This Copy For

BACKGROUND BRIEFING

### CONTENT OF THIS BRIEFING MAY BE ATTRIBUTED TO ADMINISTRATION OFFICIALS. DIRECT QUOTATION IS NOT PERMITTED.

### AT THE WHITE HOUSE

WITH DR. HENRY A. KISSINGER, ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT FOR NATIONAL SECURITY AFFAIRS

AT 3:08 P.M. EST

NOVEMBER 18, 1970

WEDNESDAY

MR. ZIEGLER: You have the President's Message on the supplemental. Dr. Kissinger will take your questions.

You can attribute what the Doctor says to Administration officials, not direct quotations.

Q Ron, before we get to the Doctor, what is the embargo on this?

MR. ZIEGLER: You can move it immediately on your wire after the briefing. It is embargoed for use by your clients and by your publications until 4:30.

Q 4:30 flat?

MR. ZIEGLER: 4:30 flat.

DR. KISSINGER: I appreciate that you all call me the Doctor.

MR. ZIEGLER: They don't, I do.

DR. KISSINGER: They do, too. Knowing how Ph.D.'s are acquired in this country, that is more than one deserves.

Q Are you taking questions?

DR. KISSINGER: I might as well, yes.

MR. ZIEGLER: You just blew his opening statement. (Laughter).

Q I will defer to the Doctor.

DR. KISSINGER: The Press Secretary had written it and I didn't like it. (Laughter).

Q Dr. Kissinger, how much of the $500 million for Israel will be required to pay for the equipment already committed and how much will be left after that is paid for?

DR. KISSINGER: All of this, as I understand it, is for equipment already committed.

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Q What kind of equipment is that?

DR. KISSINGER: That is airplanes, electronic equipment and some other items that have been mentioned to help rectify the situation that arose during the summer.

Q How much of the $1.035 billion is military aid and how much of it is economic aid?

DR. KISSINGER: Most of it is military aid, I believe. $895 million of it is economic assistance.

Q Doctor, do you have any figure on the amount of military equipment being transferred in Korea that we are not withdrawing? Is there any dollar figure on that? That apparently would be in addition to the $1-plus billion.

DR. KISSINGER: No, I don't have any dollar figures on that.

Q Doctor, is the entire $500 million for Israel related to commitments made as a result of the cease fire?

DR. KISSINGER: No, the $500 million includes commitments that were made before then.

Q Can you separate or break it down approximately?

DR. KISSINGER: I don't think I could do it precisely. But a substantial portion of it is due to attempts to rectify the situation after it arose from the standstill.

The economic assistance part of it is $195 million.

Q This is to Israel?

DR. KISSINGER: No.

Q Where will that go?

DR. KISSINGER: Sixty-five will go to Vietnam, 70 will go to Cambodia and the other $60 million is to replace economic assistance funds that were transferred from other programs to Cambodia and of which Congress was notified.

Let me make a general observation about the philosophy behind this supplemental. As you know, and as the Message says, we consider the Nixon Doctrine one of the key aspects, maybe the key aspect, of the foreign policy of this Administration.

As we shift into a lower posture for the United States and as we attempt to reduce and as we are reducing our physical presence in many countries, a gap is created between the capabilities that were provided by the United States and those that they can supply with the resources and forces available at the moment of the transition.

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Therefore, we think it is essential that there be
an interim period in which we help to modernize their forces,
or as in the case of Vietnam, help with economic assistance
programs to substitute for some of these short falls.

This is the general philosophy on which the supplemental
is based.

Q Dr. Kissinger, it is unusual for a foreign aid supplemental to go up this late in the day. In fact, I think this is probably the only one in my memory at least. Can you explain why the lateness of this? Was it due to inadequate planning or development of events that you didn't foresee? This is more than 50 percent of the total foreign aid appropriations now in the Senate committees.

DR. KISSINGER: You realize that inadequate planning
could not be the cause. So, let's dismiss that. (Laughter).
Let's dismiss that immediately.

