissinger's goals and ambitions were massive. He sought to forge an era of detente with the Soviet Union and simultaneously open relations with Peking. He attempted to secure peace in Indo-China and failed. But he was able to bring about the first tentative steps toward peace in the Middle East.

Over all of this hung the shadow of Watergate. Richard Nixon was crippled and then destroyed as President. Yet Kissinger escaled the fate of other Nixon aides. He earned accolades for diplomatic skill that shined all the more brightly next to the ignominy that befell others in the Administration.

Yet Kissinger does not seem untainted. There is a strong undertone of doubt about the morality of policy in those years. Not just the wiretaps of aides and reporters, but a general abuse of executive powers. In much of the second volume, Kissinger is arguing against that stigma.

Certainly among the most far-reaching of his initiatives was detente, an effort to transform the hostilities of the Cold War into a new superpower relationship. In October 1973, Kissinger explained the approach in a speech to a conference in Washington.

KISSINGER: This Administration has never had any illusions about the Soviet system. We have always insisted that progress in technical fields, such as trade, had to follow and reflect progress toward more stable international relations. We have insisted that disarmament had to be mutual. We have judged movement in our relations with the Soviet Union not by atmospherics, but by how well concrete problems are resolved, and whether there is responsible international conduct.

OSNOS: Kissinger's vision of detente never quite took hold. And one explanation was Nixon's diminished ability to take bold risks in dealing with Moscow, another Watergate side effect.

One of Kissinger's closest aides was William Hyland, a Soviet specialist, now a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment

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for International Peace.

WILLIAM HYLAND: I think, yeah, Henry believes that Watergate is one of the root causes of what happened to relations with the Russians. It's that Watergate was so pervasive and it weekend the Executive, Nixon in particular, so much that the rather complicated game plan that Kissinger wanted to carry out after '72 became increasingly impossible, because it required -- I think he says in the book -- it required a strong President to force through some agreements that were controversial, also to keep control over the process, which way it was going.

OSNOS: Is it your sense that the Kissinger approach, the carrot-and-stick notion, was that doable, in retrospect? Was that an achievable goal, given American attitudes towards dealing with the Soviets?

HYLAND: I'm inclined to think it was. But I'm prejudiced, obviously, 'cause I was involved in it.

The big unknown, I think, that was not foreseen, in addition to Watergate, was the Vietnam collapse. I think that was a telling psychological blow which almost ended active foreign policy. Prior to that, I don't know. I think it was still doable. But again you get back to this, that you had to have a President who could face down Jackson on the Jackson-Vanik Amendment.

OSNOS: Which would have restricted trade and immigration.

Kissinger implies in the book that it was already running down by the time of the 1974 summit. Do you remember it as being a period of disappointment, of frustration over detente?

HYLAND: Oh, I think so. I think all of us who were at the '74 summit left there very depressed. It was the first summit in which there was no major step forward, either in politics, economics, or strategy. There were agreements. But everyone, I think, recognized that the agreements were almost pro forma, and that the big agreement that we had hoped for was -- eluded us, which was some breakthrough on SALT. And what was so frustrating about that meeting is that you could almost feel that agreement. It was within reach. And you could also feel the Russians pulling back and the American side not wanting to make that last kind of concession, for fear that we would walk out of the summit and then people would say, "Well, this is even worse. I mean here is Nixon making a deal with the Russians at the last minute."

OSNOS: To save his rear end.

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HYLAND: To save his presidency and so forth.

OSNOS: It's very hard to, obviously, read the Soviets' mind. But do you think that they were prepared for the sort of relationship that Kissinger envisioned?

HYLAND: I think Brezhnev was. Whether the whole Soviet apparat was is different. But I think the high point was '73. Some of his speeches, I thought, had a tone in that period that were different than the ordinary Pravda-like recitations. He was talking about reexamining certain principles and so forth. And I had the feeling that Brezhnev, at that point, was willing to entertain a substantial change in the relationship.

He began to pull back, probably at San Clemente in '73, when all of the press cared only about Watergate. And it began to dawn on Brezhnev and his entourage that Watergate was far more serious than they had believed.

OSNOS: Former Kissinger aide William Hyland.

Perhaps the greatest danger to peace of that time arose during the Yom Kippur War in the fall of 1973. Nixon put American forces on alert to counter Soviet moves in support of the Arabs. World peace seemed, at least briefly, in peril. But the consequences of that conflict were of a wholly different order. The quadrupling of oil prices in the wake of the Arab boycott created turmoil in global economics, with an impact that is still being felt.

Yet, Kissinger scored genuine gains with a series of accords leading to the disengagement of Israeli and Arab troops; in the process, restoring American relations with Egypt and Syria. Much of the success came in the celebrated Middle East shuttles, which gave Kissinger the limelight he enjoyed.

