Nixon in Tune
With Kissinger

John P. Leacacos

Plain Dealer Washington Bureau Chief

WASHINGTON—What I would like to read some day would be a piece entitled, "The Education of Henry A. Kissinger—By Richard M. Nixon." Or, in a second cut of wishfulness, a report headlined, "Grades of R. M. Nixon in Government 259—By H. A. Kissinger." This refers to the famous graduate seminar in national security policy Kissinger taught at Harvard University before he came to Washington to put theory into practice.

LEACACOS

LEACACOS

Even before his epochal secret trip to Peking, Kissinger without any doubt will figure notably in any sequel (with global backdrop) which President Nixon should one day write to follow his "Six Crises" (in the domestic arena). The President will, of course, loom hugely as the exceptional chief executive with wide-angled vision in the major opus on the philosophy of history which Kissinger would love to write when he steps outside the magic circle of presidential power.

A special chapter in either book ought to be devoted to the story of how two natural-born loners got to discover one another intellectually for the first time at a private dinner arranged by Clare Booth Luce in her Waldorf Towers apartment.

HISTORIANS ALREADY are blueprinting their research lines on the unique Nixon-Kissinger relationship whose only comparable precedents are those of President Woodrow Wilson with Col. Edward M. House and of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt with Harry Hopkins. The Damon-Pythias harmony of the President and his assistant for national security affairs has not been marred by the exclusion of Secretary of State William P. Rogers from the President's innermost thoughts as happened with Wilson and Robert Lansing and FDR and Cordell Hull.

As a tightly self-disciplined and very private man, the President is not prone to spill carelessly the nuances of his personal perceptions, although visitors who have seen him privately are sometimes amazed at the candor of his remarks and disclosures. Yet even when the element of propaganda flakery is discounted, tantalizing hints persist concerning the President's special qualities of approach to problems, traits not quite in evidence in the broad-brush rhetoric of his public statements.

John Ehrlichman, the senior aide clos-

est to the President in domestic affairs, speaks of Mr. Nixon's "contrapuntal" method which deflects policy conversations from the conventional wisdom line on to a more central focus of relevance. But without specific illustrations, one is still at sea in eliciting real clues to the Nixon ratiocination.

AS FOR KISSINGER, his old friends remark, "Henry dearly loves a secret," a dilection he masks like a garrulous sphinx. And though Kissinger has been spotted talking to himself on the street as he leaves a restaurant near the White House, nobody claims to have lip-read his private mutterings. One of a very few who have heard Kissinger speak about the President relates how Kissinger and the President walk for hours on the beach at San Clemente or Key Biscayne or in the woods at Camp David while the President "agonizes" over major foreign policy decisions.

Kissinger also has been quoted as indicating that the peculiar chemistry that binds the two men comes from a fusion of their basic bents, the President's political, Kissinger's historical. Two years ago White House colleagues laughingly used to say, "Henry knows nothing about politics." Two years later Kissinger confessed to friends he has "learned enormously" about politics from the President. "Enormous" is a favorite Kissinger superlative.

Both Mr. Nixon and Kissinger believe strongly in the "psychological intangibles" of great events and consequent influences which go far beyond the most rigorous analyses of how policies are supposed to work out. Kissinger seems to act as a vast echo chamber to the President's train of thought, enriching it from a long-range vision of history, a hoard of scholarly allusions and foreign policy insights gained from 20 years' deep involvement in postwar strategic ramifications, and an integrity and brilliance of impartial exposition that is vastly reassuring to the President's skeptical turn of mind.

MR. NIXON, his oldest associates aver, has an almost total recall of political happenings and motivations which he applies with apt precision to the mix of foreign domestic interchange. In his reflections on past and present experience, one question continually recurs to the President: How did this event, or will this event, affect the "long haul?" Thus, the President constantly spurs, prods and demands relevant answers to this overriding preoccupation: What will be the shape of the world in 20 years? He relishes in the meantime the exhilaration of an imaginative free association of ideas, the results of which he has displayed from time to time in progressing from national politician to world statesman.

As the President's ideal foil, Kissinger likewise is advancing in his own development—from the metaphysics of diplomacy to the realpolitik or power plays, to the politics of diplomacy. When he finally gets to articulate the esthetics of diplomacy, he can sit down in the Pantheon and bask in the steady limelight of posterity.

Cleveland Plain Dealer
Sunday, August 1, 1977

Nixon in Tune
With Kissinger

John P. Leacacos

WASHINGTON—What I would like to read some day would be a piece entitled, “The Education of Henry A. Kissinger—By Richard M. Nixon.” Or, in a second cut of wishfulness, a report headlined, “Grades of R. M. Nixon in Government 259—By H. A. Kissinger.” This refers to the famous graduate seminar in national security policy Kissinger taught at Harvard University before he came to Washington to put theory into practice.

LEACACOS

Even before his epochal secret trip to Peking, Kissinger without any doubt will figure notably in any sequel (with global backdrop) which President Nixon should one day write to follow his “Six Crises” (in the domestic arena). The President will, of course, loom hugely as the exceptional chief executive with wide-angled vision in the major opus on the philosophy of history which Kissinger would love to write when he steps outside the magic circle of presidential power.

MR. NIXON, his oldest associates aver, has an almost total recall of political happenings and motivations which he applies with apt precision to the mix of foreign-domestic interchange. In his reflections on past and present experience, one question continually recurs to the President: How did this event, or will this event, affect the "long haul?" Thus, the President constantly spurs, prods and demands relevant answers to this overriding preoccupation: What will be the shape of the world in 20 years? He relishes in the meantime the exhilaration of an imaginative free association of ideas, the results of which he has displayed from time to time in progressing from national politician to world statesman.

BY STEWART ALSOP

THE COW KICKED NELLY

NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH, BETHESDA, MD.—Being incarcerated in a hospital—as long as it doesn’t last too long—has its compensations. You are cosseted as never since babyhood. You are, delightfully, the center of interest, especially if, as in my case, you have a mysterious ailment battalions of doctors are at a loss to diagnose. Above all, you have more time to read, and to think, than you can ever get on the outside.

I acquired my mysterious ailment at just about the time of Henry Kissinger's brilliantly executed secret mission to Peking, and I've since had time to read just about everything just about everybody has written on the subject. As a result I find myself in a minority of one, or not much more.

The majority view is that the President's "bold initiative" is a "major-wateryshed," a "great turning point" or a "situation-transforming event." My guess is that the odds are that it will have about the same impact on the real world situation as the cow's kick had in my favorite heroic couplet:

> The cow kicked Nelly in the belly
> in the barn,

> Didn't do her any good, didn't do
> her any harm.

One reason for this reading of the odds is that the experience of the post-war years proves that it is always a mistake to suppose that Communists, whether of the Moscow, Hanoi, or Peking variety, do not mean just what they say. What the Peking Communists have been saying is wholly unequivocal. They will be happy to make a deal with Mr. Nixon if the American imperialists hand over Taiwan to Peking and Saigon to Hanoi and then get the hell out of Asia. Not otherwise.

NO DEAL

Mr. Nixon is not going to make that sort of deal, because to travel to Peking to make that sort of deal would be very foolish indeed. If Mr. Nixon wished to sell out Formosa or South Vietnam, the fell deed ought to be done quietly, with a minimum of fanfare—if it is necessary to commit an act of international treachery, as no doubt it sometimes is, that is of course the way to do it. To commit the act before the watching eyes of the whole world would be idiotic. Mr. Nixon, whatever else he may be, is not an idiot.

Mr. Nixon, for his part, would also be

happy to make a deal—a "two-China" solution of the Formosa problem, plus a settlement that would give South Vietnam what he calls a "reasonable chance" to survive. The Chinese are not going to make that sort of deal. Those who think they might should have a convincing answer to the question: Why should they?

In short, no deal—certainly not the sort of deal that would change the basic world situation. The Chinese may get a seat in the United Nations, of course, and there may even be an exchange of ambassadors between Washington and Peking. This will no doubt cause much fluttering in fashionable New York and Washington dovecotes. But it will not really change anything.

NO IMPACT

Except when it helped to start the Middle East's six-day war in 1967, the United Nations has had no serious impact on the course of events for at least twenty years. An exchange of ambassadors is mildly convenient, but in these days no more than that. As Kissinger's mission proved, if Washington wants to say something to Peking, or vice versa, there are ample means for doing so.

If it helps to speed the opening up of China to the world a bit, some good, and not much harm, could come of the President's initiative. Total isolation in a nation, as in humans, can lead to gross irrationality. Gross irrationality was displayed by Mao Tse-tung's China during the "great leap forward" period, and again during the "cultural revolution." Such internal aberrations didn't matter much to the rest of the world. But gross irrationality could matter a great deal when China becomes a genuine thermonuclear power.

The Chinese have already tested thermonuclear warheads far more sophisticated than the clumsy French and British versions, and they already have, in General de Gaulle's phrase, the ability to "tear off an arm"—they could destroy Vladivostok and other eastern Soviet population centers.

By 1978-80, according to the intelligence consensus, the Chinese will have achieved genuine thermonuclear power status. In other words, they will have the missiles and other means to inflict on the Soviet Union and the United States what Robert McNamara used to call "unacceptable damage"—i.e., devastation.

Mr. Nixon's mission to Peking is not

going to change this prospect one whit, of course. What it might do is to speed up the opening-up process on which the Chinese leaders had apparently already decided. This in turn, as in the Soviet Union after Stalin's death, could lead to the substitution of a rational hostility toward this country for the dangerously irrational hostility of recent years. But the hostility will certainly persist.

The President's mission to Peking could also have some marginal cooling-off effect on the impulse of at least some of the Soviet military to "strangle the baby in the bath," to use Winston Churchill's unpleasant phrase. There is no doubt at all that the Soviet leadership has at least seriously considered a "surgical strike" to knock out the growing Chinese nuclear capability. Shortly after Mr. Nixon's election, a carefully orchestrated operation was mounted to feel out the probable American reaction to such an attack.

NO DOUBT

No doubt to their surprise, the Soviets were left in no doubt that the Nixon Administration very strongly opposed any such adventure. The Nixon initiative will serve to underline this opposition. But the effect can only be marginal, for an obvious reason—the United States is not at all likely to risk nuclear war with Russia in order to protect the Chinese nuclear installations, and both the Russians and the Chinese know that this is so.

Such are the rather small international pluses—and a rather large minus in the alienation of Japan may have to be added against them. The real pluses seem to be internal, on both sides. The Chinese Communists, after all, are still Chinese, and the spectacle of the chief of all the foreign devils traveling halfway round the world to kowtow to Mao Tse-tung and negotiate with their No. 3 man must be intensely pleasing to them.

As for Mr. Nixon, the prospect of a Presidential "mission for peace" hogging the headlines while his dove-liberal rivals slog through the primaries must also be intensely pleasing to him. The fact remains that the President's mission seems hardly more likely to be a true global turning point than that kick the cow gave Nelly in the barn. That, at any rate, is the way it looks from the vantage point of this imperialist hospital.

84

Newsweek, August 16, 1971

Doggerel Days

COMMENT, From B1

"By working through Internal Revenue

"Or J. Edgar's crew,

"We'll tighten the screw.

"All radiclibbs will be taboo

"(Quien sabe? perhaps Reagan, too);

"In our Kafka-like State we may have to sedate—

"I mean 'medicate'—

"The whole Fourth Estate.

"In the mass-mind unwanted debris

"Can be blanked with a lobotomy,

"We have cures for bad thinking of every kind:

"Some crude, some refined:

"Anodynes are benign:

"Narcotics much better than snow,

"Laser beams go through your chapeau,

"Microvolt impulses brainwaves re-shape

"And bad thoughts escape

"On videotape.

"It's clear the divine right of kings

"Permits us to clip all the wings

"Of those who would question the quos for our quids.

"We'll get all the kids.

"We'll build pyramids.

"For years now I've had a dream daily:

"To be bigger than old Ben Disraeli.

"Realpolitik as an Art's my pursuit,

"Building empires to boot,

"More than all Brown Root.

"I studied at Harvard, you see,

"To be a young éminence grise:

"A Rasputin, a Hopkins, a Hess or a House,

"As a cat to a mouse,

"A Svengali, a louse.

"The best way to ingratiate

"Yourself to a vain chief-of-state:

"Be a Nhu or Lupescu, a Rostow or Cherwell,

"And wait 'neath the stairwell

"To report all things fare well.

"A young man can go very far

"If his wagon should hitch to a star

"The boss should be mesmerized each day to see

"That you are the key

"As you always agree.

"I have served my apprenticeship well,

"Now it's time that I cast off the spell,

"I cannot forever remain Number Two,

"For I've got lots to do:

"Destiny's rendezvous.