It is due to a combination of reasons. First, there
have been an unusual number of developments during the year
that could not be foreseen. For example, events in Cambodia
were not foreseen even by Prince Sihanouk and therefore,
also not by us. And the extent of the need could not be known
until the Cambodian situation settled down somewhat during
the course of the summer and we then made the studies. This
explains the Cambodian aspect of it.

We knew, during the course of the summer, that
It would be necessary to get additional appropriations for
Israel when the Foreign Military Aid Sales Bill would not
pass the Congress, but this coincided with the period of
the cease fire violations and therefore, we found it desirable
to determine the full extent of the need, rather than to
come in in bits and pieces.

With respect to Korea, we had made extensive studies
of what the needs were in Korea against various levels of
North Korean and even Chinese attacks, but we needed to discuss
with the Korean Government a program by which we could replace
American forces with American resources and help in the
modernization of the Korean military establishment.

And the other items on this list are really paybacks
for funds we borrowed for Cambodia during the year.

So, the largest part of this appropriation request
was due to the fact that there were a large number of sudden
developments and that we had submitted a rock bottom budget
to begin with, and that once it became clear to us that a
supplemental would probably have to be asked for, that we
wanted to make sure that we would have a reasonable judgment
of the total amount and then we submitted it as soon as we
had that worked out.

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Q If the $100 million that you are restoring for the program for Taiwan, Greece and Turkey was taken out for Cambodia alone, is there $51 million in there that has never been previously announced?

DR. KISSINGER: No.

Q My recollection is there was $8.9 million and then $40 million, but you are restoring $100 million.

DR. KISSINGER: No, I think there were two separate notifications. There was one for $40 million and then there is another one for $49 million. That will be announced shortly.

Q How large is the one that will be announced shortly?

DR. KISSINGER: $49 million. Congress has to be notified of the transfer of the funds within 30 days of a Presidential determination. The Presidential determination was made during the election campaign and Congress will be notified of it very shortly.

In fact, I thought it had already been notified. But, obviously, it couldn't have been, because it wasn't in session.

Q How much total aid has gone to Cambodia now, starting from the beginning?

DR. KISSINGER: $100 million roughly.

Q That is this fiscal year, plus some?

DR. KISSINGER: Plus what we asked.

Q Plus $155 million?

DR. KISSINGER: That is right.

Q Are there any advisers going to accompany this?

DR. KISSINGER: No, no military advisers. On the economic assistance part of it, there may be some economic advisers, but the program will be much more austere than similar programs in Vietnam.

Let me point out one other thing. Our primary concern about Cambodia, as we have pointed out during the year, is its impact on the war in Vietnam. Money put into Cambodia has had a very substantial payoff. We estimate now that something like three North Vietnamese divisions have been pulled out of military regions 3 and 4 and are in Cambodia and one North Vietnamese division equivalent has been pulled out of the Central Highlands and is in Southern Laos and all of this for a relatively small investment, all of which goes to Cambodian forces without American military advisers, and with a military assistance program in which we are attempting to learn from some of our previous experiences.

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We are not attempting to turn the Cambodian Army into a miniature American army. We are trying to equip it with materiel that is sustainable by its economy with much less strain than has been the case in some other countries where we have run military assistance programs.

Q What is the largest kind of item? Will there be high-performance aircraft or anything?

DR. KISSINGER: No. There will be no high-performance aircraft. The largest item is for small arms, ammunition and mortars.

Q Can you straighten out three points on this Israeli aid? First of all, you said the commitments were made before the cease fire, which we date from August 7. Then I understood you to say that when you sat down and figured out what they needed, presumably under this $500 million, that it coincided with cease fire violations which would seem to postdate your earlier commitment and, the other point is, if these are credits, this is money Israel is going to pay back.

DR. KISSINGER: That is right.

