81

LUNCH SESSION

(1:00 p.m.)

MR. BARBOUR: Before I introduce our luncheon speaker, let me recognize and thank Mike Boland. Mike is the Chief Executive Officer of Arco, our host for lunch. And, Mike, we are very glad to have you here from Los Angeles.

Mike Boland.

(Applause.)

MR. BARBOUR: I mentioned that I had seen some former members of the Cabinet when we were together this morning. One that I want to particularly single out because he is right here and I know everybody wants to see him, Secretary Cap Weinberger.

Mr. Secretary.

(Applause.)

MR. BARBOUR: We have had a great morning with outstanding speakers, who I think have done a very good job of making plain what Republicans think is the right kind of foreign policy and the principles and tenets on which such a foreign policy should be built, and how it should be implemented.

Now, to finish that thought, we are extremely honored to have as our luncheon speaker not only a noted public servant, a renown and respected figure in

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1 international affairs, but a Nobel Peace Prize winner,

2 sworn in as the 56th Secretary of State in 1973. He

3 served as Secretary of State until 1977. He had

4 previously been National Security Adviser to President

5 Nixon, and then later, to President Ford.

6 President Reagan appointed him to chair the

7 National Bipartisan Commission on Central America. He

8 served as a member of the President's Foreign Intelligence

9 Advisory Board. He is the Chairman of Kissinger

10 Associates, Inc., and international consulting firm.

11 I mentioned earlier that he is a recipient of
12 the Nobel Peace Prize, also the Presidential Medal of
13 Freedom and the Medal of Liberty.

14 He was born in Germany and came to the United

15 States as a boy in 1938, and became a citizen of the

16 United States in 1943. He served in the United States

17 Army. He received his undergraduate degree and his Ph.D.

18 from Harvard, where he later served on the faculty of both

19 the Department of Government and the Center for

20 International Affairs. He is the author of many books,

21 including his most recent entitled "Diplomacy," which was

22 published this year.

23 He writes a column for the Los Angeles Times

24 which is syndicated, and it appears across the country.

25 He and his wife, Nancy, reside in New York City.

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We have had the privilege, at the Republican
National Committee, to have Dr. Kissinger speak to one of
our groups earlier this year, when he took a speaking
engagement that President Nixon had previously agreed to
do, and I am very grateful for his having helped us then.
I think it was totally fitting for our group, who had
planned to hear President Nixon, to hear from Dr.
Kissinger. But that also gave me the opportunity to get a
little preview of what I think he will say today, and I
can tell you, you are in for a treat. That is no
surprise.

Dr. Henry Kissinger.

(Applause.)

DR. HENRY KISSINGER

FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE

"What is U.S. Foreign Policy Strategy?"

DR. KISSINGER: Mr. Chairman and ladies and
gentlemen, I first want to express my appreciation to the
Republican National Committee for the delicacy of
arranging the introduction by somebody who speaks with as
much of an accent as I do.

(Laughter.)

DR. KISSINGER: I do not know whether you could
follow in the introduction one very significant set of
events; that there was a period in which I was

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1 simultaneously National Security Advisor and Secretary of

2 State. And the reason I mention it is because never

3 before and never since have relations between the White

4 House and the State Department been as harmonious as they

5 were in those days.

6 (Laughter.)

7 DR. KISSINGER: Now, I once introduced President

8 Reagan in a rather extensive way. And when I got through,

9 he said, One lesson of the movie world or the theater

10 world that I have today violated, he said, Never follow a

11 dog act or a child act.

12 (Laughter.)

13 DR. KISSINGER: I would say never follow two

14 half-declared presidential candidates and one who perhaps

15 should be.

16 (Laughter.)

17 (Applause.)

18 DR. KISSINGER: So, it will not surprise you

19 that I did not hear anything this morning with which I

20 disagree. And let me try to put the foreign policy

21 problem that we face in a more general way.

22 Any of us who have served in national security

23 offices, State or Defense or NSC, would like to see a

24 bipartisan foreign policy. And we Republicans have

25 supported NAFTA. Indeed, without us, it would never have

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1 passed. We supported the President on his belated China

2 decision. And we would be happy with an administration

3 that pursued a coherent foreign policy.

4 Our nobility of spirit in this respect has not

5 been severely tested as far as a coherent foreign policy

6 is concerned.

7 The United States, at the end of the Reagan and

8 during the Bush administrations, celebrated one of the

9 most important and fundamental diplomatic victories that

10 history knows. We achieved practically everything that,

11 in the late forties and fifties, the American

12 administrations of that period set out to do. But that

13 defines our present foreign policy problem.

14 We are now living in a new world. The United

15 States, through the greater part of its history, could be

16 either isolationist or it could overwhelm its problems

17 with resources.

18 During the Cold War, we faced a situation in

19 which our geopolitical and our ideological challenge were

20 identical. And in a two-power world, it was possible and

21 necessary to construe the gain for one side as a possible

22 loss for the other, and to conduct an overall contest on

23 that basis. But now we live in a world in which there is

24 no clear-cut ideological challenge. There is no clear-cut

25 geopolitical challenge. There are five, six nations that

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1 have a significant capacity to influence international
2 affairs.

3 The United States is the strongest. It is the
4 only one that has a global capacity for military
5 intervention. We are still the most powerful economy in
6 the world. But we cannot prescribe what should happen
7 everywhere.

8 So, for the first time in our history, we have
9 to be able to define clear-cut priorities, establish a
10 relationship between them, and decide what we can do
11 alone, what we can do only with others and what we cannot
do at all.
12

13 None of these tasks have been fulfilled by this
14 administration. And my concern is not simply the various
15 issues that have been discussed this morning -- some of
16 which I will return -- but, above all, that criteria for
17 American action or inaction have never been properly
18 defined.

19 When American lives are risked, one has to be
20 able to explain to the American mothers and families what
21 American security interest is involved. That is the
22 reason why all the speakers this morning and why I too
23 oppose a military intervention in Haiti.

24 (Applause.)

25 DR. KISSINGER: And the question is not only

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1 what the immediate security interest is, but what do we do
2 after we have occupied Haiti? By what standards do you
3 measure American disengagement?

4 The same was true in Somalia. And the same is
5 true in Bosnia and in North Korea, where, in fact, we do
6 have a major security interest. But the strange thing is
7 that we have been very vocal about Haiti, but we have not
8 explained to the American public what the problem is if
9 North Korea, that started the Korean War, captured the
10 Pueblo, shot down American reconnaissance planes, blew up
11 half of the South Korean cabinet, should get into
12 possession of nuclear weapons in an area in which 37,000
13 American troops are stationed and in which Japan will not
14 be able to remain a non-nuclear power if minor countries
15 like North Korea, with a very small industrial base, can
16 project themselves into a major crisis.

17 The problem, in my view, is that this
18 administration has not been able to distinguish between
19 professorial concepts and foreign policy. It is one thing
to talk about enlargement of democracy, but, in foreign
20 policy, the problem is what are you going to do about it,
21 how much are you willing to pay for it, and what is the
22 operational measures you are going to carry out.

24 You do not do this if you are in the position of
25 the fellow who, in World War II, said the way to deal with

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1 submarines is to heat the ocean and boil them to the

2 surface.

3 (Laughter.)

4 DR. KISSINGER: Somebody said to him, How are
5 you going to do that? He said, I have given you the idea,
6 the technical implementation is up to you.