"You know," Henry said with a smile,

"I've long been a big Sinophile.

"You take care of me and I'll take care of you

"(But behind the bamboo

"And just entre nous)."

"Ah so," Chairman Mao replied.

"I no longer want to preside.

"Here, you take my chair.

"You're the most doctrinaire

"S.O.B. schmuck that's on either side!"

STATE of the
*Newsletter*

NATION

Vol. 3

No. 8

AUGUST, 1971

HENRY KISSINGER, POOR RICHARD, AND NATIONAL REVIEW

Not since 1949, when Pope Alexander VI conferred with the Kings of Portugal and Spain on how they might best split up the world between them, has a supranationalist diplomat advanced such plans for global reapportionment as Henry Kissinger apparently has in his secret Peking talks and doubly-secret SALT negotiations.

Some say that a new Tordesillas "line of demarcation" has already been projected for tomorrow's world, to run, probably, between Moscow's India and Peking's Pakistan, the way the old line ran between Spain's America and Portugal's Brazil. In 1949, the issue was how best to Christianize a vast new world; today, apparently, it turns on how a half-subverted Christendom can best be communized.

At any rate, on the strength of his spectacular Peking mission, the *New York Times* has hailed Kissinger as the "Inscrutable Occidental," with assurances that only an occidental of his special breed of inscrutability "could have slipped into mainland China, arranged a chat for President Nixon with Premier Chou En-lai and Chairman Mao Tse-tung, and kept it all secret."

Inscrutable is a good word for Poor Richard's Kissinger. Back in '67, it was he who managed to send two mysterious Frenchmen to Hanoi to "open clogged communications" between LBJ and Ho Chi Minh. The Frenchmen went briefed in depth "on what to say and what to look for in response." Now an American President is being sent to Red China; and he too will be well briefed. For, as Arthur Greenspan of the *Post* tells it: "When Richard Nixon goes to Peking, he will come with dozens of options clearly spelled out for him, all prepared by Kissinger and his staff of experts."

But Kissinger's inscrutability didn't really become a public concern till his appointment to take Walt Rostow's place was first announced in December, 1968. At that time, newsmen wondered: Why has Nixon chosen another liberal; and why haven't the Goldwaters and *National Review* protested? An answer was sought in the apparent inscrutability of Kissinger's writings which--colleagues admit--mean one thing when carefully studied and quite another when read quickly for a general impression.

Adding to the image of inscrutability was Kissinger's reply when a *Time* cover-story writer asked him (Feb. 1969) about his ideological orientation and what he hoped to achieve as a Nixon advisor. Discussing ideology, he said cryptically: "If I were in 19th century Great Britain, I might be a Disraeli Conservative in domestic affairs, but not in foreign policy." Paraphrased, his own clarification read: "Disraeli was an unabashed imperialist. Kissinger, by contrast, believes that U. S. power must not be spread too thinly, especially in politically underdeveloped areas that Americans little understand." In retrospect, it is easy to see here a central guideline for the Nixon policies that have most dismayed right-wing supporters; for being a Disraelian on the home front means trying to beat liberals at their own game, with deficit spending, etc., while being a non-Disraelian in foreign policy means trying to escape sovereign responsibilities through unilateral disarmament, precipitous negotiations, and cowardly retreat in the face of a determined enemy.

2

Discussing ultimate goals, Kissinger had waxed philosophic with the *Time* re-
porter. "Nothing is more difficult for Americans to understand," he said, "than the
possibility of tragedy." One lesson he particularly wanted to teach Americans was,
therefore, that "great states disintegrate, and so can theirs."

Kissinger has been trying hard to teach us that lesson. And, judging from the
President's speech of July 6, 1971 (delivered in Kansas City, Mo., while Kissinger
was en route to Peking), he has found at least one apt pupil. In that speech, Nixon
despaired publicly of this nation's capacity to keep from disintegrating, the way
ancient Rome disintegrated. On his return, Kissinger stressed that Chou En-lai had
shown great interest in that speech, and that an English text was used, for accur-
acy, while Chou subjected him to "very intelligent questioning" about its meaning.

Chou En-lai is, of course, a veteran of fifty years' service in the communist
drive to overwhelm the security of the Western nations, and particularly of the U-
nited States. He must have thought it fascinating, if not inscrutable, that Kissin-
ger himself--central coordinator of our national security intelligence--should have
come in person to arrange a "chat" for Nixon with the Red Chinese leaders. But, as
Edgar Snow reports in *Life*, those Red Leaders were most eager to meet with our top
security man. "Kissinger?" one of them reportedly said. "There is a man who knows
the language of both worlds--his and ours. With him, it should be possible to talk."

What Chou and Kissinger talked about--whether they touched at all on the pros
and cons of our security, for instance--remains concealed from us, as also from the
governments of our anti-communist Asian friends. But since those talks, there has
been no concealing the fact that, here in America, "the liberals," as William Buck-
ley has summed it up, "are jumping for joy." Through reiteration in the newsmedia,
the feeling has become contagious. And yet, when liberals jump for joy, the very
least a Buckley conservative can do is to think twice before jumping in with them.

Bill Buckley hasn't rejoiced with the liberals. In his New York *Post* column of
July 20, 1971, he asked bitterly: "One wonders, what did Chou En-lai say to Henry
Kissinger?... Did he say that, what the hell, we could keep Formosa?" And his iron-
ic reply--"Perhaps someday Dan Ellsberg will tell us"--passed beyond bitterness to
the edge of rage. Those words are, to my knowledge, Buckley's first criticism of
Kissinger. And from their mood, it must have been but a short step to the "Declar-
ation" of July 26, 1971, in which he and eleven conservative colleagues (including
other editors of *National Review*) resolved to suspend support of Nixon's policies.

That wasn't an easy move, least of all for Bill Buckley, who has had an almost
Quixotic sense of loyalty toward the old prosecutor of Alger Hiss. Till now, it has
seemed that, so long as Nixon could get himself despised and distrusted by even one
prominent liberal, the myth of his "indelible conservatism" would hold. Regardless
of policy, Buckley conservatives would rush to his defense--noblesse oblige. And a
grateful Nixon has usually responded in kind, with assurances that he much prefers
conservative loyalty to the "contempt" and "distrust" of liberals who, it seems,
will never be satisfied, no matter how much the Administration does for them.

If the myth of Nixon's indelible conservatism has been broken, that's welcome
news. Still, as it stands, Buckley's suspension of support misses the mark. It de-
mands too much of Poor Richard in deliberately ignoring the fact that, so long as
he remains in the tutelage of the inscrutable Henry Kissinger, he cannot really be
held accountable, in a personal sense, for his deeds in office. The *National Review*
editors and their conservative colleagues elsewhere know this. It explains why their
July 26 Declaration is hedged with reaffirmations of personal respect and affection
for the man, and why it ends with these poignant words: "We consider that our de-
fection is an act of loyalty to the Nixon we supported in 1968."

3

Nothing Nixon can do will ever free him from the contempt and distrust of the
liberal establishment, for that establishment knows that Kissinger, not Nixon, is
"the one." Conservatives like James J. Kilpatrick complain that Nixon "has jettisoned his charts and compass of 1968--tossed them over the rail--and is now steering by the seat of his pants." But, in fact, the man at the helm has all along been Kissinger, not Nixon. And Kissinger has kept on a steady course, with charts carefully plotted through long years of service as top brain of the internationalist wing of the Republican Party, as also of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Rockefeller Brothers Foundation.

With Kissinger constantly at his side, Nixon has indeed changed; but only to
become an imitation of what Kissinger has long been: a half-measure Disraelian internationalist, skilled at giving pseudo-conservative excuses for moves which, when
linked together, will lead the nation irreversibly down a suicidal course, toward
a cosmopolitan new world order situated, as Kissinger likes to say, somewhere "beyond the nation state."

Overwhelmed by what the *Times* has called the "sheer power" of Kissinger's in-
tellect, Poor Richard Nixon has been taken in and made to feel self-righteous about
it. But, unhappily for America, long before Poor Richard was taken in, the editors
of *National Review* appear to have suffered the same fate.

And there's the crux of this whole inscrutable business. Nixon and Kissinger
met for the first time during the campaign of '68. In a normal course of events,
Nelson Rockefeller ought to have made the introductions. Nixon had been unabashedly
a compromise candidate. Rockefeller could therefore have presented Kissinger to him
as the price the moderate and conservative Republicans would have to pay, if the
liberal internationalists were not to withhold their support, as they had in '64.

But it didn't work out that way. Instead of coming to Nixon as Rockefeller's
man, under unmistakable internationalist-liberal auspices, Kissinger managed some-
how to come to him with a personal introduction, glowing endorsements, and a chorus
of blessings from the editors of *National Review*. How he did it was, in its way, a
more remarkable, more inscrutable feat than even his spectacular mission to Peking,
which has so dismayed the conservatives. For the hard truth is that Kissinger could
never have gotten to Peking, if the Buckley conservatives hadn't opened a way for
him into the deepest recesses of Nixon's confidence.

The same liberals who are now jumping for joy over Kissinger's Peking escapade
had also jumped for joy when the news first broke that their long-time friend and
academic colleague had been appointed by Nixon to serve as chief presidential ad-
visor for national security affairs. That was on December 2, 1968. Dozens of lead-
ing liberal internationalists were questioned about it, and they all responded with
mixed surprise and delight. Arthur Schlesinger was explicit enough when he said:
"I think it's an excellent appointment.... Henry asked my advice several weeks ago
and I urged him to accept." And Adam Yarmolinsky expressed the feeling of scores of
colleagues when he said: "I sleep better with Henry Kissinger in Washington."

At that time, in liberal intellectual circles, there was not the slightest
doubt about Kissinger's past or ideological bent. He was Rockefeller's man, unmistakably a man of the liberal internationalist left. But then came the December 17
issue of *National Review*, and all was suddenly changed. In a brief but emphatic editorial, the leading journal of conservative opinion dismissed the unanimity of
liberal approval of Kissinger's appointment as irrelevant, remarking: "Let us leave
it that Mr. Kissinger is a practiced diplomat, a finished scholar, a member of the
faculty of the country's senior university, that he has stood at the right hand of
Nelson Rockefeller; so that the profile is almost universally pleasing." But then

4

came this extraordinary commendation, hinting at some privileged new insight:

"Mr. Kissinger is...unusual, and we choose to believe that it is this in him which above all commended him to the attention of Mr. Nixon; he is a realist, a patriot, he sees a problem whole, is sometimes maybe a little dreamy on disarmament matters --but one cannot walk away from any of his books or articles, or know something about his contributions to American strategic thinking, and be less than grateful for his appointment, and confident that he will render great service."

That editorial dismayed me. In its cryptic phrases the scrutable had suddenly become inscrutable. Kissinger was thereafter to be a man of puzzling ambiguities who could manage to wink knowingly at a Buckley while giving Arthur Schlesinger a confidential squeeze on the arm. I had read all his writings, He was unmistakably an anti-nationalist. My book *War, Peace, and the Presidency* had just been published, and, while the focus there is on Rostow's anti-nationalism, I knew that Kissinger shared Rostow's notion that it had become a "legitimate American national objective" in the nuclear age "to see an end to nationhood as it has been historically defined." His accession to Rostow's post could mean, in my judgment, only that the old Harvard-MIT anti-nationalist bias would continue to guide presidential thinking --with the added weight, this time, of having been endorsed by *National Review*.

But that was long ago. Since then, Bill Buckley and I have had a sometimes strenuous, but always friendly tug of war on the subject. My judgment has been and is that Kissinger has abused Buckley's friendship to give himself conservative credentials with Nixon which he could not otherwise have acquired. Buckley has now criticized Kissinger for the first time. I therefore presume to ask him publicly to make a full break, and thereby start the laborious process of freeing our President from Kissinger's inscrutable guidance. It may be that, once the incubus is lifted, Nixon may again show himself to be (in Bill Buckley's phrase) "one of us."

Henry Paolucci

STATE OF THE NATION is a monthly newsletter focused on the anti-nationalist challenge to our survival as a sovereign nation. If you wish to support such a publication, you can best do so by ordering gift subscriptions for your friends. Editor and Publisher: Henry Paolucci. Associate Editor: Thaddeus S. Dabrowski. Subscription Manager: Barbara Carlé. Circulation Manager: William A. Hostek.

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A GRIFFON-HOUSE PUBLICATION

MAX FRISCH

# LUNCH IM WEISSEN HAUS

## TAGEBUCH VOM 2.MAI 1970

Von Max Frisch erscheint im kommenden Frühling im Suhrkamp-Verlag, Frankfurt a. M.:

«Tagebuch II». Aus dem Manuskript dieses neuen Tagebuches stammt die nachfolgende Sequenz.

