Music

SESSION 1, APRIL 14, 1977

**Terry Lautenbach:** Welcome back ladies and gentlemen. The tradition of the Golden Circle is for the IBM Company to do its utmost to honor all of you, and with good reason. You've compiled records of unsurpassed achievement for IBM, and have shown yourselves to be at the very pinnacle of your profession. Our aim at this meeting is to have our program measure up to your superior performance. In keeping with that spirit, we put together an event we believe you'll find unusual, provocative, and memorable. We've invited a panel of distinguished commentators to interview one of the great public figures of our time. Afterwards, you'll have the opportunity to ask him some of your own questions. However, during this special program, we're asking you to refrain from smoking. Now, to introduce the panel, I'm especially pleased to bring back from his very active Arizona retirement, the former producer and moderator of America's longest running TV news program, MEET THE PRESS. Please join in welcoming the award winning journalist, publisher, and television producer, Lawrence Spivak...Larry.

(applause)

**Spivak:** After the music I'm beginning to wonder whether my voice is loud enough for any of you to hear. Good morning and welcome to this session of the Golden Circle. Our guest today will be questioned on foreign policy by a panel of reporters in an unrehearsed program. After that he will take questions from the audience. Now let me introduce our panel of

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[L-C]

reduction to 1,800, but also for a change in the composition
of the nuclear forces which would represent a dramatic change
of the Soviet's strategic program and not much of a change in
our strategic program. / This is not something that can possibly
be negotiated in one session, and cannot possibly be negotiated
in a brief period of time. Therefore, the decision that will
have to be made is whether we will want to go for that, as our
only position, or whether we will do what is attainable this
year, and then use the proposal of President Carter as a sort
of agenda for the next negotiation, that has always been fore
seen, which would go to more drastic reductions. The reason
there is some urgency to settle this year is that the interim
agreement by which the arsenals of both sides are now limited
expires in October. So by October a decision will have to be
made--either whether to make a new agreement, or whether to ex-
tend the existing agreement, or whether to let them lapse and
simply continue negotiations. But this is the essence of the
negotiating position.

**Kalb:** Given that situation Dr. Kissinger, the President has said
that we are going to hang tough from the proposals that we have
put to the Soviet Union. Should we?

**Kissinger:** Well, I think the President has also said that he
was going to examine the proposal again, and that if he found
aspects in it that present a problem, he would reexamine it. I
think he should hang tough on his proposal as an objective.
Whether he should hang tough on the proposal as the negotiating
position for this year--for this negotiation--I would question.

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movement of foreign troops across sovereign borders in Africa
under conditions when it has to be acquiesced in by the Soviet
Union. There is no way Angola would have done this without
Cuban and Soviet acquiescence. This is not compatible with relaxa-
tion of tension.

**Spivak:** Dr. Kissinger, I'm not sure -- we have among us about 200
questions or more, and I'm not sure whether you're trying to answer
them all at once or keep us from asking some questions. (laughter)

**Kissinger:** I'll be shorter. If you have a German background you
have trouble placing your verbs. (laughter)

**Spivak:** I've listened to you for years and I have never noticed
that. (laughter) In a firing line interview, you once said, and
I quote you, "Without a strong moral purpose there cannot be an
effective foreign policy." Can you tell us what the strong moral
purpose was behind our foreign policy when you were Secretary of
State?

**Kissinger:** (laughs) He asks the question to which he figured that
I was bound to give a shorter answer. (laughter, applause)

**Spivak:** Am I to understand that's your answer? (laughter)

**Kissinger:** I think that foreign policy has to take care of two
problems. One, it has to assure the survival of the country and
of the principles for which you are responsible. And therefore,

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there are certain objective requirements which you cannot avoid
which are imposed upon you by the balance of power -- by the
threats of others. / Secondly, I tried to be conscious of the fact
that the United States is the ultimate repository of freedom, and
that the United States must act in such a way that freedom can
thrive, that human dignity is protected. / But in the conduct of
foreign policy this conviction has to be applied always in
ambiguous circumstances, and the impact of moral convictions is
to give one the strength to navigate through the shoals rather
than to have a sort of a cookbook which you can open up and give
you a maxim for each contingency. /