7 (Laughter.)

8 DR. KISSINGER: One problem that was not, in my
9 view, discussed enough this morning is the situation in
10 Europe. The Atlantic Alliance has been the most permanent
11 feature of American post-war foreign policy. It has
12 allied us with countries that, with all their
13 shortcomings, share our democratic values, with countries
14 that from Korea to the Gulf War, have always sent troops
15 to fight alongside ours, and in a world in which
16 nationalism is growing, Asia is rising, fundamentalism is
17 developing. We should not jettison lightly the Atlantic
18 relationships that have been established.

19 Now, while lip service is always being paid to
20 the Atlantic Alliance, it is very rare, if not impossible,
21 to find in presidential statements any reference to the
22 Atlantic Alliance that does not link it to that so-called
23 Partnership for Peace. And the Partnership for Peace is
24 based on the proposition that you must not have any new
25 dividing lines in Europe and that every country of Europe,

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1 of the former satellite orbit, of the former Soviet Union,
2 and of the neutrals is eligible for some relationship with
3 NATO. Which, as the President said a few weeks ago, so
4 that they can engage in joint military planning.

5 My question is: For what?

6 What is Kazakhstan and Belgium going to plan
together?

8 (Laughter.)

9 DR. KISSINGER: What is the danger to which this
10 is addressed?

11 What will happen at NATO headquarters when all
12 these military officers appear with their own program for
13 some illusory military cooperation?

14 What is the defense of NATO then going to be?

15 And what does it mean, you do not want to have a
dividing line for a military alliance?

17 We are in danger of creating two categories of
18 borders in Europe: those that are protected and those
19 that are not. And those that are not include countries
20 like Poland and the Czech Republic and Hungary, which
21 border potential turmoil, and thereby invite potential
22 aggression.

23 We are told that we must not upset the new
24 Russia leaders. It is of course of the greatest
25 importance to try to establish the best possible relations

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1 with the Russian leaders. And I have only one requirement
2 of them -- or we as a Nation should have only one
3 requirement -- that they should stay within their national
4 borders. Not an excessive request. They have got 11
5 times zones. No need for claustrophobia.

6 (Laughter.)

7 DR. KISSINGER: There is a slight problem with
8 that. They have never done it in the past.

9 (Laughter.)

10 DR. KISSINGER: And at this moment, there are
11 Russian troops in almost every former republic of the
12 Soviet Union, intervening in civil wars, with a strategy
13 that looks suspiciously like making independence so
14 unendurable that they come back home. Then to tell
15 Poland, partitioned four times in 200 years, that it
16 should seek its security in an assurance that its borders
17 are respected is to repeat all the mistakes of the 20th
18 century.

19 Russia should be drawn into political
20 cooperation, into economic cooperation, but not into NATO.
21 NATO is a protection against outside aggression. The more
22 Russia is part of it, the less it defines what the
23 countries of Eastern Europe and Central Europe are worried
24 about.

25 Now, this difficulty, this refusal to look at

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1 the elements of power, to look at a realistic assessment
2 of international affairs, the rejection of history, and
3 the often appalling staff work which makes the President
4 visit Russia to praise leaders that are fired while his
5 plane is in the air on the way back, this is something
6 that should be of great concern to us.

7 I would like to underline also what all the
8 speakers this morning have emphasized, that a North Korean
9 nuclear capability is a grave threat to the equilibrium of
10 Asia. And there is no compromise possible between a
11 nuclear and a non-nuclear North Korea. It is either one
12 or the other. And it is not an abstruse subject of arms
13 control theology; it is a realistic challenge to the
14 future evolution of Asia.

15 It requires, at a minimum, an explanation to the
16 American people, that has not yet been given, of what is
17 at stake, a clear definition of what it is we are really
18 after, and how that objective is to be achieved; a clear
19 program of how to draw other countries, like China,
20 Russia, Japan, that are adjoining this and that should
21 have an interest, into a dialogue if we cannot manage it
22 bilaterally.

23 When President Carter came back from Pyongyang,
24 he announced one concession, which was not a concession
25 but a reality. It was an agreement by the North Koreans

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1 that they would not reprocess the material they had

2 illegally removed from their nuclear reactor while

3 negotiations were going on.

4 Nobody has explained to the American people that

5 they cannot reprocess it anyhow, because it is too

6 radioactive. It simply can be just a way of wasting time.

7 But I do not want to go into the details of all these
8 issues.

9 We are living in a new world. In 1945, the
10 United States emerged from World War II with all kinds of
11 ideas of collective security, of cooperation, with Stalin,
12 that disintegrated. In the next two years, it developed
13 the concept of containment, which became the lodestar of
14 American foreign policy for 40 years.

15 Now we live in a different world, requiring
16 different concepts. And that effort has not even begun.
17 And in these circumstances, crises keep boiling up all
18 over the world that look inexplicable. Issues arise for
19 which we have no guidelines. And even if this or that
20 issue is handled tactically skillfully, it does not solve
21 the underlying problem.

22 So, the challenge we Republicans must put is to
23 explain the world in which we find ourselves to the
24 American people, to hope and to contribute to the
25 articulation of an approach for dealing with it that

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combines idealism and realism, that is relevant to the
real problems, and by which you can measure progress.

This is not just a political obligation; it is, in my
view, a national duty. Because when all is said and done,
the future progress and peace of the world depends, as it
has for the last 40 years, even in the new conditions,
crucially on the role the United States is prepared to
play.

And now I will take a few of your questions.

Thank you.

(Applause.)

VOICE: Dr. Kissinger, could you tell us what
you think about the threats of two things, Muslim
fundamentalism and Zhirinovsky in the Soviet Union, the
size of these threats, and what, if anything, should be
done about them?

SECRETARY KISSINGER: I think the biggest
problem in the Near East, and in fact throughout the
Islamic world, is no longer the Arab-Israeli conflict but
the rise of fundamentalism, and we see it emerging at this
moment especially actively in Algeria, and if Algeria
should be -- if the Government in Algeria should be
overthrown and the fundamentalists come in, Morocco and
Tunisia would be in great difficulties, and Egypt would
come under renewed pressures, not to speak of the Gulf

94

1 States.

2 This would generate a flood of immigrants into
3 Europe, which would create an entirely novel and dangerous
4 political crisis in European countries. This is one of
5 the areas, in fact, where we and the Europeans have a
6 common interest, and one of the reasons why the Atlantic
7 Alliance ought to be redefined and strengthened rather
8 than dissipated, as I fear is happening now.

9 In fact, if you take the eastern arm of the
10 Muslim fundamentalism in the region of Central Asia, we
11 and Russia have certain common interests to prevent
12 Iranian fundamentalism from developing, provided Russia
13 deals with it as a foreign policy problem and not as an
14 expansionist Russian imperialist problem.

15 Now, Zhirinovsky. Of course, there is an
16 obvious danger of Russian nationalism. Russia has been
17 deeply humiliated by its apparent weakness in the last few
18 years, and the fundamental theme of Russian foreign policy
19 for 400 years has been imperialism, and when something is
20 carried out for 400 years, I assume it reflects a certain
21 proclivity, at least among the ruling groups.

