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On December 21, Henry Cabot Lodge wrote a handwritten note to HK from Beverly Farms with a unique suggestion that the real issue in Vietnam was rice supplies. He suggested:

> "That the GVN pledge (perhaps by treaty) regular annual exports of rice from the Mekong Delta to North Vietnam on an equal basis with the rice consumption of South Vietnam both as to quantity and price, the US to provide substantial financial help. Once US-GVN agreement had been reached, the above plan would become a trump card in the Paris negotiations. . . . Do not many experts believe that one reason North Vietnam is so anxious to conquer South Vietnam is because North Vietnam needs the rice (which they now get largely from mainland China)?"

At some point in December 1968, Charles Yost, Nixon's designee as UN Ambassador, wrote to offer his thoughts on Vietnam. He analyzed what he thought were the "minimum objectives" of each side and felt that if these could be identified, a negotiation in those terms could, by persistent effort, reconcile the two sides. He concluded that the Communists were not interested in immediate reunification and therefore seemed to be seeking mainly an "assured position for the NLF in the political life of South Vietnam." The evidence was ambiguous on whether they would only be satisfied with a coalition government; the proposition could only be tested by "bold but patient negotiation."

Yost suggested a two-track approach: the US and DRV to negotiatate on issues of concern to them and the GVN and NLF to negotiate the basic political issues. In the meantime the US should exert pressure behind the scenes "to help bring into being a new government in Saigon, more broadly representative of the major non-Communist elements there." A new government of this type would then hold new elections. Once this newly elected government was in place and a political settlement concluded, a ceasefire would be easily obtained.

Some thoughtful observations came from Robert Shaplen, who wrote on December 23 to congratulate HK on his appointment:

> ". . . I do not share the feeling of most of our spokesmen that 'things are now really worked out with Thieu' and that all is best in the best of all possible negotiatory worlds. We have a long road ahead, and we are getting less rather than more patient, I'm afraid. I shall be curious to see what President Nixon, with your help and that of others in the new Administration,

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come up with regarding troop withdrawals adjusted to
other vital matters. We could lose it all if we're not
careful, and, if we are careful, I think we could still
salvage quite a bit."

General Vernon Walters sent HK a set of memoranda on
December 31, one of which contained some general observations
on Vietnam:

"Vietnam is perhaps a commitment which we should not have undertaken, although I am not sure this is so."
/He cited Indonesia./ "The real issue at stake in Vietnam is not what government rules in Saigon or Hanoi, rather it is the central issue of the credibility of the United States as an ally and a guarantor. . . . NATO cannot be saved or revivified by throwing South Vietnam to the wolves for the sake of a temporary arrangement."

Of greater importance were two long memoranda to HK from
Harriman and Vance, the two principal U.S. negotiators in Paris.
Cyrus Vance, in his lawyer-like way, offered HK in a letter from
Paris on December 31, 1968, "suggestions on the main points on
which the new negotiators will need immediate guidance:"

"There is, of course, the possibility that we will be
still bogged down on procedural matters. . . . If it is
resolved before the 20th, then the new administration
need be concerned only with the questions of substance.
If not, then the new administration will have to pick up
the argument over procedures with the GVN.

"If, despite all efforts of persuasion, the GVN con-
tinues to insist on a position which postpones negotiation
on matters of substance, we will have to consider alter-
natives. One alternative which should be high on the list
is to seek to open bilateral negotiations with the DRV on
such matters as the DMZ, withdrawals, prisoners of war,
Laos, postwar relations between the US and the DRV, etc.
We would remain ready to engage in full plenaries with all
parties concerned but would try to make progress bi-
laterally on matters of substance which directly affect
the United States. . . .

"If it is possible to overcome the procedural impasse
and to get into plenary sessions on matters of substance,

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then the initial negotiating instructions should contain clear
guidance on the following questions:

a) Will we follow one or two tracks? As you know, I strongly favor two tracks.

b) What is our policy concerning troop withdrawals? Must they be mutual, and over what time period should they be phased? What is the maximum number of troops which we should seek to take out before the end of 1969?

c) If the GVN dig in their heels, what items of leverage should we use, e.g., troop withdrawals, ceasefire, etc.? How far can we go bilaterally, or perhaps trilaterally (include the NLF), under such circumstances?

d) What is our position on reducing the level of hostilities? Are we going to follow a policy of all-out pressure on the ground? If so, what part will U.S. forces play? If we do not follow a policy of maximum pressure, what kinds of de-escalation should we propose?

e) What is our position on a ceasefire?

"With all these questions in mind, I suggest that the negotiating instructions define specifically the basic objective along such lines as the following:

'To negotiate a peaceful settlement of the Vietnam problem under conditions which will provide the people of South Vietnam the opportunity to determine their own future free from external aggression.'

"In terms of specific objectives, the initial negotiating instructions should speak to the following:

a) Restoration of the DMZ.

b) Withdrawal of external forces from South Vietnam.

c) Reduction of the level of hostilities--including the question of a ceasefire and phased de-escalation.

d) The creation of a situation in which the contending Vietnamese forces within South Vietnam can work out a political settlement.

e) Prisoners of war.

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"There are in existence policy papers on these issues,
but they should be reviewed, reaffirmed, or modified.

***

"Finally, I would like to stress that the negotiating instructions should be stated in over-all objective terms and the maximum flexibility should be left to the negotiators to operate within such broad guidelines. We should seek to avoid a situation in which every move the negotiators wish to take must be approved in Washington and Saigon. The general rule should be maximum flexibility on tactics consistent with the over-all policy objectives.

"Warm regards,

"Cy."

Averell Harriman wrote a memo on Vietnam on January 7. (Dick Holbrooke was scheduled to give HK a copy a few weeks later, but Dan Davidson furnished HK with a bootleg copy on January 13.) The text of this memorandum is provided in full at Tab E. Its main features are a useful benchmark against which to compare Harriman's later insistent and escalating demands of U.S. withdrawal:

- Harriman insisted on mutuality of withdrawal, including withdrawal by Hanoi of all its military forces, both regular army units and cadres and fillers for VC units.

- The DMZ should be reestablished.

- Withdrawal of US and allied forces "would be completed six months after we were satisfied all North Vietnamese military personnel had been evacuated, and agreement reached on no further infiltration into South Vietnam" (a stiff version of the Manila Formula).

- "Some U.S. forces may have to remain in Vietnam for a considerable period until we are satisfied that all the North Vietnamese have been withdrawn."

- Harriman expected that "some pressure" by us on the GVN and by the USSR on Hanoi would be necessary to induce the two Vietnamese sides to achieve a political settlement.

- Harriman stressed, however, that we did not "have an obligation to retain the present government. An agreement could provide for amendments to the present constitution, or a new constitution, and conditions for a

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new election could be negotiated among the Vietnamese." He urged that the U.S. not "escalate our objectives" beyond this during the course of the conflict, as we had in the Korean War.

-- Harriman also placed importance on US-DRV postwar relations, because there was "no chance of peace surviving in Southeast Asia" unless the North Vietnamese stopped interfering with their neighbors. He saw an interest for Hanoi in keeping independent of Peking and Moscow and in participating in a program for economic development of Southeast Asia.

-- Harriman believed "the Soviet Union wants to see a strong Southeast Asia developed as a check to Chinese expansion to the South."

President-elect Nixon wrote a note to HK on January 8, 1969 focusing on the NVA sanctuaries on the Cambodian-South Vietnamese border and expressing determination to change the present U.S. policy of unilateral restraint:

"In making your study of Vietnam I want a precise report on what the enemy has in Cambodia and what, if anything, we are doing to destroy the buildup there. I think a very definite change of policy toward Cambodia probably should be one of the first orders of business when we get in."

HK

my signature

Andy Goodpaster drafted a reply for HK with information on the extent of the NVA base areas along the Cambodian border. He reported that:

"our field command in South Vietnam is convinced that the vast bulk of supplies entering Cambodia come in through Sihanoukville. . . . What we are doing about this is very limited. There is some air reconnaissance and very restricted ground reconnaissance, the latter along the border only. . . . Under the current rules of engagement, U.S. forces when fired upon from across the border are authorized to return fire in self-defense. Such occasions are very infrequent. . . . The command in the field has made several requests for authority to enter Cambodia to conduct pre-emptive operations and in pursuit of with-drawing forces that have attacked us. All such requests have been denied or are still pending without action."

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(Whether the above memo was actually sent is not clear.)

Maxwell Taylor sent HK his analysis in a memo on January 13, 1969. Taylor explained that there were three types of withdrawal proposals: (A) a token unilateral U.S. withdrawal, (B) a limited bilateral withdrawal negotiated with the DRV, and (C) a limited unilateral withdrawal with GVN concurrence. Taylor concluded that the disadvantages of (A) outweighed its advantages (e.g., it would look like U.S. weakness and whet appetites in the U.S. for further withdrawals). Taylor felt alternative (B) should be tried, and alternative (C) could be discussed with the GVN toward the end of 1969 if no general settlement was in sight. He urged that we make a hard evaluation of the ARVN, first, and take whatever steps were necessary to strengthen them to carry the burden before we left them on their own. Taylor also advised HK that the war in Laos was relevant to Vietnam and should not be ignored.

## B. U.S.-Soviet Relations

President Johnson used the signing of the NPT on July 1, 1968, to announce that the two governments had agreed to "enter in the nearest future into discussions on the limitation and the reduction" of offensive and defensive strategic arms. Before the Czech invasion stopped SALT dead in the water, the Johnson Administration labored to produce a single, simple integrated SALT proposal. (Shaped by the Halperin group in ISA and negotiated with the JCS, the proposal that emerged was a three-to-four page document, in essence the outline of a treaty, which proposed: equal numbers (unspecified) of ABM launchers on both sides; a freeze on ICBMs and SLBMs at existing levels; no limits on bombers or MIRVs; a ban on mobile missiles; and a ban on freedom to mix.) A joint US-Soviet statement was scheduled for August 21, to announce the beginning of SALT talks on September 30 at a summit between LBJ and Kosygin in Leningrad. This announcement was aborted by the Czech invasion.

Yet moves toward a Johnson-Kosygin summit continued to be made, even after Czechoslovakia and even after the U.S. Presidential election. On November 14, 1968, Dobrynin told Walt Rostow that "his government felt it was important not to lose momentum in the missile talks, and that it was equally important that we create a good atmosphere for passage of the non-proliferation treaty. He felt that it would be a great contribution to the future of US-Soviet relations if President Johnson could get these talks started very soon, because it would lay a basis for moving rapidly with the next Administration." Rostow replied that the continued presence of Soviet troops in Czechoslovakia was a problem, but the two then turned to a discussion of the desired outcome of a summit meeting.

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This conversation was two days after Brezhnev in his speech on November 12 at the Polish Party Congress in Warsaw expounded the principle that "proletarian internationalism" entitled the Soviet Union to intervene in the affairs of any member of the "Socialist Commonwealth." Other Soviet commen-tators on Czechoslovakia had argued the same principle, but this speech earned it the name of the "Brezhnev Doctrine."

On December 8, 1968, Robert Ellsworth on behalf of the President-elect met with Soviet chargé Chernyakov to explain that the President-elect would not look with pleasure on a summit meeting before January 20. On December 18, Chernyakov handed Ellsworth a Soviet reply at the Palm Court Plaza Hotel in New York. The Soviet note recounted the evolution of the summit idea: The American side had raised the matter first in July, then again in the middle of September and again at the end of November. The Soviets said they assumed that Mr. Nixon had been kept informed of the matter; now that "the situation in this respect" had been "clarified," it was "difficult" for the Soviet side to judge the United States' intentions and "hence [it was] difficult for them to judge how successful it could be under present circumstances. Mr. Nixon is of course in a better position to judge this." Thus, in effect, they were deferring to Nixon. Chernyakov added orally that if there was any reply to this from Mr. Nixon, he (Chernyakov) could convey it to Moscow.

Walter Lippman lunched with HK on December 11 and told him he thought a summit was "totally irresponsible and should be stopped." John McCloy passed a message to LBJ (on Nixon's prompting) conveying his advice that a summit would be a bad idea. Dean Rusk called McCloy back to tell him not to worry because the chances were slim. Nevertheless, Clark Clifford on Face the Nation on December 15 strongly urged a US-Soviet summit meeting.

On December 12, 1968, was HK's briefing for the new Cabinet. The talking points prepared for that briefing (Tab D) reflect HK's view that US military programs and allied military strength were the Soviet Union's principal incentive to negotiate in SALT and to observe "detente" in Europe:

"Introduction

-- "Soviet attitudes in the years to come will be affected by disparate fears, desires and preconceptions.

-- "Pressures for conciliation with the West will come from a rising tide of desire for consumer goods, from the

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fear of war, and perhaps from those who hope for a
relaxation in police-state controls.

