CBS
NEWS

A Division of CBS Inc.
524 West 57 Street
New York, New York 10019
(212) 975-4321

Dear Henry:

You may have been---probably were---the best Secretary of State we ever had. But you are not the Statue of Liberty or the Washington Monument, and I think it's unrealistic of you to expect us to treat you like a national shrine.

Good as the Kissinger Years were, I think you have been ill-advised if you think you can dictate that history's view of those years be seen solely through your eyes. It doesn't work that way. It didn't for Abe Lincoln, George Washington, Franklin Roosevelt or Dwight Eisenhower. A little criticism goes with the territory.

Even Jack Dempsey took one on the chin from time to time. Take it from someone who would like to be your friend: It's easier when you roll with the punches.

Dr. Henry Kissinger
The River House
435 East 52nd Street
New York, New York 10022

April 30, 1980

MAY 9 1980

May 9, 1980

DEALINGS WITH MR. RATHER

April 16

My wife phoned me in London to the effect that Dan Rather had called to tell her of an important program he was doing which concerned me. I called Rather immediately at the number he had left. He outlined the charges made by Akins. I told him they were not only untrue but demonstrably so, I could show him documentary proof to that effect after I returned. Rather asked whether I suggested that he drop the program. I told him that as he described it, the program was the opposite of the truth. I gave him several names of experts or officials who had been associated with me or who might have an independent knowledge of the oil price question. Rather said he would not proceed with the program until I returned to the United States in a few days.

2

April 24:

I next heard from Rather late that day. He said that
he would proceed with the program probably on April 27,
perhaps on May 4. I asked him whether he had consulted any
of the experts I had mentioned. He replied that he had been
too busy. I inquired about his promise to look at the
documents which indicated that we _did_ oppose the price
increases. Rather said that he had information these were
for the record to cover our tracks. I said "Do you really
think senior people in the government work that way?"

Rather replied: "I do not know how people in government
work but it sounds plausible to me." I asked how his
conscience permitted him to charge me with being responsible
for high oil prices when the price was $14 per barrel when
I left office and was close to $35 now. Rather replied:
"The accusation is that the December '73 increase started
the whole thing and without it prices would have stayed

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low"--a patent absurdity in the existing supply and demand
situation.

Rather said that if I insisted he look at documents
he would have to delay the program; for this he would
need the approval of Mr. Leonard, head of CBS News.
Leonard in turn was more likely to grant this if I agreed
to appear on the program than simply to give Rather a chance
to look at documents. I told Rather I would need til
Monday to give him an answer since some of the key people
whose opinion I valued were travelling and not available til
the weekend. Rather said he would call me next day after
consulting Leonard.

April 25

This was the day the failed Iranian rescue mission was
announced. I was constantly on the phone; my house was
filled with camera crews filming statements by me. In this
atmosphere "60 Minutes" resumed its pressure.

4

At 11:30 Rather called. He had been right about Leonard's judgment, he said. The program would be delayed only if I agreed to rebut the charges personally. There was no time either to look at documents or to consult other witnesses. "60 Minutes" was satisfied with what it had. I said I wanted to think about it. Rather replied they needed an answer quickly because of promotional imperatives.

At 12:30 Hewitt called to urge me to go on "60 Minutes".
I protested about the unfairness of being asked to rebutt
on my own behalf patently untrue statements without even one
disinterested person appearing to give a summary of the
factual basis. Hewitt gave me til 3 p.m. to answer on
"60 Minutes"' terms.

At 13:30 Rather called. Could he see me in a private, off-the-record basis? I told him to come by my apartment at 1530 if he could get me an extension of time til 1600 for my answer. Rather agreed.

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In the presence of my wife Rather then said in essence
the following: The program as it stood was extremely damaging
to me. He did not wish to injure my reputation; he was
prepared to put me on "60 Minutes" to preserve me as a national
asset. When I asked why then he would not put on others
considered more disinterested by the public, he replied
that there was no time. When I said that I had survived
other attacks because of my public following, Rather said:
"Tastes change. Some year people like wide lapels, other
years narrow lapels. This could happen to you. I don't
what to contribute to it." I told him he would have my
reply at 1700.

At 1645 Mike Wallace called my wife to urge her to
use her influence with me to appear. As a friend he would
tell her that refusal spelled trouble; agreement meant
that I would have my day in court. Rather would be tough
but fair.

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At 1700 I accepted to go on. Once again I gave Rather
a list of names to consult.

April 26

That evening was Pete Peterson's wedding. Immediately
afterwards a number of friends called to say that Hewitt
had told them that "60 Minutes" had forced me to appear
to defend my conduct towards the Shah. They warned against
appearing in a defendant's role; they urged that I request
the appearance of a disinterested expert who could describe
the mechanics of the oil price and avoid having this
technical subject treated as if it were a personal idiosyncracy.

That same evening my agent called and recommended that
if my appearance on "60 Minutes" would turn into an
extended interview I should obtain the approval of NBC
to whom I was under contract.

[Y]

7

April 27.

I called Hewitt to tell him that I need written permission from NBC. I also requested that an expert on oil price discuss the pricing mechanism. I proposed Alan Greenspan, former Chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers. Hewitt rejected this out of hand. Rather called a few minutes later. He had always been told, he said, that in dealing with me he would wind up having his head handed to him. He now had learned my critics were right. I did not see in what way he had been damaged. I repeated the necessity of asking formally for NBC's permission and requested once again that he include an oil price expert.

Rather informed me that he had not consulted any of the individuals I had mentioned nor any other expert except James Schlesinger. According to Rather Schlesinger wished to preserve his friendship with both Akins and me; hence he was not prepared to go on the air. He affirmed, however,

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that it was absurd that the oil price rises were due to a
desire to sell arms.

April 28

I instructed my agent to obtain NBC's written permission.

While we were waiting for it, Hewitt called him several
times. The essence of his conversations was that I was hiding
behind NBC; he had already talked to their executives and
cleared it. He also wanted to make clear that I would
be the only one to rebutt. No other person would be interviewed.

I also became aware of an item in *Newsweek* to the
effect that "60 Minutes" had forced me to go on the air to
defend my relation with the Shah. In the light of this
publicity, the pressure tactics and the refusal to put on
any witness who could have disclosed the true state of
affairs I withdrew from the program.

That evening CBS News put out a press release that I had
reneged on going on "60 Minutes" and threatened to sue.

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The latter charge was subsequently retracted.

April 29

Late in the day I was informed by an associate that a
review of the record indicated that we had received only
one cable from Akins about price increases on which we
acted immediately. I informed Rather of this by telephone.
I offered once again to show him the documentary record.
He agreed to come to my apartment at 10:30 the next morning.

April 30

At the appointed hour Rather's secretary called to
inform me that Rather had been unexpectedly called out of
town. No new appointment was set.

May 1

Unable to see Rather I sent him by messenger a long
letter outlining the facts as I know them, including quotes
from relevant documents. The letter remains unacknowledged

PRESS RELEASE FROM THE OFFICE OF HENRY A. KISSINGER

Monday, May 5, 1980

On May 4, 1980, "60 Minutes" put on a program whose
principal participant, the former United States Ambassador
to Saudi Arabia, James Akins, said (1) that there was
collusion between the Shah and the US government to drive
up the price of oil in 1973 in order to facilitate Iranian
arms purchases; and (2) that I had ignored repeated warnings
by Akins to prevent a price rise.