Q Then, why are you asking Congress to appropriate $500 million and lastly, is this a unique item compared to the items in this Message? In other words, is the aid to the other countries, with the exception of Israel, all under grants, as opposed to credits which you specify here for Israel?

DR. KISSINGER: With respect to the first question, additional equipment was made available to the Israelis after the violations of the standstill became evident and was therefore added to the total needs that had been established earlier and that had been reported periodically as the decisions were made.

It is therefore a supplement to a need that was established before. This appropriation is under the Jackson Amendment and it was made necessary because the Cooper-Church debate has made it impossible to obtain the Foreign Military Sales Act under which this appropriation would normally have occurred.

All of the other items that are mentioned here are either economic support or grant military assistance and not credits.

Q But we don't appropriate usually for credits, do we?

DR. KISSINGER: In this particular case, though, what is the answer?

MR. BERGSTEN: We always have to appropriate money to the Defense Department to finance military equipment exports.

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Q You don't appropriate $500 million to give the guy $500 million credit. Isn't this a different feature?

DR. KISSINGER: Then it is repaid, of course.

Q Put another way, isn't this $500 million to support shipment of equipment which costs much more than that? What is your estimate of the total amount of equipment?

DR. KISSINGER: This is not the total cost of the equipment. This is a differentiation. We are not giving grant assistance to Israel for this. I don't know what the total cost is.

Q How much value in equipment can Israel buy or get based on this?

DR. KISSINGER: Based on resources?

Q Based on this seed capital. Based on the $500 million.

DR. KISSINGER: They will have to buy either with their own resources or with this what we jointly agree we will make available to them. They don't have a blank check in which they can simply spend the money. There is usually a joint program that is worked out and that is then announced from time to time in terms of the total number of equipment.

This, however, refers entirely to equipment that has already been committed.

Q It is part of a much bigger loan, just to round this out?

DR. KISSINGER: No, this is it.

Incidentally, on Cambodia, there are also $30 million in P.L. 480 funds.

Q Could you give us a dollar figure on how much was added for Israel after the case fire violations?

DR. KISSINGER: I can't break that down.

Q Can you give us more than half?

DR. KISSINGER: No, it would be almost certainly somewhat less than half.

Q Dr. Kissinger, do we consider after this appropriation the situation created by the moving forward of anti-aircraft missiles on the Egyptian side of the Canal now to be rectified?

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DR. KISSINGER: The issue of rectification has many aspects, not only equipment aspects, but as you know, we have generally favored trying to create conditions under which the negotiations could go forward. I don't want to commit myself to a precise definition of rectification, because it depends on several aspects.

Q Was any high-performance aircraft involved in the post-cease fire decision?

DR. KISSINGER: I don't want to go into the details of the various military equipment.

Q Dr. Kissinger, just to make sure we understand, the $500 million is to pay for equipment that is already committed to Israel?

DR. KISSINGER: That is correct.

Q Nothing more to come?

Q Secondly, does it cover any payment of the 50 Phantoms that were promised under the Johnson Administration?

DR. KISSINGER: I believe it is to take care of military equipment that has been committed and on which payment is coming due.

Q Including both this Administration and the previous?

DR. KISSINGER: That is right. Well, the previous Administration didn't actually deliver the Phantoms. It committed them. The Phantom deliveries started in this Administration.

Q Can you give us a total value of the equipment that we have agreed to let Israel purchase?

DR. KISSINGER: You would have to get that from either the State or Defense Department. I don't have the precise figure here.

Q Did you mean to leave the implication that there may be some conditions attached to this $500 million in terms of rectification, some understanding that they will return to the talks?

DR. KISSINGER: No. I did not mean to leave this implication.

One point that I do want to make, that the President feels strongly about, is that we believe that this package, this supplemental package is to be considered as a whole and that we do not believe that it would be consistent with our objective if parts of it were broken out for special regions or special areas. And we would therefore, have to consider how to spend whatever is appropriated, if the requests were below what we have requested.

Yes, Mr. Marder.

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