[LL]

regular army, then if 5,000 South Vietnamese get
lifted in, they probably can't concentrate more
than 10,000 at any one place.

If they had great mobility, then small
numbers of South Vietnamese couldn't make any
difference, but in the peculiar situations of
Vietnam -- of Cambodia, where the South Vietnamese
have airlift, and the North Vietnamese have to
walk down the trail, the South Vietnamese can
always put their forces in faster than the
Cambodians can -- than the North Vietnamese can,
and so relatively small numbers can make a
difference, plus the fact that the Cambodians,
while they are untrained, fight fairly well in
defensive positions, so they can't just run them
over.

It's not like Laos, and in another year,
the Cambodians will be a lot better. The French
always used to consider the Cambodians the best
soldiers in Indo-China.

Q You mentioned that the progress in the
strategic arms limitations talk is going to be a
principal factor in the military budget. What are

41

[LJ]

the prospects -- are the Russians any more reasonable than they were before? Do we have any good hopes that these talks will be more productive this year?

DR. KISSINGER: Well, I will be able -- I will be able to give you a better answer on that around March 30th, after the conference resumes.

We have made the most meticulous preparations that have ever been made for talks prior to entering them.

Before we came into office, whenever we went into disarmament talks, a fantastic bureaucratic brouhaha started in Washington, with the Joint Chiefs on one side, the Arms Control Agency on the other, and the President being forced to arbitrate between conflicting points of view, and that is an impossible position for a President to be in.

Then, after he had adjudicated that dispute, we take it to the -- take our position to the Russians. Then, unless the Russians came up with the same view as we did, which is statis-tically improbable, and which indeed never happened, we were forced to go right back into the same bureaucratic fight, and therefore every negotiation

42

with the Russians lasted four to five years, because we were spending two-thirds of our time negotiating with ourselves; therefore, the President ordered when we started these negotiations, that we were not to bring him agency positions in which he was supposed to rule for state, and against the Joint Chiefs, or for the Joint Chiefs and against the Arms Control Agency. He wanted to have an inventory made of every weapon that could conceivably be the subject of negotiation.

He said, "Let's make an analysis of what our intelligence can tell us about Soviet violations, what countermeasures we can take in case we spot a Soviet violation, what risks we are running, what the situation, how quickly we could react, and so forth," so we made a really enormous inventory of every conceivable weapon, and by doing it on this analytical rather than bureaucratic basis, 95 percent of the disputes disappeared because anyone who said, "You are running a risk," was forced to say what the risk was, and anyone who said, "Go ahead and run a risk, it's safe," had to tell us why it was safe, so they couldn't debate bureaucratically in the

43

[w]

platitudes in which these debates are normally
conducted, so on the basis of this, we put two
very comprehensive positions to the Russians;
they rejected them both.

We then, in a matter of three weeks,
shifted to a less comprehensive one, and we
could do it quickly because we have the building
blocks as a result of these extensive studies.

Now, our approach has been analytical.
The Russian problem in these talks is very severe.
One is they look at this as a political problem,
not just as an analytical one, and their approach
to us has been very similar to our approach to
them of three or four years ago. They have a
position, and God knows how they arrived at
that position, but if we don't accept it, they
don't have a fall-back position, and they don't
have big books there in which they can say, now,
all right, you don't do this, let's look at some
other weapon; they have to go back to Moscow.

Now, I have been told by reputable
people, including senior Soviet people, that
in the Soviet system, each agency operates very

44

compartmentalized. Some of our negotiators believe that the Russian diplomats know less about the number of Russian missiles than we do; that the Russian military people, of course, know everything, but they don't necessarily talk to their diplomats, so the Russians have to move much more slowly than we do.

Secondly, the Russians have been fairly responsible in these talks; they have not made outrageous propositions, but it is a tough subject. The weapons are different on both sides, even where in our government there were differences of opinion as we prepared, so obviously there are differences of opinion between us and the Russians on what constitutes a strategic equation.

But I think we have now reached this point; if the Soviets make a political decision to go ahead, we can get an agreement within six months. If Kosygin were to write a letter to the President, or vice versa, and say, look, we have reached this point, let's see how we can narrow the differences, I think we can reach an agreement. What is lacking is what is the political decision

45

to go ahead, and frankly we can't be sure of what
that political decision will be, probably, until
the Party Congress in Russia at the end of March.
They are now in a period of internal turmoil,
getting ready for the Party Congress, with most
of their senior people probably being absorbed
preparing for the Party Congress.

