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The Today Show

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WRC TV
NBC Network

January 25, 1980 7:15 AM

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Washington, DC

Interview with Henry Kissinger

TOM BROKAW: Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger is in our Washington studios this morning. We want to hear his appraisal of what President Carter had to say the other night about what the United States is prepared to do, especially in the Middle East.

Dr. Kissinger, let's get right to the bottom line. The President says that if the Russians move to control the Persian Gulf, the United States will do whatever is necessary to stop them, including the use of military force. Practically speaking, based on what you know, is that possible? Could we stop the Russians, given our current strength?

HENRY KISSINGER: Well, I agree with the policy statement that was made by the President. But it is only the beginning of a foreign policy and does not define our problems. First we have to define what we mean by the Persian Gulf. Then we have to define what we mean by aggression against the Persian Gulf. Then we have to create the forces and the strategy to fulfill the commitment that we have made.

We have to make sure that our commitments and our capabilities don't get out of phase with each other. Right now, I do not think we have the capability to resist in the Persian Gulf an attack on the Persian Gulf. But nevertheless, I think it was an important statement to have made.

BROKAW: What you're saying is that if the Russians decided to come out of Afghanistan and take control of the Straits of Hormuz -- let's narrow it specifically -- there's very little that the United States could do, given our current presence in that area and our current capability, from stopping

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FEB 5 1980

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them.

KISSINGER: I think with our current presence there, there's very little we could do there. But on the other hand, the Soviet Union would be very ill-advised to get into a conflict with the United States, since our capacity for mobilization is so far superior to that of the Soviet Union, so that it is not an idle threat.

Nevertheless, we have to build up our forces in the area, or the countries that are threatened will gradually fall away.

BROKAW: Let me talk -- let's show a map now of that part of the world, including the Persian Gulf and the tiny country of Oman, where you have proposed putting an American division, a division of Marines into that area. There, as you can see, Oman is a critical area leading into the Persian Gulf.

The White House is not very happy with that suggestion from you. They say that that's a kind of reckless proposal; that the internal politics of the Middle East now are so delicate that if we were to suggest putting in Marines there, it would upset the balance enormously.

KISSINGER: First of all, I didn't say we should put a division into Oman. And I think the White House would be better advised to study what is said before shooting. I didn't say a division should be put into Oman. I've said that we need a military capability in the Indian Ocean, including ground forces, that will enable us to react to threats. It is absolutely senseless to announce the willingness to defend an area without putting forces there to defend it. I said Oman is one place where we could have bases. I did not imply that all the forces in the Indian Ocean should be stationed in Oman. But it is one logical place where we can have bases. But the ground forces could be stationed in a number of places that have to be examined.

BROKAW: But can't you imagine that in many of those radical or anti-U.S. Arab countries, that would not be well received at all?

KISSINGER: Well, obviously we cannot put forces where it would not be well received. But obviously we also cannot defend an area with words. So the question that we have to decide is whether having announced a decision, having declared the Persian Gulf as an area vital to our interests, how we're going to implement -- how we're going to implement that decision. And I'm saying that we need to enunciate a strategy. We have to generate the forces and we have to avoid getting ourselves into a position in which our capabilities and our commitments get totally out of phase with each other.

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Where we create these facilities or bases is a technical -- is a question that has to be studied technically, and it is something that ought to be done on a -- this should not lead to a partisan dispute. This is not -- this seems to me inherent in what was said the other day.

BROKAW: Let me ask you about how we got ourselves into this fix in the first place. A lot of people think that it's the result, in part, of the so-called Nixon Doctrine, which you were a principal architect of that. We had a lowered presence in the Middle East because we counted on Iran to be the guardian of that area. We decided to use surrogates, in effect.

Looking back over that now, do you have any regrets about that policy?

KISSINGER: You know, there has to be a limit to cynicism and there has to be a limit to the sort of untrue briefing with which policies are being defended today.

We didn't have any presence in the Middle East to begin with in the previous Administration. We didn't inherit any presence. We were confronted with the Vietnam War, in which we were under enormous pressure from the very people who are now making these comments to withdraw our forces from all over the world. We -- there was no possibility of stationing American forces in the Middle East, nor were there any American forces in the Middle East to -- that were removed.

What we found in 1972 was enormous pressures to bring our -- from the Democrat Congress to bring our forces back from all over the world. We found the British withdrawing from the Persian Gulf. And we found a general assault on the defense budget.

Under those circumstances, we strengthened the Iranian military forces, just as the current Administration is attempting to strengthen the Pakistan military forces under much worse circumstances. And if the Iranian military forces were still in place, we would be infinitely better off. There were 700,000 trained soldiers there.

Our policy was that, wherever possible, regional defense should be done by regional forces, with the United States in a backup position if a major power attacked. We cannot, with American manpower, defend every square inch of the Soviet periphery.

And at a time when there is great willingness to have bipartisan support, this sort of statement makes it extremely difficult. It is untrue and it is cynical.

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BROKAW: Dr. Kissinger, you're also the main author of detente, the relaxation of tensions between the United States and Russia. Do you suspect that that in any fashion caused the United States to be lulled into a bad judgment about what the Russians ultimately were up to?

KISSINGER: The policy that came to be called detente had three elements. It had an element of military strength, it had the element of resistance to Soviet expansionism, and had the element of negotiating with the Soviet Union those rules of peaceful coexistence that the nuclear age imposes on us.

For this reason, we attempted to resist the Soviet Union, and did successful resist them, when they built a naval base in Cuba, when Soviet proxies intervened in the Middle East. We attempted to resist them in Angola when Cuban troops first appeared in Africa.

What in my judgment created the imbalance was that too much emphasis was paid -- was placed in the current period on the negotiation with the Soviet Union and not enough attention was paid to the resistance to the Cuban and Soviet penetration in a giant pincer movement, one coming up through Ethiopia and South Yemen with Cuban and East German forces, the other coming in the form of a Communist coup in Afghanistan 20 months ago. That contributed to skewing the relationship with the Soviet Union.

But the policy of being both strong and willing to negotiate has to remain our policy. And if we go too far in one direction or the other, we will damage ourselves.

BROKAW: Very briefly, Dr. Kissinger, do you think that the Russians will stay in Afghanistan and not be tempted to move out of there?

KISSINGER: I do not think that we will face an immediate Soviet attack. We will face a long-term Soviet threat. And I think that we should attempt to resist it as a united people, and not have a long inquisition into the past, but rather to attempt to deal with how to address it in the future.

I think we're more likely to face a Soviet peace offensive before they make another move.

BROKAW: Dr. Kissinger, thanks very much.