**Spivak:** Now more recently the Washington Post quoted you as
saying that an emphasis on moralism in foreign policy has led to
the most serious errors of American foreign policy in this century.
Now, how does that square with what you've said about . . . /

**Kissinger:** I didn't say an emphasis on moralism, I said when the
moral zeal and the pragmatic traditions of America got out of phase
with each other, it led to serious errors of American foreign
policy. It led in the 20's to isolationism because we thought the
world was not good enough for us. It led in the 60's to a sort
of undifferentiated interventionism because we thought we had to
spread our convictions everywhere. The purpose of foreign policy
must be to relate your ideals to your capabilities, and to recognize
that you're dealing in a world of states that also have convictions,
so it is not that one cannot have moral convictions, it is, as
every private person also has to do, to relate his convictions to
his abilities to implement them. /

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[L.C]

with its pragmatic tradition. Some people read that as a criticism of President Carter's public statements about human rights violations and the Soviet Union. Did you mean that to be criticism of Mr. Carter?

**Kissinger:** Well I think this just shows the bottomless capacity of the Washington press corps of being suspicious. (laughter)

**Rowan:** Well, we'll give you a chance to make it so specific today we won't have to resort to suspicion. (laughter) Do you approve of what Mr. Carter is saying publicly about human rights in the Soviet Union and in various other countries?

**Kissinger:** I approve of the objectives that President Carter is setting with respect to human rights. There've been two schools of thought about how to go about it -- how to go about achieving this. There is no sense denying that when I had responsibility we preferred to do it by quiet diplomacy, and achieved some results -- in increasing immigration from the Soviet Union from 400 to 40,000, in solving hundreds of hardship cases, in taking care of immigration of people like Bukovsky (?). On the other hand, President Carter believes that he must make more of a public issue of it. I think it is too early to tell which of these two approaches works better, and therefore I have not been disposed to take a public position of what I think of the efficacy of this policy. I had obviously a different view in the past, but I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt to see how this policy works.

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[Lc]

**Spivak:** Dr. Kissinger, may I ask you a question about human rights. Why did we sign an agreement with the Soviet Union and the other nations on human rights when we knew so many of these countries were defying human rights even while they were signing this agreement?

**Kissinger:** You mean the Helsinki Agreement?

**Spivak:** Yes.

**Kissinger:** Well, we considered the Helsinki Agreement a tremendous diplomatic success from that point of view. In the past, the domestic practices of countries have never been considered the subject of international negotiation. Never in the past has any country agreed that its domestic policy could be subjected to debate in an international forum. In the Helsinki courts for the first time the Soviet Union agreed that certain standards of domestic conduct were a subject of international negotiation, and that there were legal criteria that could be applied. Now it is absolutely true that the Soviet Union has not -- or the East European countries -- have not carried out the principles that are in the Helsinki declaration. However, we now have a legal basis by which we can raise the human rights issue. There's a conference this summer in Belgrade in which the achievements of the Helsinki Conference are supposed to be reviewed. And we consider that the fact that the Soviet Union agreed to subject at least a portion of its domestic practices to international scrutiny, even though they were not

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living up to it, gave us a lever by which we could keep this
principle of human dignity in international forum.

<u>Spivak</u>: Mrs. Drew.

<u>Drew</u>: Dr. Kissinger, looking back over your eight years as
national security policy maker, what would you have done
differently?

<u>Kissinger</u>: Probably won the election on November 2. (laughter, applause) But let me give a serious answer. When you're in office, you react almost athletically. The problems crowd in on you with such rapidity that you must react almost by rote. Also, obviously, when you make the decisions, you must think you did the right thing or you wouldn't be doing it. And therefore, this sort of question tends to make the man who has left office look terribly self-righteous, because if he hadn't thought what he did was right he wouldn't have done it. Then, I'm too close to it now to gain a proper perspective. Probably the thing that I look back on, that if we had taken charge of it more fully, we could have avoided blowing up, at least in its second phase, was the Cyprus crisis. That happened, however, the week that President Nixon resigned, and therefore there were many other preoccupations. But this was something that in retrospect if we had dominated events more we would have done differently. I know that people generally want me to say Cambodia and aspects of the Vietnam war, but that would require a very long discussion and analysis, and I'm not prepared to do that at this time.