Let me make one point, though, about
all these news stories that the Russians have
leaked about their proposal to us on limiting
ABM's.

Our approach has been as follows: The
overwhelming threat to the security of both
countries is represented by the offensive weapons,
not by the defensive weapons.

What we have to bring under control is
the capacity of either side to destroy the mili-
tary forces of the other side; that is what can
produce a war if one side believes that it can
knock out the strategic forces of the other, if
one side believes that it can get into the
position that Israel was recently with the Arabs
in 1967, and wipe out their territorial power, then

46

[LC]

you have an unstable situation.

Now, our forces, partly because of the reasons I gave you, the fact that we haven't really developed new missiles for a long time, our forces do not really have an enormous ability to wipe out the Soviet retaliatory force. They are too small, and for many other reasons. The Soviets have developed very large missiles, with increasing accuracy, particularly the SS 9, on which they are now putting multiple warheads, and they represent an enormous threat to our retaliatory forces, especially to our land-based minutemen, and to some extent to our air bases, so we believe that any agreement must limit also offensive weapons.

We are prepared to limit ABM -- indeed, we have offered to the Soviets -- which doesn't seem to be recognized -- we have offered zero ABM, we have offered them to give up all ABM on both sides if they agree to a limitation on offensive weapons. We are prepared to have either a limitation or elimination of defensive weapons, if there is a limitation of offensive weapons, but

47

to permit the unconstrained buildup of offensive weapons while limiting the buildup of defensive weapons is reversing the order of priorities that would mean we are making an agreement that enhances our vulnerability. The reason we are building defensive weapons is to prevent a threat against our minutemen. If now we say we are going to stop defending our minutemen, but you can continue building offensive weapons, then I am not sure what such an agreement achieves. This is the reason why we have hesitated to accept an agreement limited only to defensive weapons.

If they accept a limitation as to offensive weapons, we will be very generous about a limitation of defensive weapons, because we need the defensive weapons, only as a protection against their offensive weapons.

This is the basis for our position.

Q Doctor, do you have a theory on the source of reasons for these Khrushchev memoirs, or tape recordings, or whatever they are?

DR. KISSINGER: Well, it's a curious situation, because Khrushchev, as you know, put out a statement

48

which doesn't really disavow them. He just says
he didn't authorize them.

The Russian diplomats don't disavow them,
either; they sort of say they are authentic.

Now, on the other hand, it's hard to
imagine that a man like Khrushchev, who spent
his whole life in the party, would take a cheap
shot at American public opinion, unless it was
serving somebody's purpose.

Now, I have heard at least two explanations;
George Kennan's explanation is as follows: He says
what has appeared as the Khrushchev memoirs is
undoubtedly authentic, but he believes that there
are some other memoirs around that are also authentic,
that are much more damaging to the Soviets, and that
they have put these out in order to get the copy-
right, and to discredit anything else that could
appear.

And the reason he says that is because
he handled the publication of Svetlana's memoirs,
the daughter of Stalin, and there the Russians
pulled exactly the same ploy, about two days before
Svetlana's book was supposed to be copyrighted, the

49

same man, Victor Lloyd, who brought out the
Khrushchev memoirs, brought out a version of
the Svetlana memoirs, which was four-fifths
identical with the Svetlana's -- with Svetlana's
memoirs, but omitted the two or three most
damaging chapters.

Therefore, this is Kennan's theory.

Another theory is that these were
leaked by some faction in the politburo which
wants to prove that some Stalinists wants to
shoot across the power of some Stalinists because
it's so damaging towards Stalin.

Others say it was leaked by the whole
politburo as a means of showing that there is a
peaceful faction in the Kremlin that is being
thwarted by us. Everyone agrees that these have
to be authentic because they have so many, so
much of the flavor of what one knows about
Khrushchev.

I must say they paint a really appalling
picture of the type of person who is running the
Soviet system now.