-- "Pressures for continued confrontation with the US will come from Communist ideology, suspiciousness of leaders, and the Party apparatus, which sees itself as the principal bulwark against the outside world. They will come, as well, from the military, and from those who fear that any relaxation of tensions can only encourage the satellites to try, once again, to loosen the Moscow apron string.

-- "Moscow's foreign policy since the August invasion of Czechoslovakia has focussed on two issues:

1. Czechoslovakia itself, and the effects of the invasion on the rest of the Communist world;

2. How to cut losses elsewhere--especially how to hold down damage to US-Soviet relations.

-- "As the invasion showed, the security of the Soviet position in Eastern Europe, and the preservation of the status quo there count for much more than the good opinion of the outside world.

-- "But it also clear that Moscow believes its interests would be seriously damaged by a rupture of East-West relations, or if the possibility of a dialogue with the US on certain issues were lost.

-- "For now, the Soviet aim is to ensure and re-enforce its authority in Eastern Europe, while keeping lines to the West as open as possible.

-- "In terms of the US, the Soviets seem particularly anxious to keep open the possibility of talks on strategic arms limitations.

"Soviet Purposes in Negotiating with the US

-- "A real desire to lessen tensions?

-- "As a tactical device to gain respectability.

-- "As a device to split the Alliance and isolate the US and/or the FRG.

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"Why the Soviets Want Strategic Arms Talks

-- "Continued escalation can become an extremely expensive proposition for them.

-- "It may be that they believe a reasonably stable relationship between Soviet and US capabilities to be inevitable and have therefore decided to try to hold at the present level.

-- "Or, it could be that they are on the verge of a technical breakthrough, and want to keep us where we are while they see what they can do to develop the breakthrough.

-- "But it is more likely than not that they think we will make a technical breakthrough if we continue to test and build, and want to avoid this.

-- "Finally, talks with us now would demonstrate that they need pay no permanent price for Czechoslovakia, and that they are still respectable people.

"Issues

-- "If this is truly to be a period of negotiation, not confrontation, we must look carefully at what is the most effective way for us to negotiate. We must have clearly fixed in our own minds exactly what issues we want to negotiate about.

-- "Our past policy has often been one of 'confidence building' for its own sake, in the belief that as confidence grows tensions will lessen.

-- "But if one takes the view that tensions arise as a result of differences over concrete issues, then perhaps the real way to approach the problem is to begin working on those differences.

-- "There is also a widely held view that we must make a choice between a policy of 'detente' and a policy of support for a strong Western Alliance.

-- "But this is a false choice. Certainly the Soviets are prepared to use 'detente' as a tool to weaken the Alliance. Our task is to coordinate our East and West European policies, being careful not to sacrifice basic US interests for what may well be illusory and often temporary gains."

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On December 18, the same day as the Soviet reply to Ellsworth above, HK met at the Hotel Pierre with Boris Sedov and enunciated the new Administration's philosophy of linkage. Sedov, nominally Counselor of the Soviet Embassy but probably KGB, was a slippery-looking Russian who had tagged along with the Rockefeller campaign. HK told him (1) that the Soviets would "find that the President-elect is open-minded, precise, and interested in lasting settlements based on the real interests of both countries;" (2) the new Administration was "very interested in serious talks." However, "on the strategic missile talks HK continued Mr. Nixon is intent upon an assessment of our strategic position before moving into the negotiation stage. Our analysis of the issue, however, will be influenced by Soviet willingness to negotiate seriously on other questions -- particularly Vietnam and the Middle East."

HK made this linkage more explicit in a second meeting with Sedov, held at his request at the Pierre on January 2, 1969. HK repeated his earlier observation "that we did not believe that political and strategic issues could be completely separated. The Nixon Administration wanted to see more progress in Vietnam and the Middle East before committing itself to strategic arms talks." At this meeting Sedov read an oral note in reply to HK's presentation in the December 18 meeting. The Soviet oral note read:

"1. Moscow has carefully watched the election campaign which, though a US internal affair, has world-wide significance.

"2. Moscow does not have the pessimistic view expressed in many parts of the world in connection with the accession of the Republicans to power.

"3. It is not true that Moscow makes its attitude dependent on which party is allegedly more to the right.

"4. The key concern of Moscow is whether statements of great powers are animated by a sense of reality.

"5. Moscow noted with satisfaction Mr. Nixon's cable to President Podgorny to the effect that the American and Soviet people work together in a spirit of mutual respect and on the basis of a special responsibility for the peace of the world. This wish is considered an encouraging sign of the interest of the American side to proceed further in a solution of those problems outlined in bilateral contacts.

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"6. On the other hand, Moscow is very worried by statements that there is a desire on the part of the US to operate from a 'situation of strength.' If this theory dominates, and if a new round of armaments starts, the USSR is capable and willing to match the US effort. The world will be reduced to the worst days of the Cold War.

"7. Moscow realizes that there are theoretical and practical differences between our two countries. These should not interfere with the gradual achievement of agreements on a number of problems. That of disarmament is in the first place.

"8. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to develop mutual trust. On the part of Moscow, it is willing to make important steps in this direction, but wishes that the new Administration act in the same spirit.

"9. The Soviet leadership will do their utmost to find ways of solving at least some important problems of disarmament, and to ensure ratification by states of the non-proliferation treaty.

"10. The US and USSR must find a way to disarmament, or the consequences will be extremely dangerous for in this connection one has always to keep in mind that disarmament is specifically a Soviet-US problem.

"11. The Soviet leadership is determined to continue a policy of peaceful coexistence.

"12. Mr. Nixon's statement of November 11 to continue keeping open channels to the USSR did not pass unnoticed in Moscow. Great attention was paid to the part where Mr. Nixon, speaking of President Johnson's foreign policy, confirms his desire to keep open channels of communication to Moscow.

"13. It goes without saying that the future of Soviet-American relations would be favorably affected by settlement of the Vietnam problem, a political solution of the situation in the Middle East, a realistic approach to the situation in Europe as a whole, and the German problem in particular. (Oral comment: 'The Soviet Union has special interests in Eastern Europe.')

"14. Moscow hopes that even before inauguration Mr. Nixon indicates interest in betterment of relations with the Soviet Union."

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Sedov added that the USSR was "very interested" that the Inaugural Address contain some reference to open channels of communication to Moscow. HK replied that it would be easier if Moscow showed some cooperation on Vietnam. Sedov replied that he would try to have an answer by January 10th.

HK informed the President-elect by memo dated January 4 of this communication from Sedov. The President-elect marked down his approval of (a) including some such reference in the Inaugural Address but (b) waiting, as HK recommended, until about January 17 before telling Sedov that this would be done, to see what further message he might bring first.

On January 14, HK sent a memo to the President-elect with a draft of the foreign policy section of the Inaugural Address. He wrote: "Some version of the underlined sentences on page three should be in for the reasons we have discussed." The passage in question read:

> "To those who, for most of the post-war period, have opposed and, occasionally, threatened us, I repeat what I have already said: Let the coming years be a time of negotiation rather than confrontation. During this Administration the lines of communication will always be open. But we owe it to our peoples not to confuse form and substance. The test will be the content of what the lines carry -- not the fact that they are used."

N.B. The "East-West" section of the Inaugural Address, as actually delivered, follows. The phraseology that the Soviets wanted was included, along with a line about seeking "a world in which no people, great or small, will live in angry isolation," which undoubtedly referred to China:

> "After a period of confrontation, we are entering an era of negotiation.

> "Let all nations know that during this Administration out lines of communication will be open.

> "We seek an open world--open to ideas, open to the exchange of goods and people, a world in which no people, great or small, will live in angry isolation.

> "We cannot expect to make everyone our friend, but we can try to make no one our enemy.

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"Those who would be our adversaries, we invite to a peaceful competition--not in conquering territory or extending dominion, but in enriching the life of man.

"As we explore the reaches of space, let us go to the new worlds together--not as new worlds to be conquered, but as a new adventure to be shared.

"With those who are willing to join, let us cooperate to reduce the burden of arms, to strengthen the structure of peace, to lift up the poor and the hungry.

"But to all those who would be tempted by weakness, let us leave no doubt that we will be as strong as we need to be for as long as we need to be."

The Soviet leaders were not the only ones pressing for a start of arms control negotiations. A Defense Department briefing book prepared for the President-elect described the current and projected US-Soviet strategic balance:

"The Soviets have continued their recent ICBM buildup and within two years may have 1200 of these systems operationally deployed; they could have 1500 ICBMs and a few hundred mobile ICBM's by the mid-1920's. The Soviets have a substantially smaller sea-based force and bomber force than the U.S., but they have recently initiated a new submarine construction program which could give them a force comparable to our present Polaris fleet by the mid-1970's. They are estimated to be about four years away from deploying MIRV's.

In spite of this growth, the Soviet stragetic force was not seen as a major problem by the authors of the DOD briefing. The U.S. was expected to enjoy a four-to-one advantage in warheads under current projections for the mid-'70's, not counting whatever new U.S. systems were later procured. US strategic forces were seen as capable of producing 40% fatalities among the Soviet population, and the U.S. analysis of assured destruction considered 25% fatalities to be an "adequate deterrent."

Against this background, Charles Yost sent HK a memo in January 1969 summarizing the proceedings of a Council on Foreign Relations discussion group on the Deployment and Control of Arms which met five times in New York between October 1968 and January 1969. Carl Kaysen was chairman and Yost was secretary. HK participated in some of the discussions; other participants were: Robert Bowie, Harold Brown, Abram Chayes, Hedley Donovan,

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Paul Doty, William C. Foster, Roswell Gilpatric, Gen. Ginsburgh,
Morton Halperin, Malcolm Hoag, Joe Johnson, Prof. Kistiakowsky,
Frank Long, Henry Rowen, Jack Ruina, Marshall Shulman, Helmut
Sonnenfeldt, Senator Symington, Albert Wohlstetter, Capt. Robert
O. Welander, Hamilton Fish Armstrong, and George Franklin.

The CFR discussion group made a strong pitch for commence-
ment of SALT talks and for reductions of U.S. forces in Europe
and worldwide:

-- On strategic arms, the discussion group stated the view
that "both the United States and the USSR are at a
technological turning point, that the best place to
stop the strategic arms race would be as close as
possible to where we are now, and that, if the present
level is significantly exceeded, a prolonged, costly
and dangerous escalation is probable." The group
endorsed the premise that the US had often overreacted
to Soviet weapons developments and that US pronounce-
ments spurred a corresponding Soviet overreaction.
(The missile gap was cited.) "Now we are again over-
insuring by proceeding with an ABM system and may soon
be in a less favorable situation to stop the strategic
escalation than we were a year ago." A US-Soviet
agreement was "imperative" also because without it
further proliferation of nuclear weapons capabilities
was "almost certain." On-site inspection was not con-
sidered essential.

-- The CFR discussion group therefore recommended that the scheduled 600 interceptors for the Sentinel ABM system be reduced to 100, because the 600-interceptor system could be "thickened" too quickly. The group recommended a freeze on numbers of ICBM's and SLBM's and a ban on mobiles, on the ground that the second-strike damage-inflicting capability of both sides was "already sufficient." The group recommended prohibition of any new missile systems and, if possible, agreement on mutual monitoring of tests. If all the above were agreed, the group urged that the U.S. not deploy MIRV's, but limit itself to continuing development.

-- As for general purpose forces in Europe, the CFR dis-
cussion group recommended that the status quo be
maintained in Europe "for the present," in the wake
of Czechoslovakia. However, if the situation remained

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quiet "over the next year," the group urged that we negotiate with our allies modest reductions in ground forces (e.g., one division, or the logistical tail of several divisions), and "sound out the Soviets" on larger mutual reductions. The group urged that we "discuss promptly with our allies" removal of tactical nuclear weapons from aircraft and a possible reduction in the numbers of tactical nuclear weapons retained for Pershings. The group recommended that "most" of the U.S. forces withdrawn from Europe should be retained in CONUS in the ready reserve.

-- As to U.S. general purpose forces outside of Europe, the group urged examination of a "1-½-war" contingency plan instead of the current planning for "2½ wars." The group urged that if North Korea did not appear threatening, we should build up ROK forces to the point where U.S. forces could be phased down to tactical air support and a "token" U.S. ground force. After a Vietnam settlement, we should phase out U.S. combat forces from Thailand and also reduce the Seventh Fleet to its pre-Vietnam size.

On the other hand, John McCloy, who met with the President-elect on December 20, advocated (according to HK's talking points for Nixon) that the USG undertake a thorough assessment of the strategic situation before getting into any arms control talks with the USSR.

### C. Europe

HK's appointment was warmly greeted by many observers of U.S.-European relations who looked to HK for a reversal of the disastrous course of the previous Administration. This attitude is revealed in a sampling of congratulatory messages sent to HK:

-- Melvin Croan (December 3): "I find it next to impossible to think of anyone else whose appointment could have elicited that kind of well-deserved respect in Europe."