Der Offizier, der wachsam im Vorraum sitzt, zeigt sich freundlich wie ein Concierge, dem unsere Pässe genügen; wir sind angemeldet. Der schwarze Taxifahrer war eher mürrisch, als wir ihm unser Ziel nannten. Wir müssen warten. Der Offizier scheint sich zu langweilen, Mütze auf dem Tisch, Revolver am Gurt. Ich merke, dass ich mich nicht setzen kann; ich bin nervös, obschon an Ort und Stelle die Neugierige geringer ist, als ich sie mir eingeredet habe. Eine Sekretärin geht auf die Toilette; ein alter Neger leert die Aschenbecher im Korridor. Kein Zeichen von Alarm, Ab und zu gehen junge Männer hemdärmig durch den Korridor, um sich ein Coca-Cola aus dem Automaten zu holen; ihr small-talk dabei. Die Stimmung im Haus ist keineswegs nervös. Administration. Alltag bei der Weltmacht.

Seit vorgestern US-Einmarsch in Kambodscha, heute im Fernsehen die üblichen Bilder: Tanks von hinten, Helikopter in Schwärmen, Soldaten mit schiefen Helmen und mit schwerer Pakkung, Material, Waffen, Munition, Material; sie arbeiten oder stehen etwas verloren in der Gegend, warten auf Order, wohin in den Dschungel. Laut Sprecher wissen sie noch nicht, dass sie eine Grenze überschritten haben; das sieht man der Vegetation nicht an; als sie's von dem Sprecher erfahren, zeigt sich in ihren Mienen keinerlei Regung. Erst auf die Frage, was sie dazu meinen, sagt einer ins Mikro: «This is a mistake, I'm sure.» Ein anderer: «We're going to make history, that's all I know.»

Wir warten im Korridor, der eng ist, nicht zu vergleichen mit einem Korridor bei IBM. Weder Chrom noch Leder. Man sitzt in gepolsterter Kleinbürgerlichkeit. Keine Spur von Reichskanzlei. Es könnte das Wartezimmer eines Zahnarztes sein, abgesehen von den Fotos: Nixon in Hawaii mit einem Blumenkranz um den Hals, er lacht, Nixon mit den Männern von APOLLO 13 nach der gemeisterten Havarie, er lacht und winkt; Nixon mit Gattin auf einer Treppe, er winkt und lacht; Nixon beim Verlassen seines Flugzeuges, er winkt; Nixon im Garten als Haupt einer Familie, er winkt nicht, aber lacht; dann wieder Nixon öffentlich, er schüttelt Kinderrände; Nixon bei einem Gala-Dinner mit Negern links und rechts, lauter Onkel Tom, alle in Smoking, dasselbe Gala-Dinner nochmals -

Niemand kann angeben, wie gross die BLACK PANTHER PARTY ist. «The BLACK PANTHER PARTY regards itself as a socialist organisation and believes that means of production should

be in the hands of the people. They declare that men only live creatively when free from the oppression of capitalism.» Man soll nicht mehr nach Harlem gehen als Weisser; wir fahren trotzdem nach Harlem und gehen zu Fuss; als einzige Weisse im Apollo-Theater. Keinerlei Belästigung; auch auf der Strasse keine feindseligen Blicke, wenn man als Weisser nicht gafft. Ungefähr dieselben Konsumgüter, dazu dieselbe Sprache: aber ein anderer Kontinent. Keine Kampfparolen an den Mauern. Es ist schwer zu sagen, was sich in zwanzig Jahren verändert hat; aber sehr viel. Im Kino: Gelächter über den weissen Helden, lautes Gelächter.

Unser Gastgeber lässt sich entschuldigen, dass er noch einige Minuten beschäftigt ist, was wir leicht verstehen: seit vorgestern ein neuer Kriegsschauplatz. Ich wundere mich noch immer über diesen Korridor; abgesehen von den Nixon-Fotos, die in ebenso billigen wie geschmacklosen Rahmen hängen, brächte mich nichts auf die Idee, dass man sich in der Firma befindet, die Milliarden umsetzt in Krieg. Erst als ich die Toilette suche, finde ich in einem Seitengang auch ein Foto von Nixon in Vietnam: Soldaten bei der Entgegennahme seines väterlichen Ernstes -

Ich bin als Tourist im Land, hauptsächlich um die amerikanische Malerei zu sehen in ihrer Umwelt, Ateliers in der Lower East Side. Unterwegs kommt man in Demonstrationen: Fahrens des Vietcong wehen vor der Public Library, Lautsprecher, ein dicker Helikopter kreist über den Park, wo sie auf dem Boden hocken oder auf Balustraden, andere liegen unter den Bäumen, Jugend mit Guerrillero-Bart und Jesus-Haar, lauter Jugend, männlich und weiblich, Gruppen mit Gitarre, die Polizei steht um den Park, die Jungen rufen: PEACE NOW, PEACE NOW, die Polizei schweigt und schaut niemanden an, ihre Knüppel hängen mit einer Schlaufe an ihrer Hand, PEACE NOW, PEACE NOW, PEACE NOW. Niemand wird bedroht, die Polizei wirkt überflüssig, die Wolkenkratzer ringsum brauchen keinen Schutz. Einige rufen: REVOLUTION NOW, aber sie berufen sich auf die Verfassung. Es geschieht nichts; nur die Heilslehre, die Krieg führt, verfängt nicht mehr. Einige rufen: ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE, dazu das Zeichen mit den zwei Fingern, dann rufen plötzlich fünfzehntausend: PEACE, PEACE NOW, PEACE, PEACE, PEACE.

Henry A. Kissinger, unser Gastgeber, begrüsst uns herzlich und bittet in sein Vor-

zimmer. Wir kennen ihn aus Harvard; damals als Professor für politische Wissenschaft war er gelegentlich schon Berater von Präsident Kennedy. Heute gehört er vollständlich zum Weissen Haus, Berater für Militärpolitik. Er ist Mitte vierzig, untersetzt, auf eine weltmännische Art unaußfällig; Akademiker nach deutscher Tradition, auch wenn er seine Hände in die Hosentaschen steckt. Der Anruf, der ihn nochmals eine Weile aufhält, kommt von Nelson Rockefeller, und also warten wir nicht nur verständnisvoll, sondern verlegen im Bewusstsein, wie kostbar seine Zeit ist. Zwei Sekretärinnen sitzen in seinem Vorzimmer und essen gerade ihren HotDog. Auch hier eine Foto von Nixon: der Präsident, wie er Henry A. Kissinger, seinen stehenden Berater, im Sitzen anhört, umgeben von Flaggen; Szene wie aus einem Kipphardt-Stück. - Henry A. Kissinger, jetzt dienstfrei, stellt uns eine Dame vor, die nicht zum Weissen Haus gehört, eine Schauspielerin; dabei scherzt er mit Bezug auf Siegfried Unseld: «My friend and left-wing publisher.» Auch hier eine Foto von Nixon, Porträt mit Widmung an Henry A. Kissinger: «grateful for ever», das Datum kann ich nicht lesen, da Henry A. Kissinger sich erkundigt, was ich zurzeit arbeite: Roman oder Drama? Sehr hungrig ist eigentlich niemand, aber es gibt noch andere Gründe für einen Lunch; schon das Bestellen ist ein willkommener Aufschub der Fragen, die unumgänglich sind, Fragen zur amerikanischen Invasion in Kambodscha. Wir einigen uns auf Mineralwasser. Nachdem der Weisse-Haus-Kellner uns verlassen hat, eröffnet Henry A. Kissinger mit einem Bericht zur persönlichen Situation: täglich Briefe mit Morddrohung. Der Mann vom Secret Service, der ihn infolgedessen beschattet, ist aber nicht zu sehen. Ist es der Kellner oder sind wir vollkommen vertrauenswürdig? Dann zum Generationenkonflikt: es sei unsere Schuld, das Versagen der Väter und Lehrer, die jeder leeren Drohung nachgeben, resignieren, kapitulieren und so weiter, statt zu vertreten, was sie als richtig erkennen, und Leitbilder zu geben. Henry A. Kissinger erzählt, wie er in einer Universität, zur Diskussion mit Studenten bereit, als «Kriegsverbrecher» angesprochen wird; ungefähr die Hälfte der versammelten Studenten stimmt dieser Beschuldigung zu, indem sie sich von den Sitzten erhebt und stehenbleibt; als er, Henry A. Kissinger, trotzdem zu einer akademischen Diskussion bereit ist, fällt wieder das Wort «Kriegsverbrecher», daraufhin verlässt er den Hörsaal. Nicht wenige von den Jungen, sagt er, haben ihm brieflich

4

Editorial

## Apropos Information

Wir sind auf Informationen der Schriftsteller angewiesen.

Als damals beim ersten Betreten des Mondes der Satz zu uns drang, das sei ein kleiner Schritt für einen Mann, aber ein gewaltiger Sprung für die Menschheit, bemerkte ungerührt ein Unvoreingenommener, wir würden wohl erst dann tatsächlich etwas über den Mond erfahren, wenn einmal ein Schriftsteller dort gewesen sei. Dieser untechnisch neugierige Mensch rekapitulierte wahrscheinlich in diesem Augenblick das, was wir bis anhin, ausser den technischen Angaben, an Beschreibung aus dem Weltraum bezogen hatten: sie fühlten sich wohl, sie fühlten sich ausgezeichnet, hatten die Astronauten etwa mitgeteilt, oder ein freischwebender hatte zur Notiz gegeben: «Hallo, ich bin Diamant 2», oder, spontan und umfassender: «Pavel, Pavel, sie ist rund», eine Bemerkung des erstmaligen aus der Kapsel ausgestiegenen Russen Leontow.

Noch fliegen die Schriftsteller nicht zum Mond, aber sie scheuen sich nicht, dorthin zu gehen, wo etwas passiert, und ihre Beobachtungen als Korrespondenz in Zeitungen zu publizieren.

Zwei Berichte zweier Schriftsteller in diesem Magazin, aus Zufall, in Stil und Thema weit auseinanderliegend, beide Berichte aber über Orte, die jedem Leser vertraut sind, weil an Informationen aus dem Weissen Haus in Washington und aus Israel nicht gespart wird. Und hier zeigt es sich, wie sehr wir auf die Einsichten der Schriftsteller angewiesen sind.

Es brauche, so meinte beispielsweise Lars Gustafsson in seinen Aufzeichnungen aus Israel, für ein Gespräch zwischen ihm, dem Europäer, und einem Araber des alten Jerusalem Sensibilität, Einfühlungsvermögen und Phantasie. Es braucht, ausser der Kenntnis, auch Sensibilität, Einfühlungsvermögen und Phantasie, um Situationen zu verstehen, fallsche Erwartungen richtigzustellen, Hoffnungslosigkeiten zu benennen, um der Wahrheit näherzukommen.

Max Frisch bezeichnet den Lunch im Weissen Haus für den Gastgeber, den Politiker Kissinger, einen Lunch mit Laien. Der Laie Frisch aber nimmt als wacher und besorgter Zeitgenosse in dieser Lunchzeit Dinge wahr, die ein politisch Beteiligter nie wahrnehmen würde und uns nie mitteilen dürfte. «Was sollte ich denn erzählen», berichtet Max Frisch, «bloss um Henry A. Kissinger nicht die Frage zu stellen, die Millionen amerikanischer Bürger stellten.» Es ist, damals im Mai 1970, die Frage nach dem US-Einmarsch in Kambodscha, die Frage, warum erneut die Tanks rollten. Ein Schriftsteller als Laie, beispielsweise in der «Firma, die Milliarden umsetzt in Krieg», bekommt mehr Antworten auf Fragen, welche die Menschen bewegen und erschüttern als vielleicht der Journalist, der im Auftrag interviewt und für eine Zeitung kommentiert. Der Schriftsteller ist als ein Parteiloser tiefer beteiligt, heftiger verpflichtet.

Gustafssons Bericht endet mit dem Nichtverstehen, mit dem irren Lachen, in das er zusammen mit den zwanzig auf Lebenszeit verurteilten arabischen Freiheitskämpfern im Gefängnishof von Kefar Yona ausbricht. Frisch bemerkt: «Ich bin unsicher, was ich denken soll» und «hier also haust die Macht».

Nachdenklichkeiten, Unsicherheiten, ein Zögern, sie sind oft die Informationen, die uns auf die Spur neuer Zusammenhänge und tieferer Einsichten führen und uns unmittelbarer und härter treffen als Meldungen politischer Entscheide. Informationen aus der Erfahrung miterlebter Situationen. Der Leser nimmt sie auf. Es sind Informationen, die er zur Gedächtnisstütze und Erinnerung wahrscheinlich nicht in die Sammelmappe legt, sondern die ihm als Erlebnis lebendig bleiben, ihn nachdenklich stimmen, ihn vielleicht verändern.