KISSINGER: Perhaps the most difficult and complex problem was the wide gulf of distrust, a generation of warfare and hostility. And I believe that now that the two sides have learned to understand, at least, the thinking of each other, that maybe that hurdle has been overcome. But still there's a long road to go before we have a permanent peace in the Middle East.

OSNOS: Former Undersecretary of State Joseph Sisco was with Kissinger on the Mideast shuttles. He is now a consultant in Washington.

JOSEPH SISCO: For 30 years in the Middle East, Peter, there was no contact, no recognition, no negotiations. The threshold came in the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War of 1973. The situation was ripe for an intensive unilateral American effort, because we were the only acceptable party to both sides.

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And that laid the environment and the psychological basis for
the successful shuttle diplomacy which resulted in two disengage-
ment agreements between Egypt and Israel and one between Syria
and Israel.

The disengagement agreements laid the basis for the
Egyptian-Israeli treaty and for the second part of Camp David,
because the disengagement agreements, in a very modest way, were
a practical test of peace on the ground, and it demonstrated that
it could be done.

OSNOS: Specifically on Kissinger's role in this, he
spends 350 or 400 densely-packed pages on the shuttles. And you
get, as you read it, a sense that he really was intimately in-
volved in the most intricate details and that it was his -- in
very large degree, his personal involvement that produced the
kind of accords that were achieved.

Is that a fair, objective assessment of what happened?
Or was it something that the parties themselves wanted to do and
might have come to anyway?

SISCO: I would place the primary emphasis on the favor-
able objective conditions, as I've described them, that evolved
in the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War. But secondly -- I say
this not to denigrate in any way his personal role -- for this
reason: In the Middle East, the element of the personal role in
diplomacy is a much more important ingredient than the more tra-
ditional institutional involvement. Kissinger not only saw it
in broad strategic terms, the link between the global and the
regional, he was an eminently outstanding tactician; but above
all, he was able to strike the kind of personal rapport between
the principal leaders, which I think had a very unique quality
about it; and, therefore, obviously contributed to the success
of the enterprises.

OSNOS: What as it like on those shuttles? What was
the atmosphere? Was it businesslike? Was it jovial? Were there
highs and lows? Were there times of despair? Do you think shut-
tling is an appropriate way to do diplomacy in the modern age?

SISCO: Peter, all of the things that you've cited were
elements in the shuttle diplomacy. Shuttle diplomacy can be
abused in this sense: Intensive efforts of this sort are justif-
fied when you are clear in terms of the parameters of possibility.
We felt that there was a substantial degree of common ground,
potentially, between the two sides, in light of the objective
conditions, that an intensive effort was justified.

OSNOS: Former Undersecretary of State Joseph Sisco.

But even the triumphs of the shuttles were overwhelmed

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by the political drama in Washington. Returning from one suc-
cessful trip in June 1974, Kissinger writes:

READER: By now, I considered Nixon's impeachment inevi-
table. The release of even his version of the taped conversa-
tions in the Oval Office had removed the last inhibitions. Al-
most no major figure was prepared to speak out on his behalf.
His public support had dwindled to a hard core of about 25 per-
cent.

The disintegration of the presidency was painful to
observe. Nixon's self-discipline was extraordinary, but it only
masked his vulnerability. And he was drained now of a sense of
proportion.

One could not work with the man for over five years,
as I had, without being touched by the sinking of a spirit that
had so often borne us up.

It was in this mood, suspended between awe and dread,
and seeking to regain my balance admidst adulation and disinte-
gration, that, with stunning unexpectedness, I found myself drawn
into the pit. "

REPORTER: Can't you answer that direct question?

KISSINGER: I have answered the question, that I sup-
plied those names...

REPORTER: ...recommendation?

KISSINGER: I did not make a direct recommendation.
But as Elliot Richardson pointed out, in the context of the gen-
eral program that existed, plus the supplying of the names, it
led to the wiretapping of some individuals who had had access
to the documents in question.

REPORTER: What kind of a recommendation did you make?

KISSINGER: I think this is a press conference, and
not a cross-examination.

OSNOS: Kissinger's Watergate role, especially in the
wiretappings of his own White House aides and newsmen, is again
under scrutiny, in excerpts from an upcoming book by reporter
Seymour Hersh published in Atlantic magazine.

One of the wiretapped aides was Morton Halperin.

MORTON HALPERIN: The interesting thing about some of
the material that Sy Hersh reports in his Atlantic article is
that he's gotten access to the Watergate special prosecutor

files, which reveal that the Watergate special prosecutor's office looked into Kissinger role in much greater detail than anybody had previously known and that they have a great deal of information. And I think now that Hersh has some of it -- presumably, there'll be more in the book -- and I think other people will begin to get access to it, I think what we will learn is what a lot of people suspected -- namely, that the Watergate special prosecutor's office accepted the line that many people accepted -- namely, that Kissinger was the only person standing in the way of the disintegration of the United States in the world; and that whatever his role in the Watergate burglary and the break-in and the plumbers and the wiretaps, one had to downplay that because he was protecting us while the Nixon Administration was falling apart.

