they enjoyed previously.

But if you give the government a six month period of consolidating itself in the villages and in the countryside, they will come back as an invading army rather than as a guerrilla force that can live among the people with the supply system that goes back 600 miles.

That is also, in part, an answer to your question.

Up to now we have faced the seemingly paradoxical situation that, according to our studies, the security situation has, in fact, improved while American forces have been withdrawn. There are a number of reasons for that. One is that they were obviously hurt much more by the Tet offensive of 1968, before our Administration came in, than was realized at the time. They pulled many of their guerrilla units into this attack and suffered many casualties.

Secondly, while the North Vietnamese are a courageous people who have fought very hard, they have suffered, by their own admission, something like 600,000 dead. This is dead.

This translated to an American scale is something like six or seven million American dead. Practically no one that has gone south from North Vietnam has come back over a seven-year period. Remember, South Vietnam in terms of travel time, is further from North Vietnam than Saigon is from the United States. It takes a North Vietnamese battalion three months after it leaves North Vietnam before it reaches South Vietnam.

So North Vietnam we vastly underestimated in 1964. We shouldn't overestimate it today. The objective in our withdrawal program is to withdraw in such a way that, looking at all the factors, the lessening, to some extent, of North Vietnamese strength, the growth of South Vietnamese strength, a situation is created in which it is not simply a cop-out.

If we wanted to cop out we could have done it two years ago.

This is a terribly painful, delicate and difficult process. But we believe that we are getting into a situation where, again, over the next two to three months, Hanoi has to make some very difficult decisions for itself. Up to now we have succeeded in managing the withdrawal in such a way that the dangers you describe have not arisen. What we want is an honorable settlement of the war, both for peace in the world and for tranquility at home. We believe that there is a chance. In fact, if these people are logical at all, if one looks at the pressures on Hanoi, it isn't that Hanoi is a free agent, but when Hanoi looks at the Sino-Soviet dispute, for example, they have now fought for six years. They are completely at the mercy of the Sino-Soviet dispute. If Communist China and the Soviet Union should clash, for whatever reason, Hanoi would be finished, and everything that they had fought for would be down the drain.

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In his Testament, Ho Chi Minh appealed for unity
of the Communist world as a condition for the success of
Hanoi.

The first reaction of Hanoi after we went into
Cambodia was to remind all the communist countries of Ho Chi
Minh's Testament.

The incursion into Cambodia certainly didn't bring
the two Communist giants closer together.

If you look at the internal pressure in North
Vietnam, the pressures and the uncertainties of the international
environment, you can construct a plausible case as to why
they should negotiate.

On the other hand, if they look at American
divisions at home, and if they believe that maybe everything
will collapse in South Vietnam, they may continue on.

It is this sort of balance. We are fairly
optimistic.

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- 30 -

Q I would like to ask a question of Dr. Kissinger, please.

For clarification, I think you have answered it but I don't quite understand. We have, in the minds of many people in the Orient, been in retreat. We have pulled out or are pulling out of Okinawa in some degree, and lessening our influence in Japan. We seem to be doing the same thing in Korea. In Taiwan there is deep concern that the 7th Fleet will be weaker than it has been. You have been describing eloquently what is going on in Vietnam.

We see in Europe the withdrawal of American troops, or the possibility of more withdrawal of American troops. There is a loss of momentum in America throughout the world.

The President described it today. You described it in terms of ground missiles. But I think the same thing is true in the position of our fleet in the Mediterranean, the growth of the Russian fleet, and so forth.

In fact, we even have committees of Congress now making or attempting to make tactical and strategic decisions.

I apologize for this long preamble, and I understand the Nixon Doctrine of pulling back in and leaving the first responsibility to people in the countries involved and next in the regions.

But my question is: Tell us how you visualize American leadership in the near future and in the more distant future, American world leadership.

DR. KISSINGER: I think this is a very key question. You are quite right, in many countries of the world it looks as if the United States is in retreat. It is one of the big problems we face.

First of all, as a general statement, let me repeat what I said in my remarks. We are doing what we are doing because we believe that if America is to remain related to the world, it must define a relationship that we can sustain over an indefinite period.

What has developed over the years is that precisely because there wasn't any coherent philosophy of what we were trying to do, everybody clung to whatever physical American presence existed as the tangible guarantee of American commitments.

As a result, you have vestiges of American presence around the world that developed in the 40's and 50's for which it became increasingly difficult to develop rationales.

We are trying to develop a community of interest and a political community rather than simply staking American physical presence around the world.

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- 31

Now take Okinawa. The problem as it appeared to us was to weigh the benefit of a base in Okinawa against the price we would have to pay in having a symbol in a territory that the Japanese considered their own which would provide an endless basis for anti-American agitation. We withdrew from Okinawa in order to deepen our permanent relationship to Japan and to give up a tem porary military benefit.

If there is anything that history has taught of the last 20 years, it is that you cannot operate a military base in a country which is violently opposed to your having it. When that is the case, we thought that the price we would pay in Okinawa, and even more, the price we would pay for the bases we have in Japan, would be so overwhelming within that five-year period that it was better to disengage early and to do it in the most generous way.

For example, on a number of the technical issues that were related to the Okinawa issue, we received various formulations in order to protect ourselves with alleged Congressional criticisms. The President chose the most generous way of giving up the bases for the reason that if we want to use the base on Okinawa, we are not going to be able to wave a piece of paper at the Japanese Government and say, "We have the legal right to do A, B and C."

When you are dealing with 80 million people, of the kind, strength and vitality of the Japanese, either they feel that you can use the base or they will find some way of not letting you use the base, no matter what the agreement is.

So our philosophy vis-a-vis Japan was that we would move out of that base -- we haven't really moved out of the base, we have returned the island to Japan, the base remains, subject to certain restrictions -- under conditions that would allow us to establish a permanent relationship with Japan.

In Korea we have something over 60,000 troops and they have been there ever since the Korean War, something like 20 years. The Koreans have had the traumatic experience that American troops were withdrawn once and an invasion followed.

On the other hand, we made a very careful study of what it would take to defend Korea against various combinations of attacks, a partial North Korean attack, a total North Korean attack, a North Korean attack backed by the Chinese Communists.

We came to the conclusion that the forces we are leaving there, plus a modernized Korean army, which is part of the package we have put to the Koreans, can meet any conceivable threat except a full-scale North Korean attack coupled with a full-scale Chinese attack. And that sort of an attack couldn't be met by an additional 20,000 Americans anyway.

So what we are telling the Koreans is to face the facts of their situation and not to use 20,000 Americans

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as hostages with all the strain it puts on our domestic
situation when year after year we have to explain to
Congress that we have to keep American forces there. For
what?

What we are developing now is a posture in Korea
that we will be able to explain first to ourselves, then
to the public, and which in time the Koreans will understand
is also in their own interest. It meets their needs. It
modernizes their forces. It gives them responsibility,
and it still keeps us related to them.

Take Europe. We have no fixed commitment to
withdraw troops from Europe. What we want to do is this:
We have had five-plus divisions in Europe for the whole
post-war period, or, again, since the Korean War. The
Europeans have been torn between having troops there,
between having a large American presence there, but also
making sure that any war that would break out would be
as close to a general war as they could make it.

There is a slight inconsistency. We have had
the situation where the American Army in Europe has
equipment and supplies for 90 days. No other army in
Europe has supplies for anything like that.

MORE

What we are trying to do is to get our allies to study together with us what in God's name it is we are trying to accomplish. We don't have any particular fixed views, but we don't want to maintain the status quo simply because everyone is afraid that on the other side of the status quo there is chaos.

We want, together with our allies, to decide first of all, if their security is at least as important to them as it is to us.

Secondly, we are coming into a new period. No words can explain away the fact that when NATO was created we had an atomic monopoly, and today the Soviets have over 1,000 land based missiles. No Presidential declaration can take away that change.

So, we want to examine, together with them, what that means. We are open minded. We want a strategy and a policy that both sides can believe in. We are exploring with them now possibilities where both sides, on both sides of the dividing line, might reduce forces. We are not committed to withdrawing our forces, but we are committed to a re-examination of what it is we are trying to do, because we do not believe that over an indefinite period you can go to the American public and say, "We have always done things this way and, therefore, we always have to do them that way," if there is no other reason for doing them in a certain way.

One condition of restoring confidence in the government is to have the government be able to believe itself fully in what it is doing. This doesn't mean we are committed, though, to changing our troops in Europe. It does * mean we are committed to examining what we are trying to do in Europe.

MR. KLEIN: Our time is about up. I think this will have to be the last question.

Q Dr. Kissinger, back to the weapon system analysis for a minute. The action of that Russian trawler the other day was rash and quite interesting, at the launching of the Poseidon. You mentioned land based. If it isn't classified information, do we take any inference from their action that they don't have a sea based capability?

DR. KISSINGER: No, the Soviets, starting at the latest during the Cuban missile crisis -- well, one of the facts of the present situation is that in 1962, when President Kennedy faced the Cuban missile crisis, the Soviet Union had less than 70 long-range missiles, all of them above ground, and highly vulnerable, so it would have been relatively easy, and it must have looked even easier to them, because you always look at the worst case, for us to destroy them.

MORE

Today they have well over 1,000 land based missiles, all of them in concrete silos. They are building submarines similar to Polaris -- not yet Poseidons, but similar to our Polaris -- and by 1975, they will have at least as many and maybe more than we. You never know how far they are going to go. But if they continue to build at the rate they are now building, they will have as many Polaris submarines as we have by 1975.

That confronts, even today, a President with a completely different situation. In 1962, when we blockaded Cuba, they could not respond to it by blockading Berlin, because there was a danger that we might then take other steps.

In 1972, the problem of general nuclear war has become quite different. This, incidentally, is one of the reasons why we had to look at NATO and everything else again. The conditions have changed so enormously. We don't want to be in the position where the only thing we can do is general nuclear war. That would be very bad.

What we are attempting to do, through the SALT negotiations, is to put some limitations on the offensive build up on both sides. We have pretty well completed ours. It will be to put some limitations. We have put some numbers down, which I needn't go into now, on their build up. But if that were to fall through and if they are going to continue to race, we are going to have some tough choices down the road. We are fairly hopeful that we are going to get the SALT agreement, but it is not a trivial matter.

Unfortunately, I cannot tell you that they are not continuing to build submarines. They are building submarines. They don't have Poseidons. They don't have the multiple warhead. They only have one warhead on each of their missiles, insofar as we know.

MR. KLEIN: Thank you very much, gentlemen. I am sorry we don't have time for more questions, but I think we have covered a great lay of the land during this period we have had.

In just a few minutes we will go down to meet with the President and Mrs. Nixon who planned a little reception, before we have to rush out to the airport and get back to Washington.

In closing, I would like to reiterate two or three points. First, I am sorry that my co-host in this program, Ron Ziegler, the President's Press Secretary, hasn't been able to be in the room with us, but he has been in and out and he has been working with the President on the other program we have today. He will be at the reception and join us there.

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-36-

MR. KLEIN: Yes, I think we better do all things
in that way, although the live story, I think you will find,
will come out of the meetings he has had. He has met with
the press directly for a quote at that time. I would think
that perhaps looking at it in the way that you can, in sort
of a philosophical approach, it probably would give you a good
follow-on for the actual hard news which will break today.

Looking at it myself, from my own newspaper background,
I think it would be helpful with that division. I would like
to stay in that particular manner.

Q I am here at the suggestion of the Vice
President.

MR. KLEIN: The note I gave Henry, and it shows
my power over him -- we got a complete mental block -- I said
"Mention the Vice President's trip." Did you hear one word
from him?

I think it is going to be a very interesting one
and one which will contribute a lot in terms of fact-finding.
He has promised to keep peace for us by not playing any golf
during the trip.

I would like to thank all of you for joining us
this afternoon. It has been a particular privilege
for me to see so many of my old friends. I look forward to
seeing you downstairs again. It has been an opportunity
for us and we hope it has been enjoyable for you.

If you have any suggestions, please let us have them.

END

(AT 4:03 P.M. CDT)

nowledge and with the vivid and
y in which they discussed world

 Ambassador, do you think it would be
expanded and formalized our rela-
Vatican?

Lodge: I think this arrange-
and practical, and I don't think
oblems. I don't see what is wrong
you the truth.

 beyond the present arrangement?

Lodge: I don't see what is wrong
ement we have got.

 Ambassador, does the Vatican have
lations with Hanoi directly or
they could utilize to help our

Lodge: I don't think in Hanoi,

ere thinking more in terms of
than you were in terms of their
iator?

Lodge: I am not going into that.
ids of ways of getting to people
going to Hanoi. That is all I
about that.
very much.

 you return to Rome?

Lodge: One more trip this year.
Thank you very much, Ambas-

s title, unofficial representative?

Yes, he is not designated as

Ambassador, but we refer to him as Amba-
bassador, do you think it would be
because of his previous designation of that
title. He is a personal representative of the Pres-
ident when he is at the Vatican.

The Press: Thank you.

United States Calls for Adherence
to Middle East Standstill Cease-Fire

Department Statement ¹

We have concluded that there was forward
deployment of surface-to-air missiles into and
within the zone west of the Suez Canal around
the time the cease-fire went into effect. There is
some evidence that this was continued beyond
the cease-fire deadline, although our evidence
of this is not conclusive.

With respect to additional information which
the Israeli Government has brought to our at-
tention concerning possible violations of the
cease-fire, we are examining it and are in touch
with the parties through diplomatic channels.

We do not now anticipate making further
public statements on this matter.

Adherence to the cease-fire and standstill is
of great importance to the success of current
peace efforts. The main thing now is to concen-
trate all efforts on getting discussions going
under Ambassador Jarring's [U.N. Special
Representative Gunnar Jarring] auspices.

The United States believes that these talks
should begin promptly.

¹ Read to news correspondents by Department press spokesman Robert J. McCloskey on Aug. 19.

Department of State Bulletin

MR. SPIVAK: Our guest today on MEET THE PRESS is the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator J. W. Fulbright, Democrat of Arkansas. His proposal for a settlement of the Middle East conflict was released today.

MR. VALERIANI: Senator Fulbright, you are suggesting a Middle East settlement imposed by the United Nations Security Council. To borrow a phrase, or to borrow the title of one of your books, doesn't this smack of the "arrogance of power," the big countries telling little countries what to do through the U.N. but ignoring the U.N. when it comes to settling big power conflict?

SENATOR FULBRIGHT: Well, the responsibility and obligation of the Security Council to deal with threats to the peace, I don't know how anyone could deny that the circumstances of the Middle East today are a threat to the peace. It seems to me this is simply revitalizing the United Nations, if they should do it. They should have done it in other cases. You are right.

They have failed to do it in major conflicts involving the major powers but in this case I believe the major powers have an identity of interest and I would like very much to see a precedent set.

3

MR. VALERIANI: A settlement imposed by the Security Council would involve, obviously, the cooperation of the Soviet Union.

SENATOR FULBRICHT: It would.

MR. VALERIANI: Why do you think the Soviets would be willing to cooperate in achieving a permanent settlement in the Middle East?

SENATOR FULBRICHT: I think this is to their interests as it is to our interests, and in addition to that there are other things they are doing today which lead me to believe they may be more inclined to seek a settlement than at any other time since World War II. I speak of the SALT talks, their changed attitude toward Germany. I think all of these indicate a relaxed attitude on the part of the Russians, and there are good reasons for that. I mean their intrusion into the Mediterranean, into the Middle East, which is already accomplished -- all of these circumstances lead me to believe there is a chance that they may, in this instance, agree that the Security Council should play the role which it is designed to play.

MR. VALERIANI: In your statement, Senator, you endorsed the thesis that the Soviet Union needs Israel to advance its own political goals by exploiting Arab-Israeli hostilities. Are you saying that the Russians in effect have achieved all they want to achieve in the Middle East now?

SENATOR FULBRICHT: Oh, I don't suppose any big power ever

achieves all it wants to achieve, but it has achieved a great
deal more than it expected to, I think, a few years ago.

I don't think they would have been welcome in the
UAR or any of the other countries there had it not been
for the conflict with Israel. I do not think ideologically
speaking, the Arabs are interested in communism as an
ideology. In fact, everything indicates in the past that they
have not been.

MR. VALERIANE: Do you regard the Russian military
presence in the Middle East in the UAR as a strategic threat
to the United States?

SENATOR FULBRIGHT: Not directly to the United States. There are implications which grow out of our relationships with Israel which create a threat to the peace generally but not directly to the United States; but I wouldn't have made the proposal did I not think it was serious enough to take note of it. Obviously I think it is a threat to the peace. If it is, it would involve us. That is the reason why I made the proposal, not only in the interests of Israel and the Arabs, but also in the interest of the United States. I think it is very much in the interest of the United States to bring about a settlement in the Middle East.

(Announcements)

MR. BATLEY: Senator, you spent the last several years attacking two administrations for over-extending American commitments and now you propose a brand new one in the form of a bilateral U. S.-Israeli security treaty to back up a U.N. settlement. Why is Israel's security vital to our own national interest, if I can put it in these terms for the purpose of argument, where let us say Vietnam's is not, in your view?

SENATOR FULBRIGHT: Well, I don't think it is quite correct, if I may say so, that I spent most of my time attacking two administrations over an extension of commitments. I have spent it objecting primarily to the war in Vietnam, which I think is a very unfortunate, tragic, disastrous

6

undertaking by this country. I think you generalize far beyond
what the fats will support. I know of no other particular
instance but I don't want to argue about it. I think these
assumptions you make, as, if I don't respond, I leave the impres-
sion I agree with you. I certainly disagree with the preliminar
statements you made.

MR. BAILEY:

SENATOR FULBRICHT: Coming back to Vietnam, I do disagree
with it. That is a disastrous one.

Now, in the Middle East I have stated we have very long
association with the Israelis -- that is, the Jewish people.
We have great representation in this country. This country
played a major part in the creation of the state of Israel.
Rightly or wrongly, that is another matter, but we did -- it
so happens the Russians did too. The Russians agreed, approved,
or voted for the resolution of partition back in '47 I believe
it was, and this was very much in addition to that on the
conscience of the West because of what happened in Western
Europe or Germany. I don't know that you want to recall all
of these instances, but there has been a long history of
association, a sharing of a cultural background I would say, a
political background, with Israel.

Now, in addition to that it has reached the pitch to
where the Russians identified with the Arabs and we, backing
the Israelis, is a very dangerous situation. I have tried in

7

in
Vietnam, any other place, the Dominican Republic, anywhere
else, to evaluate each situation on its own terms; not general-
ize "we will intervene in every place or we won't intervene at
all." I have never tried to approach it that way. I think in
this case all of the elements that enter into it justify taking
whatever risk is involved here in order to try to bring a settle-
ment in this very dangerous situation.

MR. SMITH: Senator, how does one actually go about impos-
ing a settlement? How does the U.N. impose a settlement on the
Middle East?

SENATOR FULBRIGHT: If the agreement is reached by the
Security Council -- and, of course, as you know, the permanent
members of the Security Council are among the most powerful and
influential people in the world today, particularly the British,
and the French, and the Russians, and the United States, and the
other members of the Security Council, I assume, would probably
go along, if they all agree upon a course of action and guarantee
and agree to the guarantee by the Security Council, and I also
suggest it would be very well that the other countries, major
countries at least, permanent members, make their own national
guarantees such as I suggest we would make.

They are all committed to this already, to support the
Security Council and to support the principles of settling
threats to the peace.

Now, they could, if they would create a police force. We

8

have created small ad hoc police forces. The Charter provides
for one but we have never had sufficient identity of interest
with the Russians to ever do it.

