The New York Times, Friday, January 4, 1980

WASHINGTON

Kissinger
On Afghan
Crisis

By James Reston

WASHINGTON, Jan. 3 — The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan is being discussed here as a cruel and cynical betrayal of that country, which must be punished by withdrawing ambassadors, postponing or ending the strategic arms talks, invoking economic sanctions, boycotting the Moscow Olympic Games, and sending Defense Secretary Brown to China. Other proposals are under review and widely supported, provided they carry little or no risk.

But Henry Kissinger has a somewhat different view of the problem. He agrees that Moscow must be made to pay a price for its latest outrage, and that the United States must not seem helpless, as in the case of Iran, to aid the victims of open aggression.

But he is opposed to any sudden "grand gestures" that are likely to be ineffective and cannot be sustained. He believes it is time, despite the Presidential election, for a carefully considered nonpartisan effort to reach a consensus on how to contain Soviet power in the whole region in the 1980's.

"The main issue really isn't Afghanistan," he says. "The issue is what the countries who rely on us can expect of us and what we can expect from them. And what countries have a right or reasonable expectation to rely on us. Those are the issues..."

In response to a series of questions from this corner, the former Secretary of State made these points:

¶U.S. commercial dealings with the Soviet Union — the sale of wheat, modern technology, etc. — should be related to Soviet international political and military behavior.

¶We should help China's industrial modernization, but not send military arms to that country in response to Moscow's invasion of Afghanistan.

¶It was wrong to deny arms in recent years to Pakistan because of its intention to build nuclear weapons; "limited" conventional arms shipments should be resumed, but any massive arms program might provoke a new Indian Government to attack Pakistan and make things even worse.

Mr. Kissinger sees the latest crisis as a chance to get at the problem of establishing a stable political and military policy to protect the nations and essential oil resources of the Mideast. Such a policy, he insists, must have the support of both political parties and the understanding of the American

people and the allies. An American policy that changed from one Administration to another would lead to even greater instability in the world.

"We have suffered since the late 60's," he said [this includes the years of his own responsibility] "from a lack of consensus on the role of power in the world, the nature of the philosophy we should represent in the world.

"Is it the Andy Young view? Are the radicals our real friends? Or is there some moderate alternative we can offer? And while we have learned the limits of our possibilities, we haven't really defined [their] scope ..." We need a dispassionate analysis of our interests, he says, and of the strategy by which the Soviets are to be contained, if that's our aim, and not frantically start "doing something" and pouring arms all over the world.

"I think the Administration has been not sufficiently appreciative of the facts of power, so it isn't that I would not favor a firmer policy. I just don't want them to go crazy and I don't want them to ad hoc it. They may also have to consider what they will do when the Soviet peace offensive starts this summer. We can find ourselves buffeted again and get our country divided, if we don't have a settled view of what we're trying to accomplish."

Mr. Kissinger thought it likely that George Bush and Senator Howard Baker would go along with such an effort to devise a new nonpartisan policy and that they would be supported by many others in the G.O.P. if they did.

"We have now gone for 10 years up and down this foreign policy escalator," Kissinger observed. "We've got liberals who think that everything that happens in the world is our fault. We've got conservatives who think that all you need is anti-Communist liturgy and that solves all our problems, but we have not managed for a decade to get a settled strategy that a majority of our people will support."

Mr. Kissinger conceded it would be hard in an election year to get the President and G.O.P. leaders to agree to work out such a strategy, but he insisted that, without the effort, we would really have a divisive, vicious partisan debate.

"The only time Carter has done well recently," Mr. Kissinger said, "is when he has perhaps excessively hid behind the national unity on Iran. He didn't give it any context, but it seems to me that it shows the country would like to put the divisions at least on foreign policy behind us."

This is in some ways a new theme for Kissinger. He was actively partisan in the foreign policy debate not so long ago, but is now seeking cooperation rather than confrontation.

"I've made my own criticisms," he said, "and I may make them again on a philosophical level, but I think that if the Administration wanted to put together a really nonpartisan consensus and stop playing Mickey Mouse games with the Republicans, they'd have an obligation to cooperate ... and so far as I have any influence, I would support such an effort."

A Soviet veto ... and panic in Iowa

Security Council

From the Wire Services

The Soviet Union vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution yesterday calling for withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan.

The veto killed the resolution although the Security Council approved it by a 13-2 vote.