-- Kurt Birrenbach (Dec. 4): "This is really great news."

-- Roberto Gaja (Dec. 4): "I feel sure that your contribution to the making of American foreign policy will be as fruitful as all your previous activity in public fields has proved to be."

-- Frank Giles (Dec. 4): "Overjoyed /at/ news of your appointment."

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-- Leslie Lipson (Dec. 5): "What delights me particularly is that I regard you as a man whose external priorities are primarily concerned with our relations with Europe, which is the view I too share. It seems to me that during those last four years our foreign policy has been badly led astray by the Asia Firsters, who misled us into this political and military insanity of fighting a land war against Asians on the Asian continent."

-- Raymond Aron (Dec. 10): "Mes Félicitations pour votre entrée dans la grande politique."

While HK was the repository of high hopes, he was also the recipient of contradictory advice. John McCloy met with the President-elect in New York on December 20. No memcon exists, but the talking points indicate that McCloy was strongly anti-deGaulle, believed that Germany was the key to Europe, and welcomed Nixon's pledges to strengthen NATO ties.

HK met at some point during the transition with Antoine Pinay, former French President. On December 21, 1968, HK received a letter from Ambassador Lucet reporting President deGaulle's interest in meeting HK:

"Upon his return to Paris, former President Pinay was received by General de Gaulle and told him about the conversation he had with you.

"I am being instructed by /āForeign Minister/ Mr. Debre to let you know that if by any chance you were coming to Paris in the near future, the President of the French Republic would very galdly receive you."

General Vernon Walters sent HK a thoughtful memo on December 31, 1968, on the subject of France, predicting that de Gaulle might be willing to turn a new page in US-French relations with the new U.S. Administration:

"I know of no NATO exercise which shows that Western Europe can be held without the use of French real estate and resources. If this is so then we must draw the necessary consequences therefrom.

***

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"The events of last May showed that the French Armed Forces can wield considerable influence on the life of the nation. We should do all we can so that when de Gaulle passes from the scene, this influence will be exercised in a direction favorable to the security interests of the United States and its allies.

***

"I believe we should move vigorously at the outset of a new administration. De Gaulle is basically well disposed towards the President-elect. He regards him as a man of strength, courage and tenacity. He may make concessions to Mr. Nixon that he would never have made to Mr. Johnson. I am not sure but this is possible. He may really want to turn a new page in Franco-American relations."

Although the texts are not available, the record shows that on January 11, 1969, President-elect Nixon sent warm letters to President de Gaulle, Prime Minister Wilson, Chancellor Kiesinger, and NATO Secretary-General Brosio, presumably affirming his dedication to Atlantic ties. Later messages were also sent to Prime Minister Sato, President Tito, and Pope Paul VI.

### D. Middle East

HK's appointment as national security adviser was warmly welcomed by HK's Israeli friends. **Moshe Dayan** (Defense Minister) sent a telegram:

"Warmest congratulations on your important nomination. I am confident that your ability and competence will help to solve the vital security problems of the United States and of the whole world."

### Yigal Allon (Deputy Prime Minister) wrote:

"I was delighted to read in the paper that you were appointed ... Knowing you a good number of years I am sure that this appointment will place the right man at the right place, in a very crucial period in the international arena. Your penetrating knowledge and balanced views in the various conflicts of global significance will provide the President with wise advice."

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HK's handwritten notes exist of a Nixon meeting with
**Robert O. Anderson** in December 1968. Anderson had recently
met with Nasser and had warned Nasser of the dangers of
another war. Anderson told Nixon he felt "an Arab is at heart
an anarchist." Nasser could not sign a peace treaty with the
Israelis, Anderson felt, but he would sign one with the UN.
Nasser had said he would like to "turn over a new leaf" with
the Nixon Administration; Anderson said he suggested to Nasser
that he "write Nixon a letter and pour your heart out." Nixon
told Anderson in their December meeting that he did not want
to tie U.S. policy to Israel: "Israel must be looked at in
terms of the security of the United States" and "our commit-
ments must become viable."

HK had for his December 12 Cabinet briefing some talking
points on the Middle East that sound like they were written by
Hal Saunders. The talking points highlighted the dangers of
the current situation:

-- "If nothing changes in the present state of conditions in the Middle East, it seems reasonably certain that the Arabs and Israelis will once again go to war some time during the new Administration's tenure in office.

-- "Soviet interests and involvement in the area have expanded to the point that, should there be another war, there will be a strong likelihood of some form of direct Soviet intervention.

-- "Despite our own efforts, and despite UN mediator Jarring's efforts to get the two sides together, there has been no real progress since the June 1967 war.

***

-- "Recent indications are that Israel's territorial aims are much more than "minor modifications."

***

-- "The basic Arab dilemma is that the governments are
probably too weak to make a settlement on their own,
though they might be able to accept a settlement
imposed on them from outside.

***

-55-

-- "Husayn is fighting for his life. His efforts to prevent Palestinian terrorist organizations from becoming the major political force in Jordan have led to a number of recent bloody clashes between terrorists and the army.

***

-- "So long as Husayn can maintain his Bedouin support and keep the terrorists in line, he can probably hold out. But a major crackdown on the terrorists would make his chances slim indeed.

***

-- "In the next year or so, Soviet deliveries will probably bring Arab weapons inventories (especially aircraft) somewhat above pre-War levels.

***

-- "The Russians now have some 3,500 military advisers-- (down to Bn. level) in the area (against 1,000 before 1967).

-- "While the Soviets continue to advise against seeking a military solution to the Arab-Israel conflict, they have not put any pressure on their clients to settle.

-- "The 'no-war, no-peace' situation permits them to expand their military and political presence. They would probably like to see this situation continue."

Then the talking points laid out the issues for the United States, in a way that reflects some of HK's views:

"The Middle East could become the Balkans of a new international crisis. Intense local rivalries far overshadow local concerns for the maintenance of peace between the great powers.

-- "Can we in some way separate the Arab-Israeli conflict from US Soviet rivalries?

-- "Given the traditional interests both powers have in the area, and its strategic importance, it is almost certain that US and Soviet interests will clash.

-- "The Soviets certainly like the fact that a Middle East crisis presents the US with very serious problems, but at the same time it is probable that they are as

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interested as we in avoiding a great power confrontation not of their choosing.

— "If this is true, a first task of the new Administration must be to examine strategies for separating the Arab-Israeli confrontation from a US-Soviet confrontation. One possible strategy would be to include the Middle East in US-Soviet negotiations on outstanding issues.

"Is there any step, or series of steps, we can take that might make it easier for the Arabs and Israelis to reach a settlement?

"It would appear that we have little leverage over either side, but we ought to make our own study of the tools we may have.

"One thing is clear. The Arabs are convinced that we have it in our power to force Israel to settle. We must make them understand that this is simply not the case.

"What are the costs and dividends to a resumption of diplomatic relations with the Arab States?

"A new Administration can more easily move toward normal diplomatic ties with Cairo, Baghdad, etc. We ought to look at the pros and cons of this possibility."

Early December was the occasion of the <u>Scranton mission</u>. Former Pennsylvania Governor William W. Scranton, as President-elect Nixon's personal envoy, spent nine days in the Middle East. On December 4, he visited the Shah of Iran and Iranian Foreign Minister Zahedi; on December 5 he visited Beirut where he met with Lebanese President Helou, Prime Minister al-Yaffi, Foreign Minister al-Uwayni, and four Palestinian representatives. On December 6 Scranton arrived in Cairo for talks with Nasser. On December 7, on departure, he told a press contingent at Cairo Airport that he hoped diplomatic relations between the UAR and the US would soon be resumed; he then departed for Saudi Arabia and Jordan.

After crossing the Allenby Bridge from Jordan into Israeli-held territory on December 9, Scranton told reporters in Jericho "it is important <u>that</u> U.S. policy become more even-handed" in the area. He went on to say that by "even-handed" he meant dealing "with all countries in the area and not necessarily espouse one." He then arrived in Israel where he met with Prime Minister Eshkol, Deputy PM Allon, Foreign Minister Eban, Defense Minister Dayan, and Sheikh al-Jabari, a spokesman for Palestinian Arabs. Scranton arrived in Rome on December 11 where he told

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reporters that the Nixon Administration would draw up a new "peace plan" for the Middle East. The President-elect's press spokesman, Ronald Ziegler, said in New York on December 12 that Scranton's remarks about an "even-handed" policy and a new "peace plan" were his own and not necessarily those of Mr. Nixon.

Governor Scranton met with Nixon at the Hotel Pierre on December 13 to report on his fact-finding mission. At a press conference after his meeting with Nixon, Scranton repeated his statement, first made at Jericho on December 9, that the U.S. should have "a more even-handed policy" in the Middle East.

On December 13, William R. Polk of the Adlai Stevenson Institute wrote to Nixon sending along memcons of his November visit to the Middle East, including a conversation with Nasser. He reported Nasser as being almost completely inflexible:

"We cannot give on any element of territory Nasser said. . . . Egypt could not agree to the diminution of the Arab cause in any particular. We went point by point on the Golan Heights, Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza and Sinai. On each of these he was completely flexible and emphasized again that there could be no change of territory."

President-elect Nixon and HK met on December 13 with Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, accompanied by Ambassador Yitzhak Rabin. Nixon thanked Dayan for having received him in Israel. Dayan pointed out that news reports that Israel was displeased with the Scranton visit were untrue; Israel, he said, felt that Scranton left with "a better appreciation of the issues." Nixon asked Dayan if he thought any Arabs were willing to make peace. Dayan replied that perhaps Jordan was willing, but (according to HK's memcon) "he indicated no great enthusiasm for this prospect."

On December __, Nixon met with the Amir of Kuwait. The Amir invited the President-elect to visit Kuwait. He asked Nixon what the US's plans were after the UK vacated the Gulf in 1971. Nixon replied that we would have to study the matter. The Amir asked what US intentions would be if, for example, Iraq attacked Kuwait. The President-elect responded that we were interested in the territorial integrity of all states in the area, but the tactical measures we adopted would depend on circumstances.

-58-

On December 24, 1968, Hal Saunders of the NSC staff wrote HK a briefing memo on "The Middle East: Arab-Israeli Issues -- U.S. Options 1969-70." The memo sketched Saunders' analysis of the situation, the parties' positions, and the options for U.S. policy:

"The strategy of peacemaking. The Israelis believe that time is on the side of peace. Their theory is that the closer the Arabs get to another war with the prospect of inevitable defeat, the closer they will come to facing up to reality, to accepting Israel and to making peace. We doubt seriously that the Arabs will come in under that sort of pressure. They may be rational this time and avoid a war they can't win, or they may do something foolish and provoke a 1969 or 1970 version of June 5, 1967. But as long as the present situation continues, we believe support for terrorism will increase and another clash will become increasingly likely. What we really fear is the day when 60 million Arabs will have acquired enough military proficiency to take advantage of their tremendous numerical superiority over Israel. Therefore, we find it hard to accept the Israeli strategy of sitting tight until the Arabs crack.

***

"How do we deal with Nasser? The Israelis believe that no peace is possible while Nasser continues in power and that we should not prolong his reign by resuming relations with him. Some of us are inclined to agree that Nasser just isn't capable of making an honest settlement and turning his energies toward the UAR's pressing development problems. But we are much less sure than the Israelis that resumption of US-UAR relations will be a major factor in deciding Nasser's fate.

## "The Tactical Choices

"The first choice: Should we take a more active role in trying to negotiate a package settlement along the lines of the November 22, 1967, UN resolution? Or should we continue our present supporting role, leaving the main responsibility to Jarring and to Israel, Jordan and the UAR?

***

-59-

"The second choice: If we take a more active role and fail, or if we choose a less active role, the second range of choices will develop around the question: Should we try for a partial settlement?

"One of the principles we have followed since mid-1967 has been trying to negotiate all elements of the November 22 resolution as a package--withdrawal, boundaries, end of belligerency, free passage, refugees. These issues are interrelated, but there may be one that could be treated separately and serve as an entering wedge on others. The British tried opening the Canal as a partial step, and the Israelis refused flatly. However, the refugee issue might lend itself better to separate treatment. It is hard to envision a refugee settlement without a territorial settlement. But the special humanitarian angle might just make this issue enough different to lend itself to a special approach.

"... To many Arabs, a just refugee settlement would be Israel's symbolic admission of a past injustice and Israel's symbolic offer to live in peace with the Arabs. It is not surprising that Nasser has often linked the Canal to a refugee settlement, partly because the Canal is the other side of this Mid-Eastern symbolism. Israeli passage would symbolize Arab acceptance of the State of Israel."