22 Those of you who know Russia will probably agree
23 with me that it is very rare to find among educated
24 Russians many people -- I would say anybody -- who accepts
25 the independence of the former republics of the Soviet

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1 Union, with the possible exception of the Baltic States,
2 certainly not of Ukraine, so Zhirinovsky represents some
3 fundamental tendencies in Russia.

4 The question that it raises for us is, if the
5 only way Yeltsin can maintain himself in power is to
6 follow Zhirinovsky's policy, then the application to us is
7 not world-shaking, and therefore I believe it is important
8 that we deal with Russia as a foreign policy and not as a
9 psychiatric problem.

10 We act as if we can influence the domestic
11 politics of Russia. I believe the best way to influence
12 the domestic politics of Russia is to convince Russian
13 leaders, whoever they may be, that the disaster for Russia
14 over the last hundreds of years has been overextension,
15 and that if they go down that road again, they will suffer
16 the same shipwreck.

17 Concurrently, I favor some economic aid, I favor
18 political cooperation, but I do not believe that we should
19 let them use Zhirinovsky to blackmail us into doing things
20 that we would otherwise not find acceptable.

21 VOICE: Mr. Secretary, do you see any
22 significant divergence of security interests between the
23 U.S. and China with regard to nuclear arms in North Korea,
24 and if not, how can the U.S. leadership best engage the
25 Chinese leaders and work with them in order to bring about

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1 the outcome that we seek with North Korea?

2 SECRETARY KISSINGER: First of all, let me first

3 talk for a minute about China.

4 The Chinese have the longest uninterrupted
5 history of self-government of any nation in the world,
6 5,000 years. The overwhelming majority of that period
7 they have conducted their affairs without significant
8 input from the United States, and they therefore do not
9 consider it necessarily true that we should have a
10 decisive voice in their domestic politics, yet this has
11 preoccupied us greatly in recent months.

12 Secondly, the Chinese have a long history of
13 cold-blooded analysis of international affairs, of playing
14 off the various barbarians against each other. In this,
15 we have a great asset, that we are a distant barbarian,
16 and therefore we are safer than, say, Japan, as far as
17 they are concerned, so it is perfectly possible -- indeed,
18 very possible, and highly desirable, that we have a
19 strategic dialogue with China over the future evolution of
20 Asia.

21 For the next 10 to 15 years I would say we have
22 really parallel interests, in that we do not want any
23 nation to dominate the area, and China is not strong
24 enough to dominate the area yet. What will happen in 15
25 or 20 years is another matter.

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1 China cannot want a nuclear armed Korea on its
2 borders, but we must engage them in a serious, mature
3 dialogue on that subject, and I actually believe what we
4 should do on the Korean issue is to put a time limit on
5 the bilateral talks, and then to move it into a forum that
6 includes China, and in this case, Russia and Japan, in
7 which we put it to them how grave the situation is, and
8 what we think needs to be done, and only after such a
9 conference can we decide whether this is like the Gulf and
10 we have to deal with it unilaterally, whether we can
11 generate meaningful sanctions, or enough pressures on
12 Korea to get this thing ended.

13 So I do not give up on bringing China into such
14 a dialogue, provided we deal with them as a major nation,
15 and discuss foreign policy and not foundation-type
16 problems.

17 VOICE: One question. What do you think should
18 be the relationship between NATO and the Conference on
19 Security Cooperation in Europe?

20 SECRETARY KISSINGER: I think the Conference for
21 Security and Cooperation in Europe can become and should
22 become an instrument for political passification of
23 Europe, for political cooperation, for dialogue about
24 political and economic and social problems.

25 I do not believe that NATO should be made a

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1 subdivision of the European security conference as Russia
2 has proposed, because this would give Russia a veto over
3 NATO, and it has been a consistent Russian policy in the
4 whole Cold War, and interestingly enough in the post Cold
5 War period, to dilute NATO to a point where it becomes a
6 debating society.

7 I do not think it is inappropriate for the
8 nations of the West to divine a common defense policy. If
9 there are no common tensions between Russia and the West,
10 which I surely hope, then the relevance of NATO to Russian
11 affairs will become less, and that of the European
12 security conference will become more, and I would
13 certainly encourage the economic or the European security
14 conference, but I would not put NATO under it, and I would
15 not use NATO as the instrument for East-West improvement
16 of relations. I would use the European security
17 conference for that.

18 (Applause.)

19 MR. BARBOUR: Thank you, Dr. Kissinger, for a
20 very fitting conclusion.

21 Let me make one announcement that I hope all of
22 you will take note of. Today, we have had a Republican
23 foreign policy forum because we think it is important for
24 Americans to know Republican views on foreign policy, to
25 be able to compare our views to what is or isn't being

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DR. HENRY KISSINGER

FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE

DR. KISSINGER: Mr. Chairman and ladies and
gentlemen, I first want to express my appreciation to the
Republican National Committee for the delicacy of
arranging this introduction by somebody who speaks with as
much of an accent as I do.

(Laughter.)

DR. KISSINGER: I do not know whether you were able
to follow in the introduction one rather unique sequence of
events; namely that there was a period in which I was
simultaneously National Security Advisor and Secretary of
State. The reason I mention it is because, never
before and never since, have relations between the White
House and the State Department been as harmonious as they
were in those days.

(Laughter.)

DR. KISSINGER: At any rate, it will not surprise
you that I heard nothing this morning with which I
disagreed. But let me try to formulate the foreign policy
problem that we are facing in a more general way.

Any of us who has served in National Security
offices - State or Defense or NSC - would like to see a
bipartisan foreign policy. And we Republicans have
supported NAFTA. Indeed, without us, it would never have

[LC]

been passed. We also supported the President on his belated
China decision. And we would be happy with an administration
that pursued a coherent foreign policy. In this respect, our
nobility of spirit has not been severely tested, at least as
far as a coherent foreign policy
is concerned.

At the end of the Reagan and during the Bush
administrations, the United States celebrated one of the
most important and fundamental diplomatic victories in
history. We achieved practically everything that,
in the late 1940s and 1950s, the American
administrations of that period had set out to do. And yet,
this now is precisely what defines our current foreign policy
dilemma.

We are living in a whole new world. Heretofore, the
United States - as it has through the greater part of its
history - could be either isolationist on the one hand or
overwhelm its problems with the sheer wealth of its resources.

During the Cold War, our geopolitical and our
ideological challenges were identical. In such a two-power
world, it was possible and necessary to construe the gain of
one side as a possible loss for the other, and to conduct the
overall contest on that basis. But now we live in a world in
which there is no clear-cut ideological or geopolitical
challenge. There are five or six nations with a significant
capacity to influence international affairs.

[LC]

3

Of these, the United States is the strongest. It is the one with a global capacity for military intervention. And ours is still the most powerful economy in the world. But we cannot prescribe what should happen everywhere. Therefore, for the first time in our history, we have to define clear-cut priorities, establish a relationship among them, and decide what it is we can do alone, what we can only do with others, and what we cannot do at all.

None of these tasks has been fulfilled by the present administration. And my concern is not simply with the various issues which have been discussed this morning -- to some of which I will return -- but, above all, that the criteria for American action - or inaction - have never been properly defined.

When American lives are put at risk, one has to be able to explain to American mothers and American families the national security interest which is at stake. That is the reason why all the speakers this morning and why I too oppose military intervention in Haiti.

(Applause.)