Q Dr. Kissinger, you mentioned the

50

intelligence failure that, for six years, have
given bad information on supply routes, and this
is reminiscent of the Korean intelligence failure
also. What has been done that gives you confidence --
it must be very difficult to make the kind of
answers that you have to make unless you rely on
the intelligence. What has been done to improve
the quality?

DR. KISSINGER: It's one of the big problems,
it's a problem for a number of reasons.

One, all tough policy issues are, either
because the pros and cons of the consequences seem
fairly imbalanced, or because the pros and cons of
the factual situation seems fairly imbalanced;
otherwise anyone can make the decision.

Now, that means that either the
consequences or the facts, or usually both, are
clear -- are obscured even to intelligent people.

Now, on top of it, intelligence analysts
are human, like everybody else, and the myth of
pure objectivity, you know, you know, you must
find that in your newspapers, I am sure your
reporters want to be objective, but whether they

51

[LC]

select out those facts with preconceptions simply
because they select them more vividly, this is a
constant problem -- I am not making any charges
against reporters. I know it's a problem in
intelligence. They are acutely conscious of the
consumer.

When you know what the policy tilt of
the senior officials is, and you have clearly
ambiguous facts, there is a subconscious tempta-
tion -- no one ever says, "I will color my facts,"
but there is a subconscious temptation to shade
them a little bit, or else there is a subconscious
temptation to present those consequences that will
lead the policy maker in the direction you want
him to go, and that isn't even -- that is not
immoral, because the reason you are for or against
the policy is because you either like or can relate
the consequences.

Now, how you deal -- then there is one
other problem -- most intelligence people want to
play safe, and they know that they get, what they
can get into, so they will very often write their
reports in such a way that no matter what happens,

52

they can point to some clause that they have
foreseen and say this. This, however, compounds
the obscurity to the policy maker, or they will
adopt a standard and a methodology which is
confusing. They will say, for example, "Until
we have seen it, it doesn't exist."

Q In this case, couldn't they have just
looked out the window and seen the supplies?

DR. KISSINGER: No. Now, take this case --
no, what they saw was trucks on the road. Now,
what is in the trucks? Well, has anyone ever
seen a weapon in the trucks? No.

Well, then, how can you say there is
a weapon in the trucks?

Or they would say they couldn't be
using Sihanoukville because this would make them
dependent on them, not Sihanouk, and no sane
leader would make Sihanouk dependent on that.
This was one of the arguments.

Q Did anyone unload the trucks, see them
unload the trucks?

DR. KISSINGER: No. They didn't see anyone
unload the trucks because the trucks were unloaded

53

[LCT]

19

in the sanctuaries which were in the jungle, so all
you see were trucks on the road, and we didn't over-
fly Cambodia regularly. We have had this problem.

We sometimes see certain weapons develop.
Now, until the last stage of the weapons development
is reached, you can't say this is what it is. All
you can say is, well, they wouldn't be doing this
unless they intended something else, but you can't
confidently say they intended, until they have done it.

Now, one of the things that I am trying to
get done, and that this administration has tried to
get done is we are forcing the intelligence not only
to say what they have seen, but what that which they
have seen might lead to, and we are asking them not
to say that we are a hundred percent certain, and
what we are not a hundred percent certain of, we
don't believe in; we are making them say what we
are not a hundred percent certain of, this we are
a hundred percent certain of, this we are 90 percent
certain of, this we are 50 percent certain of, so
you have major -- it's a real tough job, and we are
trying to -- we are trying to tell it, like one, by
writing the criteria in a way that is more relevant

54

[10]

to the policy maker; secondly by forcing them to
state dissent.

This President, for example, who has a
legal mind, and a very analytical mind, he doesn't
want only one conclusion. He is much happier with
an intelligent report that says, "Here are the
facts. Some of us draw these conclusions from it
for the following reasons; others draw that con-
clusion from it for these reasons."

He likes to get that a lot better than
to get a statement with which everybody agrees
from which you can't tell anything, so we are making
our intelligent-making unit put down their dis-
agreements, and the reason for their disagreement,
and we are making them put down the factual basis
for their position rather than just making general
statements, but it's a tough process.

Q How important is it for us to continue to
support the Greek junta?

DR. KISSINGER: Well, what do you mean by
"support the Greek junta"?