These statements are untrue and malicious. The
facts--not disclosed on the program--are:

(1) The pressure on the oil price arose in October 1973 principally from the Arab oil embargo against the United States and some of its allies, coupled with a price increase sustained by a production cut of 2 million barrels a day by Saudi Arabia. Iran opposed the embargo; it joined neither the embargo nor the production cut, keeping its output at 6 million barrels a day.

(2) The main foreign policy objectives of the US
government in November and December 1973 were to consolidate
the Mideast ceasefire; to begin negotiations on the disen-
gagement of forces; and to end the embargo and production
cutbacks. Iran supported all these efforts.

(3) The second OPEC price rise, with which the Shah is associated, occurred on December 23. The first and only warning which I received from Akins came on December 21. On December 22 we responded by protesting any significant price increase to all OPEC countries, including Iran. On that same day we urgently invited all industrial nations to join our protest.

(4) When OPEC nevertheless raised the price we protested strongly on December 28 to Saudi Arabia and even more strongly to the Shah on December 29.

(5) On December 29 I wrote to the British Foreign Secretary, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, proposing an organization of the energy-consuming industrial nations to combat price rises and to bring about a reduction. On February 11, 1974, Secretary of the Treasury George Shultz, Federal Energy Administrator William Simon, and I convened the Washington Energy Conference to achieve these purposes.

Free Release Continued:

(6) Throughout this period I several times spoke on the public record attacking high oil prices as disastrous for the West and urging solidarity among the industrial democracies to bring pressure to reduce prices. A list of those speeches is attached.

(7) I chose not to go on the program because "60 Minutes" insisted on putting on four witnesses for its viewpoint and refused to put on any of nine senior officials and experts whom I had named and who could confirm the facts. The organized imbalance against me was of course flattering but for "60 Minutes" scarcely professional.

(8) I put the background and the facts before "60 Minutes" in the attached letter several days before the broadcast. The information in the letter was ignored in the program.

SPEECHES ON ENERGY BY HENRY A. KISSINGER

--Pilgrim's Society, London, December 12, 1973;

--Washington Energy Conference, February 11, 1974;

--University of Chicago, November 14, 1974;

--National Press Club, February 3, 1975;

--IEA Ministerial Meeting, Paris, May 27, 1975;

--OECD Meeting, Paris, May 28, 1975;

--UNGA Seventh Special Session, September 1, 1975;

--OECD Meeting, Paris, June 21, 1976.

HENRY A. KISSINGER

May 1, 1980

Dear Mr. Rather:

Your secretary telephoned to say that you were
called out of New York yesterday and therefore
had to cancel the appointment we arranged at
which I proposed to outline the facts about
Ambassador Akins' allegations, as you had
explained them. Today and tomorrow I must be
away. I therefore am taking the liberty of
writing to you.

If I understood your account of the program
correctly Ambassador Akins will claim (1) that
the Shah and I colluded to drive up the price
of oil in order to give Iran the revenues to
purchase arms; (2) that he warned me repeatedly
of the Shah's intentions to force an oil price
rise and that I ignored these warnings. The
period involved is November-December, 1973.

These charges are untrue and malicious. Had
you kept the appointment I would have been able
to give you the following facts:

(1) During the November-December 1973 period, we were preoccupied with lifting the oil embargo against the United States and to restore the production reduction of 2 million barrels a day ordered by Saudi Arabia--which created the shortage which brought pressure on the oil price. In my numerous conversations with Middle Eastern leaders including one with the Shah on November 9 there was no mention by any of them of possible price increases. Moreover, Ambassador Akins met

Mr. Dan Rather
"60 Minutes"
555 W. 57th Street
New York, New York 10019

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frequently with the leaders of Saudi Arabia to discuss the oil embargo, and the subject of prices apparently arose only once, two days before the actual December meeting in Teheran, where the decision was made to raise prices. In any case, a price rise was contrary to our policy and we strongly opposed it.

(2) Our first indication that the OPEC meeting of December 23 would discuss a price rise rather than lifting the embargo and the production restriction came not from Ambassador Akins but from Ambassador Helms in Teheran. In a cable to Washington received on December 21, Helms reported that the Shah was considering a new pricing arrangement that would peg oil prices to other energy sources and, therefore, lead to an increase in oil prices. Akins' only warning arrived on the same day; it was a result of a conversation that he had with the Saudi Minister of Petroleum who informed Akins that he had little hope of preventing a significant price increase at the OPEC meeting. Akins sent in this report with a recommendation that the U.S. protest the reported price rise, even though the meeting was convening within twenty-four hours.

(3) There were hundreds of reporting cables from Saudi Arabia in this period, but I am certain that Akins did not warn of a price increase in any of the cables that were normally brought to my attention until the single report of December 21, certainly he did not consider it significant enough to put it in a high priority message that I would have been sure to see.

(4) I was in Geneva on December 21 for the opening of the Middle East peace conference. Based on the cables from Helms and Akins my associates in the Department of State drafted a statement to all OPEC countries protesting any price increase; this was coupled with an appeal to all industrial countries asking them to join our protest.

(Y)

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(5) I approved these instructions within eight hours of their dispatch from Washington to Geneva. They were delivered in the relevant capitals--including Teheran--on December 22, in other words within 24 hours of receiving the warnings from Helms and Akins. Akins' alleged warning was thus not the first, it came on the very eve of the meeting, and I acted on it immediately.

(6) Immediately after the OPEC decision, on December 28, I wrote a strong letter of protest to the foreign minister of Saudi Arabia and to President Sadat. President Nixon, on the basis of my recommendation and draft, sent a strong letter of protest to the King of Saudi Arabia. On December 29 I sent an even stronger protest to the Shah. The cable to the Shah included the following sentences: "The President is greatly concerned over the destabilizing impact that the price increases agreed to at Teheran for Persian Gulf crudes will have on the world's economy and the catastrophic problems it could pose for the international monetary system... We believe this drastic price increase is particularly unreasonable coming as it does when supplies are being artificially restrained."

(7) On December 29 I wrote to British Foreign Secretary Alec Home expressing my grave concern and proposing urgent cooperative action by consuming nations to combat the price increase. That letter contained the following sentence: "The decisions were taken of course unilaterally without even the semblance of negotiation with the international companies or consumer nations."

(8) I spent the month of January organizing the Washington Energy Conference which met February 11. Out of it emerged the International Energy Agency--a grouping of consumer nations to deal with OPEC.

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(9) In addition to private approaches I made the following public speeches proposing concerted action by consumer nations on energy matters including action to drive the price of oil down: Pilgrims Society, London, December 12, 1973; the Washington Energy Conference, February 11, 1974; University of Chicago, November 14, 1974; National Press Club, February 3, 1975; IEA Ministerial Meeting, Paris, May 27, 1975; OECD Meeting, Paris, May 28, 1975; UNGA Seventh Special Session, September 1, 1975; OECD Meeting, Paris, June 21, 1976.

In short, far from colluding in the price rise our government opposed it when it happened, we resisted it afterwards and sought to organize concerted action against it. There were of course occasional disagreements as to the tactics, and some were with my friend Bill Simon. But these were always amicably settled in a framework of common objectives.

The following individuals are prepared to support the fact that my policy aimed at reducing oil prices and/or rebut Akins' charges as untrue or malicious:

- George Shultz, Secretary of the Treasury during the period in question.

- Charles Robinson, former Deputy Secretary of State who handled negotiations with Iran looking to a price reduction in 1974-76.

