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NOTE TO EDITOR: Please use this revised version of the column
sent to you earlier.

CAUTION: This material is strictly embargoed. Its use is
authorized only by subscribers of the HENRY KISSINGER column.
With the exception of these paid subscribers, its content must
not under any circumstances be quoted, excerpted, summarized,
paraphrased or in any way published, in whole or in part.
Precautions should be taken to prevent the disclosure of the
contents of this material to third parties prior to
publication.

HENRY KISSINGER INTERVIEW/REVISED

For release Sunday, July 15, 1990

(c) 1990, Los Angeles Times Syndicate

This interview with Henry Kissinger was conducted by
Ambassador Sergio Romano for La Stampa in Turin, Italy, on
July 4.

Q: We are all talking about making the North Atlantic Treaty Organization more political and we are all talking about taking a number of military measures that would make the Soviet Union feel better, feel more secure. How do you feel about that?

A: If this were a discussion of an academic nature, I would

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say that I understand the objective. Looking at it as a
practical matter over a broad period of time, I have some
difficulty understanding what people are talking about. NATO
was conceived as a defensive alliance and it is not clear to
me how it can survive if it is not in some sense military.

I don't know what political function one can give it as an
institution that would differ from what it is already doing in
any significant way. And then it would run counter to the
momentum of European unification. The integration of Europe is
supposed to produce one European voice.

In NATO the United States deals with 15 sovereign nations.
Will NATO then become an organization in which the European
Community as an institution deals with America as one country
and, in time, they become the two principal parts of NATO? Or
does the United States continue to deal with 15 separate
nations?

Q: I see your point, but it seems to be an effort not only
to maintain the link between the United States but also the
link between Europe and Germany when Germany may be tempted to
move away.

A: Absolutely. That is an objective I strongly support, and
therefore I think Germany ought to stay in NATO. But if the
price of Germany's staying is to emasculate NATO to the point
where it no longer serves a definable function, then the
purpose would have been defeated. And that is the real
challenge. It will not be solved in my view simply by the word
"political." America's relations with Europe require something

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that gives America a regular obligation to deal with Europe.
If that does not exist, or becomes rote, then it will not
work.

Q: Should we do something in order to make the Soviets feel
a little easier about the way things are going to be from now
on. Do we take any initiatives to make them happier?

A: There are two things here to be said. In the long run it
is best to deal with another nation diplomatically rather than
psychologically. And it is the essence of diplomacy that there
should be some reciprocity.

The Soviet empire collapsed either because of some
objective necessity, in other words, because it could not be
physically maintained or it collapsed not because it needed to
but because of some intrinsic mistake on Gorbachev's part. If
we accept the latter, we are really only weakening Gorbachev
by our constant invocations. The Soviet empire was having
serious difficulties already and Gorbachev probably made the
correct analysis in letting it go. But I give him enormous
credit for the decisiveness with which he did the inevitable.

Now, do we need to reassure him? Yes, but he also needs to
reassure us. And we simply cannot accept the proposition that
Russia is in danger from us when for 40 years the Soviet Union
has been threatening the West, this after 400 years of
repeated annexation of contiguous territories. Indeed, it has
come back to haunt them and is surely one of the main reasons
for domestic Soviet troubles today.

Q: You are concerned about security?

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A: Nobody talks about removing the Soviet army from East Germany, yet this is the central security problem. That's where the security problem (ITAL) began (UnITAL). I understand that some time is needed to remove these troops, but I cannot understand an arms control system predicated on forces in central Europe in which Soviet forces remain on the territory of a NATO ally without, at least, up to now, any discussions of anything like a terminal date.

Q: So would you say that we could come forward to put some initiatives to reassure Gorbachev (ITAL) if (UnITAL) something were done ...

A: Russian armies were in Berlin, Paris, Budapest, North Korea, Manchuria, Afghanistan and Iran, long before communism was ever heard of. One can only presume that if a nation has exhibited certain tendencies for a number of centuries, it is very dangerous to assume that one man alone can change that; it is even dangerous to assume that one man would want to change it.

But even if he wanted to, whether or not he could actually change it is an altogether separate proposition. So I would say that the security problem in Europe is first to get the Soviet army back to the 1941 borders as quickly as possible, and then, to create zones of limited armament ...

Q: 1941?

A: Yes. I know that leaves the Baltic states in limbo. Since we have never recognized their annexation, we should not change our views now. I would make the distinction in the case

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of the immediate security problem between the international
perspective and steps which the Western alliance need to take
with respect to the potential break-up of the Soviet empire.

The security problem of the West is to get the Soviet army
back to the '41 borders and then to establish an arms control
system about which one can reasonably say it is difficult for
either side to launch a conventional attack against the other.
For that reason, I have proposed several times already that
Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Austria be part of some
neutral zone on both sides of which there would be zones of
limited armaments: a certain number of kilometers on the
Russian side and a certain number of kilometers on the Western
side. In such a situation, the West would feel reassured as
well as the Soviets because the West would still be hundreds
of miles from its borders. But in the absence of such an
arrangement, I would be cautious about extensive redesign.

