[Y]

DRAFT

To the Editor:

Henry Kissinger wrote a letter challenging the factual
basis of some assertions in Philip Zelikow's review of
<u>Years of Renewal</u> ("No Tapes, No Secrets", July/August 1999,
relying to "The Statesman in Winter", May/June 1999). We
have corresponded privately on this matter and agree on the
following:

Dr. Kissinger's reply was based on an interpretation of
Dr. Zelikow's review as implying that Dr. Kissinger taped
all his official conversations. Dr. Zelikow has assured Dr.
Kissinger that this was not his intent. Dr. Kissinger
accepts that assurance and withdraws his challenge to Dr.
Zelikow's veracity.

On this basis, we both welcome the opportunity to
assure the reader that, first, all conversations of Dr.
Kissinger except telephone conversations were recorded by
visible notetakers and embodied in memoranda of
conversations deposited in official files. Second,
telephone conversations were taped and transcribed, after
which the tapes were destroyed. Transcripts of telephone
conversations are being reviewed by State Department
historians and will, after private conversations have been
deleted, become part of the State Department's files. For

DRAFT

To the Editor:

Henry Kissinger wrote a letter challenging the factual basis of some assertions in Philip Zelikow's review of *Years of Renewal* ("No Tapes, No Secrets", July/August 1999, replying to "The Statesman in Winter", May/June 1999). We have corresponded privately on this matter and agree on the following statement of fact: First, all conversations of Dr. Kissinger except telephone conversations were recorded by visible notetakers and embodied in memoranda of conversations deposited in official files. Second, telephone conversations were taped and transcribed, after which the tapes were destroyed. Transcripts of telephone conversations are being reviewed by State Department historians and will, after private conversations have been deleted, become part of the State Department's files. For his part, Dr. Zelikow wishes to add that Dr. Kissinger's meticulous record-keeping of his tenure in office is an extraordinary legacy that will be of great benefit to present and future generations of scholars.

Henry A. Kissinger
Philip Zelikow

[y]

HENRY A. KISSINGER

By Facsimile

July 6, 1999

Dear Mr. Zelikow:

If there is a misunderstanding, it is caused by your insistence that I maintained a taping system analogous to that of the Nixon and Johnson Administrations. This is simply not so, as Scowcroft can confirm to you. Nixon taped every conversation; Johnson had the capacity to do so but controlled it with a button on his desk. In my case, only telephone conversations in the NSC office were recorded.

Every conversation other than those by telephone is in governmental files as a memcon and accessible to scholars by the existing procedures. The vast majority of telephone conversations in the book are identified as such; the few where I failed to do so are apparent from the context. The taped telephone conversations will, after the review by State Department historians to eliminate private exchanges, become part of the State Department files. If you want to express any of this in a letter, I will be glad to consider joining it, though I do not see the point of it.

Professor Philip Zelikow
Director
Miller Center of Public Affairs
University of Virginia
2201 Old Ivy Road
Charlottesville, Virginia 22905

MILLER CENTER OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS

UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA

Philip Zelikow
Director and White Burkett Miller
Professor of History

July 6, 1999

Dr. Henry Kissinger
New York, NY
VIA FAX

Dear Dr. Kissinger,

Thank you for your letter. But I did not say your taping system was analogous to that of Nixon and Johnson. I said only that it was analogous to the Johnson system. And it was. Both you and President Johnson taped office telephone conversations (though LBJ added a system for taping meetings, only in 1968) through a dictabelt-type system which, as I understand it, required manual activation. LBJ would usually signal a secretary to start the machine. I do not know how the procedure operated in your office.

By the way, even if I could guess that you were quoting a telephone conversation, there was still no way for me or any other reader to know in many cases whether the quote is from a tape transcript or from a memcon of the call (such as a memcon taken by a staffer listening over another extension, using what is sometimes called a 'dead key'). Since the answer may be that both kinds of source material were used, my essay sought to explain this, dispassionately.

The point of the joint letter I suggested was to find a way in which you could retract the allegation that I fabricated statements of fact, but do so in an amiable way. You have been attacked repeatedly by critics of your recordkeeping. Therefore it seemed understandable to me that you might have reacted a bit neuralgically to the quoted passage in my essay, lumping me as one more of those critics. Also, I do respect the quality of the records of your tenure that you have left as a legacy to scholars. So I have suggested a response more creative than the usual polemical letter.