DR. KISSINGER: The question is not only the immediate security interest, but what we are to do after we have occupied Haiti. By what standards do we measure American disengagement?

The same was true in Somalia, and it is

[L.C.]

4

true in Bosnia and in North Korea, where, in fact, we do
have a major security interest. But the strange thing is
that while we have been very vocal about Haiti, we have not
explained to the American public what the problem is should
North Korea - which started the Korean War, captured the
Pueblo, shot down American reconnaissance planes and blew up
half of the South Korean cabinet - get possession of nuclear
weapons in an area in which 37,000 American troops are
stationed; and in which Japan will not be able to remain a
non-nuclear power if minor countries like North Korea, with
very small industrial bases, can thus project themselves into
a major crisis.

The problem is that this administration has not been
able to distinguish between philosophical concepts and foreign
policy. It is one thing to talk about enlargement of
democracy, but, in foreign policy, the problem has to do with
what you are going to do about it, how much are you willing
to pay for it, and what the operational measures are that you
are willing to carry out. Nor do you do any of this if you
are in the same position as the fellow who, during World War
II, offered to deal with the problem of enemy submarines by
heating up the ocean and boiling them to the surface.

(Laughter.)

DR. KISSINGER: When somebody asked him "how are
you going to do this?" He said: "I have given you the idea;
the technical implementation is up to you."

[LC]

5

(Laughter.)

DR. KISSINGER: One problem which was not sufficiently discussed this morning is the situation in Europe. The Atlantic Alliance has been the most permanent feature of American post-war foreign policy. It has allied us with countries which, with all their shortcomings, have shared our democratic values; with countries which, from the Korean to the Gulf War, have always sent their troops to fight alongside ours. And in a world in which nationalism is on the rise, Asia is growing, and fundamentalism is developing, we should not lightly jettison the Atlantic relationships which have been established.

Now, whereas lip service is being paid to the Atlantic Alliance, it is very rare, if not impossible, to find any reference in presidential statements to the Atlantic Alliance that does not link it to the so-called Partnership for Peace. This Partnership for Peace is based on the proposition that you must not have any new dividing lines in Europe, and that every country of Europe, of the former satellite orbit, of the former Soviet Union, and of the neutrals should be eligible for some relationship to NATO so that, as the President said a few weeks ago, they can engage in joint military planning.

My question is: What for?

What are Kazakhstan and Belgium going to plan together?

[LC]

6

(Laughter.)

DR. KISSINGER: What, furthermore, is the danger to which it would be addressed? What will happen at NATO headquarters when all these military officers appear with their own programs for some illusory military cooperation? What will the defense of NATO be then?

Then too, what does it mean that you do not want to have dividing lines for a military alliance? For we are in danger of creating two categories of borders in Europe: those that are protected and those that are not. And those that are not include Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary, countries which are contiguous to potential turmoil and thereby invite potential aggression.

We are told that we must not upset the new Russian leaders. It is, of course, of the greatest importance to try to establish the best possible relations with the Russian leaders. And I have only one requirement of them -- or we as a nation should have only one requirement: that they remain within their national borders. That is not such an excessive request: After all, they have 11 time zones and should feel no need for claustrophobia.

(Laughter.)

DR. KISSINGER: And yet, there is a slight problem with that: they have never done it in the past.

(Laughter.)

DR. KISSINGER: At this moment, there are

[L.C.]

7

Russian troops in almost every former republic of the
Soviet Union - intervening in civil wars and with a strategy
that looks suspiciously as if their goal is to make
independence so unendurable that they all come back home.
Given this fact, it is to repeat all the mistakes of the 20th
century to tell Poland - partitioned four times in 200 years -
that it should seek its security in the mere assurance that
its borders will be respected.

Russia should be drawn into political
cooperation, into economic cooperation, but not into NATO.
NATO is the shield against outside aggression. The more
Russia is a part of it, the less is defined what the
countries of Eastern Europe and Central Europe are in fact
worried about.

This refusal to analyze the elements of power, or
to assess realistically international affairs and to reject
history - combined with frequently appalling staff work -
cause our President on his visit to Russia to praise leaders
who are then fired while his plane is en route home. All this
should be of great concern to us.

I would like to underline as well what all the
speakers this morning have emphasized; that a North Korean
nuclear capability is a grave threat to the equilibrium of
Asia. And there is no compromise possible between a
nuclear and a non-nuclear North Korea. It is either one
or the other. Nor is this some abstruse subject of arms

[LC]

8

control but a realistic challenge to the future evolution of
Asia.

At a minimum, it requires an explanation to the
American people - which has not yet been given - of what is
at stake, a clear definition of what it is we are really
after, and how that objective is to be achieved; and a concise
program of how to draw other adjoining countries which should
have an interest - countries like China, Russia and Japan -
into a dialogue if we cannot manage it bilaterally.

When President Carter came back from Pyongyang,
he announced a concession which was not a concession
but a reality. It was the agreement on the part of the North
Koreans not to reprocess material they had illegally removed
from their nuclear reactor while negotiations were going on.
What nobody has explained to the American people is that they
cannot reprocess in any event because it is too radioactive.
So it is simply a way of wasting time. But I do not want to
go into the details of all these issues here.

The point is, we are living in a new world. In
1945, the United States was emerging from World War II with
all kinds of ideas about collective security and cooperation
with Stalin which, of course, disintegrated. In the course
of two years, they had evolved into the concept of
containment, which became the lodestar of American foreign
policy for the next 40 years.

The world we are living in now is different, and it

[L.C.]

9

requires altogether different guiding principles. That effort
has not even begun. Thus seemingly inexplicable crises keep
erupting all over the world. Issues arise for which we have
no guidelines. And even when this or that issue is handled
skillfully on the tactical level, it does not solve the
underlying problems.

Therefore the challenge before us Republicans is to
explain the world in which we find ourselves to the American
people, and to hope to contribute to the articulation of an
approach for dealing with that world that combines idealism
with realism, that is relevant to the actual problems, and by
which we can measure progress. This is not just a political
obligation; it is, in my view, a national duty. Because, when
all is said and done, the future progress and peace of the
world depends crucially, as it has for the last 40 years and
even under the new conditions, on the role the United States
is prepared to play.

Thank you. Now let me take a few of your questions.

(Applause.)

[L.C.]

10

problem in the Near East, and in fact throughout the
Islamic world, is no longer the Arab-Israeli conflict but
the rise of fundamentalism. We see it particularly emerging
in Algeria just now. If the Government in Algeria should be
overthrown and the fundamentalists come in, Morocco and
Tunisia would be in great difficulties and Egypt would
come under renewed pressures - not to speak of the Gulf
States. This would generate a flood of immigrants into
Europe, leading to an entirely novel and dangerous
political crisis in the European countries. This is one of
the areas, in fact, where we and the Europeans have a
common interest, and one of the reasons why the Atlantic
Alliance ought to be redefined and strengthened rather
than dissipated, as I fear is happening.

If you take the eastern arm of Muslim fundamentalism
in the region of Central Asia, the United States and Russia
have certain common interests to prevent Iranian
fundamentalism from developing, provided Russia deals with it
as a foreign policy problem and not as a domestic,
expansionist, or imperialist issue.

Now, as for Zhirinovsky. Of course, there is danger
of Russian nationalism. Russia has been deeply humiliated by
its weakness of the last few years; and the fundamental theme
of Russian foreign policy has, for 400 years, been
imperialism. Now when something is carried out for 400 years,
I assume it to reflect a certain proclivity, at least among

[L.C.]