Q: And how would you feel about doing something economically then? You do know that there are differences, points of view. President Bush appears to be a little more, considerably more hesitant than some members of the community.

A: I tend to agree with President Bush.

Q: We are moving toward the conference on European security on November 19. If I read your understanding of present events, it doesn't seem that you want much to come out of it, or to put it differently, that the time has not really come to redesign Europe the way somebody would like to redesign it.

Talking about the CSCE in November ...

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A: Statesmen prepare for conferences all the time. At these
conferences they meet colleagues. These colleagues are
influenced by the first factor I mentioned, namely, public
opinion, as are the statesmen themselves. So it is very hard
to tell whether proposals are being made in order to help
another colleague or to establish a claim as an investment in
future help from yet other colleagues. So while the proposals
have a certain tactical validity, do they really build
anything lasting?

On a serious diplomatic and strategic level, what is it
that one is talking about when one talks about a European
system that dissolves existing institutions within a larger
framework, one that would include the Soviet Union, all the
European countries, Canada and the United States, its
membership at about the same size as the League of Nations? I
find it inconceivable that such an institution could deal with
security problems, especially since, there are only two fully
recognized security problems. The first is the Soviet Union
and the other -- in the minds of some people -- is Germany.
Both would be members of such an institution. How is that
institution going to deal with security violations from its
major participants?

Can the Soviet Union join NATO? No. At least my imagination
does not seem to reach that far. Can it join the European
Community? Whenever you raise the issue of a new member in a
European Community of that size, great complexities arise. And
the Soviet Union is a country with enormous ethnic conflicts,

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with a non-functioning economy and for the moment
non-democratic institutions. How can one even conceive of them
joining the European Community? But that leaves us with the
desire on the part of some to dissolve the existing
institutions, which unfortunately does not get us any new
institutions. So the utility of the new institution is
actually to dissolve the old institutions, and that I do not
...

Q: You don't subscribe to.

A: There are so many things -- environment, economic
development, culture, certain human rights activities -- all
of which can be addressed on a big scale. And I would welcome
this. Nor would I object to periodic meetings, keeping in mind
that there is only so much time available to high officials.
You know what it is to prepare for a conference? And then it
seems there is always a sort of Gresham's law in diplomacy:
you can't say bad money drives out good money but you can say
...

Q: That bad conferences drive out good conferences?

A: Only in the sense that (some) conferences have a higher
capacity for publicity than others and tend to drive out
working conferences. So it is likely to be the European
security conference where you meet with the Russians, and
which has the capacity to become a forum that absorbs the
others. Then what I said is undesirable will have been
achieved unintentionally.

Q: Now from what you have just said, NATO for the time

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being should be maintained as it is and the European Community
...

A: No, not at all. NATO, as it is, cannot be maintained. It requires a new strategy, because if -- and especially if -- what I hope does happen -- that is, if the Soviet army withdraws from eastern Germany and Poland -- then you have, indeed, a new military environment and you need a new military doctrine. Exactly what that doctrine is ought to be studied with the greatest care and will require first addressing who exactly is the threat and what that threat might do. But, that becomes quite difficult if everybody keeps claiming ...

Q: That there is no threat ...

A: Certainly, we need a new strategy, especially as some American forces will no doubt be withdrawn. NATO needs not only a new military doctrine, but some sort of an organization in which Europe's weight is greater than it is today because as American forces withdraw, the relative weight of Europe will automatically increase. And I think the Europeans will have to take a greater intellectual responsibility for NATO strategy. In time, the European Community will become sufficiently integrated to assume various defense functions, in which case NATO could become an institution through which the European Community speaks on behalf of Europe as a defensive. That is some years down the road but it is a goal that I for one would welcome.

Q: Mrs. Kirkpatrick said that maybe the time has come for the seven-power summit to become a four-power summit. That is,

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the U.S., Canada, Japan and Europe. Do you think the time has
come for such a thing?

A: I could imagine that such a time will come, perhaps in
the next five years.

Q: Could we talk briefly about the Italy at a time when we
have to organize two main conferences, one monetary and one
political. How do you see the priorities?

A: They are both extremely important though economic issues
are better understood than the political. The great
breakthrough has to occur in the political field, so more work
needs to be done in that area than the other. But in the
economic area, the major problem will be to ease the
transition of Britain into the European economic monetary
system.

Q: The problem, of course, as you know, is that Mrs.
Thatcher is basically opposed to both. She's opposed to the
monetary integration as much as to the political integration.
She will be an obstacle in both cases. Can she be dealt with,
on the basis of your own experience?

A: Timing is crucial because if that process does not occur
quickly, people might become so afraid of German domination
over European institutions, they could revert to the Thatcher
position of a veto for each nation to avoid domination by any
one of the countries. I would prefer to see European
integration proceed along expected lines. Can Thatcher be
convinced? Great Britain's political necessities and the lack
of any clear-cut alternatives will surely impel her in that

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direction.

Q: But all of this, of course, is based on a very widespread fear that Germany reunited may be a little too much for us to tackle. Is there an element of truth in this, or is there an exaggeration?