- Joseph Sisco, former Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs and my principal aide on Middle East policy.

- Tom Enders, former Assistant Secretary of State for Economic Affairs.

- Jules Katz, who succeeded Enders after serving as his deputy.

- Richard Helms who served as Ambassador to Iran during the period.

- Arthur Burns, then Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board and a close associate on energy policy.

The Kissinger-CBS Disconnection

If he had it to do all over again, Don Hewitt, producer of 60 Minutes, would drop the word "connection" from "The Kissinger-Shah Connection"—the title of a segment aired May 4 on the CBS program. "The Kissinger-Shah Connection" set off charges and counter-charges between former secretary of state Henry Kissinger and CBS. Publications from the New Republic to the Wall Street Journal raised questions of broadcasting ethics and journalism-by-innuendo. The broadcast attempted to show that there was a "link" between Kissinger as secretary of state, the shah of Iran, higher oil prices, and, by inference, arms sales to Iran.

Dan Rather, who narrated the segment, said on the air: "... there is little doubt that, during the time he was secretary of state, Kissinger gave the ruler of the Peacock Throne preferential treatment. And the question is why.

"In attempting to find that out, people in a position to know pointed us toward a link between Henry Kissinger, the shah of Iran and the price you're now paying for gasoline."

Kissinger denies any

"connection" with the shah to raise oil prices. He states that he sought to hold prices down, that Saudi Arabia was primarily responsible for the price hikes and that Iran did not need additional revenue for arms purchases.

Although Rather said on the program that Kissinger, "... after many requests ... refused to appear in this story," 60 Minutes provided no one else to rebut its thesis. Rather did say on the air, "Henry Kissinger calls the whole story—quote—'malicious, ridiculous and untrue.'"

Bill Leonard, president of CBS News, says Kissinger had a "firm agreement" with CBS to appear on the show and "reneged" on it.

60 Minutes structured the program to include former ambassador to Saudi Arabia, James Akins (whom Kissinger had fired); former secretary of the treasury, William Simon; and former undersecretary of state, George Ball.

Rather stated on the air that "under Kissinger's direction, there was virtually no debate when the shah ordered $5.7 billion worth of military hardware from this country between October

1976 and September 1977." Kissinger answers that the "overwhelming majority of these sales occurred during the Carter administration which was in office eight out of the twelve months mentioned. (Jimmy Carter was inaugurated in January 1977.) All these sales, moreover, were four to five years after events described in the program and in some cases concerned weapons that did not even exist in 1972-73."

Roger Coloff, vice president of CBS News, says, "The $5.7 billion figure did in fact represent orders which were placed while Dr. Kissinger was still secretary of state. That figure represents what the Defense Security Assistance Agency refers to as the 'value of agreements' which were signed by the U.S. and Iran between October 1976 and September 1977. But the agreements were all signed on the basis of commitments made to Iran during the Ford administration."

Rather stated on the air: "They (Kissinger and the shah) talked privately for one hour (in October 1969), it is believed, during which the groundwork was laid for the Nixon administration's policy toward Iran of con-

tinuing military aid to the shah." Kissinger responds that he had no contact of any kind with the shah between 1969 and 1972. Furthermore, he says, "My schedule of appointments shows no private meeting between the shah and me in October 1969."

After the program was broadcast, George Ball wrote to Rather to clarify his part in the segment. "During the interview the one question that was in any way related to [oil prices] was your query as to whether I had seen anything in the files indicating that an effort had been made to dissuade the shah from raising oil prices, and I replied in the negative. In fact, I was looking, at the time, for events that may have led to the revolution and oil prices were not within the perview of my inquiry. I have no information as to what, if anything, the administration did to deter the shah from promoting an oil increase."

Describing the events that led up to the program, Kissinger says, "In all my experience with news organizations, I was never exposed to the pressure and threats employed by 60 Minutes. Within a twenty-four

hour period, I received eight phone calls from Mr. Rather, Mr. Wallace and Mr. Hewitt and a personal visit from Mr. Rather on the day of the failed rescue mission in Iran, all giving me deadlines of two hours to respond. Their theme was identical: 60 Minutes would proceed with the presenta-

tion that I had told them was untrue without consulting additional documents or other witnesses, unless I personally rebutted the charges."

Hewitt, too, says he was subjected to pressure from "powerful people." And Bill Leonard says, "We didn't feel anyone in the

world could answer the questions but Henry Kissinger." As for the "connection," he says: "Connection is a very different word than conspiracy—an extremely different word than conspiracy."

Rather says, "I wish someone would explain to me why Henry Kissinger

dropped out of the broadcast after we postponed it a week for him."

Kissinger says, "What Rather wanted to do was not to interview me, but to undertake a scientific experiment to see whether a man can be induced to commit suicide after he has just been assassinated."

PERISCOPE

Eavesdropping on the Iranians

There was at least one secret reason for Jimmy Carter's failure to break diplomatic relations with Iran until early April, five months after U.S. hostages were taken in Teheran. During most of that period, U.S. intelligence used electronic eavesdropping devices to intercept messages between the Iranian Embassy in Washington and the Foreign Ministry in Teheran. As a result, the White House gleaned some sensitive information from Iran and acquired a working knowledge of how the Khomeini regime's representatives were perceiving events in Washington.

The Kremlin's New Slogans

Western analysts say that changes in the latest Soviet propaganda slogans reflect Moscow's hardening tack since Afghanistan. The slogans, traditional signposts of the Kremlin's official line, have begun appearing in Pravda and on posters heralding this week's May Day celebration in Red Square. One new slogan decures the presence of U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe, and there is no longer any mention of a Leonid Brezhnev "peace program" that used to be touted in Soviet propaganda. Another pre-Afghanistan slogan that has been dropped: "Strive to make the nonuse of force a law of international relations."

A U.S.-Israeli Debate Over Oil

Washington sources think that Israel will call on the United States to help supply it with oil, and that the Carter Administration will resist. The two countries plan talks on the matter soon. They disagree on whether or not conditions warrant invoking a 1975 U.S. pledge to make up Israeli oil shortfalls once the Sinai oil fields were returned to Egypt. U.S. officials insist there is plenty of oil on the world market. The Israelis argue that they can't buy enough from Mexico and Egypt and must pay exorbitant prices for the balance because most Arab countries won't sell oil to them directly.

Why Kissinger Will Be on '60 Minutes'

Henry Kissinger's scheduled appearance on "60 Minutes" this Sunday represents a change of heart. Broadcasting sources say that the former Secretary of State at first refused to appear because he was outraged by the content of the program. In a segment called "The Kissinger-Shah Connection," former U.S. officials will suggest that Kissinger was partly responsible for rising oil prices in the 1970s because he failed to use his influence with the Shah. Kissinger finally agreed to defend himself in an interview with Dan Rather after learning that the segment includes criticism of him by ex-Treasury Secretary William Simon and other Nixon Administration colleagues. NBC, which has Kissinger under contract, reluctantly allowed him to take part in the CBS program.

New Law for Electric Cars

Thanks to a new law, U.S. automakers may be able to meet Federal fuel-economy standards for gas-fueled cars of the future by marketing electric cars as well. The new law, an amendment that Congress passed with little notice last December, provides for inclusion of electric cars in the government's fuel-economy regulations. These regulations require that by 1985, every U.S. automaker's line of cars average at least 27.5 miles per gallon. The electric cars will unquestionably earn a very high fuel-equivalency

rating, meaning that the more electric cars the manufacturers sell, the less they will have to reduce the gas consumption of their conventional models. General Motors, which hopes to market electric cars by the mid-'80s, lobbied for the amendment.