Laure Wyss

## TAGES ANZEIGER MAGAZIN

Inhalt Nr. 31, 7. August 1971.

Leserbriefe 2

Lunch im Weissen Haus 7

Im kommenden Frühjahr erscheint Max Frischs «Tagebuch II». «Lunch im Weissen Haus» fand am 2. Mai 1970 statt: Max Frisch besucht zusammen mit seiner Frau und seinem Verleger Siegfried Unseld Nixons Berater Henry A. Kissinger. «Ich esse Fruchtsalat, wo Millionen amerikanischer Bürger nicht zum Wort kommen. Was ist komisch daran? Ein Gastgeber unter täglicher Morddrohung; er zeigt keine Angst, auch keine Empörung darüber. Berufsrisiko.»

Aufzeichnungen in Israel 10

Der schwedische Schriftsteller Lars Gustafsson hielt sich im März und April dieses Jahres im Nahen Osten auf. Zwei seiner Israelbriefe drucken wir ab: die Beschreibung einer Wanderung durch Jerusalem und die Gespräche mit palästinischen Gefangenen in israelischen Gefängnissen. Berichte eines unvoreingenommenen Neutralen, eines genauen Beobachters, eines empfindsamen Schriftstellers und eines engagierten Zeitgenossen. (Titelbild: Die Felsmoschee in Jerusalem, fotografiert von Charles Harbutt)

Menschen am Telefon 20

Mann soll stets und überall erreichbar sein. Ein Telefon zu besitzen, gilt als ein selbstverständliches Zeichen minimalster Integration in eine Gesellschaft. Im Büro und am Bett, stets hat der Mensch den Apparat zur Stelle. mit dem er alle Welt, mit dem ihn alle Welt erreichen kann. Zu seinem Fluch und seinen Freuden ist er in allen Lebenslagen mit der Umwelt verbunden. Fritz Hirzel untersucht das Phänomen Telefon.

Für Sie notiert 27

Guide culinaire 28
Strassen in Zürich / Seefeldstrasse (2)

Humor 31

VERANTWORTLICHE REDAKTION: PETER FREY, LAURE WYSS / REDAKTIONELLE MITARBEITER: NIKLAUS FLCELER, HUGO LEBER, MARLET MÜLLER-BRAUER

FILM: MARTIN SCHAUB / GESTALTUNG: ALBERT KAELIN / FOTOGRAFIE: JACK METZGER

INSERATE: WALTER GROB / HERAUSGEBER: TAGES-ANZEIGER FÜR STADT UND KANTON ZÜRICH AG / DRUCK: TIEFDRUCKANSTALT IMAGO

3

für seine Haltung gedankt und sich für den
Vorfall entschuldigt.

WAR CRIMES AND INDIVIDUAL
RESPONSIBILITY, ein Memorandum
von Richard A. Falk behandelt das
Massaker von Song-My am 16. März
1968, wobei mehr als 500 Zivilisten nie-
dergemacht worden sind: «The U. S.
prosecutor at Nuremberg, Robert Jack-
son, emphasized that war crimes are war
crimes no matter which country is guilty
of them.» Die Charta des Nürnberger
Tribunals bezeichnet als Verbrechen nicht
allein Massaker, Deportation, Folter und
so weiter, sie enthält auch einen Artikel
VI: «Crimes against peace: Planning,
preparation, initiation or waging of a
war of agression in violation of interna-
tional treaties, agreements or assur-
ances.»

Was die Invasion von Kambodscha be-
trifft, sind wir nicht nur Laien, sondern
uns dessen auch bewusst: Henry A. Kiss-
singer hat seit Jahrzehnten theoretisch auf
dem Gebiet gearbeitet, das der Laie
schlichthin als Krieg bezeichnet, daher
seine Gelassenheit zwei Tage nach der In-
vasion von Kambodscha. Das Essen: fami-
liär-ordentlich, es lenkt also nicht ab. Was
sollte ich denn erzählen: bloss um Henry
A. Kissinger nicht die Frage zu stellen, die
Millionen amerikanischer Bürger stellen?
Er ist freundlich, vielleicht froh um einen
Lunch mit Laien, fragt meinen Verleger
nach seinem Verlag; aber Siegfried Un-
seld, sonst in jeder Lebenslage bereit,
sofort und gründlich über die Pläne seines
Verlages zu berichten, macht es kurz, um
seinerseits eine Frage zu stellen, die Henry
A. Kissinger (sie duzen einander aus der
Zeit des Harvard-Seminars) leicht beant-
wortet: die Kambodscha-Aktion werde
vierzehn Tage dauern, dann Regenzeit.
Auch der Versuch unseres Gastgebers, das
Gespräch auf Ehen zu bringen, gelingt
nicht. Wieder entsteht eine Pause. Wer
Präsident Nixon berät, hat es schwerer als
ein Verleger oder ein Schriftsteller; er
kann nicht, um von seinem Beruf zu
schweigen, auf ein allgemeineres und
wichtigeres Thema wechseln, zum Beispiel
auf Krieg. Das ist ja sein Beruf, und
dahilft auch keine persönliche Bescheiden-
heit, kein Takt unsererseits. Henry A. Kiss-
singer sagt, dass ihnen der Kambodscha-
Entscheid natürlich keine Freude macht.
Man hat das kleinere Übel zu wählen
(kleiner für wen?), und offenbar habe ich
nicht richtig gehört: das kleinere Übel
wird höchstens sechs Wochen dauern.
Henry A. Kissinger, der seine Diät hält,
spricht ohne Eifer und nicht viel; es drängt
ihn nicht. Der Präsident weilt heute in sei-

nem Landhaus. Um etwas zu sagen,
könnte ich berichten, wie die Amerikaner,
die ich getroffen habe, darüber denken;
aber Henry A. Kissinger errät es, bevor
ich es sage: das sind Studenten, Professo-
ren, Maler, Schriftsteller, Intellektuelle. Er
sagt: «Cynics have never built a cathe-
dral.» Der Protest im Land kann die Ver-
antwortlichen nicht verwirren; sie allein
kennen die Fakten, die geheim sind.
Henry A. Kissinger ist ein Intellektueller,
der Verantwortung übernommen hat.
wobei er sich darauf beruft, dass nicht
«wir» diesen Krieg in Vietnam begonnen
haben; er meint: nicht die Regierung
Nixon. Ein undankbares Erbe. Was noch-
mals die Invasion von Kambodscha be-
trifft: die USA haben überhaupt kein In-
teresse an Kambodscha, es geht lediglich
darum, eine Position für Verhandlungen
zu schaffen. Er fragt, was wir zum Nach-
tisch wünschen. Meinungsforschung hat
ergeben, dass heute 63 Prozent die Kam-
bodscha-Invasion gutheissen, 25 Prozent
sind dagegen. (Die «NEW YORK
TIMES» ist dagegen.) Ich bestelle also
Fruchtsalat und bin froh, dass ein Hemd-
aëmliger kommt mit der leisen Meldung:
«The President is calling.» Wir, eine Vier-
telstunde allein, löffeln unserchtisch
scheigsam; was unser Gastgeber uns
sagen kann, hat Nixon schon im Fernsehen
gesagt: —

Keine Verletzung der Neutralität von
Kambodscha, denn diese Neutralität hat
der Vietcong schon verletzt. Keine
Aggression gegen Kambodscha, denn im
vorgesehenen Bezirk befindet sich keine
Bevölkerung, nur Vietcong, dessen
Stützpunkte zerstört werden. Die Regen-
zeit wird sechs Monate lang verhindern,
dass der Vietcong diese Stützpunkte wie-
der erstellt. Keine Eskalation des Krie-
ges, im Gegenteil, es handelt sich um
eine Vorbereitung für den Abzug der
amerikanischen Truppen; nach der
Regenzeit werden die südvietnamesischen
Truppen allein imstande sein . . .

Das Restaurant im Weissen Haus: trau-
lich-gediegen wie eine Zunftstube, Ge-
mütlichkeit in dunklem Holz, man könnte
sich im Bodensee befinden. Hier kein
Foto von Nixon, dafür vier Ölgemälde von
alten Schiffen; drei davon in Seenot . . .
«The President is calling» . . .

Ich esse Fruchtsalat, wo Millionen ame-
riankanischer Bürger nicht zum Wort kom-
men. Was ist komisch daran? Ein Gastge-
ber unter täglicher Morddrohung; er zeigt
keine Angst, auch keine Empörung dar-
über. Berufsrisiko. Vielleicht schmeichelt
es ihm sogar; es erinnert etwas an Caesar.
Was sie jetzt am Telefon wohl sprechen?

Ich stelle mir vor: Henry A. Kissinger, die
rechte Hand in der Hosentasche, stehend,
während wir Fruchtsalat essen. Ich über-
lege, warum er einem Mann, der unter
Morddrohung steht, ungemessene Presche:
als schütze es ihn, wenn ich schweige, was
immer er sagt. «Intellectuels are cynical
and cynics have never built a cathedral.» So
denken auch Männer in unseren Behör-
den; es passt zu dieser bräunlichen Zunft-
stube.

Professoren von Harvard besuchen
Henry A. Kissinger wenige Tage später,
um ihre bisherige Zusammenarbeit zu
kündigen: sie bezeichnen die Kambo-
dscha-Invasion als unverantwortbar und
die Art, wie der Entscheid gefällt worden
ist, als antidemokratisch.

Natürlich möchten wir das Weisse Haus
besichtigen, aber es könnte uns ja irgend-
einer führen, dessen Zeit weniger kostbar
ist; offenbar möchte unser Gastgeber,
nachdem der Kaffee getrunken ist, kein
weiteres Kambodscha-Gespräch am Tisch,
und wir nehmen's als Ehre, dass Henry
A. Kissinger uns jetzt die Residenz zeigt.
(Zu gewissen Zeiten kann jedermann sie
besichtigen.) Die Palastwache, nicht zahl-
reicher als Wächter in einem Museum,
grüsst nicht militärisch; unser Gastgeber
mit der linken oder rechten Hand in der
Hosentasche grüsst kurz-familiär, so dass
die Uniformen, gerade im Begriff zu sich
erheben, sich schon wieder setzen. Das
gibt auch uns eine leichte Aura des Fami-
liären. Trotzdem wage ich nicht, die ge-
stopfte Pfeife anzuzünden, halte sie in der
Hand oder im Mund, ohne zu rauchen.
Wände weiss, Teppich rot. Ich bin unsi-
cher, was ich denken soll . . . Hier also
haust die Macht. Sie gibt sich als ein
Wesen, das Ruhe liebt, Sauberkeit, die
beim Aschenbecher anfängt; ein Wesen
mit Tradition; ein Wesen, das die stillen
Parke liebt, die grünen Rasen und Blumen
je nach Jahreszeit; wahrscheinlich liebt es
keine Strassenschlachten, auch wenn die
Opfer selber schuld sind, und Massaker
wie in Song-My müssen ihm ein Greuel
sein. Schon den gewöhnlichen Strassenver-
kehr mag es nicht. Überhaupt keinen
Lärm, der seine Meditation stören könnte;
er schätzt den Blick auf einen fernen Ob-
leisten, das Geräusch eines Springbrunnens.
Wer zum Haus der Macht gehört, ob als
Militärberater oder als Wächter, geht ohne
Hast, offensichtlich ohne Sorge, so dass
man nur mit einem Lächeln an die Rufe
denken kann: REVOLUTION NOW.
Lincoln und andere sind erschossen wor-
den, zuletzt Kennedy; was hat das erschüt-
tert? Ihre Porträts in Öl schaffen jene
Stimmung, dass man als Besucher sofort