11

the ruling groups.

Those of you who know Russia will probably agree with me that it is very rare to find among the educated Russian classes very many people -- I would say nearly none -- who accept the independence of the republics of the former Soviet Union - with the possible exception of the Baltic states though certainly not of Ukraine. So Zhirinovsky does represent certain fundamental tendencies in Russia.

The question which this raises for us is: if the only way Yeltsin can maintain himself in power is to follow Zhirinovsky's policy, then the application of that lesson to us is the importance of dealing with Russia as a foreign policy and not as a psychiatric problem. Too often we act as if we could influence the domestic politics of Russia. I believe the best way to influence the domestic politics of Russia is to convince Russian leaders, whoever they may be, that Russia's disaster over the last several hundred years has been overextension, and that if they go down that road again, they will suffer the same shipwrecks.

Concurrently, I favor some economic aid and political cooperation, but I do not believe that we should permit them to use Zhirinovsky to blackmail us into doing things we would otherwise not find acceptable.

VOICE: Mr. Secretary, do you see any significant divergence of security interests between the U.S. and China with regard to nuclear arms in North Korea,

[LC]

12

and if not, how can the U.S. leadership best engage the
Chinese leaders and work with them in order to bring about
the outcome that we seek with North Korea?

SECRETARY KISSINGER: First of all, let me talk
about China for a minute.

The Chinese have the longest history of
uninterrupted self-government of any nation in the world -
5,000 years. For the overwhelming majority of that period,
they conducted their affairs without significant input from
the United States. Therefore they do not consider it
necessarily true that we should have a decisive voice in their
domestic politics, although that has preoccupied us greatly
in recent months.

Secondly, the Chinese have a long history of
cold-blooded analysis of international affairs, of playing
off the various "barbarians" against each other. In this,
we have a great asset, being distant barbarians as far as they
are concerned and therefore safer than, say, the Japanese.
So it is perfectly possible -- indeed, very possible and
highly desirable - that we have a strategic dialogue with
China over the future evolution of Asia.

For the next 10 to 15 years I would say we and the
Chinese will have parallel interests, in so far as we do not
want any nation to dominate the area. And China is not yet
strong enough to dominate it. What will happen after 15 or
20 years is another matter.

13

The Chinese cannot want a nuclear-armed Korea on their borders, and we must engage them in a serious, mature dialogue on that subject. I actually believe that what we should do on the Korean issue is to put a time limit on the bilateral talks and then to move it into a forum that includes China, Russia and Japan. There, we put it to them just how grave the situation is and what we think needs to be done. For only after such a conference can we decide whether the situation is analagous to the Gulf: that is, whether we have to deal with it unilaterally or whether we can generate meaningful sanctions or enough pressures on Korea to get the thing ended.

I do not give up on bringing China into such a dialogue, provided we deal with it as a major nation and discuss foreign policy rather than foundation-type issues.

VOICE: One question. What do you think should be the relationship between NATO and the Conference on Security Cooperation in Europe?

SECRETARY KISSINGER: I think the Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe can and should become an instrument for the political passification of Europe, for political cooperation, and for dialogue on political, economic, and social problems.

I do not believe that NATO should be made a subdivision of the European Security Conference, as Russia has proposed, because this would give Russia a veto over

[LC]

14

NATO. It has been a consistent Russian policy throughout the whole Cold War and, interestingly enough, in the post-Cold War period as well, to dilute NATO to the point where it becomes a debating society.

I do not think it inappropriate for the nations of the West to divine a common defense policy. If there are no common tensions between Russia and the West, which I surely hope, then the relevance of NATO to Russian affairs will become less and that of the European Security Conference will become more. And while I would certainly encourage the European Security Conference, I would not put NATO under it or use NATO as the instrument for improving East-West relations. For that, I would use the European Security Conference.

(Applause.)

MR. BARBOUR: Thank you, Dr. Kissinger, for a very fitting conclusion.

REMARKS OF
DR. HENRY KISSINGER

APRIL 29, 1994

Of course, after this introduction I'm in the same position I was once in at a cocktail party where a lady came up to me and said, "I understand you're a fascinating man". Then she said, "Fascinate me." It turned into one of the less successful conversations that I've had.

Of course we are all deeply saddened by the occasion that brings me here. Richard Nixon used to do these tremendous tours de force in which he pushed the rostrum away and would move into the middle of the platform and free associate for an hour about foreign policy. Those were spectacular performances. I have said what I feel about Richard Nixon in my eulogy for him. What most people don't realize is that I didn't know him when he appointed me. And what's even more important, he didn't know me. I had never met him, though I still read all these stories about how I plotted to get to the White House as Secretary of State.

My preparation for being appointed by Richard Nixon was 10 years of association with Nelson Rockefeller, which as you can imagine was not the straight line you would normally set aside. Nevertheless President Nixon did me the honor of appointing me as his Security Adviser.

It showed that he was concerned primarily about substance. He was such a shy man that after we had spent two hours together in my first appointment with him, I knew he had asked me to do something but I didn't know what it was. About three days later I got a phone call from John Mitchell. And John Mitchell said, Well, are you going to take the job or not?" I said, "What job are you talking about?" He said, "Oh my God he's screwed it up again." About an hour later President Nixon called me, and then I knew what he wanted. But I did not know from my first appointment.

By the time he appointed me as Secretary of State, we had come to know each other. He did it by inviting me to his swimming pool in San Clemente, where we were paddling around for a while. Just as we were leaving the pool, he said, "Oh by the way, I have a press conference tomorrow and I'd like to put you forward as Secretary of State. Do you have any objection?" I said, "Well, if that's the way you feel..." Though he had a forbidding demeanor to the outside world sometimes, he was a very shy and withdrawn man. But he was a great man who did remarkable things for the United States.

And it was during the most anguished period, under conditions in which the people who had got us into a war were joining the peace movement the minute they left office. It's not good for my blood pressure when I read some of the stories about and even about the Vietnam War during which he did the stupendous feat of withdrawing 550,000 people without betraying those whom previous American administrations had promised they would protect.

2

[lc]

The full history of the post-war period cannot be understood or appreciated without the role played by Richard Nixon. So it is a great honor for me to be able to speak in a spot that he would have filled.

Let me talk about the present situation internationally and then take some of your questions.

Up to now, to be quite frank with you, the Republican Party has not fulfilled what it should in the field of foreign policy. And we are facing one of the strangest administrations that I have seen in the post-war period. While there has been criticism of individual measures, there has not been a coherent assessment of what we are facing. What we are facing are some of the following elements:

1. The current administration has no organizational frameworks for foreign policy. There is no place where you can even find out what is supposed to be the national policy of the United States. Everything is done on an entirely ad hoc basis and is driven almost exclusively by public relations.

2. Its foreign policy reflects attitudes that were formed in the early 1970s, congealed in the way it happens in these movies where a man is frozen in an ice flow and then gets thawed out later.

Many in the current administration started out as protesters, went down to Arkansas and haven't emerged until recently, and with the same ideas that they formed in the early 70's. Those ideas are that: American power is dangerous. Ours is not a good society and it has not right to conduct an affirmative foreign policy. We should therefore act as much as is possible multilaterally and aim for some sort of vague reconciliation with various nations and not on the basis of any geopolitical concept of the national interest. If anything, there is a fear of affirming an American national interest.