Charles Yost was named US Permanent Representative to the UN on December 20. Yost, who had served as Ambassador to Syria and Morocco prior to his retirement in 1966, offered HK his views on the Middle East in a memo sometime in late December. Yost pushed strongly for a US initiative. Yost was convinced that the US could easily draw up a fair settlement, that the UN was the best forum for the Big Four to bring "their full influence to bear," and that if it failed, we would be "no worse off than we are now."

Yost started from the proposition that leaving the problem to the parties to settle had not worked and would not produce a settlement or prevent further conflict. The violence, he pointed out, had only increased. But "it is by no means impossible to draw up terms of a settlement, based squarely on the November 22 resolution, which would be fair to both sides." This would include:

- (1) an international compact reaffirming the status, sovereignty and frontiers of Israel (an international

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agreement for the Arabs to sign rather than bilateral agreements with Israel),

-- (2) international guarantees,

-- (3) demilitarization of Sinai, with a UN presence at Sharm el-Sheikh and Gaza,

-- (4) demilitarization of the West Bank, and "minor boundary rectifications in Israel's favor,"

-- (5) Jerusalem as a single entity but divided into "boroughs," with a special status for the holy places,

-- (6) free navigation through the Suez Canal and the Straits of Tiran,

-- (7) on refugees, Israel to accept a token number as returnees and to compensate the rest, with US assistance,

-- (8) the Golan Heights to be under Israeli occupation until Syria is ready to settle, and

-- (9) a substantial UN Observer force to remain "indefinitely."

Yost believed that the interested powers (the Big Four) should "endeavor to work out a detailed implementation of the November 22 resolution which would be fair to Israel, the UAR and Jordan and which these three could be persuaded to accept." The UN would be the best vehicle. The Big Four would "bring their full influence to bear to obtain the consent of the parties." "Even if it succeeds only partially," Yost believed, "we will have made a significant advance. If it fails, we will be no worse off than we are now."

On December 30, Soviet charge Chernyakov handed Robert Ellsworth copies of two lengthy *Soviet notes* on the Middle East, saying that "a Soviet-American exchange of opinion on this would be advisable." (Sedov explained to HK on January 2 that these copies were passed to Ellsworth because HK had warned him against any "surprises.")

The first Soviet note explained that the UAR had come out for implementation of 242 and had made a constructive reply to Secretary Rusk's "Seven Points" of November. The USSR put the blame on Israel for its lack of flexibility. "Real progress" in the Middle East as well as in Vietnam would "undoubtedly

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affect in a most positive way the entire world situation and
would create more favorable conditions for development of US-
Soviet relations." The "negative position of Israel" was the
"main obstacle."

The Soviet note contained a draft of a plan for a "time-
table and an order for withdrawal of Israeli troops" and an
"agreed plan" for implementation of the rest of 242. The
Soviet plan suggested that the contacts through Jarring should
aim at "simultaneous declarations" of readiness to end the
state of belligerency and attain a peaceful settlement. (See
Appendix to Rosemary's paper on 1969.)

HK evidently asked Hal Saunders for a rundown of the US-
Soviet exchanges on the Middle East. On January 3, 1969,
Saunders forwarded a long documentary record of US-Soviet ex-
changes on the Middle East from September through December 1968.
Included were cables summarizing a number of meetings over this
period between Dobrynin and Eugene Rostow and between Deputy
Foreign Minister Semenov and Bill Buffum of USUN. Saunders'
analysis was as follows, and he promised to keep an eye on
State:

"The Soviet position -- leaving aside various shifts in nuance -- remains essentially this: Their main objective is to secure Israeli withdrawal. They started out by pressing for withdrawal before other issues are settled. Recently they have begun to recognize that the settlement of all these issues is interrelated. Their latest note /Dec. 30/ opens the door to contacts through Jarring for this purpose but is ambiguous on just how serious a negotiation would be required. They write as if they assume a return pretty much to the status quo ante.

"The Israelis will not buy this because, above all, it smacks too much of a return to the situation of May 1967. It also contains too little Arab commitment to live at peace with Israel. Although they have become a little less rigid in insisting on direct negotiations, they still hold to the position that the 'parties to the conflict must be the parties to the peace.' We would have a hard time persuading them that we and the USSR should now get into the act to the extent of negotiating the outlines of a settlement.

"State has not reached consensus on how to reply /to
the Soviet note/. The problem is that no reply has much

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meaning until we have the Israelis with us. Yet some
kinds of approach to the Israelis could have implications
beyond January 20. The current plan is to respond in two
phases:

"1. Give the USSR an interim response early next week. The main purpose would be to keep a desirable channel open and to be able to say we've answered. ...

"2. Try to bring the Israelis aboard on a substantive response or even a peace plan of their own that they might give Jarrying. We don't know how far they might go with us. We do know that they will be hard to move from their present position. We have given the Israelis the latest Soviet memo and said we would not answer substantively without knowing their views. This weekend we will be drafting a paper of our own, but State still isn't clear on exactly how to use it.

"An interim response to the USSR would not narrow options after January 20. A major approach to the Israelis, depending on its purpose, could begin to shift US policy. Some of the people in State understand this; others do not. I will be close to this process and will do my best to keep any doors from being closed."

On January 5, 1969, Nasser sent President-elect Nixon a lengthy (15-page) letter on the Middle East problem, congratulating Nixon on his election. In the letter Nasser hinted at his desire for better US-UAR relations, and hoped the US would assume a role of leadership in the Middle East. But Nasser also reiterated his hackneyed charges that the US had been involved militarily against Egypt in the 1967 war. HK and Nixon concurred in State's recommendation to defer replying to this letter because of its unacceptable portions. A brief non-substantive reply was later sent in March. (See Rosemary's 1969 paper for fuller discussion.)

E. <u>China</u>

Ten prominent scholars of Asian affairs wrote a long memo to President-elect Nixon on November 6, 1968, recommending a U.S. effort toward "relaxation of tensions" with China. The group included: Doak Barnett, Jerome Cohen, John K. Fairbank, Roy Hofheinz, Dwight Perkins, Lucian Pye, Edwin O. Reischauer, Benjamin I. Schwartz, James Thomson, and Ezra Vogel. The complete memo is at Tab F.

-63-

-- The ten experts did not expect that the PRC would be ready to respond. However, they recommended a number of U.S. initiatives in order to "offer the Chinese the clear option of a less hostile relationship with the outside world."

-- They recommended to Nixon: "You should seriously explore the possibility of arranging confidential--perhaps even deniable--conversations between Chinese Communist leaders and someone in whom you have confidence." The PRC might refuse, but the offer would "signal a revised American attitude."

-- They suggested that the US find some way to "involve Peking in some stage of the Vietnam negotiating process."

-- They urged that "all Administration spokesmen refrain from provocative statements in their comments about China, regardless of Peking's hostile rhetoric."

-- They urged reconsideration of the Sentinel ABM decision, with its anti-Chinese rationale.

-- They urged that the USG modify the trade embargo and controls on travel.

-- They urged that the USG "restructure" the Washington-Taipei relationship by building on "the reality" that Chiang Kai-shek controls Taiwan and not the mainland. The US should reaffirm its defense commitment to Taiwan but gradually prepare the Taiwanese for a change in the US-PRC relationship.

-- The US should accept PRC membership in the UN in the General Assembly and Security Council, "while seeking simultaneously to preserve a General Assembly seat for Taiwan, whether as the Republic of China, an independent nation, or an autonomous region of China."

-- They regarded it as "especially important that we take Japan into our confidence in every step of our strategy. Although Japan will favor the substance of our strategy, if we abruptly shift gears without prior notice, we will create acute embarrassment for the Japanese Government."

-- They warned strongly against a "Soviet-American alliance against Peking," fearing, for some reason, that the US might make judgments about China "that derive from Moscow's view of Peking." (This recommendation must have been prompted by tendencies they observed in the policies of the Kennedy/Johnson Administrations.)

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General

Other events of note included the following.

On December 17 the President-elect was invited to the
**United Nations** to meet with U Thant. The State Department set
up its usual extravaganza. The President-elect was to arrive
at the USUN Mission at 4 o'clock, to be met by Assistant
Secretary Joe Sisco, Deputy Permrep Bill Buffum, Pederson
(Deputy Representative to the Security Council), Senator John
Sherman Cooper, and Ambassador William C. Foster of ACDA. At
4:15 Nixon was to go across the street for his meeting with
U Thant, accompanied by Secretary-designate Rogers, Amb. Robert
Murphy, HK, Amb. Wiggins, Buffum, Pederson, and Sisco. Then
Nixon attended a reception at 5:15 hosted by U Thant with the
Ambassadors of Security Council members and the chairmen of
the various UN committees.

No memcon exists of the meeting with U Thant, so it was
apparently not memorable.

The President-elect received an impassioned letter on
November 15, 1968, from Senator Edward Kennedy on Biafra, which
was to be one of the new Administration's growing concerns.
Senator Kennedy called attention to the "desperate" new develop-
ments and the emergence of "starvation conditions." He antici-
pated as many as 2 million deaths by the end of 1968. He urged
the President-elect to put it at the top of his list of priorities,
in particular:

-- to seek an early ceasefire and end to the flow of arms
from outside,

-- to undertake a massive US commitment of relief supplies, personnel, aircraft, and funds, and

-- to appoint a special Presidential representative to
"galvanize this Nation's active commitment."

Bryce Harlow replied on behalf of the President-elect,
saying: "It is simply not possible at this moment to say what
specific actions he will recommend be implemented. As the U.S.
capability to act becomes more clear, I know that as the
President he will continue to be concerned about the situation."

Biafra was one of the key problems in HK's mind when he
gave his December 12 briefing to the Cabinet. The talking points
prepared for HK (probably by the NSC staff) stressed the urgency
of the problem and also its complexity:

-- "This may be the first major foreign crisis facing the
new Administration.

***

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-- "... most recent reports indicate that, unless some way is found to get thousands of tons of food and medicines into Biafra, some 3 to 4 million people will die within the next few months.

-- "The heavy increase in the death rate is now expected to begin in February.

## What is Needed

-- "If mass starvation is to be avoided, there must be a ceasefire, establishment of a land corridor into Biafra, and a massive international relief operation (perhaps 40,000 tons per month; costs--perhaps $20 million per month).

-- "The outlook right now is that it will be extremely difficult to get the parties to agree to a ceasefire or a land corridor. While the Biafrans are slowly losing the war, it now appears that they can hold out for many more months.

-- "The question we may soon have to face is just how deeply we want to involve ourselves in forcing some compromise on the parties.

***

-- "With few exceptions, other African states support the central government. They know that if tribal separatism succeeds in Nigeria it may easily spread through all of Africa.

-- "The Nigerian Government has cooperated reasonably well with the International Red Cross Biafran relief effort. This international airlift of food and medicine, though it has already cost some $30 million (about 65% from public and private U.S. sources), has only scratched the surface of the problem.

-- "The Biafrans have been far less cooperative. They have permitted relief flights only at night (and used them as cover for arms flights), and have steadfastly refused to permit a land corridor relief operation.

-- "They have refused to cooperate because they hope to use starvation as a means of generating international support for independence, and because they fear that Central Government will move troops in through the land corridor should it be set up."

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General Walters sent HK a thoughtful memo on December 30 on *Brazil*, making a good case for its importance:

"It occupies half the land mass of South America and contains half its population. Every year there is born in Brazil the equivalent of the population of Bolivia, every three years the equivalent of Chile and every seven years the equivalent of Argentina. Lumping it with the 'other countries' of South America is a mistake.

***

"Alone of all the countries in South America she has the potential to become a great power. She has the space, the geographic location and the resources and population to lead the area.

***

"If Brazil were to be lost it would not be another Cuba. It would be another China."

Finally, it is worth quoting from HK's memo of January 14, 1969, forwarding to Nixon his draft of the *foreign policy portion* of the *Inaugural Address*. The US-Soviet section is quoted earlier (p. 48 above). HK explained in his cover note to Nixon: "In general, the attempt was to strike a note of sober, precise, methodical, undramatic progress." HK's draft spoke of the major changes in the international system over the last 25 years and the new challenges these produced: The new Administration would promise no "quick triumph" and impose no "grand design:"

"Our task in the fifties was to prevent chaos. Today our challenge is to build a world system founded on freedom and justice. . . . This Administration recognizes the complexity of its task. It will not pretend that the issues that have bedeviled us for more than two decades can be solved by empty gestures or glowing generalities. We offer no promises of quick triumph or guarantees against new trials; we seek to impose no grand design. For the lessons of these years must surely be that such profound divisions cannot be healed by drama but--rather--by steady, patient, persevering effort. Our reward will be not tomorrow's headlines, but the fulfillment of the hopes we have for our children and our grandchildren."

Good stuff, but none of it was used.