MR. SMITH: Do you mean you are suggesting the use of force
to assure the parties --

SENATOR FULBRIGHT: They commit themselves to do it, if
necessary. I don't think it would be necessary. The reason I
go on and offer the United States bilateral is because of the
erosion of confidence in the United Nations. No one has any
confidence in it any more and this is a great tragedy and I
think that the Israelis obviously -- as everyone else; certainly
not just them -- have great doubt about the U.N. living up to
any such guarantee. This is why I offer that as an incentive for
them to accept the U.N. so that it would have two great effects
in my view. It would settle the immediate conflict but perhaps
over long periods it is just as important as to revive some confidence in the U.N. and inspire the members to believe in it
more and to delegate to it responsible functions in this
international, political world.

MR. CHILDS: Senator, the Israeli government has claimed
repeated violations of the cease fire by Egypt and the Soviet
Union since it went into effect. Do you think this is going
to make it more difficult to reach a peace settlement and, two,
do you think the Israeli position has been greatly disadvantaged
by the movement of missiles into the Canal Zone as they claim?

SENATOR FULBRIGHT: Well, of course, our government has said the evidence is inconclusive and I imagine these things are not easy to prove or disprove. I wouldn't think that is a major obstacle although it was beginning to be a critical one and indicated that perhaps the Israelis would not be willing to proceed to a negotiation.

One of the reasons that made me feel it was timely now to make a statement on this issue was the fear that circumstances were developing to where it would not proceed. I would hope that if our government agrees to, somewhat, my suggestion, and I am inclined to think they are in accord with Secretary Rogers' views --- I have said on two or three occasions that Secretary Rogers has played, I thought, a most constructive role, beginning last December, and if they proceed in this direction I think the negotiations can proceed and I wouldn't enlarge the question of the missiles.

MR. CHILDS: Senator, we have heard in connection with the Rogers peace initiative that a very strong pledge has been made to the Government of Israel to provide arms to keep the balance of military power there. What/ reason do you think the Israeli Government would have to accept this guarantee since the history of the last three or four decades shows so many broken guarantees to Poland; we can go down the list.

11

progress is being made. So we have to have some confidence in
human nature, I suppose.

MR. SPIVAK: Senator, one of the issues sure to be a very
difficult one to resolve is when the Israelis should begin
to withdraw to their own borders. At what point should
Israel withdraw her troops, before or after the U.S.
Senate ratifies the treaty to guarantee secure borders?

SENATOR FULBRIGHT: Well, now the Security Council must
act before I would expect any treaty to be presented to the
Senate, and the Security Council -- and assuming of course
all along that the Russians are in agreement; none of
this will work unless the United States and Russia are in
agreement, obviously. If they are, they can, I believe, have
great influence upon what happens on both sides.
I mean the supply of arms -- well, you know the facts of life.
I think these big countries can control it if they wish to.

MR. SPIVAK: But at what point do you think the Israelis
should feel secure to withdraw?

SENATOR FULBRIGHT: Well, whenever the Security Council
makes its guarantee and . . . they have to in the
meantime determine a great many things, such as the future of
Jerusalem, what is to be done in these vital points, as I
sheikh Chech
mentioned in my speech, at Sharm-el . . . and the Golan
heights and the Gaza Strip and so on
and the agreement for security of troops, peace-keeping troops,

12

such as we formerly had there for a period under
the United Nations. All of these things I think should be
taken care of before. I don't expect the Israelis
to withdraw before any agreement is made under the United
Nations, and it would not seem unreasonable to me if things
go well and the United Nations proceeds, the Security Council
does, why the Senate certainly can act very quickly. I
wouldn't anticipate -- if the things I suggest here take
place, I don't think there would be any difficulty in
this thing.

MR. SPIVAK: You have no question but that the Senate
would ratify such a treaty?

SENATOR FULBRIGHT: Well, now any Senator is a fool
to say that -- I mean on any subject. I just say
the probabilities are very great to ratify if these other things
take place. I want to say, though, because many commentators
completely neglect any mention of the United Nations, and
this whole thing is visionary unless the United Nations
Security Council acts, because this means Russia. Unless
the Russians agree. I don't for a moment kid myself that we
can do any of these things without the cooperation of the
Russians, through the United Nations.

MR. VALERIANI: Senator Fulbright, considering the fact
there is no settlement now, considering that Russian missiles
are in place in Egypt, do you think the United States should

[c]

13

provide Israel now with modern air-to-surface missiles
and other sophisticated electronic equipment to offset the
Russian missiles?

SENATOR FULBRICHT: Really that is the kind
of question I have no qualification to answer. I mean
the nice balancing out of the relative power --
everything is indicated the Israelis are vastly superior in
the air and in a military way as of now and I see no
particular reason, if you have any confidence in
negotiations going to take place, to meddle with the
current balance. Now I don't know, but I am obviously
unqualified to make any judgment upon those military questions.

[c]

because in the long run this is about the only real hope for
any progress out of the law of the jungle in which we live.

MR. SMITH: Senator, you mentioned the strategic arms talks
with the Russians. I'd like to get your assessment of how they
are doing. The Administration says it has offered to scrap our
entire antimissile defense system if the Russians will do the
same and will put a limit on the numbers of their giant SS-9
missiles. Do you think that is a fair offer?

SENATOR FULBRICHT: I am glad to hear you say that. I have
never seen in any way where they have made such an offer. I
don't know what basis you have to say the Administration made
such an offer. If they have, I congratulate them because this
is one of the things my committee in the Senate wanted them to
do. But I am under the impression they have made no such offer.
If they have, I stand corrected.

MR. SMITH: Do you think that is a reasonable offer?

A reasonable proposal?

SENATOR FULBRICHT: I certainly do. I think our resolution,
I think it was 211, which asked for a standstill on all deploy-
ment of weapons, it was a very good thing but the Administration
would not follow that.

On the ABM, I most certainly would like to see -- what you

MR. SMITH: Why then have you and other Senators been so
adamant in opposition to any further expansion of the ABM
system when the Administration argues that that is necessary to

induce the Russians to make the kind of deal that I have mentioned?

SENATOR FULBRIGHT: You know they have changed their basis for justifying the ABM so often that really there is something more than skepticism with regard to that proposition. We just don't believe that and we don't believe that it is a worthwhile chip in the game.

MR. CHILDS: Senator, your amendment that the Senate adopted denying allowances to Thai, South Korean and other foreign troops fighting with the United States in Vietnam -- isn't this likely to result finally in the withdrawal -- and we have already had a hint from South Korea that they will withdraw their 48,000 troops, and thereby put a greater burden on the United States and South Vietnam?

SENATOR FULBRIGHT: All the amendment says is we shouldn't pay them more than we pay our own troops. That seems to me a reasonable proposition. I didn't say we shouldn't pay them anything. I said we should not pay these foreign troops at a greater rate for overseas services, combat pay it is sometimes called, than we pay American troops. That is all the amendment says. That seems to me very reasonable. The reason these troops were induced in there by high pay was not because they really needed them as a military but to create the impression that all these people agreed with our views about the war. Our ideological obsession about Communism, and this was done back

17

with Secretary Rusk and under President Johnson. This administration didn't do it and it was a fraud upon the American people and everyone else to induce them, in my view, by extraordinarily high pay.

MR. CHILDS: Well, the total pay, as I understand it, was not actually greater than that given to United States servicemen --

SENATOR FULBRIGHT: The overseas pay is vastly greater. Now, obviously all Americans are paid at a higher rate locally, both civilians and military. That is their standard of living, but our standard of living is much higher. The cost of living is much higher. These pays are relative to the local costs. I am not criticizing what the Thais pay their own troops or the Koreans. My amendment only relates to what we pay them to come fight in Vietnam.

MR. CHILDS: But would you not be concerned if this resulted in the withdrawal of say the 48,000 South Korean -- I mean -- yes, South Korean troops.

SENATOR FULBRIGHT: I have never thought it made much sense for us to keep 49 or 53 or 63 Americans in Korea and transfer them to Vietnam. Why not just change places? You have just as many men in each place.

MR. SPIVAK: Gentlemen, we have less than four minutes.

Senator Fulbright, although everyone hopes that the Middle East negotiations will succeed, we must be prepared for failure. What do you think the role of the United States should be if

5

13

the negotiations fail?

SENATOR FULBRIGHT: Well, this is extremely difficult. As I have already said, our involvement with the creation of the State of Israel -- we also have great interests with the Arabs. We have never had any reason to really be enemies of the Arabs either. So we are in a very difficult one, but if you assume nothing can be done by negotiations then we just have to rely upon the ancient balance of power and we have to keep it in balance and just rely upon that to preserve the peace until such time as either it breaks out in a major war or we can get a negotiated peace, but there is no alternative to whether it is called balance of power, which means, as Mr. Valeriani suggested a moment ago, I believe, that we send them more Phantom jets. The Russians will send more of their MIGS and so you go. It is a very disappointing future if that is what happens.

MR. VALERIANI: Senator, you seem to be suggesting that the Russians are going to be more reasonable around the world and easier to live with.

It seems to me the Administration could claim that as a major achievement of its foreign policy. Would you say that as such?

SENATOR FULBRIGHT: Well, I don't think all of this has come about just from this Administration. As I said, one of the most hopeful and impressive things to me is what the Germans have done and I am not sure that we had anything whatever to do

[L.C.]

19

with that. It is a rather ridiculous posture we have of
keeping 300,000 men in Germany and see the Germans go off to
Moscow and make peace and make a treaty with the Russians.

I am glad they did, you understand. It is our own role there.

I think we are improvident and we ought
to bring those troops home or at least all but a token force
of 50,000 perhaps. We have suggested this before.

MR. BAILEY: Senator, the Vice President said this morning
that we are going to do everything we can to help the Lon Nol
Government in Cambodia and dispatches from the area this week
indicated that U. S. planes are now flying all kinds of air
support combat missions. Do you believe the Administration is
changing its policy on the Cambodian situation?

SENATOR FULBRIGHT: Yes, this seems to me directly contrary
to what the President said was our policy at the time he ex-
plained the Cambodian invasion.

MR. SPIVAK: We have about one minute.

MR. SMITH: Do you take this as a commitment to support
the Lon Nol Government, this type of activity?

and I would

SENATOR FULBRIGHT: I don't take it as a commitment,
regret it if the President conceives of it as a commitment. As
I say, it is contrary.

The other amendment that Mr. Childs didn't refer to a
moment ago, I thought it was an expression by the Senate,

including the Military Affairs Committee, that we were not to
do this.

MR. CHILDS: Do you think negotiation is hopeless on Vietnam
in Paris in light of the division in this country?

SENATOR PULBRIGHT: It all depends on what the President
is willing to offer as the terms. Negotiation is not hopeless
if the proper terms are proposed.

MR. SPIVAK: On that note, we must end. I am sorry to
interrupt but our time is up. Thank you, Senator Fulbright,
for being with us today on MEET THE PRESS.

I will tell you about next week's guest in just a minute
after this message.

(Next week: Chancellor of Vanderbilt University, Dr.
Alexander Heard.)

NO. 63

FOR RELEASE August 23, 1970

Sunday a.m.

STATEMENT BY SENATOR J. W. PULBRIGHT
CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE

Old Myths and New Realities -- II:
The Middle East

Although dangers and uncertainties remain, the prospect for peace in the Middle East has improved. The more favorable outlook is the result of the responsible and politically courageous actions of the Israeli, Egyptian and Jordanian governments in responding affirmatively to Secretary Rogers' letter of June 19, calling on the parties to implement a cease fire, to declare their willingness to carry out the United Nations Security Council Resolution of November 1967, and to renew negotiations through Ambassador Jarring toward the implementation of that Resolution. Both the United States and the Soviet Union have played constructive roles in bringing about the improved prospect for peace, the United States by initiating the cease-fire proposal and persuading Israel to accept it, the Soviet Union by its own favorable response and by the influence it apparently brought to bear. On President Nasser. Also encouraging was a Soviet declaration, published in Pravda on July 21, repudiating the allegation that either the Soviet Union or the Arab states wished to "push Israel into the sea."

As Ambassador Jarring's renewed mediation gets under way, the first important move will probably be up to Israel, which, as the military victor of the moment, can reasonably be expected to initiate the bargaining with a demonstration of flexibility, if not indeed of magnanimity. Should the Israeli Government agree in the early stage of discussions, and in fairly specific terms, to a peace settlement providing for Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories and for a

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just settlement of the refugee problem -- both as called for
in the Security Council Resolution of November 22, 1967 --
the prospect for peace would be better than at any time
since the 1967 war. One hopes that, in considering the
course which it will now follow, the Israeli Government
will consider the problem in its full political and moral
dimensions as well as in terms of immediate military advantage.
This, I am aware, is a great deal to ask of any government --
it is more than most governments, including our own, can
usually bring themselves to do. There are, however, rewards
in farsightedness and generosity -- for those who can muster
the will and the wisdom.

One of our own leading Jewish intellectuals, the journalist
I. F. Stone, has placed the problem in its moral perspective.
"For me," he writes, "the Arab-Jewish struggle is a tragedy.
The essence of tragedy is a struggle of right against right.
Its catharsis is the cleansing pity of seeing how good men
do evil despite themselves out of unavoidable circumstance
and irresistible compulsion. When evil men do evil, their
deeds belong to the realm of pathology. But when good men
do evil, we confront the essence of human tragedy. In a
tragic struggle, the victors become the guilty and must make
amends to the defeated. For me the Arab problem is also
the Number One Jewish problem. How we act toward the Arabs
will determine what kind of people we become: either
oppressors and racists in our turn like those from whom
we have suffered, or a nobler race able to transcend the
tribal xenophobias that afflict mankind."¹

1. I. F. Stone, "Holy War," in *The Israel-Arab Reader*
(Walter Laqueur, ed., New York: Bantam Books, 1969),
p. 324.

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As a modest contribution in the effort to "transcend
the tribal xenophobias that afflict mankind," I propose
today to review some of the myths and realities of the
Middle East as I perceive them, to define as best I can
the perspectives of the local parties and their great power
mentors, and finally to suggest some additional steps which
might contribute to a durable peace.

I. The Myths

The myths that shape events in the Middle East are
the oldest myths of all.

Some derive from religion. The contested land is a "holy" land; more than a place for raising crops and building cities, it is "sacred soil" for three great religions. Jerusalem contains both the Wall of the Temple, which is sacred to Jews, and the Dome of the Rock, which is sacred to Muslims. Neither can hold exclusive title to the city without also owning the other faith's shrine. Now, as in the days of the Crusades, religion exacerbates the issue, because, now as then, the behavior of the belligerents is more affected by the zeal with which they hold their beliefs than by the humane ethics taught by their respective religions. Now as in the past it is hard to strike a bar-gain over sacred soil.

Then there are the myths of mutual victimization.
Perhaps I should say the half-myths, because both Jews
and Arabs have victimized each other, though surely not
with the deliberate and malign intent that each attributes
to the other.

The Jews are obsessed with the fear of a repetition
of the Nazi holocaust, and the Arabs do nothing to allay
this fear with extravagant talk about "holy wars" and

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about throwing the Jews into the sea. These threats have understandably alarmed the Israelis in much the same way that Khrushchev's talk of "burying" us agitated Americans a decade ago. As I shall point out in detail later on, President Nasser and King Hussein have both, in effect, repudiated such draconian threats, but the Israelis seem not to have noticed the disavowals. As survivors of genocide, they can hardly be expected to distinguish with perfect clarity between Nazi crimes and Arab rhetoric. All they know is that they came to Palestine in peace, settlers in an underpopulated land, but have been allowed no peace; they have fought three wars they never wished to fight and still their enemies remain implacable, refusing even to talk to them, contesting -- until recently -- their right to survive as a state. Nonetheless, the Arab-Nazi analogy is a faulty one; it clouds the distinction between the myth and reality of Arab intent -- whatever these may be.

The Arabs, for their part, perceive Zionism as a new form of western imperialism. Having lived on the land of Palestine for thousands of years, they can have little sympathy for the historic sentiments of the Jewish diaspora. It is, I should think, impossible for them to put themselves in the place of the Jews, whose cultural attachment to their ancient homeland sustained them through centuries of dispersal and persecution. The Arabs are on a different wave length: while the Jews prayed for Palestine -- "next year in Jerusalem," they said in their prayer -- the Arabs inhabited the land. They could not see the Jews as the Jews saw themselves: as refugees from genocide seeking safe haven. What did this have to do with the Arabs? They had done the Jews no harm

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and could see no reason why they should compensate the Jews for the crimes of Europeans. In fact, to Arab eyes, the Jews were Europeans, armed with European skills and technology, coming on the heels of other Europeans to drive them from their homes and steal away their lands.

In its way Zionism has seemed to the Arabs even more threatening than the old European imperialism. The British and French after all were only establishing colonies and, bad as that was, colonies come and go. But the Jews were establishing a homeland, and homelands do not come and go. On the contrary, once established, they are likely to expand. The Jewish state actively encourages immigration from all over the world, creating for Arabs the specter of a Jewish drive for lebensraum, which could only mean the annexation of even more Arab lands. Some elements within Israel and the world Zionist movement openly proclaim the need of a policy of expansion, which must give rise to a fear among Arabs not unlike that felt by the Jews when the Arabs talk of throwing them into the sea. To the Arabs, in short, Zionism is not a program of deliverance for a persecuted race but a foreign conquest bolstered by strong ties between the conquering people and the most powerful governments of the West.

As if the Arab-Israeli problem were not enough, the great powers have made their own special contribution to the mythology of the Middle East by infusing the crisis with the focus pocus of geopolitics. The Middle East, in geopolitical terms, is something far more abstract than an oil-rich desert contested by feuding Semitic peoples.

Beyond that, it is the 'gateway to the East,' the 'hinge of NATO,' and the crucial cockpit of the historic Russian

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[c]

drive toward warm water. By sending planes and missiles to Egypt the Russians are not merely bolstering a shaky client; to the x-ray eye of the geopolitical, they are embarked upon a drive to convert the Mediterranean into a "Soviet lake." The concept is admittedly vague: would the Russians close the Mediterranean to foreign shipping? prohibit fishing? use it as a vacation resort? No one really knows what a Russian *mare nostrum* would be like, but the concept serves the purpose of its users: it scares people; it imputes the "vital interests" of the great powers to a regional conflict, converting it into a battleground of the cold war. In this frame of reference one even suspects the Russians of an insidious design in wishing to reopen the Suez Canal -- something which used to be considered a good thing, before the geopoliticians came along.

The "vital interests" of the great powers are, in fact, involved in the Middle East -- primarily because those powers have chosen to become involved. The ultimate danger is that the Arab-Israeli conflict could draw the superpowers and the world into a nuclear war -- and that certainly is a matter of "vital interest" -- but the danger is not inherent in the local situation, nor is it predestined by fate. It has come about because the great powers have surrendered much of their own freedom of action to the bellicose whims of their respective clients. There is of course one way -- in case anyone still cares -- in which the great powers are obligated to intervene: as members of the United Nations Security Council charged by the Charter with the responsibility to "decide what measures shall be taken" in response to a "threat to the peace, breach of the peace or act of aggression." Instead, the Soviet Union and the United States have played

the role of co-belligerents to their respective clients, arming and financing them, committing their own prestige to the issue and, in so doing, converting a local conflict into a potential world conflict. All that can be said in mitigation is that both great powers have shown a certain prudence by holding back at times on the arms supplied to the warring parties.

Finally there is the myth of militarism, and that affects all of the parties. Each clings to the notion that another round may settle things -- although three wars have settled nothing -- or that some new weapons system will stabilize the balance of power -- as if either side would accept the other's notion of what it takes to establish a proper balance.