Proposing an Olympic Summit

Ireland's Lord Killanin, president of the International Olympic Committee, wants Jimmy Carter and Leonid Brezhnev to hold a summit meeting aimed at saving this summer's Games and the Olympic movement itself. Killanin has asked to meet separately with Carter and Brezhnev, and if the meetings are granted he will ask them to get together or, that failing, at least to exchange correspondence on the Olympic problem. Killanin also plans to tell U.S. and Soviet leaders that he has sent an envoy to Athens to discuss making Greece the permanent home of the summer Olympics.

Anti-Castro Graffiti in Havana

Cuba's recent unrest has produced unprecedented signs of opposition to President Fidel Castro. A foreign diplomat says anti-Castro graffiti have appeared on walls in Havana for the first time in memory. One sample reflected the sad state of Cuba's economy: "Better repression under Batista than starvation under Castro." (Fulgencio Batista was the Cuban dictator toppled by Castro in 1959.) In addition, several of the Cuban refugees arriving in Costa Rica spoke of a clandestine station, Radio Libertad, that broadcasts anti-Castro material to Cuban listeners.

Belt-Tightening in Antarctica

Soaring fuel costs may force the United States to cut back research programs in the Antarctic while the Soviet Union is stepping up activity in the same region. The National Science Foundation is considering closing Siple Station, one of the four year-round bases it maintains in Antarctica, as well as one summer station. The Soviets now operate seven permanent South Pole bases. It takes more than 10 million gallons of fuel annually to support the U.S. stations, and in the past year their fuel cost has risen from 50 cents a gallon to $1.19.

Kenya's Secret South African Deal

The Kenyan Government claims that a recent emergency shipment of corn came from Mozambique, but informed sources say it isn't so. Understandably, Kenyan officials don't want to admit that the desperately needed grain was provided by South Africa. With their own crop blighted by a drought, the Kenyans have ordered $11 million worth of South African corn.

Pilot Error or Pilot Valor

The Air Line Pilots Association has proposed a hero's medal for a pilot whom the Federal government may decide to reprimand. TWA pilot Harvey (Hoot) Gibson won praise for pulling his Boeing 727 jetliner out of a 34,000-foot dive over Michigan in April 1979. Now the pilots' association has nominated Gibson for the 1980 Flight Safety Foundation Heroism Award. But the National Transportation Safety Board, which is still investigating the cause of the dive, hasn't ruled out pilot error; in fact, its investigators have tentatively blamed the crew.

BILL ROEDER with bureau reports

NEWSWEEK/MAY 5, 1980

23

WM. F. BUCKLEY JR.

The 60-Minute Pressure

On
The Right

New York, May 9—On Saturday evening a week ago at the Waldorf-Astoria the Friars Club hosted a testimonial dinner for Henry Kissinger at which the luminaries were abundantly present, a jolly evening with, however, a note of strain. Because Mike Wallace was one of a dozen speakers, and on the following evening CBS's 60 Minutes would feature a segment on the "Shah-Kissinger Connection." Officials of all the networks were seated at the dais and tribal loyalties are always an electrifying element even in circumstances primarily social. Bob Hope, who has recently been appearing with CBS, told the crowd: "I have a soft place in my heart for NBC. [Pause.] Who else would pay $80 million for exclusive rights to a presidential boycott?" That is not the kind of thing that passes for humor at NBC on the eve of the Olympics.

CBS's problem was imminent. The next
night, the guest of honor, Henry Kissin-
ger, would not appear on the 60 Minutes
show to which he had been invited, an
invitation which he had at first accepted.
When it came his turn to speak, he made
nice fun of the situation. When he learned
that the episode was to be entitled "The
Shah-Kissinger Connection," he said, "I
knew it would be a hatchet job: obviously
I was getting second billing." Roars from
the audience.

BUT THE contention between 60 Minutes and Kissinger was—is—serious. Here, highly compressed, is what happened:

1. Dan Rather put together a program the thesis of which was that Kissinger, while serving as Secretary of State, searched out means of financing one of his, and Nixon's, objectives: namely, to transform Iran into a first-class military power. To do this required the purchase of highly specialized and extremely expensive equipment, notably aircraft. Congress was not about to give the Shah free airplanes, and Iran didn't have the financial reserves to buy them. So? Why not suddenly encourage the Shah to raise the price of oil? That way, from increased revenues, the money would be there to buy the arms with. Dan Rather got together, to document the thesis: James Akins, who had been ambassador to Saudi Arabia during the period when the oil

prices first went up; George Ball, who
while doing special work on Iran for
President Carter got to review the old
cable traffic from 1973-74; and William
Simon, Secretary of the Treasury under
Nixon and Ford, who has always been an
implacable foe of the OPEC conspiracy.

2. CBS then asked Kissinger to appear on the program to defend himself. He agreed—but in due course modified his acceptance. He gave 60 Minutes the names of a dozen or so men who had official responsibilities at the time and would verify his disavowal of complicity in the OPEC price rise. CBS declined to invite any of them along to substantiate Kissinger's account; so he declined to appear, satisfying himself instead with writing a long letter to Dan Rather and conversing privately with him and the producer of 60 Minutes, Don Hewitt.

3. The segment shown on Sunday night included not a single sentence from Kissinger's five-page letter. Instead, Dan Rather quoted the off-the-record remarks by Kissinger in which Kissinger guessed at the motivations of his detractors. "Akins is lying." Kissinger reportedly said, "and [has] engaged in a personal vendetta against me. . . . [Ball] is a partisan political opponent . . . jealous of me, and long engaged in a personal campaign to destroy me." About Simon, Kissinger said merely that they had had "honest differences over policy, but that had nothing to do with financing the Shah's weapons with an oil price increase." Kissinger termed the entire production "malicious, ridiculous, and untrue."

In the 60 Minutes segment, Rather
asked Ball, "Do you have any indication,
have you ever seen any evidence that Dr.
Kissinger did try to use his influence with
the Shah to keep the prices down?"

Ball answered: "No."

From Kissinger's letter, in Rather's pos-
session when the above was broadcast:
"Immediately after the OPEC decision [to
raise the price of oil] on December 28 I
wrote a strong letter of protest to the
Foreign Minister of Saudi Arabia and to
President Sadat. President Nixon, on the
basis of my recommendation and draft,
sent a strong letter of protest to the King
of Saudi Arabia. On December 29 I sent
an even stronger protest to the Shah. The

cable to the Shah included the following
sentences: 'The President is greatly con-
cerned over the destabilizing impact the
price increases agreed to in Teheran for
Persian Gulf crude will have on the
world's economy and the catastrophic
problems it could pose to the interna-
tional monetary system. We believe this
drastic price increase is particularly un-
reasonable coming as it does when sup-
plies are being artificially restrained.'"
And a day later, Kissinger wrote to the
British Foreign Secretary Alec Home pro-
posing cooperative action by consumer
nations to combat the price increase, and
objecting that "the decisions [by OPEC]
were taken of course unilaterally without
even the semblance of negotiation with
the international companies or consumer
nations."

None of this, or other related materials,
was alluded to on 60 Minutes. None of
Kissinger's associates was called. Proving?