GOVERNMENT REORGANIZATION 6/21/68

The organization of the U.S. Government as it exists today complicates rather than encourages the development of long-range national policies. Organization is no substitute for long-range thinking, but modern government is so complex that long-range thinking is impossible without effective organization.

The organizational machinery of the U.S. Government today cannot even be criticized as being based on an out-dated structure. For instead of building on the structure of the National Security Council as it was developed in the Forties and elaborated under President Eisenhower, the National Security Council mechanism has been largely ignored.

There exists no regular staff procedure for arriving at decisions; instead, ad hoc groups are formed as the need arises. No staff agency to monitor the carrying out of decisions is available. There is no focal point for long-range planning on an inter-agency basis. Without a central administrative focus, foreign policy turns into a series of unrelated decisions -- crisis-oriented, ad hoc and after-the-fact in nature. We become the prisoners of events.

This has come about at the precise moment when the old demarcation lines among departments are breaking down and the need to analyze available information has never been greater. Until the end of the Second World War, the expert and the policy maker were operating on essentially the same body of knowledge. In our time, however, specialization threatens to paralyze decision-making. In the past, governments suffered mostly from insufficiency of information; today, the U. S. Government is overwhelmed by it. Expertise with respect to current situations is acquired at the cost of an overall view. The Executive Office of the President specializes in crisis management; it is much less well equipped for crisis-avoidance; it is more deficient in the deliberate shaping of events in the light of our purposes.

This has produced the following problems in the conduct of U. S. foreign policy:

1. The five Federal agencies responsible for foreign policy activities -- the State Department, the Pentagon, CIA, AID, and USIA -- are inadequately related to each other and often initiate and pursue separate policies. The National Security Council staff as developed under President Eisenhower is rarely used. Special staffing in the White House, as attempted by the Kennedy Administration, is not sufficient, especially for the development of long-range policy. The arrangements undertaken during the Johnson Administration within the Department of State for greater inter-agency coordination have not proved successful -- partly because the need is not only for coordination but above all for leadership. The result

2.

is duplication, inconsistency and fragmentation. In particular, the military policies of our government are frequently not integrated with political considerations -- so that military actions may actually frustrate overall policy goals. Examples of this include the Pueblo incident and the bombing of Hanoi in December of 1966 in the midst of delicate diplomatic peace initiatives.

2. Of the five agencies, only the Defense Department is well enough organized to produce a full range of policy alternatives. Complaints about military predominance in our foreign policy planning thus tend to miss part of the problem. The military often wins out because the political side is inadequately staffed. The State Department especially is oriented to dealing in crises and even then not globally, but rather on a country-by-country basis. This fragmentation often prevents the President from supplying a sense of direction. Too often, he must adjudicate disputes rather than develop purposes.

3. In addition, this system keeps the President from being continuously informed of approaching difficulties. Geared to crises, the present organization inhibits foresight and fails to produce policy alternatives in the light of long-range purposes.

4. Priorities among various programs and the allocation of resources consistent with them are not being adequately determined. As a result, policy too often grows out of inter-departmental competition as a compromise between special interests. Too many decisions reflect a lowest-common-denominator rather than an agreed overall concept. The only agency which attempts the overall view is the Bureau of the Budget, and it is not equipped to move beyond fiscal aspects to a higher level of political, economic and security considerations.

5. Also lacking is machinery to evaluate current policy in an objective way. Agencies which have laid down a given policy are usually responsible for reporting on its progress -- if there is any assessment at all. As a result, policies tend to be self-perpetuating -- and the difficulty in re-evaluating our Vietnam policy is a good example.

6. At present the relations between the Legislative and Executive Branches of our government in the conduct of foreign affairs is hostile and uncooperative. Genuine consultation of the Congress is infrequent -- a constructive dialogue is virtually nonexistent. Congressional frustration has resulted in a meat-axe approach to funds needed for the conduct of foreign policy in the non-military field. Congress cannot substitute for the President in the conduct of the international relations of the U.S. But the President can -- and should -- faithfully consult and respect the opinion of the Congress in foreign affairs.

I would make several recommendations to meet these problems and achieve our foreign policy objectives.

3.

First, the Executive Office of the President must be able to
perform three functions:

- Leadership, especially the planning and development of policy in the light of long-range purposes;

- Coordination of the departments dealing with foreign policy; and

- Program evaluation.

I therefore propose the creation of an Office of International Policy and Programs in the Executive Office of the President to act as a staff arm for the President to replace the existing National Security Council staff. It would serve as a counterpart in the international field to the Office of Executive Management which I recommended on May 26 for the domestic area. This office would have three divisions to reflect the following three functions:

a. **Long-range Planning:** At present, there is not systematic long-range planning on an inter-agency basis. Planning and crisis management tend to merge. The new office would be specifically charged with helping to develop priorities and allocating resources. All major departments concerned with foreign policy should be required to follow the Defense Department practice of developing five-year projections of their programs and goals.

b. **Coordination:** This role is carried out today by the staff of the National Security Council on an ad hoc basis. Closely related to the planning mechanism, the new system of coordination would lose its crisis orientation and become more purposeful.

c. **Program Evaluation:** I propose the setting up of a program evaluation function responsible to the President. This office would assess ongoing programs in the light of overall purposes and specific decisions. It would have no operational responsibility, and its location in the Executive Office of the President would place it beyond the purview of a single interested agency.

Second, the President cannot perform his role of national leader and as shaper of foreign policy without an efficient organization of the available information. An information system must be established within the Executive Office of the President which can efficiently develop and utilize the key data bearing on foreign policy decisions. This would be accomplished by systematizing relevant criteria in the departments dealing with foreign policy as well as by using modern computerized methods of storage and retrieval.

4.

Such a system would achieve a more rational and reliable
organization of information than the present method of individual
memories, files of old position papers, and ad hoc group dis-
cussions. It would fulfill the following purposes:

a. **Briefing**: Top policy makers must be consistently and cumulatively briefed so that policy can be shaped in the light of overall purpose. Too much time is now devoted to determining where we are; more should be spent on deciding where we wish to go. Purpose should shape techniques instead of the opposite.

b. **The Development of Action-Options**: These should outline the major policy alternatives in the light of foreseeable circumstances with an evaluation of the probable consequences, domestic and foreign, of each such alternative.

c. **Early Warning**: Refined surveillance must anticipate trouble spots before they actually confront the government. Almost as important as constant monitoring is the ability to present the issues and define opportunities in such a way as to allow time for creative action.

Third, a new effort must be made within the Department of State to upgrade the importance of long-range planning and integrate its product into day-by-day decision-making. The organization of the U.S. Government as it exists today complicates rather than encourages the development of long-range national policies. To be sure, organization is no substitute for long-range thinking. But modern government is so complex that long-range thinking is impossible without effective organization.

Fourth, The President should establish a National Security Review Board composed of distinguished citizens to perform a function analogous to the National Intelligence Review Board; to review periodically the long-range policies of the U.S. Government in the light of its overall purpose and to make sure that strategy guides tactics instead of the opposite.

Fifth, an attitude of mutual trust and cooperation should be encouraged by the President to help effect a constructive dialogue between the Executive Branch and members and bodies assigned to foreign affairs responsibilities within the Congress.

BUREAUCRACY AND POLICY MAKING:
The Effect of Insiders and Outsiders on the Policy Process

Henry A. Kissinger

The most frequent question that one is asked when abroad, or by people who are concerned with international affairs and have not seen policy made, is "What is American policy?" Foreign policy is additionally complicated in the contemporary period by the fact that the actual decision-making process leads to a fragmentation of the decisions. Also, research and intelligence organizations, either foreign or national, attempt to give a rationality and consistency to foreign policy which it simply does not have. I have found it next to impossible to convince Frenchmen that there is no such thing as an American foreign policy, and that a series of moves that have produced a certain result may not have been planned to produce that result.

Foreigners looking at American policy have a tendency to assume that anything that happened was intended, and that there is a deep, complicated purpose behind our actions. I wish this were true, but I don't believe that it is. In fact, I think that in any large bureaucracy it probably cannot be true and this is probably the case with the Soviet Union also. We probably ascribe more consistency to Soviet foreign policy than really exists. The only foreign country which I believe has understood American policy making at all well is Great Britain. Most foreign countries that deal with us wait until we have done something, and then try to prove to us that what we have done is either illegal or undesirable.

Once the American decision-making process has disgorged an answer, it becomes technically very difficult to change the policy because even those who have serious doubts about it become reluctant to hazard those doubts in an international forum. There is no telling what would come out of a re-evaluation of existing measures. If one wishes to influence American foreign policy, the time to do so is in the formative period, and the level is the middle level of the bureaucracy--that of the assistant secretary and his immediate advisers. That is the highest level in which

people can still think. Above that, the day to day operation of the machine absorbs most of the energy, and the decisions that are made depend very much on internal pressures of the bureaucracy. Great Britain seems to me to have correctly identified this, and attempts to influence us through a whole set of personal relationships. This does not prevent such things as the Skybolt Affair and others, so it is not an infallible process, but the British system works better than that of any other foreign country.

Why is it so difficult to change policy? Part of the reason is mechanical, and part of it seems to me to be psychological. The mechanical reason is that as the bureaucracy becomes large and complex, more time is devoted to running its internal management than in divining the purpose which it is supposed to serve. The two things tend to merge in the minds of the top decision makers.

When I first started advising at high levels of the government in the early days of the Kennedy Administration, I had the illusion that all I had to do was walk into the President's office, convince him I was right, and he would then naturally do what I had recommended. There were a number of things wrong with this view. Most of the people who advise the President are plausible, so he constantly sees individuals who sound very convincing. His time is so budgeted and the pressures on him are so great, that it is almost impossible for him to know whether he should listen to one convincing individual or the other.

Also, even if by chance I persuaded him that his whole bureaucracy was wrong and I was right, he would then have the next problem of going about implementing what had been suggested. And that is not a negligible issue. There is only so much that even the President can do against the wishes of the bureaucracy, not because the bureaucracy would deliberately sabotage him but because every difficult issue is a closed one. The easy decisions are made at subordinate levels. A closed issue is characterized by the fact that the pros and cons seem fairly evenly divided and/or because the execution really depends on certain nuances of application. Unless you can get the willing support of your subordinates, simply giving an order does not get very far.

I have reason to believe, for example, that after the Nassau meeting President Kennedy intended to extend to France the same sort of consideration that had been given to Britain at Nassau. Indeed, he was prepared to put France into the same position, with some nuclear assistance as well, since that formal offer would not have meant anything unless France had some help on its nuclear warheads. It is also clear that the State Department and certain groups in the Defense Department were opposed to this. In order not to force this issue, President Kennedy kept his

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intention relatively vague. Why fight the State Department before you
even know what de Gaulle will accept? There existed a wide margin
within which the State Department people could operate in interpreting
their directives, not because they were deliberately trying to undermine
the President's intentions, but because they sincerely did not understand
his intention. Certainly, one of the contributing factors to the failure of
our post-Nassau diplomacy was the fact that while presidential emis-
saries were saying one thing to the French, State Department embassies
were saying something else to other European countries. Leaving aside
the question of whether Kennedy's intention was correct, one can never-
theless illustrate the difficulty that even a president can encounter when
moving in a certain direction without the willing and perhaps even enthu-
siastic support of most of his bureaucracy.

When the bureaucracy is large and fragmented as it is, decisions do
not get made until they appear as an administrative issue. One cannot
convince a high level official that he has a problem until it appears un-
ambiguously in the form of an administrative conflict. There is no such
thing, in my view, as a Vietnam policy; there is a series of programs
of individual agencies concerned with Vietnam. These programs are
reconciled or not, as the case may be, if there is a conflict between the
operating agencies. In the areas where there is no conflict between
agencies, it would be very unusual to get a high level consideration of
a problem. When conflict exists, the environment becomes receptive.
For example, when General Westmoreland asked for 200,000 troops,
that forced a high level review. But the day to day operations of a war
or of an alliance diplomacy will not generally engage the President and
the Secretary of State.

(In the late 1950s it was axiomatic among my colleagues that the United
States was lacking a sense of national purpose, though in the early 1960s
this was remedied.) The top officials are too busy to deal with anything
except the several thousand cables that arrive in Washington every day.
Typically, they are too busy to plan ahead. Planning involves conjectures
about the future and hypothetical cases. They are so busy with actual
cases that they are reluctant to take on theoretical ones. (As an illustra-
tion: in 1963 or 1964 the Policy Planning Staff of the State Department
produced a long document about American national purposes which some-
body leaked to the Senate Foreign Committee. That Committee subse-
quently called Secretary of State Rusk to testify about this document.
That was the first time that Mr. Rusk had ever read it, and his feelings
are easy to imagine. This is the typical fate of policy planning in the
State Department. In my experience I do not recall a single instance in
which, when a decision had to be made at a high level, a policy planning

paper was discussed or a member of the policy planning staff was asked to join. I report this as an empirical fact. I don't believe it has happened in the Vietnamese war at all.