5

leise spricht; selbst das Porträt von L. B. Johnson, der noch nicht aus dem Jenseits auf uns blickt, gibt uns das Gefühl, dass uns Bescheidenheit ansteht. Nur Henry A. Kissinger, der weniger erläutert als die gewöhnlichen Fremdenführer, nimmt einfach die Hände nicht aus den Hosentaschen, um ohne Worte zu versichern, dass es im Haus der Macht vollkommen natürlich zugeht, zivil, human, nämlich unsteif. Er macht sogar einen Witz über die Jacqueline, das darf man. Vor allem ist die Macht, so scheint es, immer aus guter Familie, ein Wesen, das Geschmack hat; Geschmack beispielsweise an Porzellan und Stilmöbeln. Das verleiht allem, was hier geschieht, etwas Aristokratisches. Jeder Präsident hat sein Porzellan, das später, wenn er nicht mehr im Amt ist, in Vitrinen ausgestellt wird; so achtet jeder das persönliche Porzellan seiner Vorgänger, und alle sind verbunden durch einen Sinn für Porzellan. Wir gehen, ohne viel zu fragen, nicht eigentlich in Andacht, aber schicklich; wenn wir die Marmortreppe hinaufgehen, lege ich beispielsweise meine Hand nicht auf das Geländer. Die Malerei, die zur Möblierung der Macht gehört, hält sich an das vorige Jahrhundert; kein Rothko oder Roy Lichtenstein oder Stella oder Jim Dine, kein Calder und so weiter. Bedürfnis nach Tradition, aber sie beginnt mit Lincoln und Washington; daher keine Ritterrüstungen. Nixon liebt vor allem Vögel. Es gibt keine Gobelins, die militärische Siege darstellen, oder ich habe sie nicht gesehen; man protzt hier nicht militärisch und überhaupt nicht. Die Macht gibt sich als dezentes Wesen, das niemanden erschrecken möchte; kolossal ist nur die Realität, aber nicht die Villa, wo dieses Wesen wohnt und empfängt. Wieder ein Blick auf den Park; schon ein Jumbo-Jet, den man gerade hört, passt eigentlich nicht dazu. Hier geht Historie auf Spannteppich. Nichts erinnert an Erdöl, nichts an die Computer im Pentagon, nichts an die CIA, nichts an die United Fruit Company und so weiter. Hier steht ein grosser Tisch, und ich nehme die Pfeife aus dem Mund: Hier also – ich glaub’s – arbeitet der Präsident, zurzeit Richard Nixon. Hinter dem leeren Sessel steht das Sternenbanner, zur Seite die Flaggen aller Waffengattungen. Der Arbeitstisch ist leer und aufgeräumt, aber authentisch. Der einzige Gegenstand, der glaubhaft macht, dass von diesem Platz historische Verfügungen ausgehen, und zugleich der einzige, der nicht antiquarisch ist: ein Telefonapparat, weiss. Und so stehen wir denn wie in Escorial, wenn man sich sagen muss: Hier also –!

Nixon vor der Presse (8. Mai) zur US-Invasion in Kambodscha: «Decisions, of course, are not made by a vote in the Security Council or in the Cabinet. They are made by the President with the advice of those, I, as Commander in Chief, I alone am responsible ... I made the decision. I take the responsibility for it. I believe it was a right decision. I believe it works out. If it doesn't then I am to blame.»

Um nicht zu fragen: Was haben im Fall einer Katastrophe, Bürgerkrieg oder Weltkrieg, die Opfer davon, dass Richard Nixon, Commander in Chief, persönlich die Verantwortung übernimmt und sich allenfalls umbringt wie Hitler?, frage ich seinen Berater, welcher Art die Intelligenz des Präsidenten sei. Sie sei gross, so höre ich, grösser als bei Kennedy oder Johnson. Aber welcher Art? Ich höre, dass es eine analytische Intelligenz sei – die Besichtigung geht weiter...

Zwei Tage später, 4. Mai 1970, werden in der Universität Ohio, Kent State, bei einer «anti war»-Demonstration vier Studenten erschossen von der National Guard, die aus Notwehr gehandelt habe, so heisst es, gegen Heckenschützen, was von sämtlichen Augenzeugen bestritten wird; die Fotos hingegen («LIFE») zeigen die National Guard, wie sie aus dreissig Metern Entfernung, also nicht einmal von Steinwürfen bedroht, in die Menge schiesst. Ohne Warnung. Sie hatte die Nerven verloren, so heisst es, weil ihr Vorrat an Tränengas zu Ende ging. Nixon sagt dazu: «The needless death should remind us all once more that when dissent turns to violence it invites tragedy», wozu die «NEW YORK TIMES» bemerkt: «which of course is true, but turns the tragedy upside down by placing the blame on the victims instead of the killers.» Nixon schreibt persönliches Beileid an die Eltern.

Als nächstes besichtigen wir ein kleines Zimmer, wo der Präsident sich ausruhen kann, nicht grösser als die Garderobe eines Schauspielers; eine schmale Couch, Sessel und Schrank. Waschbecken. Was hier fehlt: der Schminktisch. Ich sehe: Hier also ruht Nixon zwischen seinen Auftritten... Langsam verliert sich meine Befangenheit; was wir sehen, hat nichts mit der Realität zu tun. Wozu besichtigen wir’s eigentlich? So gross ist das Weisse Haus nicht; trotzdem das Gefühl, unser Gang sei endlos. Wände weiss, Teppich rot, es gibt den Korridoren etwas Heiteres; es ist fast schade, wenn unser Gastgeber unterbricht: Hier ist zum Beispiel Bundeskanzler Willy Brandt empfangen

worden. Dabei bin ich noch immer bei seinem Satz, der beim Lunch gefallen ist: Was in Kambodscha geschieht, wenn wir Vietnam verlassen, das ist nicht unser Problem! Ich nicke: Hier also musste Willy Brandt speisen. Gegenüber einem Mitarbeiter, dem er uns vorstellt, wieder der scherzhafte Ton: «My friend and left-wing publisher.» Ich weiss jetzt, dass in diesem Haus ein offener Geist lebt. Wie die jungen Herren, die wir im Warteraum gesehen haben, ist auch dieser Mitarbeiter hemdärmlig-adrett-lässig; die ersten Nachrichten aus Kambodscha scheinen erfreulich zu sein, wie nicht anders erwartet. (Damals in Harvard, 1963, konnte Henry A. Kissinger noch offener sein, ein Intellektueller, der nicht die grosse Verantwortung trägt; damals redete er besorgter.) Eigentlich hätte ich eine Frage, aber es kommt nicht dazu; wir besichtigen einen Salon, wo Henry A. Kissinger und der Botschafter der UdSSR zu sitzen pflegen. Ich nicke, als bedürfe es meiner Bestätigung. Der Salon erinnert mich an das Kurseinhaus Tarasp: viele Fauteuils in kleinen Gruppen, alle unbequem, aber gediegen. Stil, vermutlich sind es echte Antiquitäten. Jetzt hat Henry A. Kissinger beide Hände in den Hosentaschen, um zu zeigen, dass er für die Innenarchitektur nicht verantwortlich ist. Das ist auch Nixon nicht. Die Wohnung, die der jeweilige Präsident sich nach eigenem Geschmack einrichtet, befindet sich ein Stockwerk höher; wir sehen lediglich die Staatsräume, die, wie gesagt, jeder amerikanische Bürger besichtigen kann zu gewissen Zeiten. Demokratie kennt kein Geheimnis vor den Wahlen... Hier also (jetzt nicke ich schon, bevor ich weiss, was es zu bestätigen gilt) versammelt sich das Kabinett. Ein überzeugender Saal. Um einen langen und breiten und schweren Tisch stehen Sessel aus Leder, nicht allzu prunkvoll, gerade richtig: Sessel, die zum aufrechten Sitzen verpflichten. Hier liesse sich verhandeln, ob Kambodscha überfallen werden soll oder nicht. Es sei aber, so höre ich, nicht oft der Fall, dass das Kabinett hier zusammenkommt, und dann sei es nur langweilig. Henry A. Kissinger lächelt; er wollte uns nur den Saal zeigen. Die Entscheidungen fallen nicht hier, sagt er.

Walter J. Hickel, Interior Secretary, beklagt in einem veröffentlichten Brief, dass ihn der Präsident in einem Jahr nur dreimal konsultiert hat; er schreibt: «Permit me to suggest that you consider meeting, on an individual and conversational basis, with members of your Cabinet. Perhaps through such conversations we can gain greater insight into the

7

problems confronting us all...»

Meine Frage wäre gewesen, was Nixon mit der Macht eigentlich will. Es gibt Ziele, die man nur verwirklichen kann, indem man an die Macht gelangt. (Abschaffung der Armut im reichsten Land der Welt, Integration der Neger, Frieden ohne Ausbeutung anderer Völker und so weiter.) Was ist das Ziel dieses Richard Nixon? – aber meine Frage erübrigt sich; es war sein Ziel, Präsident der Vereinigten Staaten zu werden, und er hat sein Ziel erreicht, indem er kein anderes hatte, Macht als Ziel der Macht, und dass Nixon durchaus den Frieden will, wenn es kein anderes Mittel gibt, um an der Macht zu bleiben, glaube ich ohne Frage...

Hin und wieder platzte eine Bombe, aber nicht hier, sondern in Manhattan. Sie tötet ihre Hersteller, Kinder des Reichstums, denen Reichtum unversehens kein Ziel mehr ist. Abend im Fillmore East, die Rock-Musik wird unterbrochen, weil ein Anruf gekommen ist, dass eine Bombe im Saal sei, der Saal fasst 2842 Personen, lauter Jugend, ich sitze wie ein Rübezahl dazwischen, man sucht unter dem Sessel nach einer Bombe, dann geht's weiter mit der ohrenzertrümmernden Musik, ich frage meinen Nachbarn mit dem sanften Jesus-Haar, warum Bombe, und er lächelt: «You know, in these days.» Ringsum nimmt der Kehricht überhand, KEEP YOUR CITY CLEAN, die Ordnung hat zu wenig Hände. Ich habe noch keine Ratte gesessen, man weiss nur, dass es in Manhattan mehr Ratten gibt als Leute; ihre Vertilgung wäre zu kostspielig. Noch gibt es die Oasen, wo die Türwächter stehen mit weissen Handschuhen wie früher; in der Halle unseres Hotels sitzen die Mumien reihenweise, Witwen mit ihrer violetten Blumenkohlfrisur. Optimismus gibt es nur noch in der Reklame. Was die Woodstock-Nation zeigt, das ist nicht Optimismus, sondern Revolte, Naivität, Orgie. Alles nimmt überhand: der Kehricht, die Jugend, das Haar, die Drogen, die Neger, die Unruhen, die Studenten, der Protest auf der Strasse, die Angst vor Amerika. Die neuen Wolkenkratzer, auch die Gitarre nimmt überhand. Im Herbst, als sie wieder einmal nach Washington zogen, soll es eine Viertel-million gewesen sein, die sich um das Weisse Haus versammelte, PEACE NOW, STOP THE WAR, PEACE NOW, es gab keine Toten; Präsident Nixon liess sein Fenster schliessen und schaute (wie er selber bekanntgab) Baseball im Fernsehen. Ein halbes Jahr später, 9. Mai 1970, lagern sie wieder um

den Park. OUT OF CAMBODIA, diesmal nur hunderttausend, viele glauben nicht mehr, dass sie gehört werden, aber Nixon hat eine schlaflose Nacht, laut Presse: in der Morgenfrühe begibt der Präsident sich zum Capitol, wo er mit einigen Studenten spricht und verlangt, dass sie ihn verstehen müssen, denn er trägt die Verantwortung dafür, dass die Vereinigten Staaten die führende Macht bleiben. Die Studenten sagen: Dann redete er über Sport. Laut Presse: Der Präsident frühstückte Schinken mit Ei. Gegen Krise hilft Krieg, aber was hilft gegen die Jugend, die überhandnimmt? 400 Universitäten treten in Streik wegen der erschossenen Studenten von Kent State.

Im Park, der, wie wir durchs Fenster schon mehrmals bemerkt haben, sehr schön ist, aber keine Frage beantwortet, sagt Henry A. Kissinger, er werde nicht allzulange in seinem Amt bleiben; er habe kaum noch ein privates Leben. Das Weisse Haus jetzt von aussen: wie man es von Bildern kennt. Hier im Freien zünde ich endlich meine Pfeife an, während wir gehen und nur unsere Schritte im Kies hören. Was reden? Ein sommerlicher Tag. Wer Entscheidungen fällt oder zu Entscheidungen rät, die Millionen von Menschen betreffen, kann sich nachträgliche Zweifel, ob die Entscheidung richtig ist, nicht leisten: die Entscheidung ist gefallen, das Weitere abzuwarten. Man könnte jetzt durchaus einen Witz erzählen, aber es fällt mir keiner ein.