A: We need to make a couple of points: The first, it is most unlikely that anything like the Nazis could resurface in Germany; secondly, it is unfair to Germany, which has been a responsible member of the democratic community for 45 years, to begin to treat it as if it carried some sort of genetic German flaws, as if Germans are somehow racially less responsible than citizens of other nations.

If one looks at European history over several centuries, there seems always to have been one nation more aggressive than the others. There was Spain in the 17th Century, France in the 18th and part of the 19th, and Germany from the end of the 19th Century through the 20th. So, it is not unusual to have one dominantly aggressive nation in Europe. Moreover, once these nations reached the limit of their capabilities, they in each case became more or less responsible members of the European Community.

The danger in Germany today seems to me to be the following: to conduct German foreign policy under the best of circumstances is more difficult than in any other European nation because, if you look at a map, Germany has more neighbors than any other country. It therefore naturally requires an especially prudent foreign policy, or, conversely,

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it must pay the price for its mistakes more rapidly than a
country at the edge of Europe like England, which has an
ocean, a channel, or even France, for buffers. Yet prudent
foreign policy has not been a German specialty because Germany
was the last of all the major European nations to unify and
not until 1871.

Q: All of this is happening at a time when somehow the United States appears to be looking inward, or considerably more so than they have been at other times. The whole world is changing whether we like it or not. Countries such as the United States have to reshape or help in reshaping. And, this seems to me to be happening at a time when the country is greatly occupied, if not obsessed, with issues that are primarily domestic, ethical, social ethical. Isn't this a danger?

A: It is an American problem at the moment. In the past the United States only engaged itself abroad if there was some overwhelming danger or some overwhelming problem. Each of these could be presented to the American public as requiring some specific action for a limited period of time after which the particular challenge would disappear. Now, we are moving into an altogether different world. There are no overwhelming dangers. There are no self-evident problems and certainly there are no time limits.

But we have to create new institutions for NATO. And, we
have to find a place for a new Soviet Union. We must redefine
our relationship with Japan. We have to understand what is

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going on in China. And we have to do it in terms of some sort
of system. Students of the British balance of power would have
no difficulty with this. Students of Machiavelli would have no
problem with it either.

Incidentally, I consider Machiavelli to have been a
moralist, not a cynic, which most Americans do not understand.
But for Americans, the biggest challenge is how to make the
transition from the missionary spirit to a sense of permanent
involvement in world affairs. This as we have discussed is
more important than anything.

Q: And we can do nothing about it. From Europe anyway.

A: No. You Europeans have to be understanding, and you must
be careful not to keep playing domestic politics in America. I
keep telling my European friends the following: for 40 years
you were able to make proposals to us which in your heart of
hearts you knew were really not so wonderful because they
appealed to some element of domestic opinion. And you were
certain America would single-mindedly pursue its own
objectives and ignore them. Now, I say to my European friends:
Be careful what you recommend. We may carry it out.

Q: In other words, don't recommend that the Americans leave
Europe, they may go.

A: They may go.

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Q: We are all talking about making the North Atlantic Treaty Organization more political and we are all talking about taking a number of military measures that would make the Soviet Union feel better, feel more secure. What do you feel about that?

K: If we were having a discussion of an academic nature, I would say I can understand the objective. Looking at it as a practical matter over a period of time, I have some difficulty in understanding what people are talking about. NATO was conceived as a defensive alliance and it is not clear to me how it can survive if it is not a military alliance. I do not know what political function one can give it as an institution that differs from what it is doing in any significant way. And then this will run counter to efforts of European unification. The integration of Europe is supposed to produce one European voice. In NATO the United States deals with 15 sovereign nations. Is NATO then going to be the institution in which the European Community, as an institution deals with America as one country so that, in time, there will be just two parts of NATO? Or does the United States continue to deal with the 15 separate nations?

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K: Absolutely. And that is an objective I strongly support, and therefore I think Germany ought to stay in NATO. But if the price of Germany's staying in NATO is to emasculate NATO to a point that it no longer serves a definable function, then it would have been defeated. Will probably not succeed. And that is the big challenge. It will be solved in my view simply by the word political.

America's relations with Europe require something that gives America a weekly obligation to deal with Europe. If that doesn't exist, if it just becomes a ritualistic exercise, then it will not work.

A: There are two things to be said. I believe In the long run it is best to deal with another nations diplomatically rather than psychiatrically. And it is the essence of diplomacy that there should be some reciprocity. We are not talking ourselves into the frame of mind where we owe something to the Soviet Union for the collapse of its empire.

Its empire either collapsed because there was some objective necessity, that is, in other words, they couldn't maintain it physically, or it collapsed because Gorbachev made a mistake and it didn't need to collapse. If we take the latter position we are really weakening Gorbachev by our constant invocations. I tend to think that the Soviet empire was in great difficulty and that Gorbachev probably made the correct analysis in letting it go, and I give him great credit

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about

system in which one can reasonably say that it is difficult for either side to launch a conventional attack against the other. For that reason, I have proposed several times already that Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Austria be part of the same military arrangement and that, then, on both sides of which that there should be zones of limited armaments: On the

Russian side, a certain number of kilometers on the Western side, a certain number of kilometers. In such a situation, then, as well as the Soviets should be reassured because the West will be hundreds of miles from its borders, and the West should be reassured. But in the absence of this, I would be very careful to about extensive redesign, things very much.