That the show must go on. ☐

CBS
CONFIDENTIAL

New York, May

14—One had en-
tertained the hope

that on Sunday (May 11) the producer of
60 Minutes would disavow the week-old
thesis that Kissinger egged on the Shah
to raise oil prices in order to subsidize the
purchase of U.S. arms, or present an
effective rebuttal. It would appear plain
that CBS intends to do nothing at all
about it. It is much easier just to let the
whole thing rest. To do so is a) to exhibit
an indifference to the truth that 60 Min-
utes ostensibly seeks to serve; and b) to
betray deep cynicism toward its obliga-
tions to the viewing public.

The facts stand out:

1. By 1973, the U.S. was using its oil at capacity production and our energy requirements were steadily increasing. When the Saudis, in reaction against U.S. backing of Israel during the Yom Kippur War, cut back production by two million barrels per day, causing a scarcity and an increase in the spot market price, the objective conditions were ripe for a general increase in price.

2. During the Yom Kippur War, the Iranians did not cut back production. In fact, the Shah continued to ship oil to

NATIONAL REVIEW / June 13, 1980

748

Israel as well as to the U.S., thus incur-
ring an enmity which the Ayatollah has
taken several opportunities to stress. When
the price increase of December 1973 was
promulgated, the spot price of oil had
reached $17, the OPEC price remaining at
$5.85. That Iran made the motion for an
increase (unanimously endorsed) is a da-
tum of purely parliamentary interest. The
warning given to Kissinger on December
21 by U.S. Ambassador Akins in Saudi
Arabia that an increase was imminent
prompted Kissinger to protest the increase
in various communications (known to
CBS at the time of the airing but never
alluded to).

3. The United States—CBS might have discovered—retaliated against Iran by increasing the cost of the arms Iran had set out to buy. However, most significant is the chronology. The remilitarization emphasized during the 60 Minutes program occurred during the first year of the Carter Administration. Dan Rather's sentence, introducing the program, alluded to the Shah's ordering "$5.7-billion worth of military hardware from this country between October 1976 and September 1977." Dr. Kissinger was a lame-duck Secretary of State during the last two months of 1976. Moreover, that heavy buying program came three to four years after the events described at the expense of Kissinger. When you add two factors—namely a) that in real terms the price of oil declined between the increase of 1973 and the increase of 1978 because of U.S. inflation; and b) that the overwhelming portion of the extra revenues brought into Iran from the price rise of 1973 were spent by the Shah on economic programs—you are left, really, with absolutely no evidence at all of the so-called Shah-Kissinger Connection to encourage a rise in the price of oil in order to finance the purchase of U.S. military equipment. A non-story.

Now NON-STORIES happen all the time. But we have here a non-story sponsored by the head of CBS's news division, Bill Leonard, produced by CBS's Don Hewitt, narrated by CBS's Dan Rather—every fact contradicting which was known to the relevant parties before the program was screened. The brass at CBS has a single story to tell: Ah, but Henry Kissinger was invited on the program! Having said this, how can we then be accused of unfairness?

Any professional litigant or polemicist
knows the answer. Merely to invite some-
one on a program to state his own case,
in limited time, against a finely orches-
trated barrage, is less than adequate treat-
ment. The Sixth Amendment of the Con-
stitution of the United States recognized
this reality long before the age of tele-

vision when it stipulated that a defendant
has the right to subpoena witnesses on his
own behalf. Kissinger supplied a list of
ten expert witnesses qualified to speak on
the subject. Not one of them was invited.
Not one of them was even interviewed.
Given the legendary industry of CBS, the
reason why has got to be obvious: CBS is
not looking for evidence that would put
off the lynching. The nubile noose was
nicely hung over the limb, and a great
big audience was out there waiting, and
CBS aims to please. ☐

CASTRO
VERSUS
MIGUEL

New York, May 19—Miguel Romero (we'll call him) arrived in America four or five years after

Fidel Castro came to power. He had been
a grocer; he was a bachelor, quiet, sensi-
tive, who one day decided he couldn't
take it any more, so he put together ev-
erything he could sell and contrived to
get a ticket to Madrid-New York, because
it was during the period when Castro
pleased himself by forbidding refugees to
fly ninety miles north to Florida, or a few
hundred miles west to Mexico—let them
spend $500 to reach the United States via
Spain. Miguel arrived in Connecticut,
where he went to work as a handyman,
at $2.50 per hour. Within ten years he
had accumulated the money to bring to
America via the same route—Havana-
Madrid-New York—two brothers, a sister,
and his senile mother. He sent them mon-
ey for the air fare by arrangement with
a Canadian bank (sending U.S. dollars to
Cuba was then embargoed).

Having set his brothers up running a
tiny grocery store, and located a Catholic
old people's home for his mother, Miguel
came unhappily to the conclusion that
whatever his other gifts, he would never
learn English—and so, with a few hundred
dollars saved, he set out for Puerto Rico.

There he went into the business of mak-
ing doughnuts, and soon he began to

prosper, investing finally in a big dough-
nut-making machine that tripled his pre-
vious capacity. Once a year he would
treat himself to a trip to Connecticut to
visit his family and bring gifts to his
friends. He was now almost fifty years old
and a man of parts, but his manner was
unchanged: quiet, deferential, doggedly in-
dustrious, frugal. He worried only about
two nephews and two nieces left behind in
Cuba. He had not been able to contrive
their emigration, not even via Madrid, be-
cause Castro had clamped down. Then
suddenly there came the massive invasion
of the Peruvian Embassy, following Cas-
tro's flip statement that anybody who
wished to leave Cuba could do so since
he didn't want such rifffaff around in any
event. Miguel took the next flight to Mi-
ami.

By the time he got to Key West, all the
small fishing boats were gone, but he lo-
cated the owner of a medium-sized vessel
who agreed to pilot Miguel to the port of
Mariel, which Castro had designated as
the staging area for the rifffaff who chose
freedom. The fee would be $1,000 per
day. Miguel's net worth at this point was
about $30,000 so he told the skipper to
speed off, having meanwhile got word to
his four nephews and nieces to stand by.

HE ARRIVED at Mariel. And waited. The emigration officials wouldn't process his application to board his family. One week went by, a second week; a third week. His turn then came, and Castro's officials informed Miguel of the following:

1. He was to board forty Cubans on
his boat and take them off to Key West.

2. None of the forty would be members
of his own family.

3. His family would subsequently be
permitted to emigrate on some other boat
—but only two of the four, and the Cu-
ban authorities would in due course de-
cide which would go, which stay.

Miguel had no alternative. He told the
skipper to head back, with the forty boat-
people. They were effusive in their thanks
to Miguel on reaching Key West. But they
could hardly offer to compensate him, be-
cause they had no money. They had been
limited to one briefcase-sized bag each,
with a few toiletries, a shirt, a blouse,
maybe slippers. The captain did the ac-
counting, and handed Miguel a bill for
$25,000, which he promptly paid (Miguel
always paid his bills promptly). At the
$2.50 per hour he earned when he arrived
in America, that represented ten thousand
hours of work. Well, he would go back to
Puerto Rico and sell more doughnuts.

Castro certainly got the last laugh on
Miguel. You've got to hand it to him. ☐

(Universal Press Syndicate)

June 13, 1980 / NATIONAL REVIEW 749

5/27/80

Dear Mr. Leonard,

I have your letter of May 16. Assure yourself
that I relish this exchange even less than you and wish
even more heartily that the need for it had never arisen.

But it has. The plain fact of the matter is that the
May 2 "60 Minutes" segment, "The Kissinger-Shah Connection?",
was a personal attack on me which I can hardly ignore.