The result is that we are floundering in almost every crisis. One minute we say we are doing multilateral nation-building in Somalia, and we're chasing a warlord through the streets of Mogadishu. The next minute we suffer 15 casualties, which was totally predictable, and then we bug out! *bug out, now that's a sophisticated expression.*

Now I personally do not believe we should ever have gone into Somalia, and I certainly do not believe we should have carried out an attempt to build a nation in Somalia unless we were also willing to fight a civil war. I do not believe we have sufficient national interest in Somalia to fight a civil war there.

The basic foreign policy problem that the United States now faces, is this: Through most of our history we were either dominant or isolated. We were either separated from the world by two great oceans, or we had such a huge surplus of resources that we didn't really have to conduct foreign policy in the traditional sense. Rather, we could identify problems and then overwhelm them with our resources. When I speak of foreign policy in the traditional sense, I mean interests, determining your objective, deciding what price you're willing to pay for it, and then implementing what you have decided.

In the Cold War, we did tremendous things. Nevertheless, it was a two-power world. We had an ideological enemy, who was also our geopolitical enemy. Therefore, the Cold War could be conducted as a kind of crusade and as a mobilization of resources. And we won it. Now we are in a totally different world. We are in a world without a clear-cut ideological enemy and without a single overwhelming geopolitical menace.

We also have four, five, perhaps six major power centers: Europe, China, Russia, whatever emerges on the territory of the former Soviet Union, and obviously the United States and Japan. In such a world one needs to be able to decide: (a) what the nation's interest is and (b) how to establish some kind of equilibrium.

In such a world you would only be safe if you could either dominate it or balance it. There has never been any other way. And this, the administration has absolutely, resolutely, refused to face. I have a collection of statements that I culled from press conferences during which President Clinton is standing next to the President of Kazakhstan, which is near the Chinese border, and somebody says, "Now what is that Partnership for Peace you are proposing for Kazakhstan?" And Clinton says, "Well, I want to group together the former members of NATO, the former members of the Warsaw Pact, all the neutrals, and the former members of the Soviet Union, so that we can do some joint military planning." Joint military planning for what? And against which enemy? China?

Then, too, what happens to Poland, which happens to feel threatened by the Soviet Union. The other day, Clinton was asked, "What about North Korea?" And his answer was, "North Korea is missing a great opportunity to contribute to the unification of Korea." Unification of Korea? The North Koreans don't want the unification of Korea. The only unification of Korea they want is if they can conquer South Korea. That is the opportunity they see.

And so, you might well ask yourselves: what is going on in the minds of our leaders? No student of foreign policy would ever suggest that we should take on China and Japan simultaneously. That's conducting foreign policy the hard way. Yet, that is what we're doing. Any student of foreign policy would know that it's not in the American national interest to drive Japan and China together. Yet here we are, tackling the Japanese on trade, which they probably deserve, and the Chinese on human rights, and without knowing the outcome of either. Nor is there any clear-cut strategy for doing it. Therefore, what I think is desperately needed is some coherent Republican statement of what we are facing, and not just permitting ourselves to get dragged into individual issues.

Take the Bosnian issue. Within the space of ten days, we have had the following statements. We have had the Secretary of Defense saying we would not defend Gorazde. Of course not one percent of the Americans had ever heard of Gorazde before this thing started, myself included. Then the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs said we couldn't defend Gorazde. After which the Security Adviser said we should resist in Korenzi. So we drop ten bombs over it. Four are duds. And right after, the President says we are going to undertake diplomacy. Two days later he asks for NATO air strikes on a massive scale in Bosnia.

It is my belief that when American lives are risked we have to able to explain to the mothers

Y

[lc]

what the national interest of the United States is on those issues. We cannot play it in
response to media comment, and we have to be able to define it.

Early on, about 15 months ago, we probably could have enforced a cease fire in the Bosnian
conflict. I think we could still probably enforce a cease fire. But I would make a sharp
distinction between two problems: (1) if somebody says that, because we have a human
rights concern and we want to end suffering we need therefore to impose a cease fire, I will
listen (2) but if somebody says that we have a national interest in exactly where the dividing
line is between the Croats, the Serbs and the Moslems in Bosnia, I would have very serious
doubts about that. Bosnia has never been a nation. It has no homogenous ethnic
composition. It has never been a unit other than an administrative unit of various empires,
never as a separate state. A Nineteenth Century statesman said, "Be careful no to get
yourself involved in the passions and the lusts of the Balkans." If you are interested in the
actual history, read up on the Balkan Wars from 1878 to 1880. It's an almost exact replay
of what is going on today.

What we need right now is for somebody to define what we are trying to do in the world.
The United States cannot solve every problem. But it must seek to solve those problems
which are of fundamental concern to the United States. And this task we are failing
completely.

Now let me turn to the major countries. It was in the last two years of his life that Richard
Nixon and I had the only substantive disagreement that we had ever had, and that was how
to deal with the former Soviet Union. Yet, by the very end of his life, he and I had reached
the same conclusion. For a moment, Richard Nixon was arguing that we should concentrate
on the domestic situation within Russia. I agreed with him on the need to give some
economic aid to Russia but only in the context of having certain things clearly understood.
However, by the end of his life, he and I were again in complete agreement as to the
following.

On the territory of the former Soviet Union, the traditional Russia has for 400 years pursued a consistent policy of expansion. When a nation has done something for 400 years, you can say that that indicates a certain proclivity. Therefore, you cannot just assume that a change of government will end an impetus that has been in place under czars and commissars alike. The whole vast territory between Vladivostok and Central Europe will be filled by something, and that is what is happening now.

Our victory in the Cold War is one of the most astonishing successes in diplomatic history. If you compare what American leaders were saying from, say, 1950 to '55 with what happened in 1990, there is an almost exact correspondence. But it has also left us with a world which we have never had to deal with before. In the past, when America got involved, it could deal with a specific problem and withdraw afterwards. We were never responsible for the geopolitical structure of the world as it was emerging.

Now we have this huge territory which has broken up into 15 different states, and on this
territory Russia is the single largest state. Of course, the current government in Russia is

far preferable to a Communist Russia. On the other hand, all of its neighbors are terrified of it. I do not know a single neighboring country from Finland to Mongolia that is not scared of what Russia is going to do. That was true even under the Communists.

It used to be said that the Soviet Union was the only country in the world entirely surrounded by hostile Communist countries. This, therefore, is the problem of Poland, of the Czech Republic, and of Hungary. They have asked to be members of NATO. The administration has said no, you can't be members of NATO. You ought to be members of something called the Partnership for Peace, which includes Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and all the former members of the Soviet Union. Now the Poles, who have been partitioned off to join a grouping with the country from which the want protection. It is not a self-evident proposition in Warsaw.

Therefore, the problem for the United States seems to me to be that, on the one hand we want to encourage market orientation and reform in Russia, which Richard Nixon very strongly supported, but that at the same time we want to encourage the newly independent states in the Baltics and Ukraine to not fall again under Russia and Germany. This is something that this Administration has totally neglected. For instance, there is next to no contact with Ukraine. Almost all of the economic aid goes elsewhere, and it is one of the big vacuums in our current foreign policy.