I think most policy planning staffs in our government are created as sops to administrative theory and spend their time projecting the familiar into the future. They are not used for real innovation or even for developing criteria by which one can judge progress properly. This creates considerable rigidities. The executives become extremely conscious of the morale of their staffs.

Modern policy makers face a problem which is quite unique. I recently wrote an article about the foreign policy of Bismarck and discovered in the process that the German Foreign Office in the 1870s had exactly four permanent officials, roughly the scale at which all foreign offices operated at the turn of the century. It would never have occurred to any cabinet minister as late as the outbreak of World War II that he knew less about his problems than his subordinates. Yet, in the contemporary world, policy makers have to make decisions on a range of issues in which they may not give many hours to the same problems that their experts have spent years studying. This creates a congenital insecurity and a quest for administrative consensus behind which executives take refuge. It also leads to a situation in which rather than the executives using the bureaucracy, the opposite may be true: the bureaucracy often tries to use the executives. I think the history of the MLF is a good example.

Our governmental process works reasonably well in relation to specific technical issues and also when there is an adversary procedure. If one department is strongly for something and another department opposed, then the President or cabinet officer has a chance of elaborating an overall purpose. The system goes awry if you have a small, dedicated, unopposed group. I would argue that the MLF was put over by five or six highly motivated, highly intelligent individuals, in a government where a considerable number of people were indifferent and nobody was really opposed. The process by which it was done involved, at least in its early phases, a fairly deliberate manipulation by the bureaucracy of the senior executives.

For example, sentences were put into a Presidential speech which in themselves were perfectly sensible, but the full import of which was perhaps not understood. These were then used to start study groups which were subsequently used to present a new claim for a little more progress, and so on until the point where the prestige of the United States had become heavily committed to something the implications of which, in my judgment, had never been submitted to the adversary procedure.

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No systematic case was made for the opposition to the MLF during the most formative period of the relevant U. S. policy.

Because of this gap between expertise and decision making, a great deal of communication occurs by means of a briefing. Now, briefings reward theatrical qualities. They put a premium on the ability to package information and to present a fore-ordained result. Every briefer worth his salt says, "Interrupt me at any point with a question." Usually the victim of the briefing is very proud if he can formulate a question. The briefer has heard the question a hundred times before, and it is like throwing a fast ball across the middle of the plate to Mickey Mantle. He gives a glib response which is overwhelming. All this creates a state of mind where the policy maker may have the uneasy feeling of knowing he is being taken, even though he doesn't quite know how. (This magnifies the sense of insecurity.)

Because management of the bureaucracy takes so much energy and precisely because changing course is so difficult, many of the most important decisions are taken by extra-bureaucratic means. Some of the key decisions are kept to a very small circle while the bureaucracy happily continues working away in ignorance of the fact that decisions are being made, or of the fact that a decision is being made in a particular area. One reason for keeping the decisions to small groups is that when bureaucracies are so unwieldy and when their internal morale becomes a serious problem, an unpopular decision may be fought by brutal means, such as leaks to the press or to congressional committees. Thus, the only way secrecy can be kept is to exclude from the making of the decision all those who are theoretically charged with carrying it out. There is, thus, small wonder for the many allegations of deliberate sabotage of certain American efforts, or of great cynicism of American efforts because of inconsistent actions. In the majority of cases this was due to the Ignorance of certain parts of the bureaucracy, rather than to malevolent intent. Another result is that the relevant part of the bureaucracy, because it is being excluded from the making of a particular decision, continues with great intensity sending out cables, thereby distorting the effort with the best intentions in the world. (You cannot stop them from doing this because you do not tell them what is going on.)

Now, finally, this explains why sometimes outsiders can play an influential role. In the majority of cases, the outsider will say nothing that the bureaucracy has not already developed on the inside. The most frequent question that one is asked, if one is a consultant in Washington, is: "Have you had any new ideas lately?" This notion that foreign policy consists in constantly sparking new ideas, as if constant originality is the essence of foreign policy, is in itself open to question. I do not

believe that de Gaulle is a considerable statesman because he comes up with a new thought every Thursday. Most ideas that masquerade as new ideas in Washington have been around for quite a long time. The utility of the outsider is that he can inject at a higher level certain ideas that have been around. He is not part of the bureaucratic battle. He is not a problem person whom the decision-maker has to placate. He can be listened to without the implications that are almost inseparable from listening to the bureaucracy. One corollary conclusion I would draw is that the outside adviser should never advise unless his opinion is asked, and he should get out as soon as it is delivered. When he himself becomes an advocate of his policies, that is, as soon as he becomes a bureaucratic problem, he loses his effectiveness, and he is gradually degraded to the level of other bureaucrats.

The tendencies which seem to me to be inherent in the nature of modern bureaucracy tend to be compounded in the United States by the particular cast of mind of our top policy makers, many of whom come from the legal profession. Lawyers are notoriously reluctant to take on hypothetical cases. All planning involves hypothetical cases and therefore there is a tendency among the legal professionals to deal with problems on their merits.

Secondly, the lawyers and some of our business executives are comfortable only with adversary proceedings; without them, they don't know how to guide policy. In the areas where I have seen American negotiations being carried out, I do not recall a detailed negotiating position ever existing before a date for the conference was set. And this reluctance to spell out what we are after is due to the fact that professional negotiators want to see what the other side has to offer before they commit themselves. Therefore, in periods of preliminary diplomacy, our position is very rigid and tough, but this changes rapidly when a negotiator has been appointed because he acts as spokesman for the other side. It is not his problem to worry about the overall picture. He worries about the success of the negotiations, and you make the negotiations succeed by taking very seriously into account what the other side has to say. Therefore, one notices a tendency in American foreign policy to spasms of rigidity and spasms of tactical flexibility.

Another group that deserves mention is the business executives whom Secretary McNamara excluded to some extent. They have the conviction that their special skill consists in making decisions between administratively produced proposals on the basis of some general rule of thumb or a strong will. Within the government they lack the familiar framework of the experience they have accumulated over a long period with their businesses. They become as often prisoners of the bureaucracy as its leaders.

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In all of these observations I must consider Secretary McNamara as an exception--a man of unusual intelligence, toughness of mind, and long range conceptions. In his case, however, a number of very serious problems existed. One was a very curious bent for theoretical combat which would allow him to leave no stupid argument go unchallenged, even if no practical conclusion followed from it. Secondly, he had a tendency to want to be right at all times and to be so far superior to most people with whom he was arguing that he would win even without fully convincing them. I feel that Secretary McNamara gained control over procurement and over procurement-type decisions in the Pentagon at the eventual cost of losing control over major policy decisions. He lost control over these because he not only unified the Defense Department (which is one of his great achievements) but he also managed to unify the military services in a common dislike of the sort of control he was exercising, so that for the first time the civilians were confronted with unified JCS views on most policy issues. As long as the JCS remained divided, a certain element of civilian choice existed, but when they became united and started seeing every issue theologically as defending their special prerogative, McNamara's profundity in analysis had to give way to a very practical problem: how many times a month could he go to the mat with the JCS? He had to decide very deliberately which issues he could confront them with. If one wants to explain why it is that McNamara's theories about the war in Vietnam were not always matched by implementation, especially toward the end, the primary reason was that he felt that confronted with issues of ABM, troop deployment, force levels, renewal of the strategic force, and Vietnam strategy, he could only handle so many of these cases simultaneously. He picked those which he thought were crucial at the moment. Therefore, McNamara does not illustrate the general observations with which I started, but he nevertheless shows that it is not enough to be in charge of a Department. The management of the bureaucracy does tend to play a very large role.

* * *

COMMENT: I think your indictment of Mr. McNamara is correct, but too narrow. The problem with Mr. McNamara is that he lacks an appreciation of the unifying influence of theory (be it political, mathematical, or economic) and he deals too much in the concrete. This is his flaw, but let us give him his due. What he did in one year was change the war plan of the United States, communicate this unequivocally to our allies, who found it a magnificent reinforcement of our commitment abroad, and assert command over the most stubborn parts of the military bureaucracy.

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MR. KISSINGER: Let me comment briefly. I did not mean to say that McNamara addressed himself only to procurement. McNamara, in the nature of the decisions that had to be taken during the first four years of his being in office, addressed himself primarily to general doctrinal issues, and to putting some sense and order into the problem of force levels of the various services. He did this with extraordinary ability. In the process, whether avoidably or unavoidably, and largely unavoidably, he made so many enemies that in the actual conduct of policy he then had to pick his objectives. I disagree with you when you say that the doctrine he developed was considered by our allies as a magnificent reinforcement of the American commitment. I consider it a taking on of a theoretical argument that had no great consequence and produced considerable difficulty. However, that is a question of judgment that any defense secretary has a right to make and has nothing to do with the bureaucratic process. I feel that political sensitivity was not included among McNamara's great qualities and therefore he would not always be conscious of the political impact abroad of theoretical arguments he was making. I often felt he was doing things with which I agreed but in such a way as to be counterproductive. However, that was a question of personality rather than of structure.

QUESTION: Could you comment on the ways in which a new president may or may not be able to shake the inertia of the system in regard to the problem of Vietnam?

MR. KISSINGER: I have the impression that much of Vietnam is going to be shaken up before a new President comes in. As a general rule, I believe a new President, in the areas where he wants to effect change, must do so within the first four months. He need not complete it within this time, but he must give enough of a shake to the bureaucracy to indicate that he wants a new direction and he must be brutal enough to demonstrate that he means it.

It was easy under the Eisenhower administration to ridicule the formalism of the decision-making process. In effect, it was somewhat ridiculous--there were many documents which were really diplomatic treaties between the various departments, and which enabled each department to do what it had wanted to do in the first place. But it had the great advantage of a regular procedure for getting decisions made. Under Kennedy this procedure was dismantled, and he substituted for it a sort of nervous energy and great intellectual activity, which worked well because he was an enormously intelligent man, surrounded by a very lively group of people, so that all sorts of ideas were floating into the very receptive White House.

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The drawback under the Kennedy Administration was that there really was no regular procedure to getting things done, except on crisis issues, because you never could be sure who was being heard in addition to the constituted people, who did not always present their cases in the presence of the others who disagreed with them. It was a somewhat amorphous process. Under Johnson you had the disorganization of Kennedy without the intellectual excitement, and with somewhat of a fear of the President superimposed on it. The organizational problem seems to be to combine the procedural regularity of Eisenhower with the intellectual excitement of Kennedy. Whether that is possible, I do not know.

Eisenhower tended to operate almost exclusively with the National Security Council machinery, and he had divided the responsibility so that the current NSC business would be conducted by the staff secretary, while the planning side was conducted by the chief of the NSC staff. The operations coordinating board was the undersecretary's and was supposed to implement the planning decisions of the National Security Council. The drawback of the NSC as it was run under President Eisenhower was that it was terribly formalistic. One way to tell they really weren't doing anything was to take their papers, write down the opposite of what they had said, and see that this involved no policy choice. One is not saying anything by advocating that it is in the American interest to have a pro-American government in country X. No one would argue that is in our interest to have an anti-American government there. It turned into a series of abstract platitudes which were not very effective.

Kennedy used the NSC primarily as a sounding board; it rarely made important decisions. He had something called the Committee of Principals which met when concrete decisions had to be made--such as the Berlin crisis. There was no regular staff work for these meetings, it was all done on an ad hoc basis, on a very substantial intellectual level.

Johnson is compulsively secretive and will not say what he thinks, so it is very hard to discover people who think they know what he wants. There is less of a premium on coming up with new ideas under him. I think something like the Committee of Principals, or the National Security Council with a staff of McGeorge Bundy qualities is needed. There is a staff which keeps groping and is not primarily a diplomatic instrument.

Probably what is needed is something similar to what McNamara did in the Defense Department, that is, to try to establish some criteria by which to judge success and failure. McNamara got control of the Defense Department by flooding the various agencies with questions which they had to answer and which gave him good information. It took several

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years to bring home to them that the usual bureaucratic double-talk
wouldn't go. Something like that is needed in the national security area,
where it is much more difficult to establish, because the criteria are
more elusive. There isn't any clear notion of what the American national
interest is, and this presents a great problem. Most of the traditional
concepts of balance of power just don't apply to the contemporary theory
of national interest. To develop criteria in this sort of intellectual
vacuum is very difficult.

All the thinking of balance of power has been related to territorial
control. You could judge whether there was an equilibrium by what
country changed allegiance. We live in a curious period in which terri-
torial control may not be that important. We have good categories for
resisting what we call aggression. Leaving the issue of whether we are
correct in our assessment that the Vietnamese war was Chinese instigated--
which I don't happen to believe--one would still be able to argue that no
conceivable territorial gain of Communist China in Vietnam, or for that
matter in Southeast Asia, could compare in terms of augmentation of its
strength with the acquisition of nuclear weapons so far as concerned its
impact on the international situation. We have some criteria for judging
one, and none for the other.