Since the June war of 1967 the Egyptians have acquired vast arsenals of Soviet weapons, including air support and advanced ground-to-air missiles, and they have launched a "war of attrition." What has it gotten them? The Israelis have been compelled to stop their deep penetration air raids but they still hold the Sinai; until the cease fire they were bombing Egyptian installations on the west bank of the Canal around the clock; and they have every prospect of acquiring additional Phantom and Skyhawk jets from the United States so as to reestablish their version of the balance of power. Nor has any of this new Egyptian hardware wrung any political concessions from the Israelis: Prime Minister Meir explicitly rejects the borders of 1967 and, instead of offering concessions, Foreign Minister Eban contributes pithy ironies about recognizing the right of the United Arab Republic to exist.*

* Interview on "The Advocates," a public television network presentation of KCET, Los Angeles, and WGBH, Boston, June 21, 1970, "The Middle East: Where Do We Go From Here? Part II: The Case for U.S. Support for Israel."

The Israelis, for their part, have hardly profited
from their military successes. They have gained territory
and they have established their military superiority, but
they have failed to gain what they most want: security.
In 1967 they felt desperately insecure along the Gaza
Strip frontier; today they feel desperately insecure along
the Suez Canal, so much so that they and their friends
abroad seem almost to have forgotten that it is not their
own but Egyptian territory that they are defending so tena-
ciously. One begins to understand the spheres-of-influence
psychology, which causes a nation to believe that it can
have no security at all until it has robbed its neighbors
of all semblance of security.

Surrounded by hostile neighbors, holding down occupied
lands inhabited by a million Arabs, plagued by fedayeen
attacks and oppressed by the costs of armaments, Israel is
a desperately insecure nation. That is clear, but it is
anything but clear that her present policy of relying on
military superiority is ever going to alter the situation.
If the Suez frontier does not provide security, what boundary
would? And even if the United States provides all the Phan-
tom jets the Israelis want and the electronic jamming gear
which may neutralize the SAM-2 and SAM-3 missiles, it is
unlikely that Israel will gain more than a respite; the
Russians will soon enough come up with something else.

After the First World War the French tried to gain
security in somewhat the same way that Israel seeks it
today. They too were confronted with a potentially powerful
but momentarily weakened antagonist and they tried to
perpetuate that situation by occupying the German Rhineland,
temporarily detaching the Saar, and compelling Germany to

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[lc]

pay reparations. The effort to make France secure by keeping Germany weak was a failure. Now, twenty-five years after the Second World War, France has nothing to fear from Germany although Germany is strong and in possession of all of the western territories France once wished to detach. France is secure now not because Germany has lost the power to threaten her but because she has lost the wish to do so.

The analogy is imperfect and simplified but it holds: Israel will be secure when and if the Arabs lose the wish to threaten her. Eliminating that wish should be an object worth pursuing from Israel's point of view. As victors the Israelis are in a position to be magnanimous without being suspected of "weakness" -- which is something nations worry about whenever they are thinking about behaving sensibly. But thus far they have shown little inclination to trade their conquests for peace. Instead, they cling to the advantages won by their military victory of 1967, which is a rapidly wasting asset. One insecure frontier has been traded for another and all that the future seems to hold is continuing conflict, as threatening to the outside world as it is to the Arabs and Israelis.

Because the conflict is a threat to the outside world, it cannot be left solely to the humors of the belligerents. I have never fully understood why some of our statesmen feel that it would be a heinous crime for external parties to "impose" a solution. Under the United Nations Charter the Security Council has full authority -- possibly even the obligation -- to impose a settlement upon warring parties who fail to make peace on their own. The very premise of the Charter is that warring nations can no longer be permitted immunity from a world police power. As far as the United

States is concerned, it is worth recalling now and then
that the United Nations Charter is a valid and binding
obligation upon us, ratified as a treaty with the advice
and consent of the Senate. As to the Arabs and Israelis,
they too are signatories to the Charter and no one can say
they have been denied a fair opportunity to settle their
differences peacefully and on their own. They might now
be reminded of their commitment under Article 25 of the
Charter, which states that "The Members of the United
Nations agree to accept and carry out the decisions of the
Security Council in accordance with the present Charter."

I think it would be a fine thing -- a useful step
forward for civilization -- if, in the absence of a volun-
tary settlement by the parties, the United Nations were to
"impose" a peaceful settlement in the Middle East. It
would be an equally fine thing if the United Nations
could "impose" a settlement in Southeast Asia.

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II. Perspectives

There are four major perspectives on the Middle East conflict and need of a fifth. The needed one, as I have suggested, is that of the world community through its duly constituted organ, the United Nations. The development of such a perspective and its translation into action will require changes and adjustments in the long frozen perspectives of Arabs and Israelis, Russians and Americans. There are at present some hopeful signs of possible change, brought forth by Secretary Rogers' constructive initiative. In this slightly improved atmosphere it may be well to review the prevailing perspectives of those involved in the Middle East, with a view to detecting misconceptions, desirable directions of change, and opportunities for future agreement.

Starting with Israel, it is less than adequate to say that Israel is concerned with her survival. Surrounded and outnumbered by seemingly implacable foes, the Israelis are obsessed-- as anyone else in their position would be--with the fear of being destroyed. This fear is based on salient facts but it is reinforced by fear itself, and by a two thousand years' history which planted the fear of extermination deeply in Jewish minds. The result, I suspect, is a tendency on the part of the Israelis to exaggerate their own vulnerability, to credit their adversaries with more relentless hostility than in fact they may harbor, and to dismiss tentative gestures of conciliation as hypocritical tricks.

It is noteworthy, in this connection, that, when President Nasser responded favorably to Secretary Rogers' peace proposal, the initial reaction of the Israelis and of some Americans was that Nasser was setting a trap in which Israel would be forced either to stop bombing the west bank of the Suez Canal or risk alienating the United States. Quite possibly that was President Nasser's motive--no outsider really knows--but how can there ever be progress toward peace if neither side is ever willing to take the other's word for anything, if each insists upon

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crediting the other with the most fraudulent and devious possible
motives, and if each bases its policy on its own suspicions
rather than the other's behavior? Would Israel, and Israel's
friends in the United States, have liked it better if President
Nasser had rejected the American proposal? Would they have
thought better of him for it? Would they have commended him
for candor and courage?

Chronic suspicion is ultimately unrewarding; it is the
kind of outlook which causes myths to displace realities in the
minds of statesmen who pride themselves on realism and hardhead-
edness. It has distorted American perceptions of China and the
Soviet Union, and it has distorted the Israeli view of Arab
intentions and capacities. When suspicion governs policy, it
becomes impossible for adversaries to communicate or negotiate
because neither side is receptive to even the bare possibility
that the other may be telling the truth when he makes a concil-
iatory gesture, or that he may be amenable to compromise.

The Israeli conviction of Arab hostility is by no means
invention, but there is a touch of paranoia about it--just as
there is in our own attitude toward communism--and the worst of
it is that the prophecy is self-fulfilling. It is a truism of
modern psychology that we influence the behavior of others by
our own expectations of how they are going to behave. The
critical question for Israel is whether it is willing to risk
taking the Arabs at their word when they offer to live in peace--
as they have done in effect by accepting the Security Council
resolution of November 1967--and, in taking this risk, helping
to influence Arab behavior in the direction of compromise and
peace. This is not to say that Israel can or should gamble
her survival on the hope of Arab good will; Israel has the unchal-
lengeable right to survive as a state and, as I shall indicate
later, I would be willing to support a significant new commit-
ment by the United States to assure Israel's survival. Nonethe-
less, I think it is incumbent upon Israel at this juncture to
credit President Nasser with good faith when he says

Maintenance of the *status quo*, Dr. Goldmann concludes, "will lead to new wars, new Arab defeats and growing hatred of the Israelis"--a situation which "could have disastrous consequences for the Jewish State in the long run."⁴

I recently had a conversation with a prominent Israeli journalist who had played a leading role in the struggle against British rule before 1948. Concerned that Israel has become a garrison state, he expressed fear for his country's survival as a democratic society. I said that I had the same fear for America, because we too have been chronically at war for over two decades. We agreed that both Israel and the United States would do well to recall Alexis de Tocqueville's warning of a century and a half ago, that "All those who seek to destroy the freedom of the democratic nations must know that war is the surest and shortest means to accomplish this. That is the very first axiom of their science."⁵ This Israeli journalist concluded by expressing the hope that Americans of moderate persuasion would speak out on the Middle East. If they did, he thought, Israeli moderates too would be encouraged to speak in favor of a policy of conciliation.

Israeli policy since the Six Days' War has been characterized by a lack of flexibility and foresight. The establishment of Israeli settlements on the occupied west bank of the Jordan River and in the Sinai, as well as on the Golan heights, can only be interpreted as steps toward foreclosing the return of these territories to their previous Arab owners. The insistence upon the "non-negotiability" of the status of Jerusalem and upon the retention of certain other occupied territories--notably the Golan heights, the Gaza strip and Sharm el Sheikh--lends unfortunate credence to President Nasser's pessimistic assertion, in accepting Secretary Rogers' peace proposal, that, "While we inform

4. Nahum Goldmann, "Israel and the Arabs--an 'Unrepresentative' View," *Le Monde*, Weekly Selection, May 27, 1970, p. 4.

5. Alexis de Tocqueville, *Democracy in America* (New York: Harper

the United States that we have accepted its proposals, we also
tell them that our real belief is that whatever is taken by
force cannot be returned except by force."⁶

Equally distressing--although not entirely unprovoked--is
the Israeli view of the United Nations as what Mr. Eban calls
a "packed court" whose recommendations may be ignored. The
insistence upon the "non-negotiability" of Israel's annexation
of Arab East Jerusalem is in open contempt of the United Nations
General Assembly, which censured that unilateral act by a vote
of 99 to 0.

I speak critically of Israeli policy in part because of
my belief that Israel, as the momentary victor, has both an
obligation and an interest in a policy of magnanimity. The
obligation arises from general considerations of world peace and
from the specific injustice which has been done to the Palestinian
Arabs, who, as Arnold Toynbee has written, "have been made to
pay for the genocide of Jews in Europe which was committed by
Germans, not by Arabs."⁷ Israel's self-interest in magnanimity
is a matter of the only kind of security which really is security.
In the words of a member of the Law Faculty of Hebrew University:
"A border is secure when those living on the other side do not
have sufficient motivation to infringe on it . . . We have to
remind ourselves that the roots of security are in the minds of
men . . ."⁸

The Arabs too must face up to certain realities: that
Israel has come to stay; that it is demagogic nonsense to talk--
as some of the Palestinian guerrillas still do--of driving the
Jews into the sea; that in any case the Arab states can have no
realistic hope of doing that because they themselves cannot
defeat Israel, the Russians are not likely to do it for them,

6. "Nasser Accepts U.S. Plan, but Asks Aid to Israel End," *The New York Times*, July 24, 1970, p. 1.

7. "The Argument Between Arabs and Jews," in *The Israel-Arab Reader*, p. 262.

and the United States would almost certainly intervene to save Israel from destruction. Once these facts are recognized--as in large measure they have been recognized by the governments of Egypt and Jordan--the Arab countries will be able to free themselves from their morbid preoccupation with past defeats, from futile dreams of revenge, and from the oppressive burden of armaments which slows their development and makes them dependent upon foreign powers.

While Egypt and Jordan are still widely credited with the desire to destroy Israel, both in fact have repudiated any such ambition and have done so explicitly and repeatedly. They did it in the first instance by accepting the United Nations Resolution of November 22, 1967, which required them to give up positions to which they had held tenaciously for twenty years. By accepting that Resolution, Egypt and Jordan committed themselves to terminate their belligerency against Israel; to acknowledge Israel's sovereignty, territorial integrity and right "to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries;" and to respect Israel's right to freedom of navigation through the Suez Canal and the Strait of Tiran.

Having accepted these provisions of the Resolution--which in fact meet all of Israel's stated and legitimate aspirations--the Egyptians and Jordanians now emphasize the other provisions of the Resolution of 1967; the withdrawal of Israel from occupied territories; a just settlement of the refugee problem; and "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war."

The last is a general principle which goes beyond the special interest of the Arab states. Its vindication--even in one instance--would represent a long step forward toward the establishment of the rule of law in international relations. That would serve everybody's interests--everybody, that is, who wishes to survive in the nuclear age and who still has some hope that the United Nations can be developed into an effective peacekeeping organization. It is natural enough for Israel to resist the honor of being the first modern military victor to be obliged to abide by the principles and specifications of the United Nations.

Nasser, he noted, "uses expressions which should not have been possible a few years ago."¹¹

Withdrawal from the occupied territories is one of two concerns which dominate the Arab perspective; the other is the question of the Palestinian refugees. Whatever the political considerations which have led Israel to evade responsibility and the Arab states to exploit their plight, the unhappy Palestinian refugees remain preoccupied with the indisputable facts that, after twenty years in exile, they are not permitted to return to their homes and they have been denied compensation for their lost properties. Although, according to United Nations estimates, some 60 percent of the refugees have found new homes and jobs, many thousands--made up mostly of the elderly, the very poor, the sick and the least educated--are still interned in miserable camps, living hopeless lives as wards of the United Nations.
Since the 1967 war approximately half of the two and one-half million Palestinian Arabs have been living under Israeli occupation. Despite annual United Nations resolutions recognizing their right to choose between returning to their homes and resettling elsewhere with compensation for lost properties, the refugees remain neglected and embittered pawns in the continuing Middle East conflict, the original 750,000 refugees of 1948 having increased to over a million. In the words of the Friends' Working Party, "the Arabs of Palestine see themselves as a people in diaspora, just at the time when the Jews have won their struggle for a national home."¹²

Since the June war of 1967 the Palestinians have emerged as active participants in the Middle East conflict. The largest of the guerrilla organizations, Al Fatah, demands the dissolution of the present state of Israel and the creation of a secular multi-religious state. They reject partition but they also deny any wish to "throw the Jews into the sea." Other Palestinian Arabs, more moderate, more realistic and--prudently, under present circumstances--more silent, acknowledge that Israel is here to stay and say that they are prepared to make peace--provided that Israel withdraws from the territories occupied in 1967.

11. Nahum Goldmann, "Israel and the Arabs--an 'Unrepresentative' View," Le Monde, weekly selection, May 27, 1970, p. 1.

12. Search for peace in the Middle East, May 27, 1970, p. 1.

The status of the Palestinians and the question of the
occupied territories are the critical issues for peace in
the Middle East. The two issues are closely related because
many Palestinian Arabs are haunted by the fear that there
are no bounds to Israel's territorial aspirations -- a fear
which feeds upon classic Zionist ideology as well as upon
the declarations of military-minded Israelis who press the
claim for "strategic" frontiers. A declaration by the
Israeli Government of willingness to restore all of the
occupied territories as part of a general peace settlement
would go far to alleviate Arab fears of Zionist expansionism.
Such a statement would meet the Egyptian-Jordanian condition
for peace and would also improve the chances for a settlement
in Palestine.

In the Arab perspective the central issues are the
occupied territories and the Palestinians. In the Israeli
perspective the issue is the survival and security of the
Jewish state. The United Nations Resolution of 1967 recog-
nizes the legitimacy of both parties' concerns. The question
now is whether the two sides, and their great power mentors,
are ready to proceed through the renewed mediation of
Dr. Jarring toward the translation of general principles
into specific agreements.

More perhaps than either would care to acknowledge,
the two superpowers have played similar roles in the Middle
East, both characterized by a certain ambivalence. On the
one hand, they have played the traditional great power role,
arming their respective clients, committing their own prestige,
building spheres of influence, fretting over geopolitical
abstractions -- all serving to elevate a regional crisis

into a global one. On the other hand, both the Soviet Union and the United States have shown an appreciation of the dangers in the Middle East, and that appreciation has caused them to restrain the two sides at critical moments and to encourage some form of accommodation. In recent weeks both great powers have shown a commendable sense of responsibility; as a result of their mediation, the prospects for a compromise settlement have improved. Particular credit is due Secretary Rogers for the cease-fire and the renewal of Dr. Jarring's mediation.

The conflict of course is far from over and the chances of a settlement arising out of the new Jarring mission have to be rated less than even. The great powers, accordingly, still must determine the kind of role they are to play in the Middle East, whether they are to revert to power politics or undertake to advance and enforce a compromise peace through the United Nations. Heretofore the superpowers have vacillated between the temptation to turn the Middle East into a cold war battleground and a caution induced by the well-founded fear of an uncontrollable conflict. The outcome in the Middle East will be determined as much by the great powers' conception of their own interests and of their own proper roles as by the attitudes of the Arabs and Israelis.

Like their tsarist predecessors, the Soviet leaders are pursuing a foreign policy aimed at the acquisition of "influence" in the Near East and the Mediterranean. What, if anything, they hope to gain in concrete terms is unclear -- probably even to themselves. The Russians do not appear much inclined to try to communique the region; they have

amiablely overlooked the imprisonment of local communists and
the suppression of communist parties in Egypt, Syria and
Iraq, eagerly providing armaments to all three countries,
both before and since the June war of 1967.

The Russians appear to be interested in the Middle East
for reasons of security and trade as well as 'influence.'
They would like to see American military power removed
from the region, although it is hard to see how that would
benefit Soviet security since American bases would remain
in Greece and Turkey. That, however, is the sort of thing
big countries worry about, and I for one am inclined to take
it at face value. The Russians would of course benefit
commercially from the reopening of the Suez Canal, as would
other countries, but that could be accomplished through a
compromise peace and hardly requires a Soviet 'drive for
power' in the Middle East.

Basically, I suspect, the Russians are motivated by
the same vague geopolitical impulses that all great powers
are susceptible to: they enjoy sailing their warships
around the Mediterranean and would enjoy it even more if
we felt constrained to keep our ships out; they would like
in general to be "top dog" in the Middle East and would be
delighted to see American "influence" reduced or eliminated.
It appears to be in large part a matter of ego gratification,
or of what the psychologists call "self-maximization," and
it is by no means a unique Soviet susceptibility.

For the advancement of these noble purposes, Israel is
indispensable to the Soviet Union. So, at least, says
Edward Crankshaw, the well-known Kremlinologist. Israel,
in his view, is the Soviet Union's admission ticket to
the Middle East. If it did not exist, the Arab states would

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have little need of Soviet military and political support,
and the Russians would have nothing with which to charm
the Arabs except their communism, which does not seem to
charm them at all. Without Israel the dream of paramount
Russian 'influence' in the Middle East and of the Mediterranean
as a "Soviet lake" would go aglimmering. If Israel did not
exist, says Crankshaw, the Russians would have to invent it.

Israelis can be forgiven for an unwillingness to base their
security on Soviet national egoism, but at least they -- and
their supporters in the United States -- ought to take solace
in the available evidence that the Russians have a stake
in their survival. The Israeli leaders are not known for
simple-mindedness or a lack of diplomatic skill, and that
causes one to suspect that they may be somewhat less terrified
of the Russians than they care to let on. After twenty-five
years of the cold war the word has pretty well gotten around
that invoking the Communist menace is a fairly reliable way
of keeping the Americans in line.

A recent statement by the American Jewish Committee,
for example, referred to the dispatch of Soviet military
personnel to Egypt as an action "obviously designed to test
the intentions of the free world and particularly that /sic/
of the United States." "The balance of power in the area
has already been disturbed," the statement goes on, "and a
serious challenge to the national will of the United States
has been raised." And further: The United States
must make it unmistakably clear to the Soviet Union that it
intends to defend its vital interests in the Middle East

* Italics supplied.

against encroachment by the Soviet Union. The statement
then calls for 'affirmative action' -- by which is apparently
meant more Phantom jets and other military supplies for
Israel -- "to avoid the danger of a confrontation through
Soviet misinterpretation of our past restraint as a sign of
weakness."13

The language of this statement has a familiar ring; it
is of Vietnam vintage. Their vital interests are suddenly
identified as our vital interests; their security becomes
a matter of our 'national will;" their regional conflict
is identified with our global crusade against communism --
all without benefit of factual analysis, much less a security
treaty ratified by the Senate. It is the same old game of
waving a red flag in front of the anti-communist bull, and
many Americans are still falling for it.