I attach a proposed draft for your consideration.

2201 Old Ivy Road
Post Office Box 5106
Charlottesville, Virginia 22905

Voice: 804-924-7236
Fax: 804-982-2739
http://www.virginia.edu/-miller

JUL 0 6 1999

Draft letter to *Foreign Affairs*

To the Editor:

Henry Kissinger wrote a letter replying to Philip Zelikow's review of *Years of Renewal* ("No Tapes, No Secrets," July/August 1999, replying to "The Statesman in Winter", May/June 1999). In that letter he said, of a passage describing Dr. Kissinger's record keeping system, "Not a word of this passage is true." We have corresponded privately on this matter and agree that the factual assertions in the quoted passage from Dr. Zelikow's essay were indeed true.

Dr. Kissinger was concerned that some readers might mistakenly infer that he has been concealing critical public records. We both welcome the opportunity to assure readers that: First, Dr. Kissinger only taped telephone conversations from his White House NSC office. Second, the transcripts of those conversations — like all other records of Dr. Kissinger's official conversations, will, after review by State Department historians to eliminate private exchanges, become part of the State Department's files. For his part, Dr. Zelikow wishes to add that Dr. Kissinger's meticulous recordkeeping of his tenure in office is an extraordinary legacy that will be of great benefit to present and future generations of scholars.

UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA

July 1, 1999

Dr. Henry A. Kissinger
Kissinger Associates
350 Park Avenue, 26th Floor
New York, NY 10022
VIA FAX: 212-759-0041

Dear Dr. Kissinger,

Do we have a misunderstanding? In my review essay on "Years of Renewal" I wrote: "Meticulous notes were made of his [Kissinger's] meetings, internal and external. Kissinger eventually installed a taping system to relieve weary staffers and transfer the burden of drafting transcripts to a night shift. (This taping system, analogous to the one Lyndon Johnson used, was quite separate from Nixon's own, about which Kissinger says he was ignorant until shortly before it was disclosed to all in 1973.) The products of these extraordinary efforts — which extended beyond the usual official practice of tracking conversations with foreigners to include contacts with anyone, including government colleagues and the president — are quoted frequently in *Years of Renewal* but without any notation of the source."

In your letter of reply (in the July/August 1999 issue of *Foreign Affairs*) you wrote that, "Not a word of this passage is true." In fact, every single word is true. You described your meticulous notetaking routine in your own letter, including internal meetings and including meetings with President Ford. The description of the taping system is undisputed. These efforts (a plural noun referring both to the notetaking and to the taping system) were and remain quite extraordinary in comparison to other administrations. (Only the Eisenhower administration comes close.) You have made this point about quality recordkeeping yourself, in remarking on the careful documenting of your work. I echoed that point, admiringly, in my review. And, of course, none of the quotations in *Years of Renewal* are sourced. So, to repeat, every word I wrote in the passage you quoted is true.

The lack of sourcing is precisely why I felt I had to explain to readers, rather matter of factly, your meticulous record keeping practice. You have perhaps confused me with other reviewers who attacked the way you deposited your papers. I did not attack your choices in this matter. Instead the problem was this: Because the quotes are unsourced, and because the tape transcripts are in the Library of Congress collection and unavailable to outside scholars (except the State Department historians working on the Foreign Relations series), neither I nor any other outsider (or even the former aides whom I consulted) could tell whether the quotations came only from memcons or whether you made use of tape transcripts.

Voice: 804-924-7236
Fax: 804-982-2739
http://www.virginia.edu/~miller

You contend that you taped conversations only while you were at the National Security Council. I guessed that might be true. But since until November 1975 you retained your NSC job while you were Secretary of State, there was, and is, no way for me or any other reader to know whether the tape transcripts are the source for any of the quotations that appear in *Years of Renewal*.