All of it, with the exception of a short postscript--which
presented problems of its own--was selected and produced to
show that it was my "intention" to increase international
oil prices to subsidize the Shah's arms purchases.

Your letter is of a piece with the program.

I have repeatedly stated my objections to your program,
which are if anything reinforced by your letter. They fall
under three headings:

- The Charge of Collusion

- The Misrepresentation of Facts both of Commission
and Omission

- The Unfairness of the Presentation

I shall deal with them in turn.

2

The Charge of Collusion

I suppose I should be grateful that you and "60 Minutes"
feel so strongly that there is no basis for the charge of
collusion between the Shah and me in OPEC's oil price
rises of 1973. Your viewers might be forgiven if they
received a contrary impression from a program entitled
"The Kissinger-Shah Connection"; your program had no other
point except to charge that I shared in the responsibility
for the decision, in ways amounting to either explicit or
tacit collusion.

The charge of collusion is not only proclaimed by the
title of the segment but is underscored immediately when
Mr. Rather carefully builds on a series of innuendos of dark
doings: "Under Kissinger's direction there was virtually
no public debate when the Shah ordered $5.7 billion worth of
military hardware from this country between October 1976 and
September 1977." (The special quality of this sentence is

3

that almost every word in it is untrue or misleading. I was
not Secretary of State for most of this period. Most of
the orders were approved in the Carter Administration.

All sales were put before the Congress as the law required.

What the phrase "under Kissinger's direction" can possibly
refer to in this context is obscure, to say the least.)

Mr. Rather then goes on to quote a miscellaneous collection
of charges, including such "authorities" as the Iranian
President, to imply a continuing special personal affinity
for the Shah--citing no evidence whatever and not reporting
my publicly available denials. He then advances his answer
to the puzzle of why the Shah received such "preferential
treatment": "People in a position to know pointed us toward
a link between Henry Kissinger, the Shah of Iran and the price
you are paying for gasoline." If this is not collusion, then
it would be difficult to find it.

In all events, that is precisely the way two of the

4

people Mr. Rather selected to interview on the program--
Mr. Ball and Mr. Simon--interpreted it in letters to you. I
think it likely that a typical viewer came to the same
conclusion.

Mr. Rather pursues the point of collusion relentlessly
and falsely in the paragraph immediately following: "This
is where it began. (presumably the high oil prices) October
1969. The Shah was in Washington for an official visit
with President Nixon and his first real encounter with Henry
Kissinger. They talked privately for one hour, it is believed,
during which the ground work was laid for the Nixon administra-
tion's policy toward Iran of continuing military and economic
aid to the Shah." My schedule of appointments shows no
private meeting with the Shah in October 1969 (or in July 1972
for that matter) and no record confirms that any decisions
were taken during the Shah's conversations with Nixon in 1969.
No directives of any kind were issued as a result of the visit.

5

It appears to have been a tour d'horizon. It is clear
that the subject of oil price never came up.

Mr. Rather's"theory" as posed to Mr. Simon--which, of
course, your program implies over and over is correct--
continues the theme: "Dr. Kissinger knew full well what he
was doing...he wanted the Iranians and the Shah to have the
weapons...," etc. The false implication of deliberate and
conscious action on my part--acquiescing in or encouraging
the oil prices in 1973 and afterward, or deliberate failure
to object or to "use my influence with the Shah" to lower
oil prices or keep them down--is the theme of every interview
and portion of the program:

-- Akins' assertions (false) that I ignored his
repeated warnings to do something.

-- Simon's statement, as placed in a false context,
that "the State Department," with or without my personal
concurrence, actually favored higher oil prices (pp. 1 and 9).

6

-- Khomeini's spokesman's assertion that the oil price rise was the "logical" way to serve interested that "complemented each other" (pp. 13-14).

You say that the program was meant only to suggest an awareness of a "commonality of interests rather than collusion." This is both hair-splitting and disingenuous.

There is not much difference of consequence that I can see between a belief on my part that a world oil price increase was in the national interest of the United States so that the Shah could buy arms and colluding with him to that end. But more than that, the program clearly went further, beginning with the very title. It did not imply a similarity of world view by Kissinger and the Shah; it was aimed at a "Kissinger-Shah Connection."

You substantiate the alleged commonality of interests with a quote from _White House Years_ which you never mentioned on the program. The reference is absurd. The quotation

7

explains the reasoning behind Nixon's decision to sell F-14's
to Iran in July 1972, fifteen months <u>before</u> the Yom Kippur
war and the consequent oil price rises. There was no question
about the oil price then; we were convinced--as the relevant
documents made clear--that Iran could pay for this weapons
system out of then existing oil revenues. I have never seen a
document to allege the opposite or attended any discussion
that Iran's resources were insufficient. I doubt that you can
dig up <u>any</u> evidence that there was <u>ever</u> any question at high
levels about the Shah's ability to pay for the arms he had
ordered in 1972 and '73. To say our <u>strategic</u> interests and
Iran's in the security of the Persian Gulf were parallel is
not of course to imply that they were also parallel with
respect to oil prices. In short you allege a collusion or
commonality of interests for which you can produce no evidence
whatever.

In a recent communication to Parsky you seem to claim

8

that my transgression consisted of not "making a direct
appeal to dissuade him from submitting his new [price]
formula. Of course your program failed to tell the viewer
that I had written to all OPEC countries protesting the
price increase and asked all OECD nations to join it. You
are entitled to the hindsight of seven years and to say that
an individual cable would have been better than a circular
one. Our perception was that OPEC decisions were made
unanimously, that who put forward the motion was not the
decisive element, especially when we were facing an
Arab embargo and a Saudi production cut-back which were the
immediate causes for the buying panic. But even if with
hindsight one wishes to make a contrary argument, this is
far from proving that the motive was to sell arms.

In fact as you know I was in Geneva opening the Mideast
peace conference. The cable was prepared by associates in
Washington, who of course had access to Akins' cable and
were in close touch with Treasury. I changed not one word

9

of the draft from Geneva. Nor does there exist a contrary
recommendation by Treasury which had access to all these
communications. Your statement in the letter to Parsky that
Simon confirms your current more limited claim must be false.
He never offered a view I am aware of in December 1973. My
disagreement with him occurred in August 1974 in a totally
different context. But, of course, no viewer could possibly
come away with the impression that you devoted a whole program
to the wisdom of a single cable to which you do not even refer.

## Systematic Misrepresentation and Omission of Facts

I have already pointed out the massive factual errors
involved in presenting the charge of "collusion" or "commonality
of interest" in higher oil prices. Regrettably they do not
exhaust the catalogue.

## Additional Misrepresentations:

Mr. Rather and the "60 Minutes" staff gave Akins the lead
in the program. They did so because he was putting forward
his claim to have been a martyred voice, crying in the wilderness,

10

valiant and alone in his opposition to OPEC price rises,
ignored by me and finally fired because his heroic warnings
had been "annoying the Secretary." Preposterous. Akins
played no such role. The facts--and Mr. Rather knew most of
them, and should have known all--were that the Saudis had
already led the way in the first price rise in October of
that year, and that Ambassador Helms had anticipated
Ambassador Akins' warning of the December rise. In short,
Akins was neither the only nor even the leading Cassandra
on the December increase.

