MR. BUCKLEY: This is the third and concluding hour devoted to retrospective fragments of 20 years of *Firing Line*. Given that the United States is a superpower, there is no way to stay out of the way of foreign policy, which has so much preoccupied public attention since the end of the second world war.

The principal figure this side of the White House during the past 20 years engaged in foreign policy has been, of course, Henry Kissinger, who several times has appeared on the program. The implications of detente were almost always discussed.

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DR. KISSINGER: What we now lack is a consensus on the role of power in the world, the kind of world we want to build; and the establishment that formulated our policies in the '50s and '60s has disintegrated, largely under the impact of the Vietnam War, and a new establishment hasn't been formed yet.

MR. BUCKLEY: Well, is it your feeling that the establishment is attracted to the notion that to the extent that we face down the Soviet Union with anything like the kind of relentless tenacity with which you are now associated, that we are encouraging extravagant imperialistic pressures within the Soviet Union? Is that what this younger establishment poses in terms of the danger towards an adequate foreign policy?

DR. KISSINGER: The younger establishment, or at least a significant part of the establishment, believes that the Soviet Union is not really geopolitically aggressive and that most, or many, of the Soviet actions are in response to our initiatives and therefore, to the extent that we rearm, we bring about more aggressive Soviet tendencies rather than the opposite.

MR. BUCKLEY: Yes.

DR. KISSINGER: They also believe that sooner or later the Soviet Union is going to change by its own inward tensions.

MR. BUCKLEY: Which is not inconceivable, is it?

DR. KISSINGER: It is not inconceivable.

MR. BUCKLEY: But must not be counted on.

DR. KISSINGER: No. It is, in fact, highly probable provided the international environment does not supply to the Soviet Union the substitute for the domestic achievements that they will never have; and I would be very confident that if the Soviet Union is deprived of major foreign policy successes, that then the internal strains in the Soviet system will be very severe.

MR. BUCKLEY: So that you would have attrition there, or you would have the opposite of it, namely an extravagant gesture towards successful imperialism?

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DR. KISSINGER: I believe that the Soviet Union is in no position to conduct consistent imperialism against a determined enemy, that if one looks at-- All the Soviet adventures have occurred in areas where there were no Western troops, where there were no Western nuclear weapons. It is quite the opposite of what many of the demonstrators are implying. All the pressures were in Vietnam, in Angola, in Ethiopia, in Korea, in places where there was a vacuum and where the risk seemed relatively low.

MR. BUCKLEY: Is the operative word in what you just said "consistent"? Because might they be equipped to apply sudden death stroke type actions? In which case, is there a potential threat of a strike against Europe, or only if there is such a vacuum?

DR. KISSINGER: If the inequality of power becomes too great, then there is such a danger. On the other hand, I believe that while the Soviet Union is militarily very strong, it is also a system with massive inefficiencies. Every time one discovers the truth about the various communist systems when there is a revolution or some sort of upheaval, one finds how inefficient they are. So for the Soviet Union to launch itself into a vast adventure in which they cannot calculate the outcome with high certainty strikes me as improbable; however, if they could calculate a high probability of success, then communist theory really gives them no means to avoid using their advantage.

MR. BUCKLEY: For instance, if they thought they could have taken Berlin in '61, they'd have done so?

DR. KISSINGER: Yes, they would have had a duty to do so.

MR. BUCKLEY: Yes, right, right. All right--

DR. KISSINGER: From their point of view.

MR. BUCKLEY: Does that ideological imperative, in your judgment, continue to govern?

DR. KISSINGER: I believe that the Soviet Union--that a Marxist society, especially a Leninist society--tends to believe very strongly in what they call the correlation of forces. If the correlation of forces is favorable to them, then they must exploit it, and they do not even consider that an aggressive action; they consider that a ratification of reality. Similarly, if the correlation of forces is unfavorable to them, they must adjust to that and they don't consider that a defeat; they consider that a tactical move. Of course, one cannot carry this to the extreme of saying that if we demanded tomorrow, based on overwhelming superiority, that they abandon their system that they would not fight to the death, but within the margins within which the conflicts have heretofore been conducted, I think a military advantage will give the Soviet Union the temptation to exploit it, and the converse is also

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true.