It is hard to argue that any area is essential for American survival
from the purely physical point of view, but there is such a thing as a
psychological, moral balance. What would it do to the U.S. to be com-
pletely isolated, irrelevant to the rest of the world, even if we had
enough of a nuclear arsenal to prevent a physical attack? This is an
area in which I have not seen any very systematic thinking, although it
is a chief problem in international equilibrium to which we have to address
ourselves.

QUESTION: This is really on a broader scale. Mr. Kissinger, must we worry about neutralization until the time and place has been set? Don't we have within the bureaucracy some kind of planning for negotiations?

MR. KISSINGER: There are two parts to plans: first, to get them; second, to have to take them seriously. We have more plans than we have plans that are taken seriously. Take the problem of negotiations on an issue that is highly controversial and may even have political implications. No doubt some planning paper gets prepared, maybe even an interagency one. Yet the people involved have in the back of their minds the question: why should they fight with that issue now? It will be just as bloody later on, but at least they will be paying the price then for a possible result. Why fight it as a purely theoretical issue?

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And therefore my experience with any sort of negotiating plan shows that usually we'll get a multiplication of tough positions. Nobody wants to take on the unpleasant role of advocating major changes; nobody wants to be called before a Congressional committee. Therefore, that sort of plan, if you're talking about a negotiating plan, is very abstract and theoretical.

Secondly, in my experience, which is limited, it rarely receives the serious attention of the principals. Either the principals won't look at it at all or they will look at it in a way that requires no practical consequence. They won't do it in a way that requires implementation to follow, and this is especially true if there is no one who has a primary responsibility for it--if it is simply said that it would be a good thing to have a negotiating position but there is no one whose own bureaucratic success depends on having one.

**QUESTION:** Do you feel that negotiation is good in and of itself?

**MR. KISSINGER:** Do I think so? Don't apply what I said to Vietnam, although some aspects of it would apply. The tendency is to say that something is either a military problem or a diplomatic problem--and if it's a diplomatic problem, then it's the State Department's job. The State Department, probably for reasons of the background of its personnel that one could go into, tends to approach it on a largely tactical level. They'll develop a position, they'll want to see what the other position is, then they'll see what is negotiable. The difference between what is negotiable and what is desirable may be very wide. And if you don't know what is desirable and operate only on the basis of what is negotiable, you really encourage the other side to take a very extreme position. If the other side knows that you're going to compromise considerably, they are encouraged to take an extreme rather than a conciliatory position. So the problem with the State Department approach to most negotiations is that it is entirely tactical.

**QUESTION:** Could you comment, please, on the seizing of the Pueblo by North Korea?

**MR. KISSINGER:** It was quite an intelligence coup for the other side to get the equipment and all of these people. I think it also shows the extent to which we have become overextended by the Vietnamese war. It would have been inconceivable five years ago that North Korea could capture an American ship, tow it into Wonsan, and that absolutely nothing would happen. In our public discussion we say we must get it through diplomacy--well, diplomacy unrelated to other things can't achieve a great deal, and we can't do many other things because of Vietnam. Another thing the Pueblo incident illustrates or highlights to me is the following: I always

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thought it was a mistake to get South Korea involved in Vietnam for
many reasons, one of which was the fact that at any level the outcome
of the Vietnamese war was not likely to be very agreeable to Seoul,
even before the Tet offensive. Besides, it created additional incentives
to what is already a very tough regime in North Korea to get itself in-
volved. But I have no brilliant solution on how to get these people back.

QUESTION: I have a double-barrelled question. Would we do better without a monumental State Department? It seems we do better if we have a small number of chairmen and officials than a huge array, or are they necessary? The State Department is habitually accused of being tedious and of not producing anything. Is that a plausible accusation?

MR. KISSINGER: I must say I hold the view that we are so overstaffed that it makes thinking almost impossible. When you have in embassies abroad individuals assigned to particular small groups, each of them filing endless reports, the result is that no senior official can possibly read everything that comes in--no new official in turn will say that he has nothing to report, so the machine keeps churning on. I've often been struck by the fact that when a U.S. embassy would use me to get people in that weren't easily accessible, there would be about twelve Americans hanging over these people taking down practically every word, so that they could include it in their reports the next day rather than to let it develop in a more normal way. I think the handling of all of this material does make it more difficult to reflect. Which part you cut out is a big problem, because the world has become more complicated and you have to know more things. On the whole, if we could get rid of the bottom half of the Foreign Service we might be better off.

Now about the State Department. There is a definite problem in the State Department, and it consists of many factors. One is that State Department training is in the direction of reporting and negotiation, not of thinking in terms of national policy. They are trained to give a very good account of what somebody said to them. They can give a much less good account of what this means. Also, if an officer works on the Iran desk, he can tell you every detail about Iran. Then he gets transferred to another job and you can never get him to talk about Iran again, but he will know everything about Austria or whatever.

Another quality that is rewarded is a certain negotiation skill. But what is not encouraged in the State Department hierarchy, though it is in a military hierarchy, is an assumption of responsibility and the tendency to think of problems from the vantage point of a higher level. I think the first eight to ten years of a State Department man's career

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tend to be such as to drive the more imaginative and more purpose-oriented people out of it. When I look at people that I see engaged in it at lower levels, I think this is probably true that they are the least adventurous.

**QUESTION:** Can you make some comment on the role of intellectuals in the bureaucracy?

**MR. KISSINGER:** I don't think you relate intellectuals to the bureaucracy as one undifferentiated group. For example, in the preparation of the strategic posture document it was the practice--at least on some occasions--to call in outside intellectuals to help in the preparation. And there they were useful on their merits, just as if they had been in the bureaucracy. They were not being called in just because they could referee the disputes but because of their expertise in a particular field. Other intellectuals are called in not because anyone cares about their opinion but because they are judged to be useful in defending the policy elsewhere. This has the risk that if the policy changes, you have made yourself a critic. Other intellectuals are called in in order to give some moral reinforcement to the decision maker who really has heard all arguments already, but would like to hear an outsider say the same thing. Thus there are many different roles that outsiders play. Sometimes outsiders are called in because it is the only way of keeping knowledge of certain things from getting too widely diffused in the bureaucracy.

**QUESTION:** There is in your presentation a kind of pessimistic historical inevitability in the American policy process. One almost has the impression that policy making by lottery might be almost as good, if not better. What then do you feel is rational and correct about the policy process as you have known it, and do you think there are improvements to be made?

**MR. KISSINGER:** I don't think policy by lottery would be better, but I think that if one wants to understand what the government is likely to do, one has to understand the bureaucracies of the problems. The ways in which intellectuals from the outside often go wrong are several: one is that they judge a policy by its plausibility to them without taking into account that the policy maker is responsible not only for the best thing that can happen but also for the worst thing, and that many ideas cannot be implemented not because they are bad but because the consequences of their failure would be too great. Another is that for the policy maker the most difficult problem is the problem of conjecture. That is, when the scope for action is great, the knowledge on which to base this action is relatively small. When the knowledge is great, the scope for action has often already disappeared. So you have to act on the basis of an

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assessment which you cannot prove true when you make it. It involves
a moral and psychological act as much as an intellectual act.

And finally, there is the inherent dynamism of the political and bureau-
cratic process itself. In that sense, there is a certain necessity about
this. If you do not know how this process operates, it is very difficult
to predict on the basis of abstract rationality how it is going to come
out. The reason why this particular problem is magnified is, it seems
to me, that only in the rarest cases is there a relationship between
high position and great substantive knowledge. Most of our elective
officials had to spend so much of their energy getting elected that they
can give relatively little attention to the substance of what they are
going to do when they get elected. And therefore you get the curious
phenomenon of people deciding to run for high office first and then
scrambling around for some intellectuals to tell them what their posi-
tions ought to be. In many cases it is not that the intellectuals are used
merely as speech writers for positions that the policy-makers already
have; it is literally the case that you are starting with a *tabula rasa*,
and that the position the political leader takes is much influenced by the
type of intellectual that sometimes quite accidentally winds up in his
entourage.

The top policy makers usually do not know that they have a problem
until they have an administrative issue. They often show enormous
reluctance to guide the project, because they are not really sure in
what direction they want to guide it. Now de Gaulle has a conception
of policy, and I would therefore not say that he is the prisoner of his
administrative apparatus. The opposite may be the problem there:
that this policy verges on the capricious. But still, the typical political
leader of the contemporary managerial society is a man with a strong
will, a high capacity to get himself elected, but no very great concep-
tion of what he is going to do when he gets into office. This is true of
many of the cabinet officials as well, and in this sense, although I don't
accept your notion of inevitability, I am pessimistic about the ability
of modern bureaucratic society to manage a world which is quite dis-
continuous with its previous experience, and especially to do so with
generosity and vision. I am not saying it's technically impossible, but
the challenges are so much greater.

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ROGER MORRIS, <u>UNCERTAIN GREATNESS</u>

Chapter II, "Coup d'Etat at the Hotel Pierre"

In their initial talks together, Nixon and Kissinger discussed the need for a major reorganization of decisionmaking in foreign policy. As with the other subjects they covered in these sessions at the Pierre, they spoke in broad terms but with an easy mutual agreement and reinforcement that began to form the pattern of their relationship. Nixon made it clear that Kissinger had immediate authority to "revitalize" the NSC. His instructions for reform, as Kissinger relayed them, offered wide latitude. There were only two conditions. The new system was naturally to center in the White House; and it was to yield up to the President a full range of options for every issue.

78]

UNCERTAIN GREATNESS

They must avoid "the Eisenhower problem," as Nixon called it, an NSC process which was orderly but deprived the Chief Executive of a genuine choice among alternative courses. Otherwise, Kissinger was free to devise any system satisfying these requirements. During the next four weeks in December, there followed the usual pattern of organizational planning, compounded of scheming, accident, and the chance conjunction of personalities—the unmystical and un-stately stuff of so many important decisions in foreign policy.

The draft plan for the new NSC apparatus came, almost inadvert-ently, from Morton Halperin, a young Pentagon official whom Kissinger had known in Cambridge. Only thirty, Halperin was a New Yorker, nominally a Republican, with a Yale Ph.D. and some pub-lished studies on arms control written while still a Harvard instruc-tor. When faculty tenure seemed unlikely, he had come in 1967 to the then powerful Office of International Security Affairs (ISA), the Defense Department's largely civilian foreign policy arm. There he swiftly acquired a record as a bright, versatile, aggressive, and very ambitious bureaucrat who operated shrewdly through the inter-departmental maze. He was among a handful of officials in ISA who opposed escalation of the Vietnam war, and had played a persuasive role in the gradual conversion of Clark Clifford against the Vietnam policy the winter before. While neither he nor Kissinger could know it, however, Halperin's internal dissent on Vietnam had attracted the ubiquitous suspicions of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, the squalid antecedent to the later episode of phone tapping that was to be one of the more ironic of the Nixon administration's scandals. The epi-sode eventually spurred the passage of Halperin from aspiring gov-ernment aide to civil libertarian, and was to haunt Kissinger years later.

But in early December 1968, the setting and personalities were quite different. Kissinger had asked Halperin to come briefly to the Pierre to write an advisory paper on how systems analysis techniques might be applied to presidential handling of foreign affairs, a paper he envisioned as a first step toward the reforms ordered by Nixon. Telling colleagues he expected a position in the new régime, Halperin promptly came to New York. And when in their first talks he told Kissinger that he could best respond to the request by charting a government-wide structure for decisionmaking of the sort eventu-ally planned, Kissinger readily agreed, passing on the President-

Coup d'État at the Hotel Pierre

[ 79

elect's general strictures on White House authority and provision for a full range of options on each issue. Whether or not Kissinger initially intended Halperin to provide only a fragment of the reform, whether or not he may have intended to construct the system himself, what mattered now was that he was already hard-pressed by other demands of the new job. Halperin, whose abilities he respected, was there, apparently eager to seize the opportunity. The drafting began.

In Halperin, as in others who would be involved in the coup, personal ambition mingled with a larger purpose. His zeal for bureaucratic reform flowed as well from his frustrations with the clogged arteries leading to and from Johnson's Tuesday lunch and through the SIG-IRG committees. After often struggling in vain to make felt from his corner of the Pentagon his disagreement on Vietnam and other issues, he came to the Pierre determined to guarantee that differing policies would have access to the highest levels for consideration.