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[c]

progress towards them had been made. My impression is that
the new Administration is trying to pursue the same objectives.
At the time that we left office, we had to proceed step by
step because the situation was too explosive to risk everything
on one throw of the dice. The new Administration inherited a
situation in which moderates were in power in all of the Arab
states, and in which the Palestineans had also gained a greater
sense, at least, of their limits. So they have an opportunity
to proceed on a more comprehensive basis. This is my impression
of what they are doing and I support their efforts.

**Kall:** Dr. Kissinger, specifically, do you believe that the
Palestine Liberation Organization does represent the Palestinian
people and do you believe that the PLO should be dealt with
officially by the United States Government?

**Kissinger:** Well I had always believed that of all the organizations or states in the Middle East, that the Palestine Liberation Organization was the most complicated and the most radical -- the one that had the least interest in a moderate solution. They came from the territory now occupied by, not only occupied by Israel, but that constitutes the state of Israel. They had the greatest interest in undermining a settlement.

Therefore, it has always seemed to me that it was better to deal with the existing states in the area, and to settle the issue of frontiers, peace guarantees, and security before one faces the ultimate question of what the precise role of the Palestinian Liberation Organization should be. That the Palestineans have

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to be involved in some capacity through some group is without question. But I think to take the most radical group first, and to put them into the center of the negotiating process -- a group moreover that is more dependent on Moscow and more closely associated with the extreme radical Arab countries than any other -- that has not seemed to me to be the best strategy. The best strategy, it seemed to me to be, was to deal with the states like Egypt, Syria and Jordan first, and then, when the borders are defined, to see who governs in what territory.

**Spivak:** We have about ten more minutes for the panel before we go the audience. Mr. Rowan.

**Rowan:** Back to things that you might have done differently, would you not have tried to get the U.S. involved in, and caring more about Africa earlier than you did, if you had it to do all over again.

**Kissinger:** Probably yes. The conditions -- as long as Portugal had its colonial empire -- the conditions were not very propitious for the United States to play a major role, and of course we had to spend many years preoccupied with Vietnam. But on balance I would have to say that this is an area where it would have been better to get involved earlier.

**Rowan:** Is there any way we can halt the growing influence of the Soviet Union, particularly in southern Africa, without a rapid transition to majority rule?

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[L]

**Kissinger:** No, I have favored a rapid transition to majority rule, in Rhodesia and Namibia. I have also favored that the governments that should emerge out of this process should emerge from negotiations rather than from war, and that the more moderate elements be given an opportunity in this process. Our problem in Africa is to support the forces of change but not the forces of radicalism, and that is a fine line to draw. But the United States can not simply tie itself to the status-quo without becoming totally irrelevant in what will happen.

**Drew:** Dr. Kissinger, do you think, even given Cuba's involvement in Africa, it's time for the United States to proceed to establish normal diplomatic relations with it?

**Kissinger:** Well, when I was in office I stopped all discussions with Cuba after they became involved in Africa. It is not self-evident to me what we gain from normalizing relations with Cuba while it has 20,000 troops in Africa.

**Spivak:** Dr. Kissinger, when you were Secretary of State, I believe you started negotiating an agreement regarding the sovereignty in the control of the Panama Canal. Will you tell us what you wanted to accomplish there -- what your plans were?

**Kissinger:** The issue of the Panama Canal has many aspects. It has, one, the problem of the unimpeded transit of ships through the Panama Canal. Secondly, there is the issue of defense of the canal. Third, there's the issue of the legal position of the United States in the Canal Zone. That is to say -- well,

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forces in Panama -- in having all of Latin America rallied
against us -- will be too great. But the issue is not defense
or access. ✓ Access we cannot compromise at all. ✓ Defense -- some
legal formula has to be found in which we maintain the dominant
role. ✓ The only issue that is really being negotiated is how
much land and water we must have in the Canal Zone under American
control, and what the legal position of Americans has to be in
the canal zone. And in this respect, I believe that flexibility
is desirable and in the long term American interest.

<u>Spivak</u>: We'll run down this panel once more, and then we'll
go the audience -- if we can keep our answers and our questions
short. Mr. Kalb.

<u>Kalb</u>: Dr. Kissinger, from where I sit I can see your head
framed in a circle of gold with the letters "IBM" almost as a
halo above your head. (Laughter) I was wondering, I would like
to get your view on the role of multinationals in foreign
policy. Did you find them to be helpful or harmful?