Heute früh in Jimmy's Coffee-shop: das Gespräch mit dem munteren Kellner, der mich für einen Deutschen hält und daher sagt, dass er nicht für Hitler sei, aber auch nicht gegen Hitler, «but perhaps we have to see that Hitler was a great philosopher». Da er mein Zögern sieht, wechselt er auf McCarthy, «who was considered to be a fool», aber heute sieht man es: hätte man damals auf McCarthy gehört, «we would not have all the trouble with Vietnam». Er selber, der Kellner, ist eigentlich Grieche, Patriot auch dort; er findet Pattakos schon richtig, «only some communists can't stand him». Wir sind übrigens nicht allein; der Mann, der nebenan Tabak verkauft, ist für Hitler. Warum? Hitler hatte einen grossen Glauben. Nämlich? «He believed that the Germans are a superior race.» Er selber, der Tabakmann, ist Puertoricaner mit Kruselhaar, übrigens der Meinung, die Vereinigten Staaten hätten nach dem Krieg eben Europa besetzen sollen. Das erinnert mich an ein Gespräch in einem kalifornischen Motel, 1952, der Wirt versicherte: «Repression is worse than

war», wobei er allerdings einen Krieg im alten Europa meinte. Warum in Europa? «Because they are used to have wars over there»...

Im Park ist nichts zu besichtigen und Schweigen um so auffälliger; ich bin froh, dass Siegfried Unseld jetzt von seinem Verlag berichtet. Jede Firma hat ihre Probleme. Henry A. Kissinger, bescheiden wie meistens die ausserordentliche Inteligenz, fast eitel-bescheiden, ein Fachmann, der alle Möglichkeiten mit Vernichtungswaffen durchdacht hat und das Beste will, nämlich die allergeringste Vernichtung der Welt, er weiss, was in dieser Stunde nur wenige in der Welt wissen (erst die Historiker werden's einmal wissen), und hört lieber einem andern zu, wenn auch etwas geistesabwesend. Ich habe noch keinen Mann getroffen, dessen möglicher Irrtum ein entsprechendes Ausmass annehmen könnte; ein Chirurg, der einmal pfuscht, ein Lokomotivführer, ein Bundesrat sogar, der versagt, ein Polizeichef, der sich irrt, ein Pilot mit 160 Passagieren oder ein Herbert Marcuse, ein Verleger und so weiter, das alles sind ja Verantwortungen, die einer übernehmen kann. Aber Berater eines Weissen Hauses? Ich verstehe immer mehr, dass Henry A. Kissinger, so oft es nur geht, seine Hände in die Hosentaschen steckt; seine Verantwortung steht in keinem Verhältnis mehr zur Person, die einen Anzug trägt wie wir. Je mörderischer der Irrtum sein kann, um so weniger kann einer dafür. Ohne dass ich ein Wort durchlasse, sagt Henry A. Kissinger, er ertrage Verantwortung lieber als Ohnmacht. Einen Nachsatz, zur andern Seite gesprochen, habe ich nicht genau gehört. Wir gehen sehr langsam. Was er machen wird nach seinem Rücktritt aus dem Weissen Haus, weiss Henry A. Kissinger noch gar nicht. Zurück zur Universität? Das dürfte, meint er, kaum möglich sein. Unser Gang über Kies wird bald zu Ende sein, und es scheint, dass es nichts mehr zu fragen gibt. Warum ist Henry A. Kissinger, vor der Wahl noch ein erklärter Gegner von Richard Nixon, trotzdem dessen Berater geworden? Schicklich hingenen ist die Frage meiner Frau: wie hat seine wissenschaftliche Theorie sich bewährt oder verändert durch Praxis? Das sei eine Frage, sagt Henry A. Kissinger, die er oft zu hören bekomme; er habe keine Zeit, um darüber nachzudenken. Wir befinden uns gerade in einer Pendeltüre; ich höre nur noch: Wenn man einmal auf dem Seil steht, gibt es kein Zurück – nach der Pendeltüre: – keine Politik ohne das Risiko einer Tragödie.

8

THE MEANING OF
NIXON'S CHINA COUP

by STANLEY KARNOW

EARLY IN the evening of July 15, only a few hours before President Nixon dramatically announced his intended visit to China, the head of the State Department's Far East Bureau asked one of his colleagues: "What do you think the President is going to say in his speech tonight?"

That vignette illustrates the extraordinary secrecy with which Nixon and his chief security adviser, Henry Kissinger, planned their stunning coup. The element of secrecy was vital. For the President attached immense importance to the Peking mission he had been contemplating for two years and actively preparing since April, when the American table tennis team breached the great wall that had separated China from the United States for more than two decades. What Mr. Nixon feared most as he worked to arrange his delicate trip, therefore, was a rebuff from the Chinese.

Such a rebuff, President Nixon worried, would expose him to further attack at a time when his popularity at home was at a record low. Pervasive opposition to the Indochina war, combined with an accumulation of domestic, economic, and social problems, had undermined his prestige to the point at which it was commonly predicted in Washington that his chances of re-election in 1972 were declining sharply. Thus the President desperately sought a sensational victory in the one field he held to be crucial—foreign affairs.

Mr. Nixon's belief that he could score a foreign policy triumph by relaxing tensions between the United States and Communist China was not

as incredible as it might have seemed a few years ago. As an astute politician, he had adjusted himself to fashionable trends throughout his career. He was a virulent anti-Communist during the early days of the Cold War, and as recently as 1966, before the hard line in Asia lost favor, he warned that the United States would be at war with China in five years "if we reward aggression in Vietnam." But after President Johnson's abdication in 1968, Nixon perceived that American involvement in the Far East was unpopular. During his election campaign, he hinted that he welcomed a detente with Peking. And after he became President, he showed even greater receptivity to the idea of contacts with the Chinese Communists.

Fortunately for the President, his shifting attitude towards the Chinese coincided with a changing outlook in Peking towards the United States. With Mao Tse-tung's hectic Cultural Revolution finished in all but rhetoric, Premier Chou En-lai and a phalanx of senior Chinese army officers rose in power. Their main concern was the possibility that their dispute with Moscow might prompt the Soviet Union to invade China as it had thrust into Czechoslovakia in 1968. The Chinese therefore sought to set in motion a strategy of "triangular" diplomacy that

STANLEY KARNOW is diplomatic correspondent for The Washington Post; he is currently on leave to write a book about China. He has served for eleven years in the Far East as a correspondent for Time, Life, the London Observer, and, more recently, The Post.

would deter the Russians. Thus they turned to President Nixon.

Oddly enough, President Nixon's credentials suited China's rulers. As Chinese, they were reassured by his long anti-Soviet record. As Marxists, they interpreted his Republican Party affiliation to mean that he represented "monopoly capital" and was consequently closer to the American "ruling classes" than the Democrats. Their experience also dictated their actions. It was President Truman, a Democrat, who had threatened China during the Korean War. It was President Eisenhower, a Republican, with whom they had made peace.

On November 26, 1968, just after Mr. Nixon's election, the Chinese made a gesture that was at the origin of the present relaxation of tensions with Washington. They issued a statement calling for a resumption of the Soviet-American ambassadorial talks in Warsaw, specifying that the conversations reopen after Mr. Nixon assumed office.

That signal, followed by others, came through clearly to the President. On February 1, 1969, his twelfth day in office, he instructed Kissinger to begin exploring the chances of a rapprochement with Peking. The Kissinger explorations were to take two forms. On the one hand, Kissinger quietly passed the word to East European diplomats in Washington and elsewhere that the White House was seriously interested in reaching some kind of *modus vivendi* with China. Because of their independent position in the Sino-Soviet rivalry, the Rumanians were particularly well-placed to play the role of intermediary. At the same time Kissinger ordered his staff to make a broad policy review of the costs and risks involved in a new U.S. approach to the Communists.

On May 15, 1969, the National Security Council devoted its entire session to the China question, recommending that the President initiate a series of small steps aimed at communicating his desire for contacts with Peking. Mr. Nixon took the first of these tiny steps a month later, when he modified the total U.S. embargo on trade with China to permit Americans to buy

14

THE PROGRESSIVE

$100 worth of Chinese merchandise. He followed this by lifting the ban on travel to China by Americans. And, without any fanfare, he removed virtually the entire Seventh Fleet from the Taiwan Strait in an effort to persuade the Chinese that the United States no longer posed a threat to their country.

Underlying the President's prudent moves, some of them made in great secrecy, were two primary considerations. He was anxious to avoid criticism at home, especially from the Southern conservatives who had helped him to win election. Equally important, he was anxious to avoid any advances that might provoke a rejection from Peking. In effect, his design was based on the judgment that Peking would respond on its own initiative to his inducements if he could create the proper climate for such a response. He was seeking, in short, to convince the Chinese that a detente with the United States could be founded on mutual self-interest.

In Peking, meanwhile, the prospect of a deal with Washington began to look increasingly attractive. Communist China's border clashes with the Russians throughout 1969 dramatized to the Chinese the need to come to terms with the United States. The Chinese also perceived that an accommodation with Washington might also block Japanese rearmament. In addition, they foresaw the inevitability of an American withdrawal from Indonesia, and they were eager to participate in a future settlement that would determine the status of Southeast Asia. Realizing that they could not emerge from their self-imposed isolation without adopting flexible tactics, they began to make concessions in their foreign policy negotiations. One of the most important of these concessions was the compromise they reached with the Canadians, in which they accepted a formula that merely "noted" their claim to sovereignty over Taiwan.

Encouraged by the Chinese reactions to his overtures, Mr. Nixon went forward on the path towards rapprochement. He further modified the restrictions on trade with China, and he indicated his intention to allow the export of non-strategic items to Peking. In his State of the World message this year, referring to China as the "People's

Republic," he stressed his desire to see the Peking government enter into "a constructive relationship with the world community." With all this, the President was not overly optimistic that Peking would jump quickly to his feelers. He was wrong—at least in his estimate of their timing.

Last April, to the total surprise of the White House and everyone else, the Chinese invited an American table tennis team to Peking. This prompted Nixon to speed up his attempts to organize a summit meeting with Chou En-lai and Mao. He knew through Edgar Snow, Mao's American biographer, that the Chinese leaders welcomed the principle of such a meeting. To help him in working out the details, he relied heavily on Rumanian President Nicolae Ceausescu, who visited China in early June. Thus Mr. Nixon's trip in 1969 to Rumania—the first American President to travel to a Communist country—had not been gratuitous, as many observers thought at the time.

When he reaches Peking to open discussions with the Chinese leadership, President Nixon is bound to encounter enormous difficulties. Separating the United States and China are years of hostility and mistrust. The Chinese have been extremely sensitive to the fact that for a whole generation the United States has attempted to encircle their country with a ring of military

bases and a large and heavily armed fleet of warships. The fact that President Nixon has resisted Pentagon pleas to transfer nuclear weapons from Okinawa to Taiwan may signal a modest break in the encirclement policy, but it still constitutes a formidable obstacle to an early rapprochement.

The two nations are also divided by such complicated problems as Indonesia and the future of Japan. But their first and foremost concern is the question of Taiwan, the redoubt of Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists, over which the Communists claim sovereignty. The Communists have asserted in every public and private statement that there can be no improvement in Sino-American relations until the United States removes its military forces from the island, which lies 100 miles from the China mainland.

The Communists are less worried by the U.S. military presence on the island than by the fact that a foreign power is occupying China's "sacred territory." Moreover, they are extremely sensitive to the existence of a rival Chinese government that not only purports to speak for China but also represents their country at the United Nations.

President Nixon's remark that his move to seek a new relationship with Peking "will not be at the expense of our old friends" was amplified a few weeks later by Secretary of State William P. Rogers' announcement that the United States would support the seating of Communist China in the United Nations while opposing any action to expel the Chiang government based in Taiwan. This approach, predictably, brought an angry response from Peking, whose official press agency attacked the Rogers statement as a "clumsy 'two Chinas' trick" that was "absolutely illegal and futile." The sharp reaction in Peking emphasized anew, if indeed it needed emphasizing, that any attempt to reach an accommodation with the Chinese Communists would be reduced to the extent that the Nixon Administration continues to support the Chiang regime in one way or another.

By inviting Mr. Nixon to Peking, however, the Chinese have already

Sanders in The Milwaukee Journal

"By golly, I do believe
I see something there after all"

September, 1971

15

scored several diplomatic gains in a
single stroke. They have demoralized
Chiāng Kai-shek's rival regime on Tai-
wan, thereby setting in motion forces
on the island that might eventually
seek some sort of accommodation with
the Communists. They have given the
Russians cause for concern that, from
now on, their own dealings with both
Peking and Washington will be compli-
cated by the new factor of a Sino-
American rapprochement. They have
put themselves into a position to play
a key role in a Southeast Asian settle-
ment that is going to take place after
peace is achieved in Indochina. They
have intruded a new element into
Japanese-American relations that, they
apparently hope, will forestall the nu-
clear rearmament of Japan.

But above all, their gesture towards
Mr. Nixon has attained for the Peking
leaders the objective they have been
pursuing for more than two decades—
big power status. No longer can there
be any question of their legitimacy as
the rulers of China. This reality is al-
most certain to be ratified at the Unit-
ed Nations, where their claim to rep-
resent China is likely to be supported
by a majority of the members of the
world organization.