Fortunately, Secretary Rogers and other individuals
in our government have made a cooler assessment of Soviet
intentions in the Middle East. They have recognized that,
although the Soviet Union has made harsh verbal attacks on
Israel, it has been consistent in its advocacy of a political
settlement based on the Security Council Resolution of
November 1967. It also seems evident that the introduction
of Soviet pilots and of SAM-2 and SAM-3 missiles into Egypt
was something less than a bid for Soviet domination of the
Middle East. The Israelis, it may be recalled, had been
flying deep penetration" raids over Egypt and had even
bombed the suburbs of Cairo. The Egyptians at that time
seemed unable to counter Israeli air power and there was

13. American Jewish Committee, 'Statement on the Middle East.'
May 17, 1970.

even talk of this situation resulting in the fall of
President Nasser. The steps taken by the Russians since
then can -- and I think should -- be interpreted as fairly
cautious measures designed to bolster a faltering client.
They seem quite cautious when compared with the things we
have done to shore up our own faltering client states in
Asia.

The weight of evidence indicates that the Russians do
indeed want a compromise settlement in the Middle East. In
the view of the New York Times' correspondent in Moscow,
they would welcome the reopening of the Suez Canal, relief
from the heavy costs of arming Egypt, and a reduction of
great power tensions. A solution acceptable to the Arabs,
moreover, would earn gratitude and influence for the Russians
in the Arab world, would enhance Soviet prestige all over
the world, and appease the Jewish population of the Soviet
Union.14 And, most enticing of all, in the Soviet perspective,
would be the ego-gratifying prospect of a region-full of
neutralist states more amenable to Soviet than to American
"influence" -- whatever that might mean in concrete terms.

When ideological and moral pronouncements are set
aside -- as every now and then honesty commends -- the American
perspective on the Middle East is in a number of important
respects the mirror image of that of the Russians. We too
attach great importance to our fleet plying Mediterranean
waters; we too have an economic stake in the region -- though
not as great as that of some of our allies, who get most of

14. Bernard Gwertzman, "Soviet Role in Mideast," New York Times, August 3, 1970, p. 2.

-25-

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their oil from the Middle East; we too derive ego-gratification
from wielding "influence" in various parts of the world--
although, like the Russians, we prefer to dress up our
egoism in unctuous pieties; and, like our rival, we are a
pushover for geopolitical grandiosities, the Middle East
being, in President Nixon's phrase, the "hinge of NATO."¹⁵

Only in one respect is our interest in the Middle East
fundamentally different from that of other outside powers:
we are tied to Israel by bonds of culture and sentiment and
by the special attachment of our American Jewish population.
These bonds represent a perfectly valid basis for the definition
of a "national interest" and for the making of a valid
commitment based on that interest -- provided that the
commitment is made in an appropriately constitutional
manner, and provided too that it does not infringe upon
or derogate from other valid interests. As matters now
stand our commitment to Israel is *de facto* and undefined: we
do not really know the extent of our own obligation, which
could be very great, while Israel does not know what in the
way of American support she can rely on. This uncertainty
in turn appears to have driven Israel to greater militancy and
inflexibility in her attitude toward the Arabs. For our part,
the lack of a constitutionally legitimate commitment, candidly
based on the sentimental and cultural bonds which are the real
source of our interest in Israel, drives us to rationalize our
involvement in terms of grandiose geopolitical concepts.

The assumption appears to be that there is something
illegitimate about sentiment as the basis of a national
interest and that we must therefore disguise it behind a

15. Televised interview of July 1, 1970.

façade of tough-sounding *realpolitik*. Reading the statement of the American Jewish Committee which I quoted earlier, for example, I could not help suspecting that the authors did not really believe all that stuff about the Russians testing the intentions of the free world" in the Middle East and challenging the "national will of the United States," any more than I believe it. The impression I had was that the authors of the statement feel a cultural and religious attachment to Israel but do not feel they can persuade the United States Government to pursue a policy designed to serve that attachment unless it can also be justified in terms of the grand strategy of the cold war. I regret this attitude very much, for one reason because there is nothing wrong with a policy based on sentimental attachment as long as it does not intrude upon other interests, but primarily because the introduction of cold war rationalizations can have -- and to a great extent has had -- the dangerous effect of expanding a local issue into a global one.

Both President Nixon and Mr. Kissinger have tended to speak in those terms. In his televised interview of July 1, for example, President Nixon spoke of the Middle East as being "terribly dangerous, like the Balkans before World War I, where the two super-powers, the United States and the Soviet Union, could be drawn into a confrontation that neither of them wants." Five days earlier, Mr. Kissinger had said exactly the same thing: "... what makes the situation in the Middle East so potentially dangerous is the fact that it has many similarities with the Balkans before World War I." Pressing the analogy, Mr. Kissinger contended that "no one caused World War I;" that it came about as an accident; and that the situation in the Middle

East is roughly analogous, Israel and the Arab states each
being allied to a superpower. . . 'Each of them to some
extent not fully under the control of the major country
concerned.'¹⁶

This tough talk, it has been explained, was designed
to scare the Russians, not to be taken literally. Whatever
effect it had on the Russians, I must say that it scared me,
because it reveals a dangerously outmoded way of thinking
about international politics. The catastrophe of war is
conceived as something fated, controlled by quarrelsome
client states if not by the iron 'laws' of power politics.
Implicit in this outlook is the supposition that the coming
of a great war is beyond the control of statesmen -- even
beyond the control of the Pentagon computers, or of Mr.
Kissinger's staff of experts in the White House basement.

The outlook is faulty, and so is the analogy. World
War I was not primarily an accident, and it was certainly
not predestined. It came about, as recent German historians
have shown, because Germany was willing for it to come about
and aided and abetted the events which led to the explosion.
It was within Germany's power at any time to restrain her
Austrian client and, in so doing, to prevent war. The
German leaders knew they had this power but consciously
chose not to exercise it because they thought they could
win a general European war and judged that it would derogate
from German pride and grandeur if the great German Empire
shrank from war.

That is why war came in 1914 and that is why it will

16. Background Briefing, San Clemente, California, June 26,
1970, p. 20.

-29-

The answer appears to derive from the "laws" of geopolitics. The "responsibilities of power" -- or what used to be called "Providence" in the age of faith -- have imposed upon us the duty of serving as the Hessians of the "free world," with the lesser "free world" countries at liberty to provide a regiment or two, if they wish, to put a nice face on things.

I do not care much for this geopolitical hocus pocus. Whatever the reasons of strategy or preference that induced the Administration to employ it, there is far more to be said for the sensible, conciliatory approach which has brought about the cease fire and the renewal of the Jarring mission. The Administration of course may contend that the renewed peace talks would not have come about but for the carrot-and-stick approach combining the Rogers overtures with the Nixon-Kissinger threats. Perhaps so, but the Russians seem equally convinced that it was *they* who brought the Americans to reason by sending pilots, missiles and other armaments to Egypt. Each side seems to cherish the view that it has intimidated the other. Spending so prodigally as they do on the instruments of intimidation, they naturally have a vested interest in having something to show for their money.

One would not begrudge them the conceit except for the fact that this attitude -- this confidence in one's ability to intimidate an adversary into compromise and peace -- seldom achieves the desired result. It has not achieved it in Indochina, and in the Middle East mutual intimidation has had a restraining effect -- if indeed it has -- only because both sides, for once, have been rational enough to recognize their common interest in peace and, therefore, to override their natural response to the other's threats, which is to feel challenged rather than intimidated, to be provoked and to respond provocatively.

Middle East are dangerous, historically unsound and basically romantic. There is no relevance in the Balkan analogy of 1914, which purports to show that we are helpless, and we have no automatic, unilateral vital interest deriving from the oil requirements of Europe and Japan. There are, to be sure, important American political and economic stakes in the Middle East, but our major specific interest is a cultural and sentimental attachment to Israel, rooted in the strong preference of a majority of the American people and their elected representatives.

We also have a nonspecific interest, which we share with the Arabs, with the Israelis, with the Soviet Union, and with the rest of the world. That interest is in the vindication of the United Nations as an instrument for the maintenance of peace.

The Security Council Resolution of November 22, 1967, which Secretary Rogers has said "will be the bedrock of our policy,"¹⁸ emphasizes "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war," and it reminds the Middle Eastern parties of their obligations under Article 2 of the United Nations Charter, of which paragraph 3 states that "All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered."

This is where the fifth perspective comes in, over and above that of Arabs, Israelis, Russians and Americans. If a United Nations perspective can be developed and brought to bear, we might come out of the Middle East crisis with something better than a peaceful settlement. We might come out with a precedent too, with processes to draw upon in the future.

### III. Toward Peace

For most of the life span of both entities the United Nations and the state of Israel have been intimately, if not always cordially, involved with each other. Israel was legally

initiated by the United Nations; since then its status, borders and policies have been the subject of a series of United Nations resolutions. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency still has primary responsibility for the Arab refugees; a United Nations peace force was placed between Egyptian and Israeli forces after the 1956 war and United Nations observers have been stationed along the Suez Canal since the June war of 1967. The Security Council Resolution of November 22, 1967, is still the most complete, impartial and generally accepted policy statement for a Middle East settlement, and is still the best hope for a viable peace. If there has ever been an issue which is ripe and appropriate for peaceful settlement under United Nations auspices, it is the conflict between Israel and the Arabs.

First and foremost, a just settlement must vindicate the principle, as spelled out in the Security Council Resolution, of "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war." This principle goes to the heart of the Charter; Article 2, paragraph 4 states that "All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state. . . ." The return of the conquered territories is the major single requirement for peace as stated by both President Nasser and King Hussein. As King Hussein put it, ". . . Israel may have either peace or territory -- but she can never have both."19

Restoration of the occupied territories is also American policy. In his notable speech of December 9, 1969, Secretary Rogers said:

"We believe that while recognized political boundaries must be established and agreed upon by the parties, any changes in the preexisting lines should not reflect the weight of conquest and should be confined to insubstantial alterations required for mutual security. We do not support expansionism. We believe troops must be withdrawn as the resolution provides. . . ."

and respect for and acknowledgment of the sovereignty,
territorial integrity and political independence of every
state in the area. . . .

Israel is entitled to free access through the Suez Canal
as well as the Gulf of Aqaba and the Strait of Tiran. That too
is called for in the Security Council Resolution and should be
guaranteed in the definitive instrument of peace.

As to Jerusalem, I have no specific recommendation. I think
it well, however, to recall that the United Nations General
Assembly unanimously condemned Israel's unilateral annexation of
the city²⁰ and that its status cannot be considered "non-negotiable."
Some form of international status would seem to be the appropriate
solution. The Friends' study suggests the desirability of "some
sort of federal condominium to govern an undivided and de-
militarized Jerusalem" and makes the further contention, in which
I concur, that Jerusalem "cannot peacefully become the sole
possession of one religion or one national state."²¹ There may
also be merit in Dr. Nahum Goldmann's suggestion that the old
Arab section of Jerusalem be constituted "an autonomous enclave
with an international status administered by its inhabitants."
Such an internationalized city, Dr. Goldmann suggests, might
become a "center for world organizations" as well as a center for
three great religions.²²

Probably the most difficult and intractable of the issues
to be resolved is that of "achieving a just settlement of the
refugee problem" as called for in the Security Council/of 1967.
In justice and law -- the latter in the form of numerous United
Nations resolutions -- the Palestinian Arab refugees are entitled

20. On July 4, 1967, by the vote of 99 to 0, the United States abstaining.

21. *Search for Peace in the Middle East*, p. 56.

22. "Israel and the Arabs -- An 'Unrepresentative' View,"
*Le Monde*, Weekly Selection, May 27, 1970, p. 4.

[L.C.]

to one of two forms of restitution: either repatriation or compensation. As a practical solution it should be feasible to work out an agreement under which Israel would take back within its 1967 borders an agreed number of refugees who would be accepted as Israeli citizens and whose former properties would either be restored or compensated for. For the majority of refugees, repatriation would probably be neither feasible nor desired. A commitment by the Arab states to accept them and assist in their resettlement -- as in part they have already done -- should be accompanied by generous Israeli financial support, both to compensate these refugees for their losses and to facilitate their resettlement. With contributions from friends abroad, and with the relief from military costs which peace would make possible, Israel should have no great difficulty in meeting these costs, which in any case ought to be accepted as an elementary moral obligation.

In due course the Palestinian Arabs will find it necessary to accept the existence of the state of Israel and to recognize that further, futile efforts to destroy the Jewish state will only compound their own suffering. The Palestinians have been done a great historical injustice but it cannot now be undone in the way they would have it undone. Indeed, after twenty-two years of Israel's existence as an independent state, it would now be as great an injustice to disrupt that society as it was for the Jews to drive the Arabs from their land in the first place. A certain rough justice accrues to any existing state of affairs, insofar as it affects people's lives and homes; once people are established and living in a place -- regardless of how they got there -- it becomes an injustice, even if it were a practical possibility, to disrupt and expel them.

This must be a bitter pill for the Palestinian Arabs to swallow, but, myths and realities being what they are, they are going to have to do it if they want an end to futile guerrilla

warfare. Whether, whenever, and however they do, the Palestinians
are entitled to some form of self-determination on the non-
Israeli territory of Palestine. Whether they will wish to form
an independent Palestinian state, or rejoin the Kingdom of Jordan,
or federate with it in some way, is beyond the reach of a foreigner's
judgment, and perhaps beyond the feasible scope of any foreseeable
peace settlement in the Middle East.

Central and indispensable to a peace settlement based on the
Security Council Resolution of November 1967 would be the guarantee
of the entire settlement by the United Nations. Such a guarantee
would properly take the form of a specific commitment by the
United Nations Security Council to enforce the peace and all of
its specifications, including the "secure and recognized boundaries"
of both Israel and her Arab neighbors and the neutralized status
of designated border zones. The agreement should also specify
strict limitations on the sale or provision of arms to Middle
Eastern states by outside powers. As permanent members of the
Security Council, the United States, the Soviet Union, the United
Kingdom and France would have major responsibility for enforce-
ment of the peace terms, but that obligation would fall upon
them not in their capacity as "great powers" but as members of the
Security Council, which is entrusted by Article 24 of the Charter
with "primary responsibility for the maintenance of international
peace and security."

It might also be appropriate and desirable for the Security
Council's guarantee to be ratified formally by the legislative
bodies of the signatory states. Such action would represent a
mark of the seriousness attached to this new commitment by members
of the Security Council, although it might not be regarded as
juridically essential since, by ratifying the Charter in the
first place, every member of the United Nations is already
committed, under Article 25, to "accept and carry out the decisions

of the Security Council. . ." It would do no harm, however, by formal parliamentary act, to remind the members of this frequently forgotten obligation.

For reasons of varying merit Israel has indicated on numerous occasions a lack of confidence in the United Nations. In order to accommodate this attitude and provide Israel with an added assurance of security, I for one would be willing to supplement a United Nations guarantee with a bilateral treaty -- not an executive agreement but a treaty consented to by the Senate -- under which the United States would guarantee the territory and independence of Israel within the borders of 1967. This guarantee should neither add to, nor detract from, nor in any way alter the multilateral guarantee of the United Nations -- which would obligate us, as a member of the Security Council, to defend the "secure and recognized boundaries" of both Israel and her Arab neighbors. The supplementary, bilateral arrangement with Israel would obligate the United States to use force if necessary, in accordance with its constitutional processes, to assist Israel against any violation of its 1967 borders which it could not repel itself, but the agreement would also obligate Israel, firmly and unequivocally, never to violate those borders herself.

I conceive of an American treaty of guarantee with Israel as an instrument which would come into effect after -- and only after -- the multilateral guarantee of the United Nations had been agreed upon and ratified by all parties. The bilateral treaty with Israel would represent no more than a repetition of, and an additional assurance of, our intent to honor the multilateral guarantee of the United Nations. Essentially, the bilateral arrangement would serve as an

accommodation to the fact of Israel's mistrust of the
United Nations. It would repeat a commitment which every
member of the Security Council, including the Soviet Union,
would also have made through their multilateral guarantee
of the borders of all of the states concerned.

At this hopeful moment of at least temporary truce and
renewed contacts between the principal belligerents, the
situation in the Middle East presents the world community
with an important, indeed an unprecedented, opportunity.
At its present juncture the conflict between Israel and the
Arabs is the most significant issue since the end of World
War II in which the Soviet Union and the United States have
identified enough in the way of common interests to allow
of a peaceful settlement mediated and guaranteed by the
United Nations Security Council. I do not think one can
exaggerate the importance of the opportunity. A settlement
mediated by the great powers in their capacity as great
powers quite possibly could be a fair and durable one, but
a settlement mediated by the United Nations could serve as
a precedent for the settlement of other conflicts through
the procedures of international organization. Perhaps, if
the precedents accumulated, and with further advances in
civilization, it might even be found possible to apply
these procedures in conflicts involving the great powers
themselves. That, after all, was why we created the United
Nations in the first place -- "to save succeeding generations
from the scourge of war. . . ."

BACKGROUND BRIEFING

## CONTENT OF THIS

### BRIEFING IS STRICTLY
EMBARGOED UNTIL

6:00 P.M. EDT

AUGUST 26, 1970.

IT MAY BE ATTRI-
LUTED TO ADMINIS-
TRATION OFFICIALS.

DIRECT QUOTATION
IS NOT PERMITTED.

AT THE WHITE HOUSE
(San Clemente, California)

WITH DR. HENRY A. KISSINGER,
ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT FOR
NATIONAL SECURITY AFFAIRS, AND
JOSEPH J. STSCO, ASSISTANT
SECRETARY OF STATE FOR NEAR
EASTERN AND SOUTH ASIAN AFFAIRS

AT 10:04 A.M. PDT

AUGUST 24, 1970

MONDAY

MR. KLEIN: Good morning, gentlemen.

I thought I would start off by laying out a few of the ground rules we like to set for a backgrounder, and then we will have the President here shortly, and then follow that by Dr. Kissinger.

First, I would like to welcome you here to the Western White House, and to tell you this is the first of our Western regional briefings, and we are pleased that so many of you could make it.

We hope that you will find that through the foreign policy discussions we have today, you will get much which will be of help to you. Basically, these briefings -- and this is now the third we have had. We had a national briefing, with a scattering of people from across the country first. We more recently had one in New Orleans the the Southern States, and this is for the Western States.

These are aimed at providing for you the background which might be helpful in analyzing decisions which are being made on various aspects of foreign policy.

We look at this as being wide-ranging and we will try to cover through today's discussions the range of things which are on your mind, I am sure, from the Far East to the Middle East, and perhaps even some things regarding world conditions in general.

One of the things I would like to encourage you to do is to feel free to ask questions at the times we have set aside for them, and to be very frank and candid in your questions or discussions, because one of the keys to this, really, is to have this kind of a two-way interchange back and forth and we are interested in your questions, as well as, we hope, you will be interested in the answers from either Dr. Kissinger or Joe Sisco, who is the Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs, who will also be here.

I might just explain briefly about the composition of the meeting. As you look around the room, you may wonder. We are limited, as you can see, by the facilities here, in numbers, and we also feel in general that it helps to keep things smaller in numbers all the way through, because it allows

- 2 -

more candid discussion and more informal discussion in our
ability to do this. So we have picked people from 13 Western
States, and you find that there is a cross-section of views
here, a cross-section of editorial views. In addition, we
do have some from the White House Pool.