K: Well, I tend to agree with President Bush. But in the present international situation, it's not easy to determine why nations act, whether they act for public relations reasons, or for other reasons.

Q: We are moving toward the conference on European security which is going to be open on the 19th of November. If I read your understanding of present events, it doesn't seem that you want much to come out of it, or, to put it differently, that the time has not really come to redesign Europe the way somebody would like to redesign it. Talking about the CSCE in November.

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Q: We have to organize for the month of December two European Community conferences. The one that will have to deal with monetary issues, that is monetary integration and possibly central bank and that sort of thing, and the other one would be ...

K: I think the political one is probably, I think they are both extremely important. I think the economic issues are better understood than the political issues. I think the great breakthrough has to occur in the political field, so more new needs area work has to be done in the political field than in the other, economic field. But area will be in the economic field the major problem to ease the transition of Britain into the European economic monetary system.

K: I'm a great admirer of Mrs. Thatcher as a person. I think she has done great service for her country. And one of the ironies of the contemporary situation is that I can conceive a future in which now everybody wants Europe integrated in order to keep Germany as part of the community and oriented towards the West. There could come a point where, and that is crucial because, if that process occurs quickly, it does not happen very fast, and people might then become so afraid of a dominant role of Germany in European institutions.

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Finally, I am convinced that this Chinese leadership—with all the mistakes it has made—is fundamentally committed to reform. It will move forward maybe not to a parliamentary democracy, but toward some form of constitutionalism in the sense that there will be predictable legal patterns.

Q: Last theme, Japan. We, particularly the United States, always has been confronted with the double nature of Japan, a country economically aggressive and yet militarily and politically considerably more passive. This has been the problem for a long time.

K: But if we think that is a problem, we just wait till we get a politically active Japan.

Q: You mean you prefer it to stay that way?

K: I would say that, as we said in the case of Germany and as I'm sure one could in the case of Italy or the U.S., there are certain national patterns. Historically, Japan has been like a family. It has never lived by relations with the outside world. Its tremendous strength resides in it, the homogeneity and its ability to organize itself as an institution. And, therefore, Japan does not yet have a concept of a cooperative world order. It is a very hierarchical society in which, being either subordinate or superior, it is possible, but not easy, to handle relations of equality, the most difficult thing. Sooner or later we have to expect that its economic strength will be translated into political strength.

Q: And the decline of the Soviet Union may be an occasion for this?

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K: It is the American problem at the moment. In the past the United States engaged itself either in an overwhelming danger or in an overwhelming problem. Each of these could be presented to the American public as requiring a specific effort for a limited period after which that particular challenge would have disappeared. Now, we are moving into a different world. There is no overwhelming danger. There is no self-evident problem, and certainly there is no time limit.

But we have to create new institutions for NATO. We have to find a place for a new Soviet Union. We have to redefine our relationship with Japan. We have to understand what is going on in China. And we have to do it in terms of a system. Students of Machiavelli have no problem with the concept of what needs to be done. Incidentally, I consider Machiavelli to have been a moralist, not a cynic, which most Americans do not understand. As students of the British balance of power would have no difficulty with this. But for Americans to move from the missionary spirit to a source of permanent involvement, this is the biggest challenge we face. In world affairs, important than anything we have discussed.

K: No. You from Europe have to be understanding, and you

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must be careful not to keep playing domestic politics in America. I keep telling my European friends the following: for 40 years you were able to make proposals to us that in your heart of hearts you knew were really not very desirable because they appeal to some element of domestic opinion, and you were sure America would be a single-mindedly pursuing its own objectives that it would ignore them. Now, I say to my European friends: Be careful what you recommend. We may carry it out.

K: They may go.

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Kissinger interview

K: If we were having a discussion of an academic nature, I would say I can understand the objective. Looking at it as a practical matter over a period of time, I have some difficulty in understanding what people are talking about. NATO was conceived as a defensive alliance and it is not clear to me how it can survive if it isn't a military alliance. I don't know what political function one can give it as an institution that differs from what it is doing in any significant way. And then this will run counter to efforts of European unification. The integration of Europe is supposed to produce one European voice. In NATO the United States deals with 15 sovereign nations. Is NATO then going to be the institution in which the European Community as an institution deals with America as one country so that in time there will be just two parts in NATO? Or does the United States continue to deal with the 15 nations?

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K: Absolutely. And that is an objective I strongly support, and therefore I think Germany ought to stay in NATO. But if the price of Germany staying in NATO is to emasculate NATO to a point that it no longer serves a definable function, then it will probably not succeed. And that is the big challenge. It is not solved in my view simply by the word political.