For President Nixon, the impending
visit to China has given him the com-
modity he most needed for his own
political survival—time. Between now
and early next year, when he plans to
go to Peking, he may not have reached
an accord with Hanoi, or resolved
America's dire economic dilemmas, or
made any progress in resolving the des-
perate problems of American cities.
Nevertheless, he will be able to say
to the voters when he campaigns for
re-election that he is in the midst of
negotiating an overall peace with
China and must therefore be returned
to office to complete the job. That plat-
form will be more compelling than any
public relations gimmick he has con-
trived throughout his long career of
public relations gimmicks.

In a very real sense, then, Mr. Nixon
is using the Chinese to guarantee his
election victory—just as they are using
him to vault themselves onto the inter-
national scene. Thus their forthcoming
meeting reflects a conjunction of inter-
ests that may, in the process, bring the
world a bit closer to stability.

THE HIGH COST OF SECRECY

by SENATOR J.W. FULBRIGHT

THE TERM "credibility gap," which
we have heard so frequently in
recent years, is a tame euphemism for
a deep malady of our society. The mal-dy is a loss of faith on the part of
the American people in the truthful-
ness and integrity of their own Gov-
ernment. A recent Harris poll indi-
cated that seventy-one per cent of the
American people believed that the
"real story" from Washington seldom
reaches the people. Another survey
shows that sixty-four per cent of our
people believe the country is "off on
the wrong track," and still another in-
dicates that forty-seven per cent of the
American people are pessimistic about
the nation's future and believe there
could be a "real breakdown in this
country."

The controversy generated by the
Pentagon Papers is only the latest
manifestation of the dissembling and
subterfuge which have undermined
popular confidence in our leaders and
—far worse—in our institutions. Again
and again, from the time of the U-2
incident in 1960, to the Bay of Pigs,
the Dominican intervention, and all
of the well-known misrepresentations
concerning the war in Vietnam, our
Government has been exposed in fal-
sifications of its own practices and pol-
icies. Inevitably, this has taken a heavy
toll of public confidence in our Gov-
ernment.

Sophisticated students of interna-
tional affairs may scoff, pointing out
that all governments engage in subter-
fuge in their foreign policies; it is, so
they tell us, in the "nature" of politics,
especially power politics. Perhaps it

is, but until recently we Americans
had supposed that we were guided by
a higher, democratic standard. It
comes, therefore, as something of a
shock to have it suggested—in the un-
derstated words of *The Guardian* of
London—that the Pentagon Papers
"show that superpowers make deci-
sions much the same way the world
over—with scant concern for the opin-
ions or the feelings of those they
represent."

When a Government refuses to put
its trust in the people, the people in
turn will withdraw their trust from
that Government, and that, I fear,
is exactly what has been happening
in America in recent years.

Secrecy and subterfuge are them-
selves more dangerous to democracy
than the practices they conceal. Total-
itarian devices such as military sur-
veillance of civilians cannot long
survive in the full light of publicity.
An ill-conceived war, once recognized
as such by the people and their repre-
sentatives, must eventually be brought
to an end. But without publicity and
debate there is no redress. Secrecy not
only perpetuates mistaken policies; it
is the indispensable condition for their
perpetuation.

Twenty-three years ago, in a dif-
ferent context, Congressman Richard
Nixon of California endorsed that
proposition: "The point has been made
that the President of the United States
has issued an order that none of this
information can be released and that,
therefore, the Congress has no right
to question the judgment of the Pres-
ident. I say that that proposition can

16

THE PROGRESSIVE

not stand, from a constitutional stand-
point, or on the basis of the
merits . . .”

Contrary to the intent of Congress, the spirit of the Constitution and democratic principle, there has grown up within our Government a whole new bureau, or department, vested with the most crucial decision-making power on matters of war and peace but responsible to neither the Congress nor the people. The new bureau is more than the National Security Council, although that is its heart and core. Functionally, it consists of the entire organization which has grown up around the President, nominally in the capacity of personal advisers and assistants but actually, because of their number and organization, constituting a new super-bureau, separate from and superior to the regular Cabinet departments and shielded from Congress and the people behind a barricade of executive privilege.

No one questions the propriety or desirability of allowing the President to have confidential, personal advisers. President Wilson relied heavily on the advice and friendship of Colonel House, and President Roosevelt relied similarly on Harry Hopkins. President Nixon is certainly entitled to the private and personal counsel of Henry Kissinger, but Mr. Kissinger in fact is a great deal more than a personal adviser to the President.

Unlike Colonel House and Harry
Hopkins, who had no staffs of their
own, and even unlike Walt Rostow,
who at the end of 1968 had a substan-
tive staff of no more than twelve per-
sons, Mr. Kissinger now presides over
a staff of fifty-four "substantive offi-
cers" and a total staff of 140 employes.
In addition, Mr. Kissinger serves as
chairman of six inter-agency commit-
tees dealing with the entire range of
foreign policy and national security
issues and is also in charge of "work-
ing groups" which prepare the staff
studies on which high level policy dis-
cussions are based. The National Se-
curity Council staff budget, which in-
cludes funds for outside consultants,
stood at $2.2 million in fiscal year
1971, which is more than triple Mr.
Rostow's budget in 1968. Mr. Kissin-
ger's role is comparable to that of

Colonel House in about the same way
that a moon rocket is comparable to
the Wright brothers' airplane: both
could fly but there all meaningful com-
parison comes to an end.

Mr. Kissinger's principal function—
so we are told—is to define “options”
for the President. On its face this
might be taken for a disinterested,
more or less clerical activity. But as
people with experience in government
know well, the power to “define” op-
tions is the power to choose some and
eliminate others, and that is a signif-
icant power indeed.

I do not consider Mr. Kissinger's influence, or that of his new foreign policy bureau, as being in any way sinister, illegitimate, or even inappropriate—except in one respect: their immunity from accountability to Congress and the country behind a barrière de executive privilege. The President is entitled, within the limits of the law, to organize his advisers and delegate authority among them as he sees fit. He is not, however, at liberty to create—nor is Congress at liberty to accept—a policy-making system which undercuts Congressional oversight and the advisory role of the Senate in the making of foreign policy.

Williams in Detroit Free Press

The Truth about Vietnam

Were the President disposed to dis-
mantle the elaborate National Security
Council staff and retain the services
of Mr. Kissinger as a personal adviser,
I would see no reason to challenge the
invocation of executive privilege on
Mr. Kissinger's behalf. That, however,
is not the case, nor does such an ar-
rangement seem likely to commend
itself to the present Administration. As
matters stand, Mr. Kissinger appears
on television shows, provides "back-
ground" briefings for invited members
of the press—who are permitted to ask
questions—and on a few occasions has
asked the leadership to provide special
facilities so that he can provide brief-
ings to selected Senators under his own
rules. At the same time, Mr. Kissinger
and members of his staff have stead-
fastly refused to appear before any
Congressional committee, either in
public or executive session. As one re-
porter has sardonically commented,
"Presidential aides are talking non-
stop to just about every group except
official committees of Congress." The
result is that the people's representa-
tives in Congress are denied direct ac-
cess not only to the President himself
but to the individual who is the Pres-
ident's chief foreign policy adviser, the
principal architect of his war policy in
Indochina, and the emissary for his
forthcoming trip to China.

The China visit provides a striking
example of the way in which the new
foreign policy apparatus in the White
House circumvents the Congress. Al-
though not technically essential, it
would have been useful and appropri-
ate for the President, through his
National Security Adviser, to have
consulted with the Foreign Relations
Committee in executive session prior
to Mr. Kissinger's secret visit to
Peking, all the more since the Commit-
tee has recently held a series of highly
illuminating hearings on China policy.
It would now be useful and appropri-
ate for Mr. Kissinger to report to the
Foreign Relations Committee on his
trip to Peking and to consult on sub-
stantive matters, such as the status of
Taiwan, as these pertain to the
President's forthcoming "journey for
peace."

The elaborate new foreign policy
apparatus in the White House is not

September, 1971

17

an oddity or innovation of the present Administration but rather the consummation of a long-term trend toward the centralization of foreign policy powers in a small elite of experts and intellectuals surrounding the President. One of the most striking revelations to emerge from the Pentagon Papers was the extraordinary secrecy with which the inner circle of the Johnson Administration made their fateful decisions of 1964 and 1965. Insofar as Congress is mentioned at all in the Pentagon Papers as published in the press—and that is not often—it is referred to as an appropriate object of manipulation, or as a troublesome nuisance to be disposed of.

The issue is not one of the character or honesty of the foreign policy experts surrounding the President but of their lack of accountability—and the resulting lack of Presidential accountability. Congressmen and Senators usually do not possess specialized or expert knowledge, but they do have that single indispensable attribute which the experts do not have: accountability. Like the businessman who has to meet a "payroll," the Congressman or Senator has to respond to the wishes and whims, the prejudices and preferences, of his electorate. This anchor in reality is the elected politician's one indispensable credential for participation in the policymaking process.

The barrier to participation is secrecy. As matters now stand, and until a legislative remedy is adopted, Congress has neither the information it requires in order to discharge its constitutional responsibilities nor the opportunity to question and consult with the ranking figures in the new super-bureau of foreign affairs.

"Privilege" is the right word for unrestricted executive secrecy, because there is no basis in law or history for the claim of any right to withhold information from the people's elected representatives. A review of past usage and precedent shows that "executive privilege" is not a legal or constitutional principle but simply a custom, a survival of the royalist principle that "the King can do no wrong." Legal scholars regard the claim to an absolute executive discretion in matters of providing or withholding information

as an anachronistic survival of monarchical privilege, an extension from King to President of the doctrine of sovereign immunity. As currently invoked and practiced in our country, executive privilege represents a gap in the rule of law, placing the Government—or, more exactly, its executive branch—in a position of immunity from principles of law which are binding upon ordinary people.

In the view of Professor Raoul Berger of the University of California Law School at Berkeley, who has made an exhaustive study of the origins of executive privilege, there is "little if any historical warrant . . . for the notion that executive privilege was ever intended to be among the checks on the legislative power of inquiry." That, however, and more, are exactly what recent American Administrations have claimed. Reading into the past a greatly revised, if not wholly new, conception of the intent of the Constitution, recent Administrations have contended that their discretion to withhold information is absolute, plenary and immune from either Congressional restriction or judicial review. In the Justice Department's memorandum of 1958, Attorney General William P. Rogers [now Secretary of State] went so far as to contend that "Congress cannot, under the Constitution, compel heads of departments by law to give up papers and information, regardless of the public interest involved; and the President is the judge of that interest."

The evil in its modern form was born of honorable intent—the desire of the Eisenhower Administration to protect its officials from the attacks of Senator Joseph McCarthy. The "cure," however, has proven to be as deadly as the disease, as executive privilege, both formally and informally invoked, has ripened into a highly effective means of nullifying the investigatory function of Congress. In neither logic, law, nor practice can

there exist simultaneously an effective power of legislative oversight and an absolute executive discretion to withhold information. Inevitably, one must give way to the other and the only question is which one is to be dispensed with.

Despite occasional excesses, the Congressional power of investigation has proven its value repeatedly over the years. As Woodrow Wilson summed it up in 1885, "Unless Congress have and use every means of acquainting itself with the acts and disposition of the administrative agents of the Government the country must be helpless to learn how it is being served. . . ." To state the matter in its simplest terms: if Congress does not investigate the Executive, there is no one to do it but the Executive itself.

One can easily understand that the Executive would find it comfortable and convenient to serve as its own judge and jury, as it so frequently volunteers to do with its familiar contention that some matter or other is being "carefully studied" or is under "continuing review," in consequence of which—they hope to persuade us— no useful purpose would be served by a Congressional inquiry. I am reminded, each time I hear this claim, of Frank Loesser's character from *Guys and Dolls*, "Big Julie," the gangster from Detroit, who forced his friends at gunpoint to shoot crap with blank dice, because "I remember where the spots formerly were."

In foreign as in domestic affairs there can be no question of the authority—indeed of the responsibility—of Congress to exercise legislative oversight. This power is spelled out in Section 136 of the Legislative Reorganization Act, which states that each standing committee "shall exercise continuous watchfulness of the execution by the administrative agencies concerned of any laws, the subject matter of which is within the jurisdiction of such committee; and, for that purpose, shall study all pertinent reports and data submitted to the Congress by the agencies in the executive branch of the Government." The power and duty of legislative oversight are in

"... the Congressional power of investigation has proven its value . . ."

18

THE PROGRESSIVE

fact rooted deeply in our constitution-
al history.