Let me explain, first, in terms of the President's
participation, on the ground rules, and I will go into the
others in the event that I am interrupted by someone who has full
power to do so.

We would like to look at the President's comments
as being examined on a third-person basis. In other words,
anything you may want to use in terms of writing later from
this, if you would refer to it as "The President is known to
think," or "is known to feel" or some way other than any
direct quotes from the President or any direct references to
"The President said this." So it will be as if I were relay-
ing to you the President's views on it.

Throughout the morning and afternoon you are free
to make whatever notes you want, and we will later have a
transcript for you of all except the President's participa-
tion. So you will have a transcript before the release time,
which will be for Thursday A.M.'s.

But basically, if we keep in mind those rules with
respect to the President's comments, it enables him to be,
again, more candid with you if we can do it in that way, and
we, therefore, would like to have that as our ground rule.

In terms of the background which will be provided
by Dr. Kissinger and Secretary Sisco, we would like you to
attribute that to "Administration sources," again on a back-
ground basis, so there would be no direct quotes, but you can
certainly summarize any way you want and attribute that to
"Administration sources."

So overall, this is a background conference. As I said,
our aim is to provide you basically with material to examine,
but, on the other hand, if you find some of the material here
is that which you would like to write about, the release time
will be 6:00 P.M. Wednesday, which will make it for Thursday
A.M.'s.

We will have transcripts air mailed special to
you as early tomorrow as possible, so that we would hope that
with most of you, at any rate, we would be able to reach you.
I can't guarantee that, because the postal reform has just
taken place.

The other day when we were having the ceremony,
as a matter of fact, the President looked over to Red Blount
and he said, "Three days ago I wrote the Postmaster General a
letter explaining my views, but under the theory that it
probably hasn't reached him yet, I will explain them."

MORE

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[lc]

Are there any questions, before we start, regarding the ground rules which I outlined?

Q. Will the President take any questions later or will the questions be handled by Mr. Kissinger and Mr. Sisco?

MR. KLEIN: Questions will be handled by these two gentlemen, is the way we planned this.

Q. Can we tape any portion of this?

MR. KLEIN: I think yes, because we will be turning a transcript over to you later. I think you can, as long as you follow the ground rules we have outlined.

Q. Herb, is there any reason why we shouldn't date it out of San Clemente?

MR. KLEIN: No. It will be perfectly fine to date it out of San Clemente, as long as we follow the three basic things: one, in terms of third person for the President; second, from now on through the day Administration sources; and, third, for release at 6:00 p.m., Wednesday, making it Thursday a.m. release.

Q. Is that 6:00 p.m., Eastern Standard or Pacific?

MR. KLEIN: He has an afternoon paper in San Diego. (Laughter)

We would like to make it an a.m. release. So let's do it in that way. It is 6:00 p.m. for them in the East.

I used to work for the Union, Gene. (Laughter)

Just one other comment before we go to Dr. Kissinger; that is, we hope while you are here you will have an opportunity to look at the working facilities of the Western White House. The President has placed a lot of stress in terms of the fact that we believe it is important to have Government operating in the West, as well as in the East.

To quote Neil Morgan, we say we have given it a westward tilt. We feel it is important not only in terms of the work that can be done here, but also because of the fact that we have the Quadriad and other officials of Government here, that it is an opportunity for them in meeting with you and others in this area and in the other areas of the country in which we have been operating, in that they have then the feeling of what people are thinking in other parts of the country, not just New York and Washington.

We feel this provides a better balance to the input which is received by the various officials of Government and it has been very helpful thus far. As you can see, this is a regular working operation here and we have also, in terms of the places where the President has been, had regular meetings in Denver, New Orleans, Indianapolis, Chicago, Salt Lake, and the other cities which you are aware of.

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We think this has been a good thing for Government, of bringing Government closer to the people and certainly it has been of benefit to those of us in the Administration in getting this kind of an input back.

Additionally, as you know, in terms of other aspects besides the President being out, we have put a lot of stress with our Cabinet Officers and urged them to meet with your offices whenever possible. I think you will find that will continue because, again, we value this exchange with you in terms of the opportunity to present the facts of the case and also the opportunity to be questioned by you and others who are working in the news media so that you have a better understanding of the facts.

With this, I would like to go right into our working session with Dr. Kissinger. Dr. Kissinger will be the only speaker you will hear who is as famous in Hollywood as he is in Washington.

Seriously, he is a man who, I think ---

DR. KISSINGER: Is that serious?

MR. KLEIN: That is very serious.

He is a gentleman who, I think, is making a major
contribution to this Administration. He is the director
of the National Security Council and has done a great
deal in terms of providing the reorganization of that
Council and giving it the kind of standing and the kind
of background which has been of great assistance to the
President in making the decisions which he outlined
to you earlier.

I think that this has been a very meaningful
thing in working with the Department of Defense and the
State Department and also with the White House itself, so
that we are very proud of the fact that despite some
occasional stories that this is this way and this is that,
that basically we look at it as having a very strong working
team.

When you look at who you would select to take this
particular post, as the President had to when he made the
determination that he was going to strengthen the National
Security Council, it is a very difficult choice, as you
might imagine, because there really are very few people
in the country who, I believe, are adequately prepared to
handle this type of planning operation, careful coordination
of the operation, and also to provide an analytical view
of the various issues which the President must have in the
final analysis of staffing before these major decisions
are made.

We look at the results of the first 18 months
as ones which we think have moved the country forward
in all parts of the world. And you will determine that
as you listen more and as I am sure you have already
analyzed it.

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In coming into this, Dr. Kissinger had a distinguished background as a professor, as a professor of Government, as a leading professor in international relations, and really one of the most knowledgeable men in the world in the whole field of disarmament. He lead many of the studies which have taken place in the last 10 to 12 years. I look at it as, sometimes, you have a man who has served to fit a particular place at a particular time.

While this has been said of a lot of men, I think when you analyze what Dr. Kissinger will say and analyze his background, in this case it is a true fact that he has fit the situation with the kind of knowledge which has been necessary.

We will go now with an outline by Dr. Kissinger that will be followed by a statement by Secretary Sisco. We will either have time for questions this morning or we will go into them after lunch.

With that, I would like to introduce Dr. Henry Kissinger.

DR. KISSINGER: Gentlemen, I appreciate the introduction and also I am conscious of the fact that the remarks of the President leave me in the position where if any of you write anything less than total support, it will be due to the lack of persuasive power on my part.

But if that unlikely event should occur, we will take it in the spirit which characterizes our general attitude towards the press, namely -- (laughter) -- that even a group as knowledgeable and as well balanced as this is cannot be right 100 percent of the time. (Laughter)

Indeed, as you know, the White House press has moved into the swimming pool area. There was some heated debate between the President and the Vice President before that occurred. The President prevailed and we drained the pool before we put the press in it. (Laughter)

My major concern in talking to you this morning will be to try to give you, first, our general approach to foreign policy, how we go about making it; and then to discuss some of the specific issues. Then Assistant Secretary Sisco will talk about one of the topics that is most in the news right now, namely, the Middle East cease fire and prospects for peace.

First, the general approach of this Administration: When the history of this period is written, I think it will appear that the big change in American foreign policy occurred not in the early 1960s when it was proclaimed, but in the late 1960s under this Administration when the claims for it were less vocal.

At the end of April of this year when the President announced a decision that American combat troops would clean out the sanctuaries in Cambodia, there were a number of people who stated that maybe the language of the speech was inappropriate to the conditions of this period. And I think that for this criticism to be made at all shows how far the mood has come from those early days in the 1960s when President Kennedy was inaugurated.

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Nothing that this Administration has ever said can
compare with the speeches in the early part of the Kennedy
Administration, such as the remark in the inaugural address when
President Kennedy said -- we will get you the exact quote --
but roughly like this:

"We will pay any price, we will bear any burden, we will meet any hardship, we will support any friend, we will fight any enemy to assure the survival of liberty."

This undifferentiated global approach to foreign
policy really marked the early period of the previous Admin-
istration as the last flowering of the era that was started
with the Marshall Plan.

Now, let me say, to begin with, that I am not saying this as a criticism of the Kennedy Administration. There were many of us who were moved by this approach at the time. I am citing it as an example of the changed conditions that have occurred since that period. I am sure that history will record that the early 1960's marked the last flowering of a period in which the United States found itself propelled into world affairs at the end of World War II against our tradition, even against our inclination, by conditions that had been brought about partly by the war, partly by the history prior to the war.

At the end of World War II, the United States was
the only major non-Communist country in the world capable of
conducting a global foreign policy. Every one of the traditional
great powers, with the exception of Great Britain, had been
defeated at one stage or another during the war. Every one
of the traditional great powers, including Great Britain, had
been weakened enormously by the war.

In major parts of the world, civil government became
problematical, and projecting government abroad became almost
unthinkable. The United States was the only non-Communist
country with sufficient domestic cohesion, resources and
vitality to conduct a consistent foreign policy.

In these conditions, it was natural to believe that,
unless the United States made itself responsible both for
security and for progress in every part of the world, that
both security and progress were unachievable. And this was
also correct in the conditions of the late 1940's.

But it brought about a state of affairs in which,
all over the world, the United States gradually slid into the
position where we began to act as if the security of other
countries was more important for us than it was for them, and
where economic and political progress was a greater American
interest than it was an interest of the countries concerned.

It brought about a situation also where many of
these countries could avoid the burden of difficult choices
by shifting to the United States the onus for complicated
decisions. In many parts of the world, countries avoided the
problems either of defense or of development by hiding behind
American prescriptions.

Now, I repeat: In the late 40's, throughout the
50's, maybe even in the early 60's, this was inevitable.

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But as a permanent feature of international affairs, it was extremely dangerous. It overtaxed partly our physical and certainly our psychological resources. It created an attitude of emotional dependence on us by other countries. It injected the United States directly and immediately into the domestic disputes of every country all over the world, and it created temptations for interventions that perhaps. -- that certainly should not become a permanent feature of American policy.

Now, all of these conditions, all of these circumstances, became more and more apparent throughout the 1960's, and the situation that this Administration inherited was not caused, necessarily, by the failures of preceding policies, but it was also caused in part by their successes.

Europe, in 1969, was much stronger and more vital than the Europe of 1949, and in these conditions, it was not plausible any more that the United States should be the principal European power.

Japan has had an enormous recovery, partly with American support. In many other parts of the world new nations have come into being and have begun to achieve identity and cohesion; and finally, many other conditions have changed.

For example, one reason why the United States could get away with assuming the security burden for the whole world was because the United States was strategically the overwhelmingly predominant country in the world. As late as 1962, during the Cuban missile crisis, the Soviet Union possessed less than a hundred long-range missiles, none of them in hardened silos. At that period we possessed almost 10

times as many, plus 500-plus bombers. We had a 20 to 1 strategic superiority, and since a country always has to look at the worst possible case, Soviet leaders at that time had to consider that, if the crisis escalated, they might be subject to the sort of preemptive strike that later on the Israelis used against the Arabs.

In other words, as late as the middle 60's, the United States could use its strategic superiority to regulate the level of local conflict.

Today we face a situation in which the Soviet Union possesses more land-based missiles than we do, in which they are catching up with us in the Polaris-type missiles, and in which the only category in which we are still superior is long-range bombers, and we haven't developed a long-range bomber in 16 years.

Now, this creates a new security situation. It means that many of the premises on which policy was based in the 1940's and 50's and 60's have altered and cannot be removed, and cannot be brought back by any declarations of the American Government. It isn't in our power, by unilateral declarations, to restore the degree of credibility in strategic nuclear policy that existed 15 years ago. The new strategic situation is a fact of life and, therefore, there has to be much greater emphasis on local and regional organizations than there was at a period of American predominance. I will get back to that.

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The third factor that has changed is conditions within the Communist world. We emerged into the postwar period facing a Soviet Union that, to many Americans, looked very similar to Nazi Germany; that is to say, we thought of the Soviet Union as inherently aggressive. Of the Communist empire as monolithic, and of the conflict with the Communists as being analogous to the conflict that took place previously with Nazi Germany, namely, that the Communists were building toward some magic D-day in which they would suddenly launch their army for military conquest.

The fact of the matter has been that the situation vis-a-vis the Communist world has become much more complex. First of all, without under-rating Communist aggressiveness, its preferred form is not the launching of massive military invasions against Western countries. Its preferred form is a combination of military, psychological and political pressures that always stop well short of the sort of total confrontation that Hitler produced, and which puts much greater strain on political leadership and on the cohesion of the non-Communist countries than an all-out onslaught would.

Secondly, the Communist world has proved to be no more immune to the erosion of time than other human institutions. First, within the Communist world, within each Communist country, there is a real structural problem.

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I once visited Czechoslovakia and a high Communist said to me, "You can't imagine how we envy you, your system of elections." He said, "We don't care about elections, as such," he said, "but there is absolutely no way we have of getting rid of super-annuated personnel. We simply can't change our top leadership."

You look at Communist countries around the world and you will find that there is no mechanism short of some purge or some other violent upheaval of changing the top leadership. Most of them are getting older in every Communist country. The bureaucracies are getting more and more deadly and more and more entrenched, and the Communist parties, as such, are losing any real function.

The Communist parties were necessary, first, to make the revolution; then to enforce discipline during a period of industrialization. But in an advanced industrial state, there really isn't any role for an ideological, quasi-religious institution like the Communist party, which is not needed to run the Govermeent, which is not needed to run the economy, and which, therefore, may develop a vested interest in foreign conflict, or at least in a certain level of foreign tension, just to prove a need for its eternal vigilance.

But in any event, there is this tension within every Communist country between the bureaucracies and one almost might be tempted to say in the priesthood represented by the Communist parties, which create a certain stultifying consequence.

Secondly, in contrast to what Communist doctrine teaches, according to Communist doctrine, as communism spread, the sense of unity among people should grow because wars are caused only by capitalists. You abolish capitalism and you abolish war; you abolish capitalism and you abolish tension among peoples.

It can be said without any equivocation that there is no country in the world in which Western ideas have ever been more popular, than in those which the Communists have taken over, especially in Eastern Europe.

The one place in the world where Western liberal ideas tend to be essentially unchallenged is in the intellectual communities of Eastern Europe, who can't understand their confreres in the West at all.

The Red Army has been used four times since the end of the war, always against allies, always against ostensibly Communist countries.

And, finally, leaving Eastern Europe where the problem of establishing a sense of community has been illustrated by events in East Germany, Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia, and where Romania is trying very hard for an independent position, and then you face the situation where the Soviet Union, along a frontier of 4,000 miles, which is populated on its side by 30 million people, confronts 800 million Communist Chinese whose hostility is more severe towards them than any non-Communist regime in China that could possibly develop.

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The deepest international conflict in the world today is not between us and the Soviet Union, but between the Soviet Union and Communist China. And it is an issue that is so difficult, partly because Communist China claims a large chunk of the Soviet Union as having been acquired illegally and to which the Soviet Union retaliates by showing the disputed chunks as Soviet territory on its map and establishing collective farms there; and, secondly, by an ideological conflict about who represents the true orthodoxy. So that on both levels, the issue becomes very difficult.

And if you imagine what the United States would do if there were 800 million Canadians claiming the northern fifth of the United States, building nuclear weapons and claiming in their high school history books that the city of Vladivostok is a Chinese city, you will get some idea of the eerie feeling that must be inspired in the Soviet Union.

Therefore, one of the positive prospects in the current situation is that whatever the basic intentions of Soviet leaders, confronted with the prospect of a China growing in strength and not lessening in hostility, they may want a period of detente in the West, not because they necessarily have changed ideologically, but because they do not want to be in a position in which they have to confront major crises on both sides of their huge country over an indefinite period of time.

All of these conditions having changed has caused this Administration, then, to reassess the policies which it inherited and to develop the policies which I will attempt to describe to you.

Let me say a word, first, about the general approach of the President. The President's basic concern has been that he did not want to administer chaos; that he did not only want to be known as someone who had handled crises more or less effectively. He gave his senior advisers the basic charge of trying to determine, first, where we ought to be going over a reasonable period of time, say five to ten years, and to try to put before him what kind of a world it was that we were trying to bring about, and then put before him the widest range of choices that could be assembled.

In almost every issue that has gone before the National Security Council, he has insisted that, first, we discuss the general philosophy of our approach before he would even entertain any tactical propositions.

When we developed our Latin American policy, for example, we spent three hours in the National Security Council defining just what it was that we were trying to accomplish in Latin America before any practical scheme was put forward. And he has consistently followed this approach in every area.

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In implementing these approaches, of course, we face the problem that in every revolutionary period, vestiges of the old overlap with the new. It is only in the halls of academia, from which I come and to which I may or may not be able to return, (laughter) that you can segment events into nice little compartments and say, "This is the period of America adopting a lower profile." There is always going to be some vestige of one period while you move into the new period.

But, in general, the direction in which we have attempted to move has tried to take into account the fact that now there are other nations that can, and should, assume greater responsibilities, to take into account the changed facts of strategic relationships, to take into account the multi-polarity of the Communist system, and all of this has been wrapped together in what was called the "Nixon Doctrine," which was enunciated in Guam in July, 1969, at the beginning of the President's trip around the world.

The Nixon Doctrine advances three general propositions: One, that the United States will honor all of its commitments; secondly, that when a non-nuclear country is threatened by a nuclear country, the United States recognizes special responsibilities. It recognizes these special responsibilities because, if it did not, there would be an enormous incentive for other countries to develop a nuclear capability of their own and because there is no conceivable way non-nuclear countries can resist, unless there is some implicit backing, at least, from the nuclear countries.

Now, this is not a commitment of what we will do in all circumstances. It simply says that we recognize a special responsibility in those cases.

Thirdly, that in other cases, both with respect to security and to development, the initial, indeed the primary responsibility for both security and development rests first with the country concerned, secondly with the region concerned. The United States will participate when its interests require it, where its participation can make a difference, but it will not engage itself as the primary country in the first line of defense, or as the first responsibility for development, unless there is a significant local effort.

We will not assume a position where we can be approached by other countries who tell us that, "if we are taken over, it is worse for you than it is for us." We do not accept that proposition.

So, this doctrine, which emphasizes greater local responsibility, and which encourages regional groupings both for development and defense, is what we have been trying to apply all over the world.

Now, we have to make clear that this is not an attempt for the United States to withdraw from the world. It is an attempt by the United States to establish a policy toward the rest of the world which we can maintain over an indefinite period of time. It is our way of remaining committed to the world in ways that we can sustain, rather than in projecting

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ourselves into huge efforts that then tear us apart domestically, and that cannot be sustained.

Other countries require our steadiness, if they want to plan their policies. And this, then, is the basic direction which we plan to pursue and which has been called the "Nixon Doctrine."

The other course that we have attempted to pursue has been to regulate our rivalry with the Communist world in the interest of long-term peace. I have already mentioned to you some of the factors that produce a cautious optimism in this respect, vis-a-vis the Soviet Union. This policy was described by the President in his Inaugural Address as a policy of negotiation rather than confrontation.

Let me say first a few general things about it, and then I will illustrate it with a number of, or at least one example, the example from the SALT negotiations.

A great deal of our public debate tends to be, if I can use a fashionable word, "polarized" between those who say negotiation is an abstract exercise of good will, and others who say there is no point in trusting any Communists; the only way of dealing with them is through a pure exercise of power.

Some people argue that any time you mention security considerations, it must mean that you like war, and that if you mention the fact that our allies might be dependent on certain raw material, that this indicates that you enjoy the study of geopolitics.