A: There are two things to be said. I believe in the long run it is best to deal with another nation diplomatically rather than psychiatrically. And it is the essence of diplomacy that there should be some reciprocity. We are not talking ourselves into the frame of mind where we owe something to the Soviet Union for the collapse of its empire.

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for the decisiveness with which he did the inevitable. It is
quite good for a statesman. It's a high praise.

Now do we need to reassure him? Yes, but he also needs to reassure us. And we cannot accept the proposition that it's Russia that is in danger from (ital) us (unital) when for 40 years the Soviet Union has been threatening the West and when one of the reasons for the Soviet troubles today is that for 400 years they have been incorporating foreign people in their territory. So, I would be much happier if we came up with some balanced proposal in which we say to the Soviets, we are willing to do (a) if you are willing to do (b). I am very bothered by the prospect of keeping a large Soviet army in the center of Europe while we are redoing NATO.

Q: You are very what about ...

K: Nobody is talking about removing the Soviet army from East Germany, and yet that is the central security problem. That's where the security problem (ITAL) started. (UnITAL) I have not seen a Western proposal that said to the Soviet Union, you can stay two years. I understand that time is needed to remove those troops, but I cannot understand an arms control system predicated on forces in central Europe in which Soviet forces stay on the territory of a NATO ally without, up to now at least, anyone discussing anything like a terminal date.

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K: I would say the fundamental problem in Europe, after all, maybe history has stopped, but if history has not stopped then it is a fact that, as you pointed out, every Soviet border is contested and it is contested for precisely the same reason, that it was achieved by conquest. And so after all, Soviet, Russian armies were in Berlin, in Paris, in Budapest, in Adrianopole(?), in North Korea, in Manchuria, in Afghanistan, in Iran, long before communism was ever heard from. So one has to say that if a nation has done something for a certain number of centuries it is very dangerous to assume that one man alone can change it; it's even dangerous to assume that one man would want to change it.

Q: Because, or that he may be able to is ...

K: But even if he wanted to change it, that he would be able to is another proposition. So I would say that the security problem in Europe is (?) first to get the Soviet army back to the 1941 border as quickly as possible, and secondly, to create zones of limited armament ...

Q: 1941?

K: Yes. I know that leaves the Baltic states ambiguous. And it may leave all the other things ambiguous, too. I would say for the immediate security problem, I would make a distinction, in the international position that the Western alliance needs to take with respect to the potential break-up of the Soviet empire and the immediate security problem of the West. The security problem of the West is to get the Soviet army back to the '41 borders and then to have an arms control

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system in which one can reasonably say that it is difficult for either side to launch a conventional attack against the other. For that reason I have proposed several times already that Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Austria be part of the same military arrangement and that then on both sides of that there should be zones of limited armaments. On the Russian side a certain number of kilometers, on the Western side a certain number of kilometers. In such a situation, the Soviets should be reassured because the West will be hundreds of miles from its borders, and the West should be reassured. But in the absence of this, I would be very careful to redesign things very much.

K: Well I tend to agree with President Bush. But in the present international situation it's not easy to determine why nations act, whether they act for public relations reasons, domestic political reasons, or international reasons.

We are moving toward the conference on European security which is going to be open on the 19th of November. If I read your understanding of present events, it doesn't seem that you want much to come out of it, or to put it differently, that the time has not really come to redesign Europe the way somebody would like to redesign it. Talking about the CSCE in November.

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K: Well, as I said, one cannot tell any more in modern-day foreign policy what is done for domestic politics, what is done for public relations and what is done with a serious concept of the future. From the point of view of domestic politics, the former left, the present left, Greens, peace movements, are all very eager to abolish the existing alliances and to have some sort of a new structure that as the phrase goes ends the Cold War. From the point of view of public relations, there are so many conferences going on now that one really has to ask oneself whether the system isn't getting overloaded.

Statesmen are preparing for conferences all the time. At these conferences they meet colleagues. Their colleagues are influenced by the first factor I mentioned, public opinion, and so are they. So it is very hard to tell whether proposals are being made in order to help another colleague or to establish a claim for future help from another colleague. And so the proposals have a certain tactical validity, but do they get you from here to there?

Now then, on a serious diplomatic strategic level, what is it that one is talking about when one talks about a European system that dissolves existing institutions in a larger framework, which is really what people are doing now, an institution that includes the Soviet Union, all of European countries, Canada and the United States, is in membership about the same size as the League of Nations? I find it inconceivable that that can deal with a security problem,

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especially since, there are only two recognized security problems. One is the Soviet Union and the other, in the minds of some people, is Germany. Both of them are going to be members of that institution. How is that institution going to deal with security violations from a major participant?

Secondly, we've already discussed that NATO is needed to provide an institutional link to the United States. Then everybody seems to agree on two things for the European community. One, that it should strengthen its political unity, and second, that it should open itself up in some way to those countries of Eastern Europe that make progress toward market economics and have democratic institutions.