Well, I think that material is now going to begin to come out, in light of Kissinger's reassertion in his memoirs that he had nothing to do with anything, and in light of the fact that Hersh, in his article, and presumably in more detail in the book, will make the case, as this article ends with, that Kissinger was indeed involved very heavily in much of what's now come to be called Watergate.

**OSNOS:** The high point of Kissinger's frustration over the Watergate obsession came just before he and Nixon were to travel to Moscow for a meeting with Soviet leader Brezhnev in June 1974. After months of little involvement, the wiretaps suddenly emerged as a major controversy. The New York Times even said in an editorial that legal proceedings might be necessary.

In a mood of furious despair, Kissinger, already on the way to Moscow, called a press conference in Salzburg, Austria.

**KISSINGER:** I do not believe that it is possible to conduct the foreign policy of the United States under these circumstances, when the character and credibility of the Secretary of State is at issue. And if it is not cleared up, I will resign.

**OSNOS:** Of course, he did not resign. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee undertook an investigation, and Kissinger writes:

**READER:** "On August 6th, the committee published its report. Unanimously, it held that the record, quote, should lay to rest the major questions raised about Secretary Kissinger's role.

The dispute was, in a large sense, semantic. **Quote:** There are no significant discrepancies between the new information developed and Dr. Kissinger's testimony before the committee during the confirmation hearings last year. The committee therefore reaffirmed its conclusion, as stated the year before, that

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my role in the wiretapping, quoting again, did not constitute
grounds to bar his confirmation as Secretary of State.

The August 6th report effectively ended the controversy
over my role in wiretapping for the remainder of my term of of-
fice. It was quickly engulfed by the cataclysm of Nixon's resign-
nation three days later."

OSNOS: Despite his formal exoneration, critics, like
Morton Halperin, believe the experience in the Nixon White House
nurtured a flaw in Kissinger's character.

HALPERIN: Well, I think what it says is that Kissinger
is prepared, and was prepared, to do whatever he felt was neces-
sary to first gain influence with Nixon, to gain Nixon's confi-
dence, and then to maintain that confidence and that influence
in the White House. I mean he felt, I think correctly, that
there was an assumption in the Nixon White House that one had
to treat one's enemies ruthlessly.

Now, I think in the case of Mr. Nixon it was more talk
than action. But he was constantly urging people to do things,
like get into the Brookings Institution to steal the papers that
they thought Les Gelb and I had there. Which, of course, we did
not. And that Kissinger felt that one had to go along with these
things, that one had to, in some cases, initiate proposals along
these lines in order to compete with people like Haldeman and
Colson, and to demonstrate that he was not some Harvard intellec-
tual who was unwilling to be ruthless.

OSNOS: A question remains about the importance to Kissinger's reputation of the issue of morality in policymaking, as distinct from the obvious lapses in Nixon's political morality.

Author Ronald Steel, a contributor to the New Republic,
believes Kissinger will be judged harshly.

RONALD STEEL: I think it'll probably be central. Because when you look back at the Kissinger record, I really think it's quite striking that the accomplishments, that the edifice that he has left behind has really crumbled, to a large degree: detente, SALT, the so-called Year of Europe, the settlement in Vietnam, the Middle East settlement, even, is falling to pieces And so, while he was a brilliant tactician and negotiator, I think the record is not so impressive, and maybe will not put him among the very great Secretaries of State.

And so I think more and more he'll be judged upon what
were his motivations, what was his view of history, what was his
sense, indeed, of morality. And I think that's so central.

He laments about Watergate incessantly in this book.

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And by Watergate -- it's interesting -- what he means by Watergate is not the various lies and crimes of the Nixon Administration, but rather the fact that this was a diminished executive authority, it diminished his ability and that of President Nixon to conduct a foreign policy with relatively little regard to congressional and public restraint.

So, what was it that he wanted to conduct? Well, I think what we see there is a kind of moral callousness, a kind of moral obtuseness, if you will. I think we see it so strongly, let's say, in the record in Indochina.

First of all, there is the bombing of Cambodia. Equally terrible, I suppose, from simply looking at it from the American constitutional process, and one that he doesn't go into in the book, was the way in which he lied about this, the way he kept it from Congress or he kept it from the public. It was as though that this was nobody's business, that the conduct of diplomacy, the great theories of diplomacy are something for the practitioners, and that it's to be kept from those who might meddle.

I think, also, history is going to judge Henry Kissinger very harshly for prolonging the Vietnam War, if you will, or at least for allowing it to continue for four years after he and President Nixon entered office, and ending it on terms which really weren't very different from those on which he entered office. A lot of blood was shed during those four years. Fifteen thousand Americans died and untold thousands and tens of thousands of Indochinese. And it's hard for us to find anything to show for that.

