The more they
do to us, the
more violently
we will respond

Andrew Neil

talks to Henry
Kissinger about
US foreign policy

"I HAVE never seen the American people so united in determined defiance," said Henry Kissinger in his familiar slow, deep, throaty voice. "The terrorists have not realised that the more they try to do to us, the more violent will be our response."

We were sitting in the former US secretary of state's office in a mid-town Manhattan skyscraper far above Park Avenue - a modest office but one decorated with pictures of Kissinger and just about every famous world leader of the second half of the 20th century, from Chou En Lai to Margaret Thatcher. As he spoke I noticed through his window an airliner glide silently yet ominously in the distance through the clear blue morning sky. Since September 11 the commonplace has become the potentially dangerous in New York, conjuring the fear of further atrocities to come in even level-headed folk. The plane continued peacefully about its own business.

"Americans were shocked by what happened on September 11," continued the 20th century's most famous diplomat, at 78 a little slower than I remember him when we last met five years ago but his mind as agile as ever.

"Even here in my own office I sensed people unable to comprehend what had happened. But we have not been shocked into inaction. There was never any doubt that we would go after the terrorists and those who support them with all the force at our command."

Nobody in America, bar a few of Hollywood's loony left and a handful of university campus peaceniks, would dissent from that. Unlike in Britain, there is no nascent peace party taking shape in the US and no prospect of one in the foreseeable future.

"The Democrats are sounding even

Turn to Page 8