The resolution, sponsored by six non-aligned members of the council, did not mention the Soviet Union by name, but Soviet chief delegate, Ambassador Oleg Troyanovsky, still voted against it. Approval by the Soviet Union, as a permanent member of the Security Council, is required for passage of any resolution.

The other negative vote was cast by Moscow-allied East Germany, a new non-permanent member of the council.

Troyanovsky, speaking just before the vote, reiterated the Soviet claim that it was asked by Afghan authorities to send military aid. He said the resolution was "a flagrant intervention in the affairs of a sovereign state and should be rejected."

Continued on Page A4

Down on the farm

By LAURENCE DWYER
and PEGGY SIMPSON

Staff Writers

NEWTON, Iowa — A wave of panic and anger rolled through Iowa farming communities as farmers and bankers waited to see how President Carter's embargo on grain shipments to the Soviet Union would affect, their livelihood.

"It is not uncommon for a farmer to have $250,000 in debts. He's paying 14 percent interest or about $35,000 a year," said Stanley Clement who owns the Clement Elevator Co. here. "And an average customer of ours would be selling one third of his crop in January."

The partial embargo of grain sales to the Soviet Union has left the farmers and their financing uncertain. Carter announced Friday that grain sales were being halted in retaliation for its intervention in Afghanistan.

In response to Carter's move, the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (FTC) suspended futures trading in wheat, corn, oats, soybeans and soybean oil and

Continued on Page C8

Kissinger's view

By RICHARD DUFFY
Staff Writer

There is little likelihood that the Soviet Union will quickly follow up its invasion of Afghanistan by striking further south into Iran or Pakistan, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger told a Boston audience yesterday.

The emphasis, however, was on the word "quickly."

Rejecting a comparison to Hitler's rapid-fire aggression against Czechoslovakia and then Poland in 1938-39, Kissinger noted, "The Soviets will not do us the favor of rallying everyone around an uninterrupted set of provocations."

"The Soviets are more patient," he said.

"If the Soviets follow their normal pattern, they will consolidate and make a peace offering."

Kissinger, looking trim and tan, was in Boston to address the 86th annual convention of the Northeastern Retail Lumbermens Association at Hynes Auditorium. An overflow crowd of about 1,500 delegates listened attentively to his remarks, as if to hear in them some way to meet the challenge in

Continued on Page A4

BOSTON Herald American
Tuesday, Jan. 8, 1980

Kissinger:
Get foreign
policy now

Continued from Page One

Afghanistan, the frustration in Iran.

He gave them no magic tactical solutions to the crises, saying merely he supported the sanctions against the Soviets that President Carter announced Friday.

Instead he dwelt on the theme that the resolution of the immediate crises is not the most important problem; indeed, that America's fundamental foreign policy problem is its penchant for formulating a new "foreign policy" every time a crisis arises, and then dropping it when the crisis ends.

Instead, he insisted, America must forge a national consensus on what it wants its long-term role in the world to be, incorporate that goal as its foreign policy, and then stick to that policy steadfastly regardless of which party is in the White House and regardless of whether the Soviets — who he says should be perceived as ruthless opportunists — are making the noise of peace — or of war.

Over and over he repeated the theme, using different words, approaching it from different aspects, trying, like the professor he is, to drum a particularly tough idea into a particularly dense student — so that student might survive the course.

To wit: "If we change our policies with every election, we become an element of insecurity to our friends who depend on us."

And, "Until we come to some national agreement on this — on a nonpartisan basis — we will continue to oscillate between extremes of panic and extremes of conciliation."

Dr. Henry Kissinger

He made it clear that, in his view, the actions of the Carter administration to date have shown a failure to comprehend the value of a tough, steadfast policy.

He said that recent foreign policy has been conducted under an "illusion," and criticized Carter for taking such conciliatory actions as the now-distant unilateral cancellation of the B-1 bomber in what proved to be the futile hope that the Soviets would cancel their super-sonic bomber.

And despite the President's recent statement that he has radically altered his understanding of the Soviets, Kissinger said, he (Kissinger) "has yet to see any indication" that the President understands that crisis management is no substitute for a true foreign policy based on this country's aims, rather than its fears.

He laid the origins for the Soviets' Afghan adventure in 1975 when America allowed Cuban troops — "Soviet proxies," he called them — to be introduced into Angola without penalty because U.S. Congressional action had prevented our intervention.