In 1789, Congress adopted, and
President Washington signed, a stat-
ute stating that it "shall be the duty
of the Secretary of the Treasury . . .
to make report, and give information
to either branch of the legislature in
person or in writing (as he may be
required), respecting all matters re-
ferred to him by the Senate or House
of Representatives, or which shall ap-
pertain to his office. . . ." (Emphasis
added.) In the Congressional debate
on this measure, Roger Sherman ob-
served that, "as we want information
to act upon, we must procure it where
it is to be had, consequently we must
get it out of this officer, and the best
way of doing so must be by making it
his duty to bring it forward."

The omission of similar require-
ments to provide information from the
act establishing the Department of
State—or the "Department of Foreign
Affairs" as it was first called—was
first interpreted by Attorney General
Rogers in 1958 as proof that "the
founders of our Government, and
those who sat in the First Congress,
meant to give no power to the Con-
gress to see secret data in the executive
departments against the wishes of the
President." In complete contrast with
the Rogers claim of unlimited exec-
utive license for secrecy, an earlier At-
torney General, Cushing, advised Pres-
ident Pierce in 1854 that, "By express
provision of law, it is made the duty
of the Secretary of the Treasury to
communicate information to either
House of Congress when desired; and
it is practically and by legal implica-
tion the same with the other secre-
taries, and with the Postmaster and
the Attorney General."

In the tradition of the Treasury Act
of 1789 many other requirements of
information have been enacted into
law over the years. Section 313 of the
Act of 1921 establishing the General
Accounting Office directs every agency
of the Government to furnish to the
Comptroller General "such informa-
tion regarding the powers, duties, ac-
tivities, organization, financial transac-
tions, and methods of business of their
respective offices as he may from time
to time require of them."

The language of the statute is clear:

it refers to such information as the
Comptroller General may "require,"
not to such information as the Comp-
troller General may desire and the
agency involved choose to provide. In-
deed, in 1925, President Coolidge's At-
torney General acknowledged that the
papers to which the Comptroller Gen-
eral was entitled, under the Act of
1921, "would seem to be a matter sole-
ly for his determination."

In the name of executive privilege,
agency heads have taken the extra-
ordinary position that they are at liber-
ty to ignore this provision of law. To
cite one recent, striking example: In
1969, the General Accounting Office
was asked by the Senate Foreign Re-
lations Committee to conduct a review
of the training of foreign military per-
sonnel under the Military Assistance
Program. For purposes of this study
the General Accounting Office there-
upon requested of the Department of
Defense copies of its five-year plan
for military assistance, performance
evaluation reports on Korea and pos-
sibly other countries, and a Defense
Department staff report on the status
of foreign military training systems.
All were refused; the five-year plan on
the ground that it was only a "tenta-
tive planning document," the Korean
report on the ground that it was "not

available at the present time," the
status reports on the ground that they
contained the "opinions" of American
military advisers the release of which
might provoke "adverse reactions" on
the part of the foreign governments
concerned.

The GAO submitted its report on
the military assistance training pro-
gram in early 1971 but was unable to
comply fully with the Foreign Rela-
tions Committee's request, pointing
out that officials of both the State De-
partment and the Department of De-
fense had "withheld or delayed the re-
lease of Military Assistance Program
reports and records essential to a full
and complete review. . . ." The denial
of access to records, the GAO report
pointed out, was not a new problem
but "a continuation of similar prob-
lems the General Accounting Office
has encountered over the years in re-
viewing Department of Defense pro-
grams, particularly evaluations of the
military assistance programs."

Since last winter I have made re-
peated efforts to secure access to the
five-year plan for military assistance
for use by the Foreign Relations Com-
mittee in its consideration of military
assistance under the foreign aid author-
ization bill. On two separate occasions
I have asked the Defense Department
either to provide the five-year plan or
to make a formal claim of executive
privilege. All I have received in reply
was a brief note, more than four
months ago, from an aide to the Sec-
retary of Defense advising me that my
request was "receiving careful consid-
eration." The Defense Department, it
appears, refuses either to provide the
information requested or to make a
formal claim of executive privilege.

This is only one of many examples
I could cite of the willingness of Ex-
ecutive branch officials to withhold in-
formation in defiance of the law.
Executive privilege, Professor Berger
recalls, was originally justified as a
means of assisting the Executive to
"take care that the laws be faithfully
executed," and he comments: "It is a
feat of splendid illogic to wring from
a duty faithfully to execute the laws a

Herblock in The Washington Post

"This is awful—it's not
one of ours"

September, 1971

19

power to defy them. . ." Professor Berger goes on to cite a Supreme Court pronouncement of 1838: "To contend that the obligation imposed upon the President to see the laws faithfully executed implies a power to forbid their execution, is a novel construction of the Constitution, and entirely inadmissible."

The courts have not yet considered the Executive's claim that its invocation of executive privilege is unreviewable when invoked against Congress. The courts have left no doubt, however, that they will review such claims when they are invoked against private parties seeking governmental information, even when military secrets are involved. In *United States v. Reynolds* in 1953, the Supreme Court rejected the specific plea for disclosure of military information as of "dubious" necessity in that case but went on to assert that executive privilege was "not to be lightly invoked," that "the Court itself must determine whether the circumstances are appropriate for the claim of privilege," and that "judicial control over the evidence in a case cannot be abdicated to the caprice of executive officers."

Can Congress's rights be less than those of a private individual? Can Congress be expected to abdicate to "executive caprice" in determining whether or not the Congress will be permitted to know what it needs to know in order to discharge its constitutional responsibilities? As James Madison said in *The Federalist*, Number 49, neither the Executive nor the legislature "can pretend to an exclusive or superior right of settling the boundaries between their respective powers."

The Supreme Court has not only ruled that the judiciary may review an executive decision to withhold information sought by an individual, but has also held that under certain circumstances the courts might require the disclosure to court personnel of classified information. In *Halpern v. United States* in 1958, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit stated that "the privilege relating to

state secrets is inapplicable when disclosure to court personnel in an *in camera* proceeding will not make the information public or endanger the national security." It would be grossesse indeed if security grounds could be invoked to deny Congress information which was available both to executive and judicial officials.

If the matter of accountability were to come to a final test—and it is much preferable that it does not—there seems little doubt of the legal authority of Congress, or of a Congressional committee, to subpoena documents and Government officials, just as it can subpoena private individuals to appear and give testimony, and to hold an individual in contempt should he fail to comply. Under Section 134a of the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946, every standing committee and subcommittee of the Senate is authorized "to require by subpoena or otherwise the attendance of such witnesses and the production of such correspondence, books, papers, and documents, to take such testimony and to make such expenditures . . . as it deems advisable."

Although the issue is largely untested and in need of legislative clarification, authorities agree that Congress is not without resources to require the disclosure of pertinent information and the appearance of appropriate witnesses.

A study of *Congressional Inquiry into Military Affairs* prepared for the Foreign Relations Committee in 1968 by the Library of Congress points out that contempt of Congress by reason of the failure of a witness to testify or produce papers is punishable by law as a misdemeanor. Furthermore, there is no necessity for Congress or a Congressional committee to rely on the Department of Justice to act in a contempt case. As an agent of the Executive, the Attorney General might be less than wholehearted in the prosecution of a recalcitrant witness. But, as the military affairs study points out, "There can be no doubt that either House of Congress has the power to seize a recalcitrant witness, try him before the bar of the House, and punish him for contempt by imprisoning him in the Capitol."

Not for a moment would I wish to

impose so drastic a procedure on Mr. Kissinger or any other official of our Government. It does seem to me of the greatest importance, nonetheless, that appropriate action be taken to provide the Congress with a reliable and continuing flow of information. For these purposes I have urged enactment of pending legislation pertaining to the right of Congress to require testimony by individual officials of the Executive branch and of a bill which I plan to introduce for purposes of spelling out statutory guidelines for the invocation of executive privilege. In the latter bill, an attempt is made to codify the commitment made by each of the last three Presidents that executive privilege would be invoked only by the President and would not be used without specific Presidential approval.

This commitment has been reduced to a nullity by the simple device of withholding information without formal invocation of executive privilege. In the case of the history of the United States decision-making process on Vietnam policy, now known to the world as the Pentagon Papers, repeated requests for access by the Foreign Relations Committee were dismissed on the alleged ground that "it would be clearly contrary to the national interest" to disseminate the study "more widely." In these and other instances the Department of Defense has not only declined to invoke executive privilege but has also sought to evade accountability by long delays in responding to Congressional requests, or by responding with meaningless assurances that a request for information is being "studied" or is "receiving detailed consideration."

Such tactics of delay and evasion permit the Executive to *exercise* executive privilege without actually invoking it and without honoring the commitment of three Presidents that only the President would invoke executive privilege. As matters now stand, that commitment has been reduced to a meaningless technicality: only the President may "invoke" executive privilege but just about any of his subordinates may exercise it—they simply do not employ the forbidden words.

In order to remedy this situation, it seems to me most important that legis-

20

THE PROGRESSIVE

lation restricting executive privilege contain specific time limits within which the Executive would be obligated either to provide the information requested or to invoke executive privilege. More important still, it should be specified in the legislation that information can be withheld from Congress by no means other than a formal invocation of executive privilege.

Until and unless legislation is adopted by Congress to restrict executive privilege both as it applies to information and as it has been extended to shield individuals in high policy positions, the Executive will continue to be the sole judge of that amorphous category called the "public interest" and of what is compatible or incompatible with it.

For more than a century, Executives upon occasion have refused information to Congress, and Congress, for the most part, has acquiesced. No doubt, as in the case of Presidential use of the war power, these unwarranted denials of information will be cited as precedents conferring legitimacy on the claim to a right of unrestricted and unreviewable executive privilege. My own view—which I believe to be an accepted principle of jurisprudence— is that usurpation is not legitimized simply by repetition, nor is a valid power nullified by failure to exercise it.

The valid power involved is that of legislative oversight, which cannot survive in the face of an absolute and unrestricted executive privilege. No one questions the propriety of executive privilege under certain circumstances; what is and must be contested is the contention that the President alone may determine the range of its application and, in so doing, also determine the range of the Congress's power to investigate. As Senator George Norris once said, "Whenever you take away from the legislative body of any country in the world the power of investigation, the power to look into the executive department and every other department of the government, you have taken a full step that will eventually lead into absolute monarchy and destroy any government such as ours."

# 'In the course of human events...'

by LOUIS P. FONT

ON JULY 9, 1776, by order of General of the Army George Washington, the Declaration of Independence was read to soldiers assembled on the Common in New York City. Almost 200 years later, on June 30, 1971, sixteen of us were arrested at Fort Lewis, Washington, for distributing the same document.

"Is this word-for-word?" I asked, glancing at the leaflet in my hand, beginning to read it, and looking at my circle of co-conspirators: four young women, neatly dressed; six young men, civilians; and a few active duty GIs, resistance GIs. It was about noon, and I could see a long line of soldiers at the base bank, waiting to cash their paychecks. I felt like a subversive about to distribute a seditious document in a foreign and despotic land.

"Of course the leaflet is the word-for-word Declaration," Henry replied. "Just like Tom Jefferson sat down and wrote it." Henry was the organizer of our little incursion. He had recently been discharged from the Army and had formerly been stationed at Fort Lewis. He sported a beard and blue jeans and plenty of knowledge.

I took a close look at the leaflet, noticing the underlined phrases. "He [the King] has erected a multitude of

new Offices, and sent hither Swarmer of Officers to harass our people," read. "He has affected to render the Military Independent of and Superior to the Civil Power." And, "A prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant is unfit to be the Ruler of a Free People." The American citizen-soldier I thought, should have every opportunity to peruse this treasured document. At the bottom of the second page was an announcement that the Declaration had been copied word-for-word by the GI Alliance, Seattle, Washington.

Impeccably dressed in a business suit, Ron VandenBossche, recently discharged as a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy, strolled across the street and joined him. I had been staying in Bremerton, Washington, the past four days as a friend of Ron, speaking before university and peace audiences about my year as a dissenting lieutenant in the U.S. Army, discharged in April of this year, and as a representative of the Concerned Officers Movement.

As we crossed the street, I was intrigued by the power handshakes among the black soldiers in front of the Post Exchange. Each handshake encompassed some twenty counts; flip, flap, clenched fists, touched elbows, more movement, and walk away, perfect flow. I also observed what may be the supreme satire on modern military discipline: a bushy Afro, with a green Army fatigue cap bobbing on top. Things are happening on this base, I thought. I had never seen a hand-

LOUIS P. FONT graduated from the United States Military Academy in the top five per cent of the class of 1968. He was the first West Point graduate to file for discharge as a conscientious objector to the war in Indochina and is now writing a book on his Army experiences.

September, 1971

21