But much more important to Akins' alleged warning--
which was given considerable prominence and time; it
occupies four transcript pages--is Rather's flat statement
that the warning, whether first or last, was *ignored*. "He
[Akins] never got an answer" (p. 6) Akins's charade about the
Christmas holidays places this event clearly in December 1973,
when the most significant and most controversial OPEC decision
was made. *This* assertion is central to your program's thesis

11

that I approved or knowingly acquiesced in the quadrupling
of oil prices. (This incidentally is also false; oil
prices were first doubled in early October at the instigation
of the Saudis then doubled again in December.) The episode
occupies four pages of the transcript. You know at a minimum
that there was serious doubt about the truth of the allegation
from my letter to Dan Rather of May 1 that I protested the OPEC
decision, *before* it was made, to all OPEC members and
all the industrialized nations.

Omissions:

You admit in your letter of May 16 that the loss of
American self-sufficiency and the Arab-Israeli war coupled
with a Saudi production cutback "set the stage" for the OPEC
price rises. I do not know your definition of "set the stage"
because you immediately accuse me of ignoring the central
issue which is, of course, the false thesis you started out
with that there was a commonality of interests between the

(V)

12

US and Iran in higher oil prices which was the proximate cause.

I have repeatedly refuted this. So have Secretary Shultz, Gerry Parsky, Charles Robinson and Professor Adelman in letters to you or Mr. Rather with which I am familiar.

As all facts that contradict your thesis you simply ignore these letters.

For a program dealing with the oil price rise not even to mention the end of American self-sufficiency, the Arab embargo and the Saudi production cutbacks can scarcely be called professional. To leave the viewer ignorant that prices had already been doubled under Saudi leadership three months before the *only* price rise you deal with; that after I left office prices rose from $14/barrel to around $30/barrel; that Iran's price rose from $17 when the Shah fell to $35/barrel; that Iran's price without arms purchases and *without* the Shah is the highest of the OPEC countries are all facts that seem to me relevant to the validity of your central thesis; had

13

your viewers been made aware of them they could have made
up their own mind.

The background information on the economics of oil,
that I tried vainly to inject into your consciousness,
obviously does not make for an exciting, action-packed
TV program. Its only merit was that it would be crucial
to any intelligent, as well as fair, analysis and judgment.

What you have done is to present the Saudi version of
events as seen through the eyes of Mr. Akins. But both the
Saudis and Mr. Akins are highly interested parties. Saudi
Arabia was in fact crucial in triggering the whole 1973
sequence of events. Indeed, Saudi Arabia was in 1973, and is,
central to all OPEC price decisions since its production
determines world supply. This is pertinent, one might think,
to any presentation of the question of what accounts for the
price rises of the 1970's, and particularly one like CBS'
that relies to a substantial degree on Saudi claims via Akins
that it was all the Shah's fault.

14

What your thesis comes down to is that the country which did not join the embargo and continued maximum production is held responsible for the oil price rises while the country which organized the embargo and curtailed its production is the passive bystander; indeed that its version of events is the only admissible one. The viewer had a right to know, even in passing, about the crucial role of Saudi policy inducing some reserve about the absurd quotes ascribed to Yamani. (If the Shah had even invoked the Deity he might still be in office.) But this would have cast doubt on your thesis and was therefore excluded.

That Akins' biased version is your ultimate criterion is shown by the phrase in your letter that "curiously your chronology stops in January 1974 as if this were the end of your significant diplomatic efforts to undo the OPEC price increase. Yet Ambassador Akins in discussing his conversations with the Saudis indicated that they continued

15

to press the point of US-Iranian dialogue on oil prices for
much longer."

This allegation of course flatly contradicts your other
point that what really concerned you was my circular note of
December 22. In any event, my letter to Mr. Rather of May 1
was written *before* I had seen the program and was based on
Mr. Rather's summary of it. He represented that the segment
dealt almost exclusively with the oil price rise of 1973,
since in his words that "let the genie out of the bottle."
I repeatedly told him to look into my actions in 1974 and
1975, since they would have proved beyond doubt my commitment
to a strategy of lowered oil prices. He would have found
that at the end of December we sent sharp protests to key
OPEC countries including Iran; that in early January 1974
we sent out invitations to consumer countries to organize
opposition to high oil prices; that the Energy Conference
met in February 1974 under my chairmanship to set up the

16

International Energy Agency, still the sole consumer
organization in existence. He would have learned of the
series of actions to stabilize the market and lower prices
contained in the letter to CBS News of former Deputy Secretary
of State Charles Robinson, the official responsible for <u>all</u>
negotiations in this field.

I gave Rather a list of my public statements on the
subject on May 1, three days <u>before</u> the program was aired.
You dismiss these in your letter as "an assortment of speeches"
apparently not worthy of your attention. But these were
careful statements of governmental policy worked out under my
chairmanship by all relevant departments over periods of
weeks. Their common theme is opposition to high oil prices
and the need to organize effective action to reduce them. Had
you read them you would have found that on February 3, 1975
I proposed a floor price for alternate supplies of oil to
prevent any reduction of OPEC prices from wrecking new

17

sources of energy and thus destroying the market again--a
proposal which would have made no sense had we not sought to
bring down OPEC prices. Nor were these efforts totally
without success since the cost of oil in real terms declined
by 15% between 1974 and 1977--a fact you also fail to mention.

General Unfairness

It is a curious definition of journalistic independence
which uses only witnesses that support a preconceived
central thesis on a program watched by tens of millions.

That Akins has made a career out of peddling this thesis and
has been called the Ambassador from Saudi Arabia by three
reputable journals (Economist August 25, 1975; the Washington
Post, March 14, 1976 and Forbes, April 15, 1976); that Ball
has been a long-time critic of me on a hundred other issues;
that Khomeini's ambassador to the UN has no personal knowledge
of any of these events does not disqualify them from appearing
on your program. (Ball in a letter to you has since informed

(Y)

18

you that he did _not_ review any records relevant to oil prices
as you alleged.) Obviously, Bill Simon is a Republican
and a friend but he and I disagreed on some of these
matters, in the period _after_ 1973, _after_ the price rise had
already occurred and not on the issue you now allege to be
your central concern. The problem is that _all_ your witnesses
gave only one point of view, which is both eccentric
to put it mildly and highly critical of my actions, while
no independent participants were presented to give a different
view.

The selection of witnesses is compounded by the manner
of their presentation. The impression is strongly implied
that they are talking about the oil price rise in December 1973.
The fact is that this is by no means the case.

-- George Ball was talking about the decision to sell
sophisticated arms to Iran made in July 1972. He admits
having seen no documents relevant to your program.

(Y)

19

-- Simon and I differed in August 1974 over a totally different issue than the December decision.

-- Khomeini's ambassador read from an alleged document from March 1973 nine months *before* the decision in question at a time when the Shah did not question low oil prices.

You strung together quotes referring to three different periods to make a defamatory point.

In this context the refusal to put in any other witnesses is indefensible. I did not insist on "friendly witnesses" as you allege. What I proposed was an interview of some noted authority on oil prices who could testify to the uncontroverted fact that the supply and demand situation in 1973, as compounded by the Arab boycott and Saudi production cut made a rise in the price of oil inevitable. Had this point been established by experts I would have been happy to comment on those matters within my knowledge such as the messages I sent and other steps I organized.

