UNIVERSITY of PENNSYLVANIA

FOREIGN POLICY RESEARCH INSTITUTE

Room 102 - 133 South 36th Street

PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA 19104

EVERGREEN 2-0685

ROBERT STRAUSZ-HUPE, Director

October 16, 1964

Dr. Henry A. Kissinger
Harvard University
Center for International Affairs
6 Divinity Avenue
Cambridge 38, Massachusetts

Dear Henry:

I am most unhappy that you will be unable to participate in the November meeting. I must complete the report by the end of the year and, therefore, would not benefit from any critique that reached me in December or January.

If humanly possible, I would appreciate it if you could at least scan the report and give me your general reaction to it. I remember working on your manuscript for *Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy* while on a trip around the world. There is one point in particular concerning which I would like to have your views and that is the imperative necessity for the United States to seek to maintain technical-military superiority, on the strategic level. I am convinced from a great deal of evidence, much of which could not be presented in unclassified form, that the pursuit of technological supremacy is the main Soviet endeavor. Only if the United States attempts a build-up possessing the general characteristics of the one discussed in Chapter 10, will we exploit our technological-industrial base sufficiently to thwart the Soviet technological challenge. This approach, of course, runs counter to the thinking of most defense intellectuals.

Developments of the last few days introduce some new uncertainties into both the national and international political scene.

With all good wishes,

WRK:mgt

10 November 1964

Mr. William R. Kintner
Deputy Director
Foreign Policy Research Institute
University of Pennsylvania
Room 102 - 133 South 36th Street
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104

Dear Bill:

Thank you for your letter of October 16. I know you are unhappy about my not being able to come to the conference and I am very distressed about it too.

As it is, I am working every night including weekends, and I do not know *why* I could do any more. I will read the chapter you suggested and let you know my comments.

I would very much welcome an opportunity to talk to you to renew the general situation.

Warm regards.

As always,

Henry A. Kissinger

Henry V. Klaeinger

We always,

Warm regards,

to talk to you to renew the general situation.
I would very much welcome an opportunity

You anguished and let you know my comments.
Could do any more. I will read the chapter
finding weekends, and I do not know how I
Vas it is, I am working every night in-
distressed about it too.

able to come to the conference and I am very
I know you are unkind about my not being
Thank you for your letter of October 16.

Dear Bill:

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104
Room 103 - 133 South 36th Street
University of Pennsylvania
Foreign Policy Research Institute
Deputy Director
Mr. William R. Knauf

10 November 1964

UNIVERSITY of PENNSYLVANIA

ROBERT STRAUSZ-HUPE, Director

December 1, 1964

Dr. Henry A. Kissinger
Harvard University
Center for International Affairs
6 Divinity Avenue
Cambridge, Mass. 02138

Dear Henry:

Since last writing to you, I have prepared a draft of
what the summation chapter might possibly contain. This,
to me, is the crux of it. How can we exploit technological
superiority - if we will to maintain it - in a meaningful
political way? If you do have a chance to comment on this,
or any other portion of the study, I would appreciate hear-
ing from you by the middle of the month. I am now in the
process of re-constructing the work after it was subjected
to some quite searching critique. Tom Schelling, incidentally,
was most helpful.

I do hope that before long we can get together and
try to determine both the course which is and the one which
should be followed.

With all good wishes,

WRK:mgt

Enclosure: 1 Draft Chapter 18.

[lc]

CHAPTER 18

CUTTING THE GORDIAN KNOT OF NUCLEAR STRATEGY

1. A paradox of the Nuclear Age is that the potential of destructive power has never been greater but the utility of power has never seemed less.

2. Unless means can be found to make a nuclear conflict a largely one sided affair, it is doubtful whether the Soviets believe any longer that a general nuclear war would be a national instrument of policy. Certainly no American official believes this to be the case.

3. The Soviet Union, nevertheless, appears to be searching for some degree of technological-military superiority. Likewise the U.S., despite the contention of those who claim the existence of a technological stalemate, is still generally committed to maintaining a degree of technological-military superiority vis-à-vis the Soviet Union.

4. Lesser nuclear powers, in both the communist and non-communist world, contend that a nuclear stalemate exists and/or that the nuclear confrontation between the U.S. and the Soviet Union is of relatively little importance in contemporary world politics. This latter factor is, in part, responsible for the growing schisms within the opposing camp and the pursuit of nationalistic foreign policies. As a Chinese Communist publication expressed it:

- 2 -

The main contradiction of our time is ... the contradiction not between socialism and imperialism, but between the national liberation movement and imperialism. The decisive force in the struggle against imperialism ... is not the world system of socialism (led by the Soviet Union), not the struggle of the international working class, but again the national liberation movement.

1

The various types of contradictions in the contemporary world are concentrated in the vast areas of Asia, Africa, and Latin America; ... the whole cause of the international proletarian revolution hinges on the outcome of the revolutionary struggles of the people of these areas, who constitute the overwhelming majority of the world's population.

2

A French writer, F. O. Miksche, gives almost equal importance to this struggle.

We live amidst changes without precedent. For many problems, especially those posed by the population explosion in Asia and Africa, no satisfactory solution is in sight. Consequently, the revolutionary struggle is spreading simultaneously on four continents, giving rise to a situation previously unknown in history. To view the threat which confronts Western Europe only as that of a direct Soviet attack launched across the plains between the Baltic and the Alps leads to a grotesque simplification. Today the Near East and Africa constitute the geopolitically most dangerous storm-centers for bearing on Europe. What happens in these areas has a more or less direct bearing on all European peoples.

3

5. There is considerable evidence that many Soviet strategists believe that the world conflict will be determined primarily by the struggle for technological supremacy between the U.S.

¹ Peking Review, October 25, 1963, p. 10.

² *Ibid.*, June 21, 1963, pp. 7, 9.

³ F. O. Miksche, "The Nuclear Deterrent and Western Strategy," *Orbis*, Volume VIII, Summer 1964, pp. 234-235.