This Administration is of the view that one does not prove one's flexibility in negotiations by denying the realities of contemporary international politics. We have proved enormous flexibility on a number of issues. We renounced biological warfare altogether, which is more than any nation, any major nation, has done.

We have developed, on the issue of the reversion of Okinawa to Japan, the most generous position that was before the President.

But we also believe that, if the minimum security requirements of ourselves and our allies are not preserved, that then there will be nothing left to negotiate about. Therefore, we are attempting to keep those two in balance.

When this Administration came into office, we were confronted with the prospect of talks on strategic arms limitations, the so-called SALT talks. We were overwhelmed with recommendations that we immediately start those talks, and that we put a position before the Soviet Union.

The theory was that it is always better to talk than to continue to arm, and we don't object to this. In fact, we believe that the arms race should be brought under control, and we are making major efforts to bring it under control. But also, looking at the history of the last 10 years, we became convinced that, if you looked at the history

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of all previous arms control negotiations, you will find
that the nuclear test ban, which was a relatively simple
issue compared to what we are facing now, took us five
years to negotiate, and our final position was so far away
from our first position that you have to conclude that we
entered it without knowing exactly what we were doing.

The Nonproliferation Treaty took four years to
negotiate. It didn't even concern American weapons.

Here we were going to enter the whole complex of
offensive and defensive weapons, about which, within each gov-
ernment, there was a considerable amount of disagreement,
and the great danger was that if we went into negotiations
immediately, we would spend more time negotiating with our-
selves than with the Soviets.

The traditional pattern had been that the United
States would adopt a position, the Soviet Union would then
adopt a position, we would then have to go back to our own
bureaucracy and renegotiate the initial position within our
government, a process which never took less than three to six
months, go back to the Soviet and repeat this process for years.
This is the history of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

In this case, the President ordered the fullest
study that has ever been made of all offensive and defen-
sive weapons that could conceivably be the subject of
negotiation. We analyzed what the implications of these weapons
would be if there were no limitations, what confidence we had
in our inspection system, what we could do in case we detected
a violation, what the risk would be if we didn't detect a
violation; in other words, how much cheating they could get
away with. And having made all these preparations, we then
entered the negotiations.

While it is premature to say anything about outcomes,
we depend in part on the political conditions. We can say
already that -- and all our negotiators agree with this --
the negotiations on the limitations of strategic arms that
have been taking place in Helsinki and Vienna have been the
best arms control negotiations that we have ever engaged in
with the Soviet Union.

We have had a very flexible position; that is,
we have been able, as a result of this exhaustive prepara-
tion, to take account of Soviet objections when they were
legitimate, and adapt our position to what, in fact, went
on in Vienna, so that at one point we could change our
position within a two-week period, which was an unheard-of
event previously.

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HAR Peris - San Clemente

8/24/70

On the other hand, the Soviet Union has taken a soberer approach to these negotiations than to any others. They have not done the same sort of meticulous preparation that we did, but, on the other hand, their negotiating proposals, while tough and while of course geared to Soviet interests, have not been mischievous.

So we are cautiously optimistic about the progress of the Strategic Arms Talks. We believe that in another session or two we ought to be able to tell whether a realistic agreement is possible, and in such other session -- meaning extending over a number of months, not one meeting -- in such circumstance if we should be successful we would have brought about a change in the strategic situation through negotiation which goes far beyond anything that has been done previously.

Similarly, we have been in contact with the Soviet Union on the Middle East, about which Secretary Sisco will talk at greater length. I will only make a very few remarks on this subject, partly to demonstrate that the White House is talking to the State Department on this subject.

We believe that while the war in Vietnam is our most anguishing problem, the situation in the Middle East is our most dangerous problem. The danger of the Middle East situation is that you have two groups of countries with intense local rivalries and with an overwhelming concern for their grievances or their security, or both, both backed by major countries, but not fully under the control of the major countries confronting each other. This is the sort of situation that produced World War I.

What we are attempting to bring about is a situation in which events do not get almost automatically out of control. We do not want to leave to the local rivalries the future of peace and war on a global scale.

We have entered this process with the full realization that the fate of the peace-maker in the Middle East is a thankless one. Probably the best one can achieve in the Middle East is not what one would like to achieve, namely, a settlement in which everyone is equally happy, but perhaps the best one can achieve is a settlement with which everyone will be equally unhappy.

At any rate, it would be irresponsible for this Administration, or any Administration, to stand by transfixed while the rivalries build up, while confrontations were developing, while the Soviet Union was backing one side overtly and we had an historical commitment to the other side. And this is what has led us into the peace initiative with which Secretary Sisco has been so notably associated and why we believe that the course that we are pursuing with all its difficulties and with all its pain is on the whole the best one in the interest of long-term peace.

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Now let me make some observations about Vietnam
and then a few concluding ones.

The trouble with Vietnam is that the debate
about it has achieved an almost liturgical quality. Words
like "coalition government," "cease fire" have developed
a life of their own. And every once in a while the
Washington press corps and various senior representatives
run around the track a few times on the theory that they
might just catch us unaware in saying a word that we don't
intend to say and then beat us over the head with it for
the next three weeks.

But the problem about the Vietnam debate is that
most of the basic arguments have been made very often.

We inherited the war, it is sometimes forgotten,
in its fifth year, when there were 540,000 American forces
in Vietnam, at a time when there did not exist a program
for withdrawal, at a moment when there did not exist
a program for negotiations, at a moment when it wasn't
even clear yet whether and how we would talk to the
National Liberation Front or what its role in the future
political life of Vietnam might be.

Now to turn around a process that has been
going on for five years is quite a different matter from
starting a new policy. This Administration was not given
the option of deciding whether we wanted to
have these troops in South Vietnam. We found them there and
that created its own reality.

We had to make our policy conscious of the fact
that however we got involved in South Vietnam, the manner
in which we ended the war in Vietnam would affect the
peace of the world and perhaps the domestic stability of
the United States.

The President has said very often that it would
have been easy for him to get out in the first three months
of his Administration and to blame everything on his
predecessors. But that would not have been, in his judgment,
in the national interest.

If the United States had liquidated the war in
a manner that would have appeared like a complete
collapse of American will, it would have created such
an imbalance around the world that, in our judgment, the
prospects of future wars would have increased.

We have never met, in the White House, any foreign
leader, certainly never any leader from Asian countries,
who urged us to liquidate the war quickly. There may or
may not be a domino effect. Of course, let me make it clear:
Of course, they want us to liquidate the war quickly. They
just don't want us to lose it.

But I don't even want to put the issue in terms of
winning and losing for the United States. I want to put the
issue in terms of how we can end the war under conditions
which give us the greatest chances for peace and the
greatest chances for domestic stability.

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[Lc]

Now, we chose the course on which we are and we
recognize that in the fifth year of the war there were no
brilliant choices left and that anyone taking the negative
of any policy, including the policy they were recommending,
would have no difficulty punching holes in it. I can say
anyone taking the negative towards any policy, even the
ones they are recommending, I can say that with some
assurance because if you read what people were recommending
in 1968, what opponents of the war were recommending in
1968, you will find that that is exactly what we
have been carrying out.

If you read what Senator Kennedy, for example,
said in August, 1968, in Worcester, Massachusetts, when
he said he was picking up the fallen banner of his brother
as a declaration of conscience against the Vietnam war,
you will find that most of the prescriptions in his speech
have been exceeded, not just carried out.

Let me make a few general observations. We are
attempting, consistent with the Nixon Doctrine, to turn
over the primary responsibility for the conduct of the war
and eventually the exclusive responsibility for the conduct
of the war to the South Vietnamese. Now it isn't too difficult
to show many of the things that have gone wrong with previous
programs -- and anyone who has seen previous programs knows
that there are many problems that can arise in South Vietnam.

Our problem is this: People say, "Why do you
engage in Vietnamization? Why don't you negotiate?"

First of all, we have attempted to negotiate.
We are attempting to negotiate. And I have no doubt
that when the full history of our negotiations is revealed
we will have nothing to apologize for.

But, most importantly, if Vietnamization doesn't
succeed, negotiations cannot succeed either. If Hanoi is
convinced that the policy we are pursuing unilaterally
in Vietnam is doomed, it has absolutely no incentive
to negotiate, so that then the only choice is between
getting out immediately or getting out over an extended
period of time.

If we choose the non-precipitate route of with-
drawal, we have to try to make Vietnamization work. And,
moreover, we believe, partly as a result of the Cambodian
exercise, that Vietnamization is working well enough to
give us at least the possibility of pursuing the course
on which we are.

There are many other ideas. For example, many
suggestions are, "Why don't you give a deadline for withdrawal?"
We do not understand what we would achieve by such a deadline.
The history of our domestic opposition has made it perfectly
clear that every proposal, adopting the proposal of even
some leading newspapers, does not necessarily guarantee
continued support. Usually the domestic opposition has
then shifted to some other issue. And if we gave an 18 months
schedule people would soon argue about 16 months, 12 months,
eight months. That isn't the issue; that isn't the problem.

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[1c]

The major problem is that if we gave a schedule of withdrawal, negotiations would stop. If we told Hanoi that no matter what they did we would withdraw by a fixed date, there would be no incentive Hanoi could possibly have to negotiate. They would simply wait for that day to happen.

Secondly, therefore, even if we have an internal schedule it would be unwise to announce it ahead of time. That doesn't mean that we don't want to withdraw. It simply means that if we want the negotiations to succeed, we have to have a certain amount of flexibility in our tactics. Indeed, our dilemma is this: that without some degree of ambiguity in our posture, the negotiations have great difficulty in advancing. And yet, with too much ambiguity, our domestic support will erode. This is the area in which we have been attempting to navigate.

We believe in negotiations because it is the only reliably quick way of ending the war. The reason we have not done some of the things that have been proposed is not because the ideas are bad. It is not because we don't want to get out. But it is, rather, that we want to enhance the possibility of getting out, perhaps faster, under conditions, though, of a negotiated solution.

Now, many say, ""Why should the other side negotiate?" It could be that the other side will never negotiate no matter what we do. But looking at the situation, they can see South Vietnam gaining in strength; maybe not able to hold every last province, but able to control enough of their territory to pose quite a problem.

Secondly, they see the Sino-Soviet split potentially
threatening everything they have fought for for 20 years.

Thirdly, they may feel that the time to get a
political settlement is while there was still enough of an
American presence to influence the outcome.

But, whatever the reason, whatever their reasons,
our position has to be clear. We are prepared to negotiate
and we are eager to negotiate. But the thing we cannot do
is to spend all our energy negotiating with ourselves and
the American public. In the American public discussion
a theory has developed according to which negotiations with the
North Vietnamese are, like a detective story in which they
throw out vague clues and we have to guess at the answer.
Then, if we somehow miss the answer, according to the folklore,
we are eternally to blame.

We get all sorts of propositions of "Why don't
you propose this or that," and people say they know this
is going to make negotiations go.

Let me remind you, it used to be said that if
the bombings stopped there would be substantive negotiations,
if we talked to the NLF there would be substantive
negotiations, if we had a token withdrawal of American
troops there would be substantive negotiations, if we announced
the withdrawal of 100,000 troops, if we withdrew 100,000
troops, if we sent a senior Ambassador to Paris.

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We have done all these things and there have not
yet been substantive negotiations, and there has not been
for one reason, primarily: that Hanoi has believed, partly
because of the nature of our domestic debate, that they
could sell the beginning of the negotiations over and
over and over again so that they never have to negotiate,
so that they get everything they want as an entrance price
into negotiation -- something that used to be called
unconditional surrender.

This is the only thing that we are resisting.
If Hanoi enters into serious negotiations with us it can
be sure that it will find us flexible and responsive. We
have never offered our proposals on a take it or leave
it basis.

When the President was out here on April 20 to
make his speech announcing the latest withdrawal, the overall
withdrawal figure of 150,000, he laid down three principles
of a political settlement which ought to give the basis
for a fair solution.

The missing ingredient has not been lack of
ingenuity in coming up with this or that gimmick to get
the negotiations started; the missing ingredient has been
that Hanoi, the Hanoi leadership, which may be the last
true Leninists in the world, have not found it easy
to conceive a solution other than a complete takeover;
because the history of Leninism shows that the sharing
of political power is not the most obvious conclusion
to which you are driven by the study of Communist theory.

This has been the problem that we have had and if
we ever get over this hurdle we believe that the settlement
can be fairly quickly achieved.

Now let me just make two or three more very quick
observations about Vietnam. People say, "You are dependent
on the Saigon Government." And the nice demagogic answer
would be to say, "No, we are not at all dependent. We do
what we want and they do what they want."

No one could take that seriously. We are
fighting in South Vietnam. Of course we are to some
extent influenced by the South Vietnamese Government. But
if what I said about the Nixon Doctrine is true, then it is
also correct that what we are attempting to do is to
make ourselves increasingly independent and to give them
an increasing responsibility for their own future and
eventually exclusive responsibility for their own future.

This is what we have gone very far towards
bringing about. After all, we will have withdrawn
over 260,000 troops by next spring, or during next spring;
but we are not there yet.

Secondly, to what extent are we dependent on Hanoi?
Again, this gets back to the problem that I described
before. The only way we can make ourselves completely
independent of Hanoi is just to get out. Hanoi has to
believe that to some extent its actions will influence
ours, or we are going to give it an incentive to escalate.

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And this is why the President has in every major
statement pointed out to Hanoi that if they took
advantage of our policy by increasing the risks to American
lives, we would be forced to take some action.

But, again, we are attempting to get into a
position where the probability of this threat having to
be implemented gets less and less.

Then let me just make one final point having to
do with our domestic situation. I said that the war in
Vietnam is a very anguishing problem and we are very
conscious of the concern of some of our most dedicated
people with the impact of the war on American society.
But we also recognize that the people do not forgive their
leaders if their leaders produce disasters, even if these
disasters were carrying out the wishes of the public. It
did not save Chamberlain or Chamberlain's historic reputation,
that in 1938 85 percent of the British people supported
the Munich Agreement and that Churchill was in a minuscule
minority, but the consequence of it became apparent.

We cannot conduct our policy in response to demo-
strations by people who smash the china in the china shop
and then say, "Look what you have made me do." They have
to have some better reasons than that.

We believe about many of the radical groups who feel
so intensely about the war, that if we reach a situation
where policy is made in the streets, it will not be
upper middle-class college kids who take over the country
but some more primitive and elemental group.

We consider ourselves the best protection of
some of the people who are most vocal against us. No one
can be more interested in a reconciliation of society than the
President. No one can possibly believe that it could conceivably
be in the interests of the United States to have yet another
Administration destroyed by a credibility gap, not out of
any partisan considerations but because that would mean
that for twelve years this country has not had a
leadership that was considered legitimate by a vast segment
of its population.

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This is why we believe that we have to go on a course which holds together as many of our people as we can, in which the end of the war in Vietnam is done through the exercise of governmental authority, and not through violence, and in which the government is given enough leeway to carry out its policy on the basis of its most prayerful judgment.

We are going to end the war in Vietnam. No one can have any real doubt that an Administration that has taken the steps that we have, that has kept every promise that we have made, would fail to meet this so often reiterated promise of ending the war. But we have got to do it in a way so that people will be proud of it afterwards, and not just grab for headlines while we are doing it.

Now, this, then, is a quick and, in many respects, superficial survey of where we are going. There are many areas that I have not had an opportunity to mention.

We are now engaged, for example, in a full survey of our relationships to our European allies, and of the future of NATO and of the relationships of NATO to others. But I will reserve this for the question period.

At this moment, what I want to say is this: We came into office at a difficult period of our history. We are trying to unite the country, and we are trying to create a new structure in the world in which, on the basis of a view of foreign policy which can do for the United States what the previous view did for two decades, to bring our responsibilities in line with our possibilities, and to give us a conception of the world that the American people can support, and that our leaders can believe in.

Above all, we are trying to create a structure which will bring peace not just for a year or two, but for as far ahead as we can see, and I think that is more crucial to us than whether, at every moment of this period, we have been able to get everybody's approval for every step along the way.

Thank you very much.

MR. KLEIN: Thank you, Henry.

I think you gentlemen understand even more now what the President had in mind when he said what a broad depth of understanding Dr. Kissinger presents. In this opening phase, we did feel it was essential if we could present this broad picture, which he has, and I think it illustrates the relationships of the various events one way or the other.

Near the end, Henry mentioned credibility, and this is a thing which the President has felt very strongly about from the start, and the result of that promising which you can't deliver, and it is part of the reason for briefings such as this, and for the fact sheets which we have, and the other things which we have attempted to do to deal, in fact, with the American public.

Again, as Henry said, we will get to many of the specific questions that you have, and specific current events, and questions which will follow, later on.

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As I said earlier, this is particularly meaningful to me, to be with so many old friends here, and I would like to take particularly great pleasure at this time to present my co-host for our briefing, who had to come in a little late, because he was working with the President, the President's very able Press Secretary, Ron Ziegler.

Just one other note, and that is that at some point, probably this afternoon, there will be film taken briefly, one part for use in broadcasting, and I would like to assure you that this is not part of a news coverage of this, but it is part of a film which is being made to show later some of the overall background things of "What is the real Henry Kissinger?" which is going to be on television probably in mid-September. So it is nothing in relationship to this current program.

At this time I would like to go to questions on the Middle East. One of the interesting things to me has been that this, being our third briefing, illustrates, I think, the fact that events do change so rapidly in this very complex age in which we live. When we last had a briefing here just a short time ago, the experts we brought in, in addition to Dr. Kissinger, were to discuss what was going on in Vietnam and Cambodia. Therefore, we had a leader from the State Department and a leader from the Defense Department to talk on that, in particular.

Now, we are in a very current situation in terms of the Middle East, and we take a great deal of pride in the fact that the work of the man you are going to hear from, Secretary Sisco, along with that of the Secretary of State, who has done a great deal in the leadership of this with Dr. Kissinger as well, has resulted in the first cease-fire in two decades in that area.

Joe Sisco is the Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs. He has had a very distinguished career in the service of our country in the Foreign Service. He previously served as Assistant Secretary for International Organizational Affairs. At this time I present Secretary Sisco.

MR. SISCO: Herb and Henry, thank you. Before you go, though, Henry and Herb, I really want to thank you both for including me as part of the swimming pool crowd, drained or otherwise.

I think I would like to pick up from Henry's opening remarks on the Middle East. There isn't any doubt that we do view this area as, perhaps, the most dangerous one facing us, and I think that it is here that President Nixon's era of negotiation will be greatly tested over the next months and years, largely because it is the war and peace issue that confronts us, and largely because we are so directly involved in trying to achieve a political solution, to achieve a political solution in an area where the United States has key political, economic and strategic interests.

In June of this year we put forward a brand new peace proposal following an exhaustive review within the framework of the National Security Council, and when the President took that decision, it was in the conviction that the situation in the area had deteriorated very considerably, and some new,

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bold initiative was required, an initiative which we hope will
bring a change, a reversal of some of the negative developments
that we have seen over the past 17 or 18 months.

Under the past Administration, following the June
war, the attempt to achieve a political solution in the Middle
East was left largely to the parties themselves, who were talk-
ing to one another quite indirectly under the auspices of the
United Nations Representative, Ambassador Jarring. When the
President took office, one of the major reviews of foreign policy
was that of the Middle East, and one of the principal conclu-
sions that emerged was that the United States could no longer
leave the matter of a settlement primarily to the parties, but,
rather, it was essential what we become much more involved both
in the procedure of settlement as well as the substance itself.

For this reason, we have, over the past 17 months,
not only engaged in discussions within the framework of the
four-power talks in New York with the United Kingdom, France,
and the Soviet Union, but there have also been a series of
detailed discussions between ourselves and the Soviet Union.