Now, can the Soviet Union join NATO? No. Or at least my imagination doesn't reach that far. Secondly, can it join the European Community? Well whenever you raise the issue of a new member in the European Community of a tiny size, great complexities arise. Now here's a country with enormous ethnic conflicts, with a non-functioning economy and non-democratic institutions at this moment. How can one even conceive that they join the European Community? So then what are we left with? We are left with a desire on the part of some to dissolve the existing institutions, but that doesn't get you a new institution. So the utility of the new institution is to dissolve the old institutions, and that I don't ...

Q: You don't subscribe to.

K: There are many things -- environment, economic development, culture, some human rights activities -- all of

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which can be done on that big scale. And I would welcome this.
And I would not object either to a periodic meeting, except
for keeping in mind this system of overloading the available
time of high officials. You know what it is to prepare for a
conference. And then I think there's a sort of aggressions law
in diplomacy. You can't say bad money drives out good money
but you can say ...

K: In the sense that (some) conferences that have a higher
capacity for publicity and will drive out working conferences.
And so the European security conference is where you meet the
Russians, where you could become a forum which absorbs the
others, and then what I said is undesirable will have been
achieved unintentionally.

Q: Now from what you have just said, NATO for the time
being should be maintained as it is and the European Community
...

K: No, no. NATO as it is cannot be maintained. NATO needs a
new strategy, because if -- especially if -- what I hope will
happen, that is if the Soviet army withdraws from eastern
Germany and from Poland, then you have, indeed, a new military
situation and you need a new military doctrine. Exactly what
that doctrine is ought to be studied with the greatest care
and requires addressing the question of who the threat is and
what the threat might do. That in turn is very difficult if
everybody keeps claiming ...

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K: And that the Soviet system has totally changed. But I think we need a new strategy, especially as American forces surely will be withdrawn. NATO needs a new military doctrine. It also needs an organization in which the weight of Europe is greater than it is today because as American forces are withdrawn the relative weight of Europe will automatically increase. And I think the Europeans have to take a greater intellectual responsibility for the NATO strategy. And, in time, I even visualize that the European Community will integrate itself enough so that it can assume defense functions, and in that case NATO could be an institution in which the European Community speaks for Europe as a defensive. That is some years down the road but I think it is a goal that I would welcome.

Q: Mrs. Kirkpatrick said that maybe the time has come for the seven-power summit to become a four-power summit. That is, the U.S., Canada, Japan and Europe. Do you think the time has come for such a thing?

K: I don't think quite yet, but I could imagine that that time will come and could come within the next five years.

Q: Could we talk briefly about the Italian term of precedency(?). The Italians are precedents(?) at a time when we have to organize as you know two main conferences, the monetary and ? political one. How do you see those two priorities? Do you see one as having more priority than the other?

K: Which monetary? The economic summit?

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K: I think the political one is probably, I think they are both extremely important. I think the economic issues are better understood than the political issues. I think the great breakthrough has to occur in the political field, so more new work has to be done in the political field than in the economic field. In the economic field the major problem is to ease the transition of Britain into the European economic monetary system.

K: I'm a great admirer of Mrs. Thatcher as a person. I think she has done great service for her country. And one of the ironies of the contemporary situation is that I can conceive a future in which now everybody wants Europe integrated in order to keep Germany as part of the community and oriented towards the West. There could come a point where, and therefore timing is very important, if that process doesn't happen very fast and people might then become so afraid of a dominant role of Germany in European institutions,

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that they will go to the Thatcher position of a veto for each
nation in order not to be dominated by one of the countries. I
would prefer to see European integration proceed along the
expected lines. Can Thatcher be convinced? I don't know
whether she can be convinced, but I think the political
necessities of Great Britain and the lack of a clear-cut
alternative will impel her in that direction.

Q: In other words it is imperative that we persuade Mrs. Thatcher?

K: I think it's important that Mrs. Thatcher joins as a
willing member.

K: I think one has to make three points. One is, I do not
believe that anything like the Nazis can come back in Germany,
and all these fears of a return of Naziism are wrong.
Secondly, I think it is unfair to Germany, which has been a
responsible member of the democratic community for 45 years,
to deal with it as if there were some kind of genetic German
defect and as if Germans were racially somehow less
responsible than other nations.

If one looks at European history, in each century there
seems to have been some nation more aggressive than others.
Italy has not participated in that yet, but there was Spain in
the 17th Century, there was France in the 18th and part of the

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19th Century, and Germany from the end of the 19th Century through the 20th Century. So to have one dominantly aggressive nation in Europe is not unusual and, in each case, once these nations reached the limits of their capabilities they became more or less responsible members of the European Community.

I think those two things have to be said on behalf of Germany. The danger in Germany seems to me to be the following: To conduct German foreign policy under the best of circumstances is more difficult than that of any other European nation because if you look at a map, Germany has more neighbors than any other country. So therefore, it requires an unusually prudent foreign policy, or, conversely, it has to pay a price for its mistakes more rapidly than a country like England that has an ocean and a channel or even France, which is at the edge of Europe. But prudent foreign policy has not been a German specialty because Germany was unified last of all the major European nations, in 1871 and in a peculiar way.