Then there is the problem of China. China has had the most extraordinary economic progress of any nation in the world. They've been growing at the rate of at least 10 percent, and sometimes, more, over the last 14 years. At this rate, their Gross National Product will reach that of the United States in about 20 years. Although, of course, having a much larger population, their per capita income will be much lower.

Our problem with China is that, if we cut off its Most Favored Nations status, there will be no other nation joining us. And every other nation will try to step into the vacuum created by China. Equally important is the fact that it is very difficult to think of any long-range policy in Asia that does not include China. There are 60 million overseas Chinese who try to follow the main lines of Chinese foreign policy. Japan too will find it very difficult, nor will it want to stick with us in case of a needless confrontation with China. So, as Richard Nixon recognized in a revolutionary way in 1971 when there was an all-out Communist regime in Beijing, good relations with China are in the American national interest. It is not a favor we do to the Chinese.

And that's another aspect which has been almost completely bungled in Washington. In fact, the United States is sliding into a position which is totally contrary to what I take to be its national interest. For the national interest of the United States in the situation that I described would be to have better relations with other major countries than they have with each other. That way we would have the maximum number of choices.

The Clinton administration is limiting American's choices. One, because it cannot organize itself. Second, because it cannot define its interests, and, third, because it has no real

6

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understanding of the world in which it finds itself. So, if it stays in office, we will become, as a nation, less and less relevant to most of the problems which now exist.

We have a great opportunity in Latin America. It is one of the regions of the world in which democracy and a market orientation are spreading. In fact, they have become predominant. The other day I had dinner with the president of a leading country who, I thought, was in constant contact with Washington. I asked him, when did you last talk to President Clinton, thinking maybe a week or two ago. He said, before the inauguration. He hadn't heard from President Clinton in his whole period in office. No this was a major country with which we should have daily contact. Nor had they ever heard from or seen Secretary Christopher. That is almost unimaginable to me.

With such an attitude, we are bound to become prisoners of events. There is a meeting of Latin American presidents in December of this year. They have all been invited to Miami. I will bet my last cent that nobody in the administration could tell you what the purpose of this meeting is supposed to be. What they probably will do is that, about the middle of November they will all get together and draft a speech which will then sink without a trace after it's been delivered. I base that on experience.

I think it was in November of last year that there was a meeting of Asian-Pacific leaders in Seattle at which the administration proclaimed an Asian-Pacific Community about which I had my doubts to begin with, but, anyway, we proclaimed it. I defy anybody to show me one thing that has happened since then to implement it, other than confrontation with Japan, confrontation with China, and lectures to Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia about their own domestic politics.

In January, the President went to Europe. There he proposed something called the Partnership for Peace. At the moment, I don't even care about the merit of it. The fact is, I haven't seen anything happen to implement it. And then there was the embarrassment of Clinton's going to Moscow and finding that everybody we were praising was fired the following week. And then we went to Byelorussia and celebrated its independence just before it re-joined Russia, with the President who had greeted us removed two weeks later.

Unfortunately, this is not something from which we here should draw great comfort, because the foreign policy of the United States is not a partisan matter. The foreign policy of the United States ought to be a national effort, and as Republicans we ought to support a good foreign policy if we really believe in it. Richard Nixon always wanted to conduct foreign policy on a bipartisan basis. He did not believe that there should be a Republican foreign policy or a Democratic foreign policy.

Still, I do believe that our current international situation is dangerous, not because we have one enemy who is going to eat our lunch, but because, in the middle of a revolutionary situation, when things are changing in almost every part of the world, the United States is not making any significant contribution in shaping it in a direction that is consistent with our values and compatible with our security. And that makes it almost certain that the sort of explosions that we are seeing all over the world will continue. There is no overriding

[1c]

concept except to fix the immediate problems.

I believe that we Republicans have a number of obligations. First, to win the next elections, both Congressional and, even more, the national. Secondly, to generate a leadership in which we put before the American people in the field of domestic and foreign policy - thought I'm more confident on foreign policy - a clear notion of what is needed. Not to nickel away at this or that tactical issue, but to make clear that there are fundamental, philosophical problems involved and then to bring that into relation with the specifics.

What I absolutely cannot understand is why we do not oppose the health policy on
philosophical grounds. Or why we would keep contributing to the victory of the socialization
of medicine by making practical improvements in a basically flawed plan. Nobody seems
concerned that what we are facing is the socialization of 18 percent of the national economy,
as Richard Nixon pointed out in his article in TIME magazine.

In terms of foreign policy, we have to understand that we are becoming irrelevant, that we
are losing the capacity to affect events. And when you lose that capacity, then some
catastrophe, and you don't have to be able to describe it in advance, is going to occur
somewhere so that it can only be overcome by an excessive use of resources, which is exactly
the pattern of previous Democratic administrations' foreign policies. This is what we are
facing now and why men and women like yourselves are making such a big contribution, and
why I am grateful to have the opportunity to meet with you, sad as the occasion is.

I would like to conclude by saying one more thing about Richard Nixon. He was a man who walked alone; he stood up for his views; he generated enormous passions in his lifetime and yet, when it was all over, he brought us all together because the American people understood that it is the task of their leaders to get them from where they are to where they have never been.

And that takes vision and courage with are the ultimate tests of leadership.

Let me stop and take a few of your questions.

Thank you very much.

(Question regarding Winston Lord)

**Dr. Kissinger:** Win Lord is a good friend. He's a relative of yours isn't he? So, you probably know better where he went off the reservation than I did. I tell you where...He has been a good friend, he remains a good friend. He was first a junior assistant and then became maybe my principle assistant. He got himself involved in the domestic situation in China. On moral grounds I agree with him. In the abstract I would prefer to see democracy in China. On the other hand, the Chinese have been governing themselves for 3,000 years without conspicuous advice from the United States. In fact, except for 200 years of those 3,000 we didn't even exist. So, therefore, before one tries to change, to get ones self involved in the domestic politics of a country of 1,200,000,000 people, that is a huge order.

[L]

He believes that we have a greater capacity to alter this through direct action than I do. I believe that if this economic development of China continues, China is bound to become a more constitutional, if not a more democratic state. If only because to run a modern economy you have to have a legal system that is predictable. So he is in favor of much more direct confrontation with China than I am, even though at the end we would probably prefer the same outcome.

**Q:** Did you have an opportunity to speak with President Nixon after his last trip to Moscow?

**Dr. Kissinger:** Yes.

**Q:** I read his op-ed piece. Is there more (garbled)?

**Dr. Kissinger:** President Nixon favored economic aid to Russia, as do I up to a certain point. On the other hand, America cannot run Russian domestic politics. I think the administration made a terrible mistake by putting all its chips on Yeltsin. When the President goes on television three times a day in the middle of a domestic crisis in Russia and says, I support Boris Yeltsin, what does that really mean? To whom is it addressed? Whom is he trying to influence? The practical results have to be that Yeltsin will feel the need to prove that he is not an American stooge and that we end up encouraging the nationalist.