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MR. BUCKLEY: Jeane Kirkpatrick, whose speeches in the United nations galvanized public attention--she was capable even of writing letters to ambassadors who voted against the United States asking them what on earth they were up to--she once ruminated on the subject of tyrannicide.

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MS. KIRKPATRICK: There's a historical debate in political philosophy, as you know, about tyrannicide, for example: Under what circumstances it is justifiable to kill a tyrant? Virtually every philosopher who's ever looked at that problem seriously has concluded, yes, there are circumstances under which the public morality is served by tyrannicide. It involves one in such questions, for example, as the morality of the murder of a Hitler, let's say. If we could have, by a private evil, like the murder of Hitler, avoided a great public disaster like World War II or the destruction of the Jews or of Jehovah's Witnesses or of the various people whom Hitler destroyed--avoided it--I think most people believe that would be an example of the conflict perhaps between private morality and public morality.

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MR. BUCKLEY: If somebody had been around in 1975 to kill Pol Pot, I personally would be hugely grateful. So would three million people who are no longer alive.

MS. KIRKPATRICK: Sure, sure.

MR. BUCKLEY: But this doesn't mean that you can frame the situation, and it's extremely hard to talk about something that hasn't been done.

MS. KIRKPATRICK: Well, you know--

MR. BUCKLEY: You can be sorry that Hitler wasn't killed, you can wish Pol Pot was killed, but you can't say, "Let's go out and kill Castro."

MS. KIRKPATRICK: There was a period when Idi Amin was causing to be killed some 10,000 Ugandans a week actually, and there's an interesting question there. There was a highly personal ruler. If one could have, in fact, eliminated Idi Amin, chances were very good anybody who followed him would have behaved in a less bloody fashion than he did. Would morality have dictated removing Idi Amin? Probably, I think, though it would have been very difficult to make such a decision.

MR. BUCKLEY: And diplomatically, really almost impossible to talk about it informally, especially about anybody who is

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currently in power.

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MR. BUCKLEY: Zbigniew Brzezinski, a frequent guest up until he became the national security adviser for President Jimmy Carter, offered his own views on how to combine anti-communism and detente.

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MR. BUCKLEY: You are, after all, a Democrat, and you are identified therefore with a party, a projection of whose center of gravity is moving in the direction of unilateralism. It's not there by a long shot, but it's moving in that direction. Now, to what extent do you think that the Democratic Party can survive these suicidal seeds?

MR. BRZEZINSKI: I think that the Democratic Party really embraces that kind of an orientation, and, for example, endorsement of the freeze is an example of what should be avoided. Then, in my personal judgment, it's going to make itself less attractive electorally and less able to assume the responsibility for protecting the national interests.

MR. BUCKLEY: It will go the way of the Labour Party in Great Britain?

MR. BRZEZINSKI: Well, let me give you one very, to me, telling example. Since World War II eight Democrats have run for the presidency. Four lost, four won. Stevenson lost twice, Humphrey lost and McGovern lost. Truman won, Kennedy won, Johnson won, and Carter won. What differentiates them really is the attitude on foreign policy issues. The four who won by and large were seen as centrist or tough-minded. The ones who did not were viewed as somewhat different. I don't want to put labels on them.

MR. BUCKLEY: Yes.

MR. BRZEZINSKI: And I think Democrats should not forget that and think about it as they enter the political season now; and beyond that, I think only centrist Democrats can forge this needed bipartisan collaboration.

MR. BUCKLEY: If we apply the Brzezinski analysis to the current field, we would see on the safe side, say, Mr. Glenn, and on the unsafe side, say, Mr. Mondale.

MR. BRZEZINSKI: I'm not going to go with you quite that far, because the other day I was already quoted in the press as saying that I thought Senator Baker and Senator Glenn, each representing the two parties, were in the best position to effect a bipartisan policy, but I don't want to exclude others. I think it really depends on what they do. I could see Vice President Bush or even Senator Dole perhaps doing it, and I

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