Now, just about two months ago we concluded that the
efforts of the major powers to try to achieve common ground
had reached an impasse of the kind where some new approach was
required, and for this reason, we decided to put a proposition
directly to the parties concerned. In other words, to Egypt, to
Jordan, and to Israel.

Up to this time, the four-power discussions were
largely discussions that were trying to achieve common ground
between those major powers, but without seeking any specific
commitments from the parties themselves, and we put forward a very
simple proposition.

First, a call for a limited *cease fire* of 90 days.

Second, the beginning of talks between the parties
under the aegis of the United Nations itself.

Now, let me say a word about this two-part proposal,
because I think it is very crucial over the coming months that
these talks that are about to begin make some progress.

First, as to the limited *cease fire*. When we proposed
a limited cease fire, we did not make the achievement of this
cease fire a condition precedent to the beginning of talks be-
tween the parties. However, obviously the stopping of the
shooting, we felt and feel, would facilitate any discussions
that are going on between the parties. The critical part of
the cease fire proposal is on the Egyptian-Israeli front where,
as you know, the Soviets are directly involved, not only by
virtue of a decision to install SAM sites throughout Egypt,
but, likewise, for the first time, they are involved in an
operational capacity with their own personnel.

Now, insofar as the cease fire is concerned, it is
important to realize that a military standstill was part and
parcel of the cease fire itself. In other words, the understanding
which the United States sought and received was a commitment
from both sides that neither would try to improve its relative
military positions with respect to the other.

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[Lc]

When we use the word "standstill", we mean standstill. So that not only was the shooting to stop, but, likewise, there was an understanding, and there is an understanding, that there would be no improvement of positions, no movement forward of SAM sites, and neither side deriving any military advantage during the period in which the shooting stopped.

Well, what has occurred in the first two weeks of the cease fire standstill? Our evidence indicates that there was some movement of the SAM's before the cease fire went into effect. There is evidence also there was some movement afterwards. We do not have conclusive evidence to this effect, but I would underscore one thing: I think it is important that we neither exaggerate nor underestimate the importance of maintaining the cease fire.

The standstill, from the point of view of the Israelis, is of key importance simply because of the fact that they need aerial maneuverability in and around the Suez Canal area itself. What has occurred thus far, I think, is serious, to use, really, the words of an Israeli spokesman here the other day, but not necessarily catastrophic.

I think we must watch this situation very carefully. Happily, we are today in an excellent position to help monitor the cease fire and the standstill, and this was a rather unique proposal in this respect: that, for the first time, the parties themselves have the primary responsibility for not only maintaining the cease fire and the standstill, but the understanding was that each would also use its own means in checking the other.

We are also directly involved and, as I say, I think we are in a better position today than before the cease fire, to see to it that the cease fire and the standstill is maintained.

I think it is crucial because the maintenance of the cease fire will create either a positive or a negative climate insofar as the negotiations are concerned between the parties.

Now, you will have read over the weekend that Israel has just named its representative to these talks which are scheduled to begin this week in New York under the auspices of Ambassador Jarring, and as you see the news develop on these negotiations, I think I can be most helpful to each of you by giving you two or three clear-cut indications as to what to look for over the next month or two.

As a result of the four-power discussions, some common ground has been achieved on a number of the elements of a settlement, and these elements were all enunciated quite clearly in the November, 1967 resolution adopted by the Security Council shortly after the June war.

But as we look ahead, I think one must focus on three critical negotiating issues. First is the question of withdrawal of forces. Secondly, the question of refugees. And third, the question of practical security arrangements. Let me say a word about each of these.

There has been a good deal said publicly that the American proposal of June was largely a procedural proposal,

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because, really, what was sought was indirect talks between the parties, but in actuality, the proposal is quite a substantive proposal. It was quite a substantive proposal for the simple reason that, by accepting the American initiative, Egypt and Jordan, in very explicit terms, have committed themselves to make peace with Israel.

By accepting this proposal, Egypt and Jordan have explicitly committed themselves to recognize the right of Israel to exist within so-called secure and recognized borders.

And on the other side, of equal importance, is the fact that, for the first time, Israel has committed itself to the principal of withdrawal.

Now, there is a fundamental gap that is present today between the two attitudes of the parties. The Arab position calls for total Israeli withdrawal to the lines that existed before the June war, whereas, while Israel has accepted the principle of withdrawal, it feels very strongly that, whatever the final borders are, these must be negotiated between the parties.

Now, this has been a constant difference between the parties ever since the adoption of the Security Council resolution in November of 1967. While that resolution was adopted unanimously, in actuality there were two resolutions that were adopted at that time. The Arab interpretation has always been that that resolution meant total Israeli withdrawal from all of the occupied territories to the lines that existed before the June war, whereas, the Israeli interpretation is, yes, there is a principle of withdrawal that is contained in that resolution, but whatever the final borders are, they have got to be negotiated, and they have got to be part of a binding, contractual peace between the parties.

And that fundamental issue will be, probably, the first key issue that confronts Ambassador Jarring as he starts his talks during the course of the week.

Secondly, there is the question of refugees, and here we have a framework within which not only the major powers have been discussing this key problem, but also the parties themselves. From our point of view, we feel that the refugees should be given the choice between repatriation, that is, a return to their lands in what is now Israel, or resettlement with compensation in the area.

Now, for 20 years the United States has supported the concept of choice to be given to the refugees. In fact, I don't think that there is any real quarrel within the international community that the refugees must be given the opportunity to choose, but from the Israel point of view, there is another equally important and critical aspect of this question, and that is, Israel cannot absorb over one million refugees and retain essentially its fundamental character as a Jewish state. Therefore, we are convinced that, if there is to be an understanding between the two sides, the principle of choice to the refugees has to be balanced by some assurance to the other side as to how many and in what circumstances refugees should be returned to Israel.

Now, this ought to be do-able. This ought to be do-able if there is will on both sides. But we do not see a solution on this fundamental issue unless both sides of this coin are taken into account.

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Finally, I would say that the whole question of practical security arrangements confronts the parties, and Ambassador Jarring, in the months ahead, and here I think that one can build on the fundamental notion that each of the parties, in lesser or greater extent, would like to see security arrangements primarily as an agreement between themselves, primarily as an offshoot of such an understanding between themselves.

Now, this does not mean that the major powers do not have a role to play insofar as security arrangements are concerned. I think Israel, in particular, wants to see practical, on-the-ground security arrangements to help assure that what they are agreeing to is a real peace rather than a paper peace.

But I think it is also fair to say that the major powers have a supplementary role to play. The major powers can compliment the efforts of the parties themselves, as well as the understandings and arrangements made by them. If one goes back to the original conception of the Charter of the UN, you will recall that under the Charter, the major powers were expected to concert together and to act on behalf of peace together.

Now, the reality of the Middle East is that the Soviet Union is there. The reality of the Middle East is that the United States is there. And this is an area, therefore, either of potential conflict or of potential cooperation. I would hope that we can find some way over the coming months where, as part of the overall political settlement, the major powers can be included in some cooperative effort as a supplement to the principal efforts of the parties themselves.

Finally, let me say one other thing. I think I said at the outset that this is a crucial testing point over the next year or two. I am convinced that a political settlement is in everyone's interest. From the point of view of the Soviet Union we don't believe they want a confrontation with the United States. We don't believe that they want a renewal of general hostilities in the area, because it confronts them with difficult choices, as it confronts us. But as they look at the problem of a political settlement, the Soviet role is going to be important in that neither side can hope to achieve its maximum position in any political solution. Therefore, one of the bellwethers of the future will be to see and to determine and to evaluate what the Soviet will do over the coming months to try to achieve the sort of compromise positions with respect to their clients, while the United States, for its part, exercises its responsibility in trying to influence flexibility and compromise and conciliation with respect to Israel, primarily.

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I am convinced that the United States has to remain engaged in this area. I think we have to remain engaged not only politically, but our presence has to be manifest in the Middle East.

If the rubric of no more Vietnams in this country should ever convince people in the world and people in the area that the United States lacks resolve, politically and otherwise, then I think a political settlement in this area is far away, indeed. This is a meat and potato issue. It is a war and peace issue.

For this reason, not only must we remain involved substantively and procedurally in the political solution in the days ahead, but we must make it equally clear that this is an area that we view as one that is important to our national interest, one in which we have significant political, economic and strategic interests.

I would hope that, as we look ahead, we do not expect too much too quickly. I think we have achieved a modest step forward, regardless of the difficulties that we have had with respect to the first two weeks of the cease fire standstill. The fact of the matter is that the fighting has stopped. The fact of the matter is that Israeli troops today can sit on top of their fox holes and wave their hands at the Egyptians across the Suez Canal.

We are under no illusions as to what difficulties are in the days ahead. We are under no illusions as to the broad gap that continues to exist with respect to what each would consider to be a reasonable settlement. But, if we are to stabilize this area, if we are to diminish the risk of confrontation, then we, the United States, must stay involved in every respect.

MR. KLEIN: Thank you very much, Joe.

As you can see, we can use the old phrase, you are hearing it from the horse's mouth. Joe has been a part of every move of this, and exerted, I think, some strong leadership which has been a major factor in working with the Secretary of State and Dr. Kissinger in bringing this about.

What we would like to do now during the brief time we have before going to lunch, is to go right to some of your questions, and we will then continue those after we have had lunch.

So, with this, we would be glad to have any questions you have, and you can direct them to whom you like, and have them answered.

Q Dr. Kissinger, you say that the major confrontation is no longer between the United States and Russia, but between Russia and China. That being the case, what hope can we have that we can get Russia to diminish its production of arms when it is worried about China and China certainly won't negotiate that point?

DR. KISSINGER: Let me make the remark a little clearer. First of all, there is, of course, still a significant confrontation between us and the Soviet Union. But I think the intensity of emotion that is produced by the conflict between the Soviet Union and Communist China exceeds the intensity of feeling of that

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between the Soviet Union and us.

After all, it is an eerie feeling to have a four-
thousand mile frontier with 800 million people on the other
side, with big chunks of that territory shown in high school
history books all over China as being part of China, and with
occasional border clashes, and with that country developing
nuclear weapons.

Now, the major negotiation that we are conducting with
the Soviet Union has to do with the limitation of strategic arms.
In the field of strategic arms, the Soviet Union is enormously
ahead of anything that Communist China can possibly hope to
achieve over, say, a ten to fifteen year period.

The Soviet Union has well over 1000 land based missiles.
Communist China doesn't have any intercontinental rockets, yet.
It has well below 100 of the medium range -- well below fifty.

So, at this moment, this is not a threat that they
cannot handle with their existing arsenal, and therefore, they
can afford to accept the sort of proposal we have been talking
about without affecting their security situation vis-a-vis
Communist China, especially if they retain an ABM defense for
Moscow and that area.

However, I think you have called attention to a very
important problem. Further down the road, if these rivalries
continue, as one has to assume they may, say 15 years from now, as
Communist China moves into the great power class, if Communist
China refuses to join any disarmament agreement, then we will
face a situation where certainly the Soviet Union, and probably
both of us, may find that we have to reassess the whole issue.

This is one of the problems with respect to the growing
number of nuclear countries. So, you have called attention not to
a problem now, but what this agreement can do is to give us maybe 15
years. In any case, there will be provisions for re-examination
every five years, even in terms of the balance between the
Soviet Union and the United States.

Q Secretary Sisco, in the case of North Korea and
the Republic of Korea, the UN had had a clearly defined line.
There is no doubt about that. We had an American presence there
with the United Nations. That did not stop the invasion from
coming.

Would merely a defined line and American presence
do it without an unconditional guarantee, perhaps not just by
the United States alone, but say by the United States and the
Soviet Union?

MR. SISCO: First of all, I think one must rely
primarily on the wherewithal that the Israelis possess in
maintaining essentially the military balance that exists.

Moreover, I think the President has made it clear
that we will not stand by idly and allow the balance to tip
against Israel or for the balance to tip in such a way that
it is, for that matter, an encouragement to either side to renew
general hostilities.

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So our role in this has been largely the provision
of certain military assistance, and, secondly, the major efforts
that we have made to try to provide the catalytic agent in
order to achieve a political solution.

Now, as you look ahead, however, as part of the
settlement -- and here I address myself specifically to your
question -- I think you have to assume that both ourselves
and the Soviet Union will be involved in this area in the
foreseeable future, and that both will have to really agree to the
elements of a settlement. I might say that we would not have
gotten this far to this date with respect to this American
initiative if the Soviets had not played a role in Cairo.

So my hope would be that, as part of the settlement,
both the Soviet Union, as well as the United States, would see
it in their interests to become part and parcel an element of that
settlement.

Now, whether this is a guarantee -- and I am a little
hesitant about using the word -- certainly the Security Council
and the United States and the Soviet Union, within the framework
of the UN Security Council, would undoubtedly endorse any
solution which the parties have come to.

The question that is open is whether we and the Soviet
Union would become involved practically in the actual peace-
keeping role itself. And here I think it is a little bit too
early to tell for this reason: That in these negotiations, as the
parties focus on the practical security arrangements, I think
Israel, in the first instance, will be looking to its own means
and look more towards specific concrete commitments and
obligations from the Arabs.

They don't want another armistice arrangement. They
don't want a situation that existed in 1957, where the Egyptians
gave certain informal assurances to the United States and, on
that basis, Israel withdrew following the Suez crisis itself.

What Israel means when it talks in terms of a peace
agreement is a direct obligation on the part of Egypt, in
particular, in relationship to Israel.

Now, I think there is a major power role. I think
it is primarily a supplement to it. And whether it is going to
be limited largely to a political supplement, or whether it
will go further and actually involve the United States and the
Soviet Union on the ground, in a practical security arrangement,
I think will be determined in large measure by how the
negotiations develop over the coming months.

We have never precluded -- let me make clear -- a
direct peace keeping role on the part of the major powers, and,
as I say, if this was the view of both sides, then this is
something which the United States would have to look at very
seriously.

Q But, Mr. Secretary, going to the Security Council
is really no guarantee for either Israel or Jordan or Egypt,
because the veto still exists there. And the same problems could
arise that have always arisen in the Security Council.

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MR. SISCO: But, when I say that we don't preclude a direct involvement of the major powers in the peace-keeping role, I certainly didn't mean the minimal action of merely recourse to the Security Council, because, as you know, at least one side has no faith whatsoever in the UN Security Council. Israel has had a very bad experience with the UN.

If you look at the composition of the UN Security Council, I think you will find that it is very loaded against Israel.

That is not what I am talking about. I am talking about whether the parties might want an actual physical presence under the UN umbrella of the major powers in the form of, for example, an observer force.

You will recall that, before the June war, you had a United Nations Emergency Force. This was comprised of neutrals. The point I am raising is that it may be that the major powers may want to become more directly involved if this is the desire of the parties.

Q I would like from Dr. Kissinger a comment on how exact our surveillance is of the weapons in the Soviet Union. We seem to have exact information about how many nuclear weapons the Soviet Union has and exactly how strong they are, and still it seems that, in observing in the Middle East, we haven't even been able to tell for sure whether the SAM's were moved or not.

DR. KISSINGER: Well, let me talk about the strategic situation and then give you briefly my understanding of the Middle East and then Joe can fill in any of the gaps.

First of all, the situation of what we are monitoring in the Soviet Union as compared to the Middle East is different in a number of respects in what we are doing. Until the armistice, until the cease fire, we made a much more sustained effort over the Soviet Union than we did over the Middle East.

Therefore, our information about what existed in the Soviet Union was much more accurate and detailed than it was to begin with in the Middle East, since the Middle East was not, until that point, a direct military threat to the United States.

So we just looked at it much less frequently than we did the Soviet Union. In the Soviet Union we have a very good base of information. That is, we know what was there on a certain date. Then when we take a look again, we can immediately see whether there were any changes. There is never any dispute about it.

Secondly, we are not so concerned in the Soviet Union whether anything has happened in a 24-hour period. If we set for ourselves the same task in the Soviet Union as in the Middle East, where one of the big issues was how many missiles, if any, did the Egyptians move between midnight and noon the next day, that is the sort of information we would have trouble getting in the Soviet Union, too.

Now, as it happens, in the Soviet Union it doesn't make a great deal of difference to us whether anything happened in any particular week, as long as we catch it in any two month

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period, since the missiles we are counting take a long time
to implement and install. There is usually a year between the
time we first pick up the construction of a missile site and the
time the missile is actually put in to the site.

Q Does this surveillance, Dr. Kissinger, tell you
the strength of the nuclear weapon?

DR. KISSINGER: No.

Q Or are you just guessing from the hardware?

DR. KISSINGER: No, the surveillance tells us how
many missiles and other weapons, of what types ---

Q The hardware, though?

DR. KISSINGER: It tells us, for example, that they have
started the construction of X numbers of SS-9's and Y numbers of
SS-11's and another set of SS-13's.

Then through other intelligence, into which I don't
want to go, we know the size of the warhead, roughly, on the
SS-9 and the SS-11 and the SS-13. And we know other
characteristics. We don't get that just by counting. We get
that from other intelligence, which we know is fairly accurate.

Q Well, let me ask you just one other question about
that, and I will subside. In the two sides on the ABM, the
two kinds of experts, is there an agreement that we know the size
of the weapons in the Soviet Union, the size of the warheads,
or is there a possibility that the Soviet Union is simply bluffing
in some way in this deployment?

DR. KISSINGER: There is no possibility that they are
bluffing about the numbers of weapons. And I have never heard
anyone say that our count of weapons is inaccurate.
There is a disagreement about the characteristic of the multiple
warhead on the SS-9.

The Soviets have been testing a multiple warhead --
three warheads -- on the SS-9, and there is a dispute about whether
that is accurate enough to attack MINUTEMEN, or whether it is
not accurate enough. About that you get a lot of theological
disputes.

My own view on that matter is that it doesn't make
any difference whether it is accurate enough now. Any reasonable
planner has to assume that if it isn't accurate now, given the
dispensing mechanism, they can make it, over a period of time,
accurate enough.

Now, one other thing about the Middle East. One of
the things that Joe and his associates have done is to create
an agreed data base, together with the Israelis, on just what is
where in the disputed zone, so that, in the future
we will know. We will never be able to prove what happened
the night of the armistice. Probably something happened, but we
will just not know it sure enough, because we didn't have a good
enough data base from which to start. And that, in any event,
is not the decisive issue, because whatever happened isn't
enough in itself to upset the situation.

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The important problem is that if any future violation
is alleged, will we have a base against which to compare? My
understanding is that the work that has been done by the task
forces that have been set up between us and the Israelis are
getting us, if they have not already got us, to the point where,
in the future, there can be no disagreement about what was
there to begin with.

Isn't that right, Joe?

MR. SISCO: Yes, and I would add one other point.
Henry has indicated that we may not be in a position with
respect to the Soviet Union to give an indication as to what
might occur over a 24-hour period. With respect to the Middle
East, the sort of system that has been put into effect not only
gives us an opportunity to operate from a common base, as Henry
indicated, but we are also now in a position to know and to
detect within a very limited number of hours.

In other words, we can do precisely what you had
indicated, namely, we will be able to tell quite clearly whether
there has been a violation, and there won't be an extended period
that is necessary in order to determine whether there has been
an improvement of the position, a movement of the position forward,
and so on.

Q Mr. Secretary, it is very difficult for me to understand, since we knew about the Soviet activity in the Middle East with the SAM's for weeks before the cease fire, and during this very crucial period, I don't understand how it is possible that our surveillance didn't give us an exact location of the SAM's just at the time of the cease fire? -

MR. SISCO: Well, we knew what existed. What we are
saying is that, first, we know that there was some movement
some hours before the cease fire. Secondly, as we announced
publicly, we knew that there was some movement after the cease
fire, but we do not know precisely when and how much this movement
occurred, how much occurred before, how much occurred afterwards.
As I said before, the evidence is not conclusive. And I don't
think I had better go beyond that, although I would be very
glad to discuss this a little bit further with you alone.