They are the operating government in
Greece. The problem they pose for us is that they

55

[LJ]

are the operating government in Greece, that if
they shifted into a radically anti-NATO left
direction, which might be one way for them to
pull the teeth of their communist opposition,
that sort of "Nasser-right" type position, that
wouldn't do anybody any good, and they have made
a significant -- Greece, as a country is significant
for NATO, and for that matter, for a staging area
into the Middle East.

On the other hand, we have put whatever
pressure we can on them to make them move, or to
induce them to move to constitutional representative
forms, so the question that we have -- we have not
ostracized them, but it's not correct to say that
we have supported them. There are constant blow-
ups between our Ambassador, because they resent
any suggestion that they should modify their
authoritarian ways.

The only thing that we have done that
can be construed as support is to make available
to them the heavy equipment that was due to them
under NATO agreements that was blocked three
years ago.

56

[10]

The reason we made it available to them
is because that equipment is totally irrelevant
to the security situation within Greece; that is,
heavy tanks, heavy artillery, the sort of weapons
that they are not going to use against their
population, and that they might use if they were --
might need if there were pressure on them from the
north.

Q Yes, I wanted to get back to Darrell's
question on intelligence. Again, having gone over
with us the difficulties in making estimates, what
would you say the margin for error might be that
you would have on 50,000 troops of getting the
troops in Cambodia?

DR. KISSINGER: In Cambodia, now, on the
infiltration, we have, I would think -- I can't
tell you how we know, but I would think our margin
in knowing what is in the pipeline, that is the
total number infiltrating, we wouldn't be off by
more than 10 percent.

Q Well, your prisoner interrogations and
that sort of thing would back you up.

DR. KISSINGER: Yes. Well, on that we happen

57

[4J]

to have a superb intelligence, but I can't tell
you why without blowing it.

On the other hand, once they are in the
pipeline, we will be very confident about the total
numbers, once they are in the pipeline, that is,
once they go into combat areas, our ability to
know becomes less good, so if you ask me for the
distribution between South Vietnam and Cambodia,
there we might be off by 20 percent, 25 percent.

But I think in the case of Cambodia,
because we have two ways of intelligence, we have
what we notice, we know which units are operating
in Cambodia, and we know which are not operating
in Vietnam that used to operate there, so we have
a double check.

But it is highly improbable that suddenly
a 100,000 troops will show up in Cambodia, or
that those 50,000 could shift into Vietnam without
our knowing.

Q Doctor, can we move to the Middle East
for a moment --

DR. KISSINGER: Sure.

Q -- and get some comments from you?

58

DR. KISSINGER: Could I -- was that what yours was going to be?

Q Exactly, and then I have one other personal one I would like to ask you when you are finished with that.

DR. KISSINGER: The suspense is going to kill me. Ask me the personal one.

Q Well, it really isn't that important, but I am curious to know, Dr. Kissinger, how you feel about leaving the educational community at this time. As you see, there is no suspense there at all.

DR. KISSINGER: No. Well, --

Q And what your future plans are, if you have any in mind. Do you intend to go back to that life again?

DR. KISSINGER: Well, first of all about leaving the educational opportunity; I will talk about the Middle East in a minute.

Now that that issue has been raised, let me answer it; the position which I am now occupying means that many sensitive and complicated matters on which the President has worked very hard

59

[LC]

have gone through my office, and the process in
which we are involved makes it inevitable that
my office has -- I don't mean on substance
necessarily, but simply the management has played
an essential role. I don't believe that anyone
should hold my job indefinitely. I mean, one
should get out of that job at a point before it
becomes too contentious. It didn't seem to me
that I could leave at this time, when the President
asked me to stay, and therefore I really felt
that I had no choice, and it was not a reflection
on the educational community that I left. I felt
I had to stay with the President until we had
completed some of the things that I have been
involved in, and not to make him go through the
process of transition that would inevitably be
involved in the shift.

But about the educational community,
I think the big problem is to make the universities
again educational institutions. I do not believe
that students should be able to define what is
relevant. This is what education is about; that
is what they are supposed to learn, not to teach.

60

[LC]

That is what life is all about, and I think that most of the students are now looking for men that they can respect rather than professors who agree with them, so I do believe that the educational community has made the progress -- which I will be glad to talk about if somebody is interested -- but that was not the principal reason for my leaving.