Yes, the things we can do indirectly, like giving economic aid, we should do. Secondly, Russian domestic politics should not excuse Russian behavior in foreign policy. When there are Russian troops in Georgia and Ezergaijian, and in fact in every former Republic of the Soviet Union, and the President of the United States says in Moscow, this is just like what the Americans did in Grenada, you want to tear your hair out. What Russian troops mean in the Ukraine and in all the other republics is that, once they appear on the borders of Poland again, and of Hungary and of Slovakia, then we will again have a Russian threat in the center for Europe and it will lead to the militarization of all foreign policy. Therefore, it is in the national interest of the United States not to go to war for the Ukraine but to make it clear to Russia that it must pay a price if it continues on its imperialistic course. I think that on this, Nixon's view and mine were identical at the end of his life. He would have favored, just as I do, paying more attention to the republics of the former Soviet Union.

All we want from Russia is that it stay within its borders. Since its borders encompass 11 time zones, it wouldn't feel claustrophobic. If they stay within their borders, then there can be very good relations between Russia and the United States. But Russia cannot blackmail every neighbor, as they are now in danger of doing, try to keep troops on all the territories of the former Soviet Union. On top of this, as a way of obtaining veto over the policies of the East European countries, they have used the Clinton administration's Partnership for Peace. For they are now saying that nobody from the former Warsaw Pact can do anything that Russia is not doing. That way, they control the pace of cooperation with the West which is a long-term disaster.

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In those respects, President Nixon's view and mine were practically identical, through he was a little more active in promoting economic aid to Russia than I have been. He was always more involved in the America domestic political process that I was, as was in the nature of things since he was an American political figure and I was never part of the electoral process.

**Q:** What path should the United States take vis-a-vis North Korea?

**Dr. Kissinger (Some of this answer was missed due to transfer to the other side of the tape)**

First of all, I believe this is a dangerous situation because if North Korea gets nuclear weapons and if they get paid a lot for abandoning them, then that will actually encourage nuclear proliferation because every country that can do so will have an incentive to build nuclear weapons, if only to get paid for getting rid of them. I'm not inclined to pay any significant price for their getting rid of what they shouldn't have in the first place.

Secondly, if North Korea has nuclear weapons it is almost certain that Japan will develop nuclear weapons. And that, over a long period of time, could present a major problem. Third, it would pose a major threat to China. Now I would favor, as I said, not paying them anything to give up the weapons. Secondly, I would favor economic sanctions. Third, I would be very careful about military action in Korea at the borders of China and near Japan without the cooperation of those two countries. I would make it very clear to those countries that North Korean nuclear weapons are a lot more dangerous to them than they are to us, and I would not get ourselves maneuvered into a position where we have to remove them by American military action, unpleasant as those weapons are. Because I cannot believe that at the end of the day, the Chinese want a Korean nuclear establishment at their border. So, I would try to organize an economic embargo. But I would not get the United States into a position where this becomes more our problem than that of the neighbors of Korea. But, again, there is major incoherence in the way we are going at it.

**Q:** (garbled) to talk about the Middle East plan and whether you believe it will work?

**Dr. Kissinger:** Yes, I think the Middle East peace plan can work. Much depends on how one defines it. I have never believed, and Max, with whom I have shared many hours of discussion on this subject will know this, that a point will be reached where everybody will sign a document embossed with word "Peace" written in gold on top of it, after which everybody will live in harmony in the Middle East. I don't believe it because I haven't seen any two Arab states do that with each other, much less between Arabs and Israelis. On the other hand, I believe it is possible to make agreements which improve co-existence over a period of time, and out of this can grow closer relations. In 1974, under President Nixon, we negotiated an agreement on the Golan Heights, which most people don't even remember existed. For 20 years it has preserved the peace there, even though it's a very complicated agreement. And not one Syrian or Israeli has been killed on the golan Heights in 20 years. Now if we can achieve something like that, no matter what the label is, on the West Bank, and if we can say for 20 years that there are no casualties, I think that would be a tremendous achievement.

Of course we had nothing to do with this agreement. The only thing we had to do with it was that they were so scared of us that they went off to Oslo where they could keep us out of it. We didn't know anything about it until it was done. I think there is a chance of its working. If you look at it from a technical point of view, there are 50 things wrong with that agreement. On the other hand, compared to what? Compared to the status quo, it's an improvement. It forces these two peoples to work out the practical means of living together. Can it be done: Will it in fact work? It's hard to know. But it has to be attempted, and I believe it's the correct way to proceed.

I'm reasonably optimistic that some agreement will merge out of it, including even between the Syrians and the Israelis.

**Q:** I was wondering. Just recently you came back from South Africa, and we just witnessed free elections there. What's your take one what's going to happen there? Is it going to change?

**Dr. Kissinger:** As you know, Democracy in the multi-ethnic societies is a very difficult thing. The democracies that we know, the western-style democracies, emerged either in ethnically homogeneous societies, as in Western Europe, or in places like America where, on the whole, people voted on a national basis and not on an entirely ethnic basis.

The problem in an ethnically diverse or tribal society is that if all the roads follow ethnic or tribal lines, then the minority never has a chance of becoming a majority. The majority, being permanent, has the aspect of a dictatorial regime. That is especially the case if it's not a federal but a parliamentary system.

This is the fundamental challenge in South Africa. You have whites, you have Indians, you have Cape Coloreds, and you have the blacks. The black population is then again divided between the Zulus and the others, so you have a monumental problem.

The issue that I was supposed to help in resolving was to see whether some kind of federal solution could be arranged between the two black groups, the Zulus and the ANC. We were making some progress on that issue but there was as well another problem having to do with the election. The Zulus had said that they wouldn't participate in the election, and the ANC would not deal with them unless they dropped that demand. We couldn't resolve that issue, but our leaving brought home to all the parties that the alternative was civil war. That we when Buthelezi decided to join the election. But now we are facing the problem that the fact that they joined the election does not yet guarantee that it will work.

They have gone to great lengths to create a multi-ethnic cabinet in which, contrary to what happens in our country or in most democracies where the losers join the opposition, everybody joins in the government. The largest party will become the president, the second largest party will become the vice-president and every party that has more than five percent of the votes gets one cabinet for each five percent of the votes. So it is a very heterogeneous government, but it also cannot last. Because sooner or later people are gong to go into opposition. That is the nature of democracy. So then the question: what will

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happen at that point? It's hard to predict, but then so many good things have happened in South Africa that you wouldn't have predicted. I think that Mandela is a remarkable man. To have been in prison for 27 years, 24 of them in solitary confinement, and to have come out with so little bitterness is truly extraordinary.

On the other hand, below him in the ANC there is a clear division between a radical, even Communist, element and a more moderate element. I don't think anybody knows how that will come out. The whites, who invented apartheid, have now turned their party into a multi-racial party and they may get up to 25 percent of the votes, which is extraordinary. It has never worked in Africa to have a multi-racial society that was genuinely democratic. I think there is abetter chance of it in South Africa, especially since they all know they have a good infrastructure and that if they can have an orderly government they will get a lot of investments. It's a very rich country. So, if they can keep the passions under control, that is the most hopeful country in Africa; and if they were to bring it off, it could have galvanizing effect all over Africa. At this point, though, you have to say the jury is still out.

But, so far it's gone better than anyone would have predicted 10 years ago. I can only describe to you the uncertainties. I don't think Mandela or anybody knows what happens when these various groups have to interact with each other directly in a coalition government. Because really for on tribe to submit itself to another, or for one ethnic group to submit itself to another is not what has ever happened in Africa. The best you can say is that they have the greatest chance of its happening in South Africa. We'll see in the next two or three years.

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