Until Germany came along it has always been assumed, as it is assumed today with market economics and democracy, that liberalism and nationalism go together. This was Marsinez(?) view. It was Bismarck who said, no they don't belong together. You can have nationalism without liberalism and you can have universal suffrage without liberal institutions. In fact, you can use universal suffrage to support conservative regimes. So the Germans had a peculiar evolution. Then they had the misfortune of having a genius as their first chancellor who kept the European equilibrium by throwing a lot of balls into

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the air. There is therefore no tradition in Germany of
national interest. I've been writing a book on what various
nations have thought about foreign policy, and there is a
notion in Britain of national interests, and there's a notion
in France, there's a notion even in Italy, which was unified
fairly late ...

Q: Even if you had difficulties with Aldomorow(?) when you asked him about it.

K: No but that was because of his preoccupation with
domestic politics. But in Italy in Machiavelli and people like
Kabu(?) you have people who have a clear concept of states ?.
The Germans...

Kissinger interview (cont.)

K: ... and alternating with attempts at repression, which
might lead to the disintegration of the Soviet state and might
not, one really can't tell that. Another thing is that the
West really has no systematic view on that subject. My view is
that the West can have no interest in the disintegration of
the Soviet state. I would make a special case for the Baltic
republics, which, having been recognized for 50 years, it
would be absurd to recognize their incorporation into the
Soviet Union now. But even there we have an interest that it
happens in a manner that does not lead to a general explosion.

I believe that if there were a genuine disintegration of
the Soviet state it would not in fact stop short of the
Russian federation. I can imagine the Baltics going without

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that, but if Georgia, Armenia, Moldavia, Azerbaijan go, I find
it difficult to believe that the nationalist sentiment in the
Ukraine would not also begin to be active. Indeed, I believe
it is active now. Whether then Byelorussia would join that or
not is more difficult and less likely. But still I cannot
believe that such a process could complete itself without war,
or without massive repression.

Q: War within the Soviet Union or war on the borders of the Soviet Union?

K: First of all, war within the Soviet Union. But let's even assume that the Soviet Union can keep itself together as a state including only the Ukraine and Byelorussia, which would be a viable but maybe even a more powerful state, a more dynamic state. The existence of these many Muslim republics in the south would lead to a new structure in the Middle East because now the Soviet Union would have to become a very serious player there. In the past it had to deal with the Middle East mostly for imperialist reasons, to expand its sphere of influence. The Soviet Union would have to be a major day-to-day player in the Middle East.

Q: It couldn't be called the Soviet Union any longer, of course.

K: No, whatever it is. Russia. The new state. I'm not saying that it would lead to a new international politics. In addition, of course, there's the question, what happens to all the arms that are located in the Soviet Union, especially the nuclear weapons? Having said, however, that we have no

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interest in the disintegration of the Soviet Union, we also cannot get involved in holding it together. I think the West should do nothing to make the staying together of the Soviet Union more difficult, always leaving aside the Baltic states matter.

Q: We can only be spectators.

K: We can be spectators, we can be marginal facilitators, and we can have a view about where we would like the thing to go. But I don't see how we can do more. When one travels through Eastern Europe and hears the perception of what goes on in the Ukraine between the eastern and western Ukraine, between the Ukraine west of the Don and east of the Don, between the Unyat (sp?) Ukraine and the Greek Orthodox Ukraine, between the part where Russia is strong and the part where it isn't, between the southern part and the northern part, I really don't see how the West can adopt a policy that does anything other than demonstrate its impotence or it may produce a crisis.

Q: This, of course, is a subject with which you've had a great deal to do. You've been instrumental in creating an entirely new situation there, and I wanted to ask you whether you think that the new position of the Soviet Union, which definitely is not a world power any longer and more of a regional power, makes it less necessary for the United States to rely on Israel and be as dependent on Israel as it has been in the past. And whether this promises new developments in the area.

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K: The position on Israel, while it has been justified very often on strategic grounds, also has many other bases in the United States, and they don't change. I think that the decline of the Soviet Union as a major factor in the area, on the one hand, makes it more difficult for countries like Syria to foment upheaval, or to risk war with Israel. On the other hand, it may free others like Iraq for greater adventurism.

Now, there is obviously some disassociation going on between Israel and the United States caused by a number of factors, including a new generation of Americans in leadership positions and the extreme emphasis Israel has given to domestic politics in the construction of its international position. So I would expect that the United States on the whole will take a firmer stand. But I don't think that the United States can go as far as ...

Q: As abandoning shall we say ...

K: Well, no, not abandon Israel. It cannot be in our national interest that a whole succession of small allies are thrown overboard in sequence.

Q: But the fact that the position of the United States in regard to Israel is likely to change, maybe not radically but change somewhat, will it make it easier to come to some kind of an understanding, to some kind of an agreement?

K: The question is, what kind of agreement is one talking about? There is great discussion about a peace process and there are many comments about various formulas by which it might be started. There's relatively little discussion of what

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the end result of that peace process is supposed to be. I for
one am a great believer in having a concept of what you are
trying to do before you launch yourself on a course. Not how
you're trying to do it, what you are trying to do. What is a
desired outcome?