What I intended to do after I leave depends on when I leave, and I may go back to teaching, but I haven't made a firm decision.

Q In that same area, did Dr. Christiani and his community make a pass at you, Doctor, to be president of Harvard?

DR. KISSINGER: I beg your pardon?

Q Did Dr. Christiani and his committee make a pass to be the president of Harvard?

DR. KISSINGER: No, I will tell you, my feelings were really good -- I wasn't even on the list of 66 -- but if they had wanted riots at Harvard, this would have been a good way to do it.

Q But Harvard is certainly going to get

61

[LC]

you back.

DR. KISSINGER: If I go back to teaching, I will -- certainly I would have every intention of going back to Harvard. I have never had a long-range plan of that.

Now, the Middle East.

You know, Vietnam is our most painful problem, but the Middle East is by far our most dangerous problem.

In Vietnam we will either make it or not make it, but there isn't really, when you think about it, there isn't a great deal of flexibility. The only possible position now other than what we are doing is get out tomorrow; everything else is tactics, and maybe our tactics are right, and maybe somebody else's tactics are right, but we are in charge, and we have got to act on the basis of the best judgment we have made as to tactics in Vietnam, and the range isn't that great, whether you give a deadline or not. I consider it a second order question. There are pros and cons on both sides; we have decided at this time it is not that the balance is against it. All I am

62

saying is the major course of what is said, and is
going in a direction which we believe most Americans
are agreed, and frankly I can't imagine -- there is
nothing that I can see we could do that would
escalate the Vietnamese War into a general war.
There may be ups and downs along the lines of what
I have described to you, but the trend of it is
towards American disengagement from Southeast Asia; everybody knows that.

The Middle East is a more complicated
situation.

In the Middle East we face two groups
of countries; Israel on the one side, and the Arab
States on the other, each of which feels passionately
about the situation in the area -- neither of which
feels an overwhelming commitment to international --
to the overall state of the world.

I am not saying it's critical, because
they are so absorbed in their own problems; at
the same time, each of these countries, Israel on
one side, the Arab States on the other, is tied
to one of the major nuclear powers, so the danger
of a world war in that area out of control of the

63

[LC]

big powers is really very great.

Let me illustrate this with the situation
last September.

You know, it never had any scare headlines,
but in my view, certainly the most dangerous
situation we faced about the peace of the world
was not Cambodia. That didn't affect the peace
of the world; it affected out domestic tranquility,
but what happened last September in the Middle East,
that really could have affected the peace of the
world, and in many ways it was the most dangerous
crisis since '67, and maybe since '62.

First of all, it started as a result of
Arab guerrillas, or after Arab liberation groups,
out of the control of any government, so it wasn't
the act, even, of an Arab or Israel government.

It was then escalated into a conflict
between the Jordanian government and its own
dissidents, so it became a local civil war.

This local civil war led to the inter-
vention of the Syrians, who entered Jordan with
300 tanks, more than enough to destroy the
Jordanians. The luckiest thing that happened to

64

the Syrians was their own incompetence. If the
Syrians had defeated the Jordanians, or if the
Jordanians had panicked, it is highly probable
that the Israelis would have moved. Indeed,
one reason the Israelis did not move was because
of the combination of firmness and confidence we
gave them there, and the restraint we gave.

If the Israelis had moved, the Egyptians
would have had to move; then the Israelis almost
certainly would have inflicted some sort of a
defeat on the Egyptians. I don't know what, but
some sort of a defeat.

Now, Nasser died the Monday after all
of this happened. This sequence of events would
certainly not have improved his heart condition,
so you have to assume Nasser would have died in
the middle of all of these operations. The
Russians, then confronted with their client dead,
and two of their clients defeated, would have
faced '67 again, and whether they could have
stood aside yet again isn't easy to say. All I
am telling you is if you want to know what can
happen in the Middle East, and while we are concerned

65

[L.C.]

with trying to reduce the tension, that was a great sequence of events, and our problem was to behave firmly enough to discourage irresponsible acts, but not so truculently that other countries thought we were already determined to get in there, and therefore attempt to prevent us from giving the Israelis confidence that they were not going to be left in the lurch, but not so much confidence that they took to convince the Soviets they wouldn't get a shot, and therefore that they would face us if they intervened militarily in some way, but at the same time not to give them the feeling that we were trying to back them down, so that they would lose face, so we had an enormous delicate operation, and we kept the public posture as low as we could during that week.