20

Your letter makes the invitation for me to appear central to your approach to the entire program. The fact is that it emerged as an afterthought less than 72 hours before the program was to be aired. I first heard of your project on April 17, while I was in London. I returned Mr. Rather's phone call and informed him that his central thesis was untrue and that in judging my emphatic denial he should remember that I never had made a flat assertion to a journalist which I knew to be false. I gave him a list of names he could consult to support what I told him. I offered to let him review documents upon my return on April 21. Rather said that he would not proceed without talking to me in person and reviewing the documents; he implied that he would consult some of the persons I mentioned for his own background.

The next time I heard from Mr. Rather was late in the evening on April 24. He now informed me that he planned

21

to proceed with the story as it stood on April 27. He had
seen no need to consult additional witnesses. Reminded
of his promise to review documents and talk to me he said
that this required a postponement for which he needed your
approval. You were returning from a trip and would look at
the segment the next morning.

Around noon on April 25, a little more than fifty hours
before broadcast time, Rather conveyed to me what he said was
your decision. There would be no review of documents or
an interview of other witnesses. Any rebuttal would have to
come from me alone. This was followed by a series of phone
calls and a personal visit by Mr. Rather, who--in the presence
of my wife--stated that the program as it stood was extremely
damaging to me but it would go on unchanged and without
further research unless I appeared. He never told me that
the title of the program was the "Kissinger-Shah Connection."
I learned that only on Sunday from looking at the television

22

listings. He gave me an hour to respond. Was CBS being
fair or was I being blackmailed?

The manner in which the brief rebuttal alloted to me
was handled was equally unprofessional. Mr. Rather quoted
distorted fragments of what I had thought was a private
conversation. He neither asked my permission nor did he check
the alleged quotes with me (aside from the fact that his
sneering delivery hardly enhanced their credibility). Rather
avoided any substantive rebuttal and emphasized ad hominem
comments designed to make me look defensive and petulant.
I doubt that it would have compromised CBS news' vaunted
independence to permit me at the conclusion of an unrelentingly
hostile program a few sentences of substantive rebuttal in
my own words to be read by Mr. Rather, if necessary from my
letter of May 1st.

Miscellaneous Point - The Price of Military Hardware

The statistics of your letter do not address my point.
The program focuses on my motives--my "conscious state of

[Y]

23

knowledge," my "intention," to quote your latest letter.
The fact that the U.S. government raised the price of its
arms to Iran proves the very opposite of acquiescence. It
shows, in other words, that we did not use the price increase
to subsidize the Shah's weapons purchases. This was the purpose
of my pointing out that the Administration had increased the
price of the weapons it sold to the Shah.

You cite the data to show that the Shah earned much
more from the oil price increases--$16 billion from 1972 to
1974--than he spent in arms purchases--$4 billion at peak.
This does not disprove the point I was making. But it does
show that I would have been woefully misguided if I had
indeed "intended" the 1973-74 price increases to finance
the Shah's arms acquisitions. The data, in short, disprove
the thesis of the program. Pity they weren't used.

I note your threat--higly inappropriate for a
presumably unbiased news organization--that you could make
a good case on the air that if oil prices had not risen in

24

1973 the Shah could not have bought anything "approaching the volume of military hardware that he in fact purchased subsequently." This argument, if presented, would be as untrue as your program, advancing the same fallacy of a single man--who never curtailed production which was the best means to produce price rises--was able to manipulate oil prices which without him would have remained at the 1972 level. No serious person accepts this. There is no telling what a highly rated program can make people believe. But it can not make truth out of a falsehood.

## Conclusion

Your broadcast was not only unfair to me; it was a profound disservice to the American people. The oil price has risen between 1973 and 1980 from around $2.50 a barrel to its current price around $30 a barrel by a series of increments. You arbitrarily selected the increment that took it from around $6 a barrel to $11 a barrel. Ignoring what went before or

25

after you treated this one increase as decisive. You
assigned the blame for it to two individuals and strongly
implied that but for that oil prices would still be at the
1972 level. You therefore give the American people the impression
that it was not the increase in consumption, not the slow
pace of developing alternative sources, not the lack of
consumer solidarity that caused the present situation but
the arbitrary action of individuals. Hence rather than
make the major efforts required to overcome an objective
problem, it is enough to start a witchhunt. Three successive
Presidents of both parties have asked for a national
dedication to overcome an accelerating crisis. "60 Minutes"
contribution is to turn the call for a national effort,
which alone can solve the problem, into a bizarre search
for scapegoats.

When I initiated this correspondence I was, to be sure,
outraged. But I was convinced that a news organization

26

of the reputation and influence of CBS News would be big
enough to look at the full panoply of facts and arrive at
an honorable solution. Oil prices are a complex subject,
government is labyrinthine and honest errors can occur.

It would have been easy to settle our dispute by a serious
discussion among individuals who have heretofore dealt with
each other on the basis of mutual respect. Instead you
have disregarded a host of letters by men of the highest
repute challenging your thesis, and supplying you with data
to support their views. You have ignored the documentation
supplied by me. How you can continue to assert that the
broadcast was accurate is beyond me.

HENRY A. KISSINGER

July 3, 1980

Dear Mr. Leonard:

Having just returned from Europe, I hasten to
reply to your letter of June 11, 1980, inviting me
to appear on 60 MINUTES.

I do not think you could seriously have ex-
pected me to accept your suggestion. There is no
way I could appear on your program for an interview
without the interviewer's repeating all the untrue
charges in order to elicit my comments. More im-
portantly, the responsibility to correct or retract
the numerous falsehoods and distortions of your
May 4 broadcast is yours, not mine.

Appearing for an interview would cast me in
the role of a defendant on issues of fact that
have nothing to do with any actions of mine. My
objection was not that what you call my "point of
view" was inadequately represented. It is rather
that your program's thesis was untrue and based on
no creditable evidence whatever. In addition, I
am amazed that you expect me to consent to be
interviewed by Mr. Rather, who himself made the
most egregious charges on the program and whose
blackmailing tactics constituted so much of the
problem in the first place. He would, if I under-
stand you correctly, interview me for an undeter-
mined length of time and then edit the material
to your needs, which, judging by your many letters,
involve your "standing by the original program";
that is to say, maintaining the basic untruth.
Obviously you cannot expect me to participate in
a venture on such premises.

Mr. Bill Leonard
President
CBS News
524 West 57th Street
New York, NY 10019

Mr. Bill Leonard

Page Two

I have repeatedly urged you to consult some reputable independent expert on oil prices. He would be able easily to confirm the absurdity of alleging that the one OPEC decision of December 1973 can explain the "price you're now paying for gasoline." He would know how oil prices got from $3 in 1973 to $32 today, with the largest increases coming after I (and the Shah) were out of office.

Several news organizations, from The New Republic to the Los Angeles Times to the Wall Street Journal, have denounced the broadcast as biased and false. You have received many letters from participants in our negotiations with OPEC and non-OPEC countries, from oil experts, from former cabinet members, rejecting your approach and exploding your thesis. Two of your so-called witnesses have dissociated themselves from your main thesis, implicitly or explicitly accusing you of tendentious editing. I have written you detailed analyses both before and after the program. Not a word of any of this has appeared on 60 MINUTES. When 60 MINUTES aired a sampling of letters it received, it used only a brief excerpt from one supporting my view. It ignored Mr. Parsky's statement that your program was simply untrue and offered as the only correction Mr. Parsky's statement-- out of context--that Saudi officials had not directly charged me with conspiracy.

You have enough material to correct the record; what you lack is a willingness to admit error. The issue is not how to put the subject in "additional perspective," but your refusal to acknowledge the essential untruthfulness of your original program.