Q I wonder if Secretary Sisco would discuss the
consideration which the Administration has given on the long-run
to the opening of the Suez Canal and, therefore, the opening of
the Indian Ocean?

MR. SISCO: The Suez Canal and the question of freedom
of passage through the Suez Canal, as well as the Straits of
Tiran, is obviously one of the key elements in an overall
settlement. We have looked at this problem really from two
points of view: Is it possible to achieve an opening of the
Canal apart from a settlement; that is, some individual proposal
that could address itself exclusively to the Suez Canal, without
linking it to other elements of the settlement?

Well, we have concluded long ago, and this is largely
based on the attitudes of the parties themselves, that in order
to get the Canal open, it really has to be part of an overall
element. For example, it is unlikely that one side would
agree to the opening of the Canal without, say, withdrawal of
Israeli forces from the Sinai.

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Secondly, it is unlikely that Israel would agree to withdrawal from the Sinai without not only a categoric commitment that it would have freedom of passage through the Suez Canal, but likewise freedom of passage through the straits, and more important from its point of view, an overall peace agreement on all other elements of the settlement.

If there is one thing which all of the parties are agreed to, it is this: That there can be no implementation of the settlement, no beginning of the movement of forces or the beginning of the solution of the refugee problem, unless there is a full agreement on all of the elements of the settlement itself.

So, what I am trying to say to you is, one cannot expect a solution of the Suez problem or an opening of the Suez Canal apart from an overall agreement on peace.

Now, from our own point of view, I would say this: The Western Europeans, I think, attach very considerable importance to the opening of the Suez Canal, because oil is involved here, the question of transport. From our own point of view, with the coming of the jumbo tankers, the fact that we rely less on Middle Eastern oil than does Western Europe and Japan, I think in a practical sense the opening of the Suez Canal is less important to the United States than it is to Western Europe, than it is to Japan, and I might say, to the Soviet Union, which has not only an interest in terms of the Indian Ocean, but there is a question, for example, of the Soviet supply into Vietnam. and so on.

So we will continue to do what we can in trying to get the Canal open, but I don't expect that there will be a solution to this apart from the overall settlement itself.

MR. KLEIN: Gentlemen, we will now break for lunch.

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(AT 12:15 PM PDT.)

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AFTERNOON SESSION

2:25 PM PDT.

MR. KLEIN: A question has been raised regarding deadlines. So I think what we will do is to make it solid AM wherever you are, but on the 6:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time. So the time for the East will prevail as to whatever your own time zone is.

Q Does that mean when it is 6:00 in New York, it is released everywhere?

MR. KLEIN: Yes, it does, Bob.

Q What time will it be transmitted or what time will we receive it?

MR. KLEIN: The wires will move with that kind of a dateline. As to when you will receive the transcript from us, I cannot guarantee, as I said this morning. We will put it air mail special to you tomorrow.

The transcript will go to the people in the pool here and also to others in the White House Press Corps in residence with Ron Ziegler here.

Q There will be no embargo on transmission time?

MR. ZIEGLER: No, sir.

MR. KLEIN: With that, we will just start off right away with questions. Secretary Sisco is here now and Dr. Kissinger will be here shortly. We will start off with what questions you might have for Secretary Sisco.

Q This morning's Los Angeles Times had a column, I didn't get a chance to read it, but Senator Fulbright made some sort of proposal.

I wonder if you could tell us what it is and what are the Administration's views about it?

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MR. SISCO: I can hope to satisfy you on the first half, anyway. I have had a look at this. It is a very, very long speech which the Senator gave. Let me try to describe the proposal, first of all.

He suggests, first of all, that the solution be based primarily on the Israelis giving up the territories occupied during the June war.

Secondly, he envisages a role on the part of the United Nations calling upon the United Nations to "impose" a solution.

Third, he calls for a security arrangement between Israel and the United States which, as I understand it, would follow or be part of any overall political settlement in the area.

I think that is the essence of what the Senator had to say, insofar as the specific proposals are concerned.

Frankly, we have not made any judgment on it because we have just gotten it and are taking a very careful look at it.

I would only make one or two general observations without direct reference to that, pending a very careful look at it.

First, insofar as any security arrangement is concerned, this is something which Israel has long sought. There have been no recent indications to this effect, but over the years Israel has always been very favorably disposed to any closer relationship with the United States as it relates to its own security.

Secondly, insofar as some of the elements of the solutions that were suggested, I think I touched upon this this morning when I tried to indicate to you what principal fundamental differences are between the parties at the moment.

Finally, I would say this, that insofar as there was reference to the role of the major powers, I hope that I did make clear this morning that while the parties as a whole are thinking primarily in terms of practical security arrangements that they would enter into based on reciprocal commitments between them, I have indicated that the notion of a political endorsement of this solution by the major powers, the notion of some possible, practical peace-keeping role, that none of this is necessarily excluded if, in the process of the negotiations between the parties, some common ground has been achieved.

MR. KLEIN: Thank you.

Before we go to our next question, I might just introduce two gentlemen who are listening like you in the back of the room. Some of you met John Ehrlichman, who is presently Director of the Domestic Affairs Council. The other man, I am not sure whether it is the new or the old, but it is John Mitchell.

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Q Dr. Kissinger, Vice President Agnew was somewhat exuberant, it seems, from what we hear in his statement in Guam about our support of Cambodia. Could you explain, has there been a change in our Government's position in terms of how far we will support the Cambodian Government? And what is your estimate for the survivability of the Lon Nol Government?

DR. KISSINGER: I haven't read the actual text of the Vice President. As I understood what the Vice President was saying, it was a statement of the Administration policy which is that we will support the Cambodian Government in its attempt to maintain its independence and neutrality.

But there is a relationship between events in Cambodia and Vietnam. This relationship has a much bigger cushion now because of the supplies we have picked up in the sanctuaries.

For example, if in April Cambodia had been taken over and then the Communists, based on the sanctuaries and on the supplies in the sanctuaries, had turned on Vietnam, the situation would have been very much more difficult than it is today. Nevertheless, we believe there is a relationship between events in Cambodia and Vietnam. We will do what we can within the framework of the Nixon Doctrine, as I explained it this morning, to maintain the independence and neutrality of Cambodia.

We have announced a modest military assistance program. We are encouraging other countries to do the same. And that is the policy that we have announced; that is the policy that we are following; and that is the policy that the Vice President was stating.

Let me restate what I said this morning, however. One of the aspects of the Nixon Doctrine is that henceforth foreign governments cannot convince us that their security is more in our interest than in theirs.

Q I asked, also, what are your feelings about how Lon Nol will do, or is doing?

DR. KISSINGER: Let me make two comments about this.

First, there is a tendency whenever one talks about foreign crises to personalize the thing, to say it is "the Lon Nol Government."

First of all, let's understand who Lon Nol is. The Lon Nol Government is the Sihanouk Government minus Sihanouk. This is not a group of outsiders who came in there and overthrew the existing government; this is the government that Sihanouk appointed, that he left behind when he went off to France for two months, and Lon Nol and Matak, the two key people, are his appointments. They are not usurpers.

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Secondly, the Lon Nol Government happens to be the Cambodian Government. We are not supporting individuals. We are supporting any government in Cambodia that will attempt to achieve independence and neutrality.

Now, what are the prospects for survival? When Lon Nol took over, there were 40,000 Communists in major areas all along the Cambodian frontier, the Cambodian-Vietnamese frontier. These people had started moving into Cambodia, and some of them, at the time of our actions into the sanctuaries, were attacking towns around Phnom Penh at distances of anywhere from 10 to 20 miles. And they were moving also towards the coastal ports.

There is a general consensus that if we had not moved into the sanctuaries, the Communists would have taken over at least all of the Eastern half of Cambodia, opened a supply line to the sea and then used Cambodia as a base for renewed attacks on Vietnam which, with the supplies that were in the sanctuaries, would have been very tough, if not impossible, to deal with if we also were withdrawing forces.

So, at that time, when we went into the sanctuaries the chances of the government surviving were maybe one in four. Now the chances are somewhat better than 50-50.

Q How many Communists are there now, Dr. Kissinger? How many Communists troops are there now compared with the 40,000?

DR. KISSINGER: They actually haven't reinforced very much. They have probably somewhat less than they had before. We estimate that we inflicted casualties of about 14,000 on them and they may have reinforced by about 6,000. So there are probably 8,000 less than there were there before. These are not firm figures, but these are rough estimates. It is still in the neighborhood of 35,000 to 40,000.

Many of the newspaper accounts of what is going on in Cambodia give the impression of a concerted offensive, of territory being held, but many of the Communists' moves are really more in the nature of raids. They take a town and then they withdraw from it again. They have not yet taken and held a major town, which is proved by the fact that Sihanouk has not yet managed to come back into Cambodia and establish himself in a capital city there at any point, which would be very much in his interest.

Some of our critics say that one of the results of the incursions into the sanctuaries has been that the Communists now occupy some of the northeastern provinces, but they were occupying those anyway. They didn't take additional territory as a result of these incursions. What they did is to hold on to the supply lines that they had and to run raids into the other areas.

If the Communists, after the rainy season ends in October and November, make a major effort of resupply and put all of their resources into overthrowing Cambodia, they could probably give the Cambodian Government a very hard time indeed.

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On the other hand, they have to decide whether they want to fight a war on three fronts, whereby concentrating on Cambodia they may be taking away further from the effort in South Vietnam, permitting the South Vietnamese Government to consolidate itself further. In fact, the Cambodian situation is one of the reasons why we believe that rational people in Hanoi could come to the conclusion that they are better off negotiating.

If you ask me for an estimate, it is slightly better than 50-50, but it is not overwhelming.

Q I have a question about the Pacific policy for Dr. Kissinger.

If the Philippine Government underwent an internal change that seemed likely to produce a Communist or a Communist-leaning Government, would the Nixon Doctrine apply?

DR. KISSINGER: It isn't part of the Nixon Doctrine to install new governments in foreign countries where governments get in by legal processes. If there were a guerrilla movement in the Philippines, if this is what you were referring to, then what we would try to do is to apply the principle of the Nixon Doctrine according to which guerrilla wars really ought to be fought substantially by the countries threatened, with American material and technical assistance.

We do not believe that American troops lend themselves particularly well for guerrilla wars, because they tend to give the opposing side a foreign enemy. And they give the government an opportunity to fight it as a conventional war. This does not necessarily apply to the past in Vietnam, which was a combination of conventional-guerrilla war.

In the Philippines, moreover, the guerrilla war cannot be sustained as easily from foreign sanctuaries as it could in Vietnam, since it is an island.

So we believe that if the Philippine Government, with our technical assistance and perhaps financial assistance where necessary, cannot handle its own guerrillas, American troops will probably not be very successful.

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Q Dr. Kissinger, could you comment on the treaty that Willy Brandt and Kosygin just signed, and its importance to Europe, and especially to the United States?

DR. KISSINGER: On the Willy Brandt-Kosygin Treaty, we are in favor of a relaxation of tensions in central Europe. When the German Government asked us about our attitude before they began these negotiations, we made it clear to them again, consistent with the principles that I mentioned this morning, that they have to be the best judges of what is required for their situation in central Europe.

We did point out to them, of course, that they should keep in mind the four-power rights, especially in Berlin, on which the security of the people of Berlin depended, and they assured us that they would do nothing that would derogate from those and from the alliance.

I am sure that this is what they have done. The long-term problem for Western policy is to see to what extent these various approaches to the Soviet Union the various countries are carrying out can be orchestrated as part of a general policy. Because with the best intentions in the world, there is always the danger that a series of independent national policies might lead to a kind of race to Moscow in which, over a period of time, Moscow might be encouraged to use this detente policy in order to attempt to split off various allies from each other.

This is not the situation today. We respect Willy Brandt, and we think that in the long term a relaxation of tensions in central Europe is in everybody's interest.

Q Dr. Kissinger, we have had a virtual commitment to West Berlin. You said Berlin, but you meant West Berlin.

DR. KISSINGER: West Berlin.

Q Are we going to maintain it in view of this thing? I mean, to me this is a crucial thing.

DR. KISSINGER: Well, the situation in West Berlin is affected by this treaty in the following way: On the one hand, the treaty, if it becomes ratified, will have the practical consequence of enhancing the sovereignty of East Germany. Now, the West Germans are making a distinction between de facto recognition and de jure recognition. But I think this is going to be more convincing to lawyers in foreign offices than it is to the general public.

One of the practical results, of course, is that to a degree, for example, both Germanies will eventually be encouraged to join the United Nations as part of this. Now, to the extent that this happens, the claim of the East Germans to regulate access to Berlin will, of course, be enhanced, because a quasi-sovereign government, of course, should have the right to regulate what traffic crosses its territory.

For this reason, the West German Government has made the ratification of the treaty contingent on a new arrangement on Berlin access, which arrangement we have to negotiate, because Berlin is a four-power responsibility, not a German responsibility. And starting September 21st, the three Western powers will negotiate with the Soviet Union about improvement of access to Berlin.

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Now, if we succeed in getting an agreement from the Soviet Union by which access to Berlin is based on a regular and permanent basis, then the ratification of that treaty will make it harder for the Soviets and for the East Germans to challenge access to Berlin.

If, on the other hand, we do not succeed in getting a better deal for Berlin, then a very tough situation will exist for the German Government. The tough situation will be that they have publicly committed themselves to not ratifying the treaty unless there is an improvement in the situation in Berlin, and if they do not ratify the treaty, they will jeopardize an important foreign policy achievement.

If they do ratify the treaty, they may be running some of the risks they have themselves pointed out about Berlin, and they will get into a tremendous domestic uproar. In fact, they may not get a majority for ratifying the treaty under those conditions, because the majority in the German Parliament is supplied by 12 Free Democrats, and the Free Democrats are very ambivalent about the treaty in that form.

So we are not over the hurdle yet. Now, if the negotiations with the Soviets that are starting on Berlin at the end of September succeed in getting a real improvement in access, then I think the whole sequence of events will have been a net plus.

Q Since this is so new, would you like to tell us a little bit about what we think the new access rights to Berlin should be?

DR. KISSINGER: Well, of course, as far as we are concerned, any access rights that are dependent, again, on East German interpretation run the same risks as the present access rights; that they will interpret them in a way different from us. Therefore, what we would like is as close to an automatic access as is achievable; that is to say, that they cannot uni-laterally change the rules -- that there is a regular procedure for civilian access similar to the procedure that now exists for military access, where they identify the people, but they do not exert the right to stop them.

But I don't want to go into the details of the negotiation, since we haven't actually formulated our proposal yet.

Q Just tell me, does the access include the other side, too, from the East?

DR. KISSINGER: From East Germany into -- no.

Q Is this involved at all?

DR. KISSINGER: Well, the Berlin issue, as you know, has many facets to it. One of the things that is involved is to permit free movement within Berlin of West Berliners similar to that which West Germans can now have in Berlin. I do not believe it is realistic to ask for free movement of East Berliners back into West Berlin because that is what the wall was built to prevent.

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Q You spoke this morning about the Sino-Russian problem perhaps not being primary for 10 or 15 years, that is, China's rise. What do you see as the role of Japan in 10 or 15 years, when China has, possibly, attained this, as you said, great power status? Doesn't Japan's role affect that future 10 or 15 years?

DR. KISSINGER: Well, now, I said the Sino-Soviet conflict is primary today. What I said is that the Chinese nuclear force is not enough to threaten the Soviet force, even if the Soviets stopped building additional missiles. That will take the Chinese, oh, at least 15, 20 years before they can get a force of the magnitude that the Soviets now have.

Now, Japan, of course, has today already an industrial capacity far in excess of China. They produce more with 100 million people than China does with 800 million, and in terms of industrial capacity, Japan has the capacity to produce nuclear weapons whenever it decides to do so.

So, over a period of time, Japan is going to be a major factor in the Far East. Indeed, one of the reasons why we made so generous a settlement with them on Okinawa last year was our conviction that we had a choice between holding onto the base on Okinawa for two or three years longer, or creating the basis for a long-term relationship with Japan. We chose the latter, because if history proves anything, it is that you cannot hold onto a base against the will of the people involved, and use it in any meaningful way.

Also, we find now in the Chinese, and to some extent in the Soviet literature, increasing references to Japan becoming one of the major factors in the Far East, and of the alleged collusion between us and the Japanese to push them more into the front line.

To the extent that China becomes a major country, the Japanese may have an incentive to do more for themselves. I have to add, though, one proviso, and this is a point I should have made this morning in my discussion about Vietnam. It is this: If Japan should become convinced that the Communist countries will become the dominant countries in Asia, then we have to expect that the political orientation of Japan may shift as dramatically as it has already twice in this century.

After all, they shifted from feudalism to emperor-worship after Admiral Perry opened up Japan, and they shifted from emperor-worship to democracy after they lost World War II. In neither case can you really say that it was philosophical conviction that produced the change.

Therefore, if Japan should draw the conclusion that the United States, for whatever reason, is no longer a factor to be reckoned with in Asia, then Japan has two choices: It can either try to carry the load that we did, in which case we might see a resurgence of Japanese militarism, or it might try to join forces with these other Communist countries, in which case we might also see a growth of Japanese military power, but more overtly directed against us.

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Q I wonder if either of you gentlemen have any feeling that Red China may involve itself in any way in the Middle East solution as a boat-rocker or spoiler or problem-creator?

MR. SISCO: We do have some evidence of some influence of Red China on one of the militant wings of the Fedayeen movement. The PLP, headed by George Habbash, is we think somewhat Maoist-oriented. We do not see any evidence of anything very substantial going from Red China to this group.

It has been largely people taking trips to Peking and perhaps some minimal amounts of equipment. So it has been ideological primarily.

The Soviets have indicated some concern about this. There is evidence of Soviet influence on other parts of the Fedayeen movement, evidence also of some support, indirect and otherwise.

But one of the things that we are getting in recent days -- and I would just pass this along for what it is worth -- is more and more Arabs have indicated to us in the private sphere that the United States should not be too literal in judging that the present Fedayeen leadership in fact really reflects broadly the views of the so-called Palestinians.

There are a good many Arabs that are telling us particularly in recent days that one of the things which the recent American initiative has unearthed is a tremendous amount of discussion among Palestinians who are not part of the Fedayeen group or in fact are not represented in one of these 10 or 11 organizations that are under the rubric on an overall basis called the Palestine Liberation Organization.

So there is a good deal of ferment going on in the Arab world now, particularly among the intellectual circles of many of the Palestinian groups and particularly I might say in Lebanon and in Jordan.

Q I would like to get back to Mr. Agnew for just a moment. He was reported by the Associated Press, published in the Los Angeles Times, to have made the statement that the United States Government was prepared to render all possible aid to the Cambodian Government.

I appreciate that Dr. Kissinger has not had a chance to read the text of the address or statement. But if this turns out to have been an accurate report, would such a statement reflect our national policy?

DR. KISSINGER: The statement that we will give all possible aid is perfectly consistent with our national policy. We decide what aid is possible. (Laughter) We have announced the aid program which we are going to give during this calendar year or during this year, and that will be the amount of direct aid that they will get from us.

In addition, we are flying interdiction missions in Cambodia, and that has been announced. We are giving strong encouragement to other Asian countries to support the independence and neutrality of Cambodia.

That is common knowledge. What the Vice President was trying to do is to make clear that we were interested in maintaining the independence and neutrality of Cambodia, that we are making what efforts are possible under these circumstances as we have redirected some of our military assistance programs from other countries in order to make that possible.

We are using our influence. But he was not announcing

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