I have gone into that detail about the Middle East to show you why we feel we cannot permit a situation to continue indefinitely in which a dissident group in any one of these countries can spark a world war, or the risk of a world war, because I am not blaming anybody for what happened in September, 1970. The key to

66

it is that it happened without anyone having planned
it.

Now, this is why we have encouraged the
negotiations between the Egyptians and the Israelis,
and the problem is that the Israelis believe that
their security depends on something tangible --
and, of course, nothing is more tangible than land.

The Arabs believe that without some
Israelis withdrawal, they are negotiating under
the gun, so what we are trying to see is whether
it is possible to substitute guarantees of some
form or another for some of the territory that
will have to be involved in negotiation.

Q But not all the territory.

DR. KISSINGER: Well, we have deliberately
not stated -- we have felt that this is an issue
that should be left to the parties in some areas.
The Secretary of State has expressed our views
with respect to these boundaries, and with
respect to the Egyptian-Israeli boundary, has
been substantially the 1967 boundary; he has
used other phrases with respect to other boundaries.

The point is that we want the essential

67

settlement negotiated among the parties, and we
believe our input can be the definition of guarantees
for whatever settlement is arrived at, but at least
in the meantime we have managed to stop the process
of shooting.

Now, in addition to the Arab-Israeli
dispute there are two other problems in the Middle
East; one is the growing Soviet involvement, and
the establishment of Soviet military bases with
combat personnel that affect not only the Arab-
Israeli balance, but that, in the long term, affect
also the situation in the Indian Ocean, in the
Mediterranean in general, and in parts of the
Arab world that are not immediately affected by
the Arab-Israeli dispute, such as the states in
the Persian Gulf, so this is a matter of concern
to us.

And thirdly, it's the whole thrust of
the radicalism in the Arab world. Now, we are
trying to tie all these together and see whether
we can reduce the Arab-Israeli tensions, and
perhaps bring about a settlement to reduce the
possibility of an Arab-Israeli war, and also to

68

see whether in that process the Soviet military
presence -- at least the Soviet military combat
presence can be reduced.

Q Doctor, did you and the President have
good intelligence on Nasser's health prior to his
departure for the 6th Fleet?

DR. KISSINGER: No. We knew that Nasser was
not well. He had had one heart attack, and he was
always reported to be suffering from diabetes,
but as you know, with heart patients you can't
predict when the heart attack will take place,
so we knew he wasn't in -- we knew he had had
a heart problem, but there was no reason to
assume that he would die that week. We were
completely surprised by that.

Q Dr. Kissinger, there was a rumor during
the September crisis that Ambassador Dobrynin
was in bad grace with the President on the
ground that he had, on orders, deliberately
lied.

DR. KISSINGER: Well, anyone who bases his
policy on the assumption that Russian diplomats
always tell the truth deserves what he is getting,

69

and this President is not known for his excessive
gullibility vis-a-vis the Soviets. No, Dobrynin
made, played the heart game. I can't say he
actually looked -- he didn't break his back to
tell us everything, but, you know, I would say
if a British ambassador behaved as he did, he
would indeed be in bad graces. If a Soviet
ambassador behaves that way, you have to assume
it's par for the course. He didn't do anything --
he wasn't in bad grace; he acted about as expected.

Q So we don't need to anticipate a change?

DR. KISSINGER: Well, we keep getting rumors
that there may be a change, but if there is a
change, it won't be because of our requesting it.
He is very skillful, very able. He is a tough
opponent, but we'd just as soon have somebody
there that can translate the Kremlin's thinking;
Dobrynin isn't a free agent, and we'd just as
soon have somebody there who we think reports
us correctly, and tells us accurately what the
Kremlin thinks.

Q How do you read the course of -- the
Soviet government now seems to be in a full

70

[LC]

5

re-Stalinization phase; is this going to be the
normal thing, and Khrushchev was just a departure
from it, or what? Is there any evolution going on?