You charged me with fabricating statements of fact. You were mistaken. But I would be happy to ask *Foreign Affairs* to publish a joint letter from both of us. Such a joint letter could indicate that we corresponded and that you agreed my factual statements in the review were accurate. But you would clarify the limited or nonexistent use of tape transcripts as sources in *Years of Renewal* and therefore explain why you reacted to my assertions in the way you did. For my part, I would also be happy to reiterate my debt as a scholar to your conscientious and tremendously valuable endeavor to document the record of American foreign policy during the time so much of it was entrusted to your care.

If you wish to draft the letter, good. Or I would be happy to draft it. But unfortunately I need to find out if you prefer such an amiable solution by next week, the week of July 5, which I'm told is the deadline for getting such a joint letter into the next issue of *Foreign Affairs*. I am also providing a copy of this letter to Brent Scowcroft, since he is a member of my Center's Governing Council.

cc: General Brent Scowcroft

JUL-06-1995 11:21

KHI DC

c12 155 7240 r.02

[10]

# Letters to the Editor

## Henry A. Kissinger responds to Philip Zelikow; Ernest W. Lefever praises nuclear peace; and others

### NO TAPES, NO SECRETS

*To the Editor:*

In his review of *Years of Renewal*, Philip Zelikow indulges the fantasy that there is a treasure trove of documents available only to me that I am mining to the exclusion of other researchers ("The Statesman in Winter," May/June 1999). "Meticulous notes were made of his meetings, internal and external," he writes. "Kissinger eventually installed a taping system to relieve weary staffers and transfer the burden of drafting transcripts to a night shift. (This taping system, analogous to the one Lyndon Johnson used, was quite separate from Nixon's own, about which Kissinger says he was ignorant until shortly before it was disclosed to all in 1973.) The products of these extraordinary efforts—which extended beyond the usual official practice of tracking conversations with foreigners to include contacts with anyone, including government colleagues and the president— are quoted frequently in *Years of Renewal* but without any notation of the source."

Not a word of this passage is true. There was no taping system of any kind for meetings with officials, colleagues, or the president. Notes were taken by visible note-takers of meetings with foreign leaders, staff meetings, and interdepartmental meetings. For meetings with President

Ford, Brent Scowcroft acted as note-taker part of the time. These memoranda were deposited in the appropriate government files. I have duplicates in the Kissinger collection in the Library of Congress. Every conversation quoted in *Years of Renewal* is available under the date quoted in the departmental archives or presidential library files. Phone conversations are so identified with the appropriate date.

The principal difference between my memoranda of conversations and those of other former administration officials is that my note-takers were instructed to get the conversations down as close to verbatim as possible. I did this because Dean Acheson had warned me that he had never seen a memorandum of a conversation in which the author had lost the argument. Contrary to Zelikow's innuendo, my purpose was not to shape the interpretation of events but to leave the most accurate record possible for others to interpret.

The only tapes made were of phone conversations while I was at the National Security Council. These were transcribed, and the tapes were destroyed. The transcripts are available in the Kissinger collection in the Library of Congress and are being reviewed by State Department historians for possible inclusion in their publications.

[152]

FOREIGN AFFAIRS · Volume 78 No. 4

JUL-06-1999 11:21

RHI DC

212 100 1240

F.05

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## Letters to the Editor

In the same carping spirit, Zelikow argues that "little analysis of the American national interest in Vietnam and Cambodia can be found in *Years of Renewal*." The reason for this can be found explicitly on page 463, where I state that I would confine myself to the pain of the final three months of the Vietnam tragedy: "I will not review here the decisions which preceded the ultimate disaster; the literature regarding them covers shelves in libraries, and I have dealt with them elsewhere." A footnote then cites no fewer than 11 chapters in previous volumes dealing with precisely our perceptions regarding Vietnam strategy. When Zelikow gets around to reviewing the book I did write, he might address those chapters.

HENRY A. KISSINGER

Secretary of State in the Nixon and Ford administrations and National Security Adviser to President Nixon

## THE STURDY CHILD OF TERROR

### To the Editor:

In May 1998, the United States and over a hundred other governments castigated India and Pakistan for conducting nuclear tests, accelerating an arms race, and jeopardizing peace on the Indian subcontinent. The Clinton administration in particular scolded them for flouting the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott characterized as "part of the bedrock of the international system" that had put "a brake on what would otherwise have been a juggernaut of nuclear proliferation" ("Dealing with the Bomb in South Asia," March/April 1999).