<u>Kissinger</u>: In foreign policy -- I hate to tell you this, and
probably I won't be back next week (laughter) -- I found them
substantially irrelevant, with all due respect. (laughter, applause)
And let me say a few tactless things. I was absolutely astonished:
in office I had read all this propaganda of how the multinationals
were skewering American foreign policy to serve their selfish
interests. Well, I very rarely heard from any multinationals
and usually I heard from them only at the moment when things

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were already out of control for them. (laughter) I was astonished
by the lack of foreign policy understanding of corporations,
whose ability to operate abroad depended more on their under-
standing of political conditions than on their understanding
of economic conditions. So I don't believe that the multi-
nationals except in very narrow protection (?) -- I know people will
now say ITT and Chile, well that was a very limited area where
some very specific actions seemed plausible to them -- but on
the whole, with respect to the oil companies, and other companies,
they never seem to establish in their own mind the relationship
between foreign policy and their economic interests. On the
other hand, I believe that the multinationals have an increas-
ingly important role to play, because it is perfectly obvious that
we cannot transfer enough public funds and enough technology
through public means in order to take care of the needs of the
developing countries. The greatest resources of capital are
in the hands of the multinationals. And the greatest capacity
to bring about development, though that is not necessarily
their purpose, would be if the developing countries could under-
stand that the threat they think they face from the multinationals
is much less than the pressures they will face from governments
that give them money and can attach conditions to it. But
to answer your question Marvin, the thing that struck me most
in my dealing with executives of multinationals is the obsession
with economic factors and the lack of understanding of how
foreign policy decisions, or their conduct, could affect foreign
policy decisions.

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[L]

And in fact I have agreed to be the chairman of its advisory
committee, because it is a big national problem. Certainly
we will have to change some aspects of our style of life.
We will have to get engines that are more efficient, and we
may have to forego some other luxuries. But I think we will
still be so extremely well off that in the total picture these
sacrifices are relatively marginal and, in any event, they're
absolutely essential.

**Drew:** Dr. Kissinger, in your first answer to Mr. Spivak you listed as one of the most critical problems in the world today the relationship between the advanced nations and the developing nations. Would you include in the solutions or policies that we ought to work towards in order to improve those relations, increased economic assistance and perhaps agreements to support the prices of their basic commodities?

**Kissinger:** Some means has to be found to narrow the gap between the advanced nations and the developing nations or we won't be living in the same world anymore, and therefore the pressures -- diplomatically and politically -- by an increasingly large group of countries that feel themselves disposessed, will become a serious problem as time goes on. This obviously requires the transfer of capital and technology. Do I favor increased economic aid? I would answer it, I favor the increased transfer of resources. I have come to the view that it is practically impossible to obtain a substantial increase in governmental aid. Given the present mood in the Congress,

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own rhythm. It is much too early to draw any conclusion.

**Spivak:** Now Dr. Kissinger I think we will try to get a few good tough questions for you from the audience. Those of you who want to ask questions please rise, wait until a microphone is brought to you so we can be sure your question is heard.

I'll call on you. The man in the back stood first.

**Questions from the Audience:**

**Question:** Dr. Kissinger, the statements of the Carter Administration seem to strike a responsive chord in the hearts of many Americans, not because they are practical or they produce the best results, but because they seem to be the right thing to say. Yet over the years we supported many foreign countries which have governments which are totalitarian, which do not support human rights, which suppress the people, and which in many cases -- even though they are anti-Communist -- are anathema to our ideas of freedom. My question is, can we continue making statements about human rights? Can we really achieve the objectives that we hope to achieve in the world if we continue to support those types of administrations?

**Kissinger:** With respect to statements that may have been made, you have to remember the foreign policy of an Administration is like a marathon, not like a sprint. And therefore, you just can't judge; its too early to judge what the long term significance is at this early stage of an Administration.

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[L.C.]