DR. KISSINGER: Well, I think there is a
substantial Soviet -- the Soviet internal system
is very bureaucratic, and very mediocre. If you
read a book, for example, like the book
which describes what went on in the Soviet Union
in the '30's, and then you reflect on the fact
that the people who are now in power are the
survivors of that, who made their career while
thousands of desert acres were becoming fertile.

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Now, that is a -- this is not a group characterized by excessive trust, gentleness, and if anyone thinks we have no right to expect that they will treat us any more gently than they treat each other, suspiciousness is inherent in their nature. Every one of them have got to the top by double crossing every one of his potential competitors. After all, all of them owe their careers to Khrushchev; this didn't keep them from finishing him off any more than Khrushchev was restrained from finishing off Kaganovich and molotov, whose protege he had been any more than any one of them were ganging up on Stalin when Khrushchev was in power.

The worrisome thing about the Soviet System now is that there is no one there strong enough, there is no one there strong enough, and it seems to us, to impose course and restraint to their policy. I was going to ask myself what happened last summer, for example, when we had the Middle East, and a number of other events -- the Middle East, Cuba, Berlin all happened at once. You can either say there is

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grand design to do us in, or you can say, as I am
beginning to believe, that you have there a group
of bureaucracies, each of them run by some feudal
lord who has made a nonaggression treaty with his
rival, and each of them operating below what he
considers the threshold of provocation with the
United States, but no one adding it all up, and
no one in a position to impose a pattern, as we
do in our system through the presidency, and the
presidential office.

If each of our bureaucracies were free
to do everything it wanted only restrained by
appeals to the top, you would first get a series
of nonaggression treaties among the bureaucracies,
and secondly you would get back some of the pattern,
and there are other indices that I cannot talk
to you about why I believe this may be true.

So what you have is a bureaucratic thing,
with a group of fearful leaders that may not sign
any long-range aggression, but it's also not
capable of, perhaps, making any long-range settlement,
and that at least until the Party Congress, and
maybe beyond, will be operating within a fairly

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narrow framework.

Q To what extent are we going to become involved in the Saigon elections?

DR. KISSINGER: Well, we genuinely -- we will take maybe two more questions.

Our genuine interest in Saigon, in the Saigon election is to have them as free as is possible, because we have to -- we are conscious of the fact that after we are out, for us the war will end; I mean, the painful part of the war will end when we are substantially withdrawn, and reduced to the role of advisors, but for them the war is not necessarily going to end, and therefore we have a stake in the government in Saigon that genuinely commands a reasonable support among the population.

Secondly, our political position, vis-a-vis the Communist restraint to the degree that every significant group in Vietnam gets a share at the -- gets a shot at the political process; and on the other hand, you have to be honest enough to admit that in no country in Southeast Asia is the notion of a free election in the American sense part of the

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9

tradition, so an election in that country means
something slightly different than it means to Americans.

And also in Vietnam there is not the
sort of political position where you have parties
with national organizations, but we have no intention
of becoming involved in the political process in
South Vietnam, directly or indirectly, and we will
abide by the outcome of the political process.

Whatever influence we will use will be
in the direction of making the elections as free
as possible.

Q I think about two years ago you said,
in San Clemente, about maybe South Vietnam some
day would be like India, maybe some Communist
provinces and so on.

Do you still feel that way, or have you
changed your mind?

DR. KISSINGER: No. That could still happen.
If the Communists had accepted our cease-fire
proposal, or they had accepted something like
it, that will probably happen, because that, in a
way, means that in the areas which they control,
they will at least have some significant influence.

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We don't say that that is what we want to happen, but we offered, in May, '69; we have repeated it ever since, that every political party, every political group, including the Communists, can participate in the political process. Thieu has offered to abide by the result; even if you say he doesn't mean it, at least he said it, which is more than the Communists have ever done, and we have offered international supervision of the process.

MR. SHUMWAY: Gentlemen, I know that we have kept you, and we appreciate your presence here.

We are, as I said, sorry that we were late, but the President has this habit of getting a hold of Dr. Kissinger when he is about ready to get on the plane.

DR. KISSINGER: Every time they shell the airfield in Phnom Penh.

MR. SHUMWAY: Thank you very much.

(Proceedings ended.)

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