These and other administration statements on the India-Pakistan situation reflect a profound American ambiguity

over the morality, possession, and use of nuclear weapons that has been evident since their very inception. The common view that nuclear weapons represent a radically new and evil force in history, however, is only half right: the force was new but not evil. Early in the superpowers' nuclear confrontation, Winston Churchill correctly predicted that "safety will be the sturdy child of terror, and survival the twin brother of annihilation." His prescience may very well apply to South Asia as well.

The Cold War demonstrated that the moral and political consequences of nuclear arms—like any other military technology—cannot be separated from the purposes they serve. The two superpowers recognized, moreover, that they were simultaneously political adversaries and strategic allies who shared an interest in preventing nuclear war. U.S. presidents generally understood this and rejected the simple demonization of nuclear weapons in favor of deterrence and political prudence.

Talbott dismisses the contention, advanced by both India and Pakistan, that "their tests will usher in an extended period of nuclear stability in South Asia comparable to the one that preserved the peace between the United States and the Soviet Union." But in February, a scant seven months after the South Asian nuclear tests, Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee traveled to Pakistan to discuss with his Pakistani counterpart Mohammad Nawaz Sharif the contentious issue of Kashmir—over which the two countries had fought two wars in their first, nonnuclear, quarter-century. The two leaders pledged to "intensify their efforts to resolve all issues" and take

FOREIGN AFFAIRS July/August 1999

[153]

[y]

HENRY A. KISSINGER

April 29, 1999

To The Editor:

In his condescending review of *Years of Renewal*, Philip Zelikow indulges the fantasy that there is a treasure trove of documents available only to me that I am mining to the exclusion of other researchers. He writes "...meticulous notes were made of his meetings, internal and external. Kissinger eventually installed a taping system to relieve weary staffers and transfer the burden of drafting transcripts to a night shift. (This taping system, analogous to the one Lyndon Johnson used, was quite separate from Nixon's own, about which Kissinger says he was ignorant until shortly before it was disclosed to all in 1973.) The products of these extraordinary efforts--which extended beyond the usual official practice of tracking conversations with foreigners to include contacts with anyone, including government colleagues and the president--are quoted frequently in *Years of Renewal* but without any notation of the source."

Not a word of this passage is true. There was no taping system of any kind for meetings with officials, colleagues or the President. Notes were taken by visible notetakers of meetings with foreign leaders, staff meetings and interdepartmental meetings. For meetings with President Ford, Scowcroft acted as notetaker part of the time. These memoranda were deposited in the appropriate government files. I have duplicates in the Kissinger Collection in the Library of Congress. Every conversation quoted in *Years of Renewal* is available under the date quoted in the departmental archives or Presidential Library files. Phone conversations are so identified with the appropriate date.

The principal differences between my memoranda of conversations and those of other administrations are that my notetakers were instructed to get the conversations down as close to verbatim as possible. I did this because Dean Acheson had warned me that he had never seen a memorandum of

TWENTY-SIXTH FLOOR • 350 PARK AVENUE • NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10022 • (212) 759-7919

The only tapes were of phone conversations while I was at
the NSC. These were transcribed and the tapes were
destroyed. The transcripts are available in the Kissinger
Collection in the Library of Congress and are being reviewed
by State Department historians for possible inclusion in
their publications.

In the same carping spirit, Zelikow argues that "little
analysis of the national interest in Vietnam and Cambodia
can be found in *Years of Renewal*." The reason for this can
be found explicitly on page 463 where I state that I would
confine myself to the pain of the final three months of the
Vietnam tragedy: "I will not review here the decisions
which preceded the ultimate disaster; the literature
regarding them covers shelves in libraries, and I have dealt
with them elsewhere." A footnote then cites no fewer than
eleven chapters in previous volumes dealing with precisely
our perceptions regarding Vietnam strategy. When Mr.
Zelikow gets around to reviewing the book I did write, he
might address those chapters.

Mr. James Hoge
Editor
*Foreign Affairs*
58 East 68th Street
New York, NY 10021