**Spivak:** And now I'll take the gentleman in the front.

**Question:** Dr. Kissinger sometimes it seems almost as if we kind of react when things happen in the world, we almost kind of blunder into a situation without having clear objectives as to what we want. I think the classic case is the recent stuff in Zaire, where as Mr. Kalb pointed out we seem to be paralyzed, or the government seems to be paralyzed, in terms of precisely what our objectives are there. While you were Secretary of State, did we have both short range and long range objectives for different parts of the world and for different countries? And if we do have objectives, and this is kind of a tough question, I realize, assuming we have let's say a ten year objective for different parts of the world, what kind of a world -- should these objectives be attained -- do you think we would be facing in 1985?

**Kissinger:** First of all in defense of the Administration, I have to say that from my limited contact I would think that they would not differ substantially from my analysis of the problem, or from what Mr. Kalb and Mr. Rowan have said. Their perception, however, would be very similar to what Mr. Kalb has said; that while they agree with my analysis, they don't know what to do about it because they don't believe that they can get domestic support, and therefore they would argue that rather than fail, that stating an objective that they cannot achieve, they would rather not state the objective. But I think if you had leading members of the Administration here and they were free to talk,

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their difference with my analysis would not be very substantial.
Now the question was did I have objectives when I was Secretary
of State. Again, I have stressed that when you are in office,
a number of events are imposed on you. Nobody could predict
this Katanga invasion. We were all totally suprised by the
Cyprus events, no matter what various Congressional committees
then dig up in low level intelligence reports. You have to
remember that no intelligence officer has ever gotten into
trouble for not predicting an opportunity, (laughter) but he
has gotten into trouble for not predicting some horrible event,
and therefore, every day you get hundreds of cables predicting
some horrible contingency, and then when it happens they pull
out the cable and say, "See, you should have known about it."
(laughter) They don't show you the five hundred others that
predicted the same thing in other periods but it didn't happen.
But basically we were suprised by it. So then when you act
under the pressure of events you are somewhat at a handicap.
My perception was, generally, when we were discussing things,
I forced my associates first to tell me where they wanted to
be -- I can't tell you ten years from now, we thought if we could
say two years from now we were doing pretty well -- to tell
me where we would be two or three years from now if we did a
particular course of action. Yet to the outsiders it will always
look as if there were a series of unconnected tactical decisions
even if you proceed on that basis. Now as to your question
where should we be ten years from now. Ten years from now, I
hope that we will have developed a very dynamic cooperation
between the industrial democracies, who after all still represent

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own President in a way. (laughter) Could you describe for us where the initiatives came from, say in China and the Middle East, for foreign policy situations. And secondly, could you have worked with a President like Johnson or Kennedy who might have taken a different approach?

**Kissinger:** You didn't ask about Carter (laughter). I was security advisor and Secretary of State during a very unusual period. I was security advisor during a period of near civil war conditions at the time of Vietnam, and then with the President who was involved in the last two years of his term in office in really fighting for his life. So that to some extent the ranking cabinet member had to be a kind of a substitite in the public image. That was a highly unusual condition. And then I was Secretary of State with the President who was the first non-elected President in our history, who had a very difficult job in restoring public confidence, which he did to the great credit of the country. X In fact, however, the security advisor and the Secretary of State, no matter what the public image is, cannot operate without the closest support and cooperation between himself and the President. X The ultimate decisions always have to be made by the President. And the ultimate responsibility is the President's responsibility. And no matter what was in the public media, my relations with the two Presidents I served were always very close and very confidential. / Therefore it's extremely difficult to say who originated what idea. I would see both of these Presidents at least once a day. More usually several times a day. Ideas would be shaped over many

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[2]

usually a cooperative effort.

**Spivak:** Dr. Kissinger I'd like to give you an opportunity before we close this meeting to answer one question that you don't have to avoid or evade. I'm going to let you ask that question of yourself and finish this program in whatever way you want.

**(laughter)** I want you to ask yourself a question and answer it or simply give us an answer so that you won't be....(laughter)

**Kissinger:** I did this once in, when I was a professor, in the final examination I asked my students, ask yourself a question, explain its significance, and answer it. And it turned into a catastrophe. (laughter) And I want to have learned something from my students. Thank you very much. (applause)

**Terry Lautenbach:** Dr. Kissinger and panelists, I can't add anything to the applause that you've just received. We thank you for the privilege of sharing some of your thoughts with us today. It's been a real privilege to have all of you with us. Ladies and gentlemen, have a great day. We'll see you back here tomorrow morning at 9:00 a.m. for our closing business session. The meeting is adjourned.

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