Also, I think that his discussion, if you will, of the affair of Salvador Allende in Chile is another example of his very selective morality. He's enormously indignant about Allende. What did Allende represent? Well, he represented some kind of a potential threat to the status quo. He's never -- Kissinger doesn't, and indeed he can't, demonstrate in any way that Allende represented an actual threat, a military threat, even an economic threat to the United States. But I think that there's something -- Kissinger is very hostile, very deeply hostile to radicalism. That's all right. That's his position. One can have a very conservative foreign policy. But I think where one can criticize him is to say -- is when he denigrates, downplays the terrible abuses, the terrible crimes committed by the successors of Allende.

This was -- the Pinochet regime was one of the really most terrible regimes we've had in recent times. It rivals Idi Amin's, in a way. It's certainly as bad as Stalin's regime. And yet Kissinger pays very little attention to that. He goes back and says it's a pity that maybe some of these abuses took place, but far, far better to have this conservative regime than the radical one that was there before.

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**OSNOS:** Going back to the point you made about Kissinger's belief in executive power and the role and function of executive power. Do you think that American foreign policy, as it is now practiced, in a sense -- now limited by the function in Congress and the role of Congress -- in a sense, that is an heir of Henry Kissinger.

**STEEL:** Yes, indeed. What he complains about is, as you say, something that he helped create, that this sense that power was being abused, that the Executive was taking things far too greatly into its own hands, ignoring, I think, the inherent restraints that are necessary within a democratic foreign policy.

Also, Kissinger, of course, complains, as I said, a great deal about Watergate. And yet, in a sense, he was a creature of Watergate, as he even admits himself in these memoirs. He says that because Watergate tied the President's hands and because Nixon retired so much into his own personality during all the traumas of Watergate, that Kissinger assumed, and was able to assume, a greater role than he had done in the past.

**OSNOS:** Author and political scientist Ronald Steel.

**WALTER LAQUEUR:** I can't think of many books in the same class. Dean Acheson, yes, "Present at the Creation." But I couldn't think of any book of late of similar interest and importance.

**OSNOS:** As a piece of personal history, Kissinger's book has received far more praise than criticism. Walter Laqueur, professor at Georgetown's Center for Strategic and International Studies, sees an inextricable link between the quality of the book and the qualities of the man whose experiences it records.

**LAQUEUR:** Well, above all, [unintelligible], detail, which is terribly important, because very frequently essence is in the detail. And this, of course, is a very detailed book, which -- maybe sometimes too detailed, such as, for instance, in description of the shuttle between Jerusalem and Cairo, Jerusalem and Damascus.

At the same time, I would say intelligence, an intelligent book. Truthful. Well, I think, on the whole, it is truthful. It's not entirely -- maybe it's not the whole truth. But again, you would not expect that from someone, after all, may not have given up political ambitions altogether.

**OSNOS:** Sure.

**LAQUEUR:** Anyway, the reader will have to read it critically, will have to form his own, or her own, judgment.

**OSNOS:** How much of the Kissinger impact was his ability

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to dazzle, his eloquence, his humor? And how much of it really
was his ability to get things done in a substantive, concrete,
and lasting way?

LAQUEUR: If there's only an ability to dazzle people,
then it's empty activity. It leads to nothing. But I think in
his case there was a combination of having been able to create a
certain image and having been able to project that image. He,
of course, exploited it, and that's perfectly as it should be.

At the same time, he had a certain concept, not always
consistent. And this is a rare combination. Because we had
frequently in America, or in other country, in foreign policy we
had people that either had a concept or they were very nice peo-
ple, or at least made the impression of being nice people.

OSNOS: Is the Kissinger memoirs a textbook, the kind
of thing that could represent a model for students?

LAQUEUR: I think there are a few lessons. One, maybe
a personal lesson: It's terribly important to be optimistic,
even at a time when there is little objective ground for being
optimistic; to be patient and not give up. And I think in this
case, it was a considerable victory, a victory by Kissinger over --
who is a man who is, by nature, not patient. I think I know him
a little bit. And yet -- he's very impatient, as a matter of
fact. And yet, in his image and his dealings with people he con-
quered his impatience.

And I think this may not appear terribly important.
It's not a philosophical insight, but it's rather a quality of
character, which I think for a diplomat it's very important.

OSNOS: Walter Laqueur of Georgetown University.

Kissinger's account of his tenure unquestionably suits
its subject and reflects its author. Few personalities in Ameri-
can history can have played so large a part in events and then
recounted them so fully and so well. Approve of disapprove of
Henry Kissinger, whether you like what he did or not, his memoirs
make absorbing reading.

For Communique, I'm Peter Osnos.