Also some problems may not lend themselves to a definitive
solution and it may be that interim solutions are easier, a
series of interim solutions are easier than a definitive
solution. I tend to think that that is the case in the Middle
East. I cannot imagine the formula, apart from its
attainability, on which all the parties are likely to converge
however the conference is assembled.

Q: In Western Europe, lots of people think that the time
for a Palestinian sovereign state is ripe.

K: The idea is a Palestinian sovereign state with '67
borders and something like a neutral or some sort of status
for the old city of Jerusalem. There is no way of achieving
this short of a massive pressure on Israel, and even then it
may not be achievable. The dilemma is, Israel cannot stay
where it is and it is not yet clear where it should go. I do
not support Israel's continued occupation of the West Bank
and of Gaza, and I would favor some interim steps by which the
maximum number of Arabs are returned to Arab rule.

Q: Another issue. The present American administration is
maintaining a position toward China which is, all things
considered, moderate. How do you feel about that?

K: I think there's a wide consensus in the United States

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that the actions of the Chinese government last year were not compatible with American principles. The fundamental question though isn't that. The issue on which people divide is to what extent the United States should involve itself in the domestic politics of a country with a long history, one the size of China and with the importance of China. And this question is related to another question, namely, how does one assess what happened in China last year?

With respect to the first question, I believe that our judgment of the domestic politics of a country is one factor that influences our diplomacy, but another factor influencing our diplomacy must be the importance we attach to good relations with that country in the light of an overall strategy. And I'm extremely reluctant to adopt a position of hostility to a country of the size of China unless it's an overriding national necessity to do it.

Secondly, most students of China that I know believe that over a reasonable historical period what happened in Tien An Men Square was an interruption of a process, which is really more irreversible in many way than the Soviet process. China was substantially moving towards market economics and in fact its difficulties were caused precisely by that transition. It is very painful. The forces behind the demonstrations were the workers, not the students. The visible manifestations were the students and the workers protesting against inflation, what they called nepotism, and unemployment, all of which is inseparable from the transition.

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Secondly, I am convinced that this Chinese leadership with all the mistakes it has made is really fundamentally committed to reform. It will move, maybe not to its parliamentary democracy, but toward some form of constitutionalism in the sense that there will be predictable legal patterns.

K: But if we think that's a problem, wait till we get a politically active Japan.

K: I would say that, as we said in the case of Germany and as I'm sure one could in the case of Italy or the U.S., there are certain national patterns. Historically, Japan has been like a family. It has never lived by relations with the outside world. Its tremendous strength resides in it homogeneity and its ability to organize itself as an institution. And, therefore, Japan does not yet have a concept of cooperative world order. It is a very hierarchical society in which being either subordinate or superior is possible, but how to handle relations of equality is the most difficult thing. Sooner or later we have to expect that its economic strength will be translated into political strength.

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K: Well I think the decline of the Soviet Union, the fact that Japan no longer needs to look up to us economically and may no longer need us so much monetarily(militarily?) plus the fact that Japan is on the way to becoming a significant military power itself. It is spending more money than any single NATO country for defense, even though it's spending a little more than 1 percent of its GNF on defense. That 1 percent happens to be more than 4 percent is for Great Britain. And so it is not an insignificant military power.

Q: So we may very soon witness a situation in which we ...

K: We have to prepare ourselves intellectually for a more assertive Japan, and I don't criticize them for that.

Q: Do we have ways of linking them to us?

K: It's going to be a big challenge because their way of communication is different from ours. It is much more indirect, it is much more related to their national consensus, much less geared to diplomatic dialogue. How many Western negotiators have come back from meetings with the Japanese with the impression that the Japanese agreed with them, when, in fact, the Japanese yes only meant Yes, we have understood you and we will report that back home. It doesn't mean Yes, we will do what you want.

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K: It's the American problem at the moment. In the past the United States engaged itself, either if there was an overwhelming danger or an overwhelming problem. Each of those could be presented to the American public as requiring a specific effort for a limited period after which that particular challenge would have disappeared. Now we are moving into a different world. There is no overwhelming danger. There is no self-evident problem and certainly there is no time limit.

But we have to create new institutions for NATO. We have to find a place for a new Soviet Union. We have to redefine our relationship with Japan. We have to understand what is going on in China. And we have to do it in terms of a system. Students of Machiavelli have no problem with the concept of what needs to be done. And incidentally, I consider Machiavelli to have been a moralist, not a cynic, which most Americans don't understand. Or students of the British balance of power would have no difficulty with this. But for Americans, how to move from the missionary spirit to a permanent involvement, this is the biggest challenge, more important than anything we've discussed.

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must be careful not to keep playing domestic politics in America. I keep telling my European friends the following: For 40 years you were able to make proposals to us that in your heart of hearts you knew were really not very desirable because they appeal to some element of domestic opinion, and you were sure America was so single-mindedly pursuing its objective that it would ignore them. Now, I say to my European friends: Be careful of what you recommend. We may carry it out.

K: They may go.