Halperin's distrust of officialdom was neither so visceral as Nixon's nor so philosophical as Kissinger's. A book he wrote after leaving government, *Games Bureaucrats Play* (in which he neglected to assess his own contribution of December 1968), represented an impersonal, sometimes humorous view of organizational politics, and a certain cynical resignation about it all. The system he drafted for Kissinger in 1968 was not designed to eliminate bureaucratic delay and evasion—which Halperin knew from his battles on Vietnam could be used to thwart bad policy as well as good—but essentially to balance those natural institutional forces by compelling full presidential consideration, pro and con, of all the available options. In that respect it clearly satisfied one of Nixon's initial conditions. The other, ultimately most important condition—White House control over the process—was in a sense a by-product of the scheme. The decisive powers of the new system, the assignment of policy reviews and the chairmanship of the high-level committee set up to screen issues coming before the NSC, might just as easily have been vested among Assistant Secretaries of State and Defense without contradicting Halperin's main purpose of providing a hearing for differing positions. But he was not offering his ideas to the new officials in the Pentagon or at Foggy Bottom, who, had they known or cared, might have used the design for quite other purposes. He was now at the

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Pierre, working out the system *before* the senior officials had even been appointed, and working *for* a man with a clear grasp of the significance of bureaucratic control; a man who saw the need for preemption of his rivals, as well as the rewards of satisfying a President with obviously strong opinions on the subject.

So it was that Kissinger came to occupy the controlling positions in the system and consequently changed history. Halperin's role was to be doubly ironic, even aside from the later tapping of his phone and his public confrontation with Kissinger. A decisionmaking structure originally designed to assure dissent later served only to strengthen the control of men who soon would brook no opposition to their policies. A reform born out of the frustration of opposition to the war was to fortify a régime that willfully continued the slaughter.

Outwardly, the framework of the new organization was relatively simple. At bottom Halperin kept the IRGs, still chaired by State Department Assistant Secretaries. They were renamed Interdepartmental Groups. The new IGs were directly responsible to the Review Group, a body of senior representatives drawn from the various agencies and chaired by Kissinger. National Security Study Memoranda (NSSM), ordering the preparation of specific policy reviews by specific dates, originated with Kissinger, were approved by the President, and assigned to the appropriate IG over Kissinger's signature. With a member of Kissinger's NSC staff sitting at each IG table with de facto Assistant Secretary rank, the Groups then produced a policy paper covering, in the words of a typical NSSM, "the full range of policy alternatives," and forwarded it to the Review Group according with the NSSM due date. The Review Group in turn considered whether the paper had dealt with all the options, then either returned it to the IG for redrafting or scheduled it for formal NSC consideration. The President was to make his decision on a given policy only after reading all the options and in the wake of a full discussion of the issues among the statutory members of the NSC at one of its regularly scheduled meetings. Once a decision was taken, its implementation was to be monitored by the Under Secretary's Committee, chaired by the Under Secretary of State with a membership of his peers from the other agencies represented on the NSC, and including Kissinger.

In addition to the unprecedented power and command he vested in Kissinger, Halperin made only one other change in the customary

[ 81 ]

inter-agency representation on the various policymaking bodies, but it was significant. He excluded the CIA from the system, save for providing NSC intelligence briefings, on the altogether logical grounds that the Agency was not by law or mission a policymaking institution. Though initially approved by Kissinger and even Nixon, it was the only substantial element of the new scheme as first drafted that did not survive.

The lines of control in Halperin's design ran from every level of the system to the White House basement office of the new Assistant for National Security Affairs. By means of his authority to originate and sign the NSSM, Kissinger determined the context of policy review, the questions to be asked, and the calendar of discussion. In an intellectual sense, this endowed him with something like the power of his own executive order, an instrument of bureaucratic enforcement that had formerly been exclusively the President's. Kissinger's NSC staff monitored the preparation and approach of the assigned papers in the Interdepartmental Groups, interjecting their (or his) views, prodding for wider consideration or new information, voting if necessary against clearance from the IG. The scrutiny continued as the papers came to the White House, where another Kissinger staff member specially designated to supervise the flow of papers to the Review Group (in the first months this key role would be Halperin's) examined the policy options independent of the regional staff member, scheduled the Review Group meetings and agenda, and made recommendations to Kissinger. As Review Group chairman himself, Kissinger could veto, order redrafting, insert amendments, and generally shape the content and tone of the paper. Finally, of course, though it had not been described as part of the formal system, there would naturally be the cover memo accompanying the NSSM into the Oval Office, analyzing, often attacking the bureaucratic positions, and supplying, for the President's eyes only, Kissinger's personal recommendation.

In later practice, there would be intimate talks between the President and his Assistant before and after the NSC meeting. On an abstract diagram of the structure, Kissinger appeared only as the chairman of a committee, the neutral manager of the paperwork for the President and his cabinet officers as they pondered foreign policy, just as the law intended, around the NSC table. But for those who understood the bureaucratic reality, Kissinger's grip on the presenta-

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tion of issues, combined with his sheer physical and psychological
proximity to the Chief Executive as a member of the White House
Staff, conferred upon him wide and authentic power. Most impor-
tant, however, it was power Kissinger intended to use, and his appre-
ciation of its potential colored the deft but cautious politics he prac-
ticed in pushing the reform past any real or imagined rivals to final
adoption.

After a first reading of Halperin's design, Kissinger immediately
gave the draft, without Halperin's knowledge, to another aide for
comment and criticism, a practice he was to maintain in the White
House and the State Department with mixed results in work quality
and staff morale. The aide was Lawrence Eagleburger, a thirty-eight-
year-old FSO dispatched by the State Department when Kissinger
called Under Secretary Nicholas Katzenbach for temporary staff help
in the first days after his appointment. A Republican from Wisconsin,
where he had earned a graduate degree in political science at Madi-
son and as a young man worked in Earl Warren's unsuccessful 1948
presidential campaign, Eagleburger came to the Pierre on the crest
of a brilliant rise in the career service. After only two of the usual
apprentice posts abroad, he had entered that élite and upwardly
mobile category of younger men in the Washington bureaucracy, the
Special Assistant. There he moved progressively upward as a deputy
to Dean Acheson during the latter's 1966 consultancy on NATO, as
an aide for European affairs on Rostow's NSC staff; and in 1968 as
Katzenbach's principal assistant, the position he left to go to New
York.

When Kissinger told Katzenbach he wanted a good officer to help
with the schedule, Katzenbach replied he could even do better than
that. "I'll send you one who's a Republican too." Like Halperin's, it
was another accident made up of personality and circumstance with
a far-reaching sequel. Eagleburger worked for a time on the NSC
staff until forced by extreme exhaustion to leave later in 1969. He
then served at NATO, at the Pentagon, and reappeared as Kissinger's
closest aide for the final period in the Nixon White House and the first
months at State in 1973-74. He eventually became Deputy Under
Secretary of State for Management, the second highest and in some
ways most important career position in the service—all the while
supplying Kissinger on a range of issues from congressional relations
to Cuban policy with the kind of reviews of staff memoranda that he

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had first given Halperin's draft in early December 1968.

In his review of the Halperin draft, Eagleburger's reaction was brief and to the point. He thought the system would fulfill its purpose, but there was the problem in that the coup was perhaps too obvious. "Whatever happened to the Secretary of State?" he asked Kissinger. "We must do something about that," Kissinger answered solemnly, though both he and Eagleburger left the design unchanged.

The problem of legitimizing the reform, or at least of masking its meaning for its victims long enough to win its adoption, centered on a third personality at the Pierre. General Andrew Jackson Goodpaster, fifty-three, slim and erect under distinguished gray hair, was, as one of his colleagues put it, "the kind of man you can spot for an officer even in civilian clothes." Goodpaster was a West Pointer who commanded a combat engineering battalion during World War II, earning several decorations. He rose steadily through the grades to general rank, and took a Princeton Ph.D. in international relations after the war. But what had suddenly singled him out from many other officers of similarly impressive records was his assignment in 1950 as staff assistant to the commander of the allied armies in Europe, Dwight Eisenhower. Four years later, just thirty-nine, Goodpaster became defense liaison officer and staff secretary to President Eisenhower, and for the remainder of his two administrations played a largely behind-the-scenes role coordinating NSC machinery. Now, after exile as a lowly assistant division commander under the Democrats, he had been asked by Nixon to come to the Pierre as an informal adviser on the national security reorganization begun by Kissinger.

Another Special Assistant made good, Goodpaster occupied a curious and critical place at the Pierre. His record of prominent achievement had been compiled mainly on the basis of a mechanical staff efficiency, and his critics claimed he did not possess an exceptional grasp either of world problems or of the bureaucratic realities in Washington. He had been a chief participant in and supporter of a system of consensus and inertia that the new régime was sharply repudiating. Yet because Nixon had known him in the Eisenhower NSC, he was now somehow the Republicans' general, much as Maxwell Taylor had been the Democrats' general eight years earlier for comparable reasons. To the men involved in the new NSC system,

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to Nixon and the new Secretaries of State and Defense, to Kissinger who shrewdly saw and feared his potential role, he would become the authority, the endorser of the reform, his Eisenhower past surrounding him with something approaching reverence. Yet when the system had been approved and installed, Goodpaster, whose dispensation was decisive, was promptly sent to Brussels as NATO commander, far removed from the decisionmaking process that was supposedly the area of his singular wisdom.

Kissinger treated Goodpaster with deference and caution, however, acknowledging his status as a would-be Taylor, an independent and influential presidential adviser. In giving him the draft system to review, for example, Kissinger concealed its authorship, fearing Halperin's Vietnam dissent at the Pentagon might be known to Goodpaster, who might then point out to the President-elect that his new foreign policy machinery was being built by a man of questionable views, or at least a figure whom the military services at Defense found dubious. It was the kind of wedge, Kissinger worried aloud in telling Halperin to stay in the background, that could give Goodpaster an argument for constituting himself as a check on such matters in the new régime. So Halperin's authorship of the paper remained secret, and in mid-December, after only a few days' study, Goodpaster presented Kissinger with his unquestioning approval of the new system. Kissinger then sent the draft to the President-elect with a certifying note, "I have shown this to General Goodpaster who approves."

Nixon's response to the new system was equally swift and positive, though marred by the first appearance of what would be a major flaw in his leadership. He did approve the reform, Nixon told Kissinger, but it would have to be passed too by the future Secretary of State, William Rogers, and by Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird. "Now you'll have to get it by Rogers," Nixon told a puzzled Kissinger. Though the President-elect had privately endorsed the reform, he wanted to avoid any more controversy. If there were opposition from Rogers or Laird, he clearly implied, the plan was in jeopardy. He would not directly confront his cabinet on the issue, however important. It was a pattern of evasion to be repeated from this pre-inaugural period at the Pierre to the disgraced end of his presidency. Nixon obviously had encouraged and now approved a plan to deprive his cabinet of power; throughout his term in office he repeatedly de-

[ 85 ]

cided against their recommendations in favor of his own or Kissinger's positions; he frequently cursed them in private for their political disloyalty, stupidity, and worse. Yet somehow, the prisoner of a profound aversion to such direct human conflict, he could not bring himself to face the men he had appointed to the highest ranks of government with a straightforward statement of his feelings or policies. There was only a hint of that in his talk at the Pierre, yet the experience made a lasting impression on Kissinger who, in the first of many instances, told a friend after Nixon's "approval" of the reform that the new President seemed at times "very strange." At the end of their conversation, Kissinger related, Nixon had seemed oddly certain that the plan would succeed without the dreaded fight. "Don't worry about Rogers," he had called after Kissinger as he left the suite where they talked.

The men to whom the new draft NSC system was now sent for approval, a virtual sentencing to their own bureaucratic impotence, were very different individuals, yet similarly unqualified to judge the implications of the first major issue of their new positions. William Pierce Rogers, at fifty-five a successful New York lawyer, had arrived and moved easily in the upper reaches of American businesses and government organizations, where affability and banality often count for as much as talent and intelligence. After graduating from Cornell Law School, Rogers had been an assistant district attorney in New York and, following his navy service, a Republican counsel to several postwar Senate investigating committees. His contacts on Capitol Hill brought him a place as a deputy attorney general in the Eisenhower administration, and in 1957 he was appointed Attorney General. In Eisenhower's cabinet he became friendly with Vice President Nixon, and it was to Rogers's home that Nixon went for friendly advice during one of the "six crises" when word came of Eisenhower's first heart attack. Handsome, often smiling, given to working in his shirt sleeves, Rogers left the impression on some who knew him in government as Attorney General and Secretary of State of a man who appeared unaware of the seriousness or depth of the business moving about him. "He's a fine man," pronounced one State Department bureaucrat who briefed him on a preferred position on a controversial policy during the transition period in 1968-69, "cool and agreeable to everything." His sole experience in foreign affairs had been as a member of that bipartisan group of public delegates annu-

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ally appointed by presidents to the U.S. Delegation for UN General Assembly sessions. Rogers attended the more than usually uneventful session of 1965. His participation was notable in one respect, however, since he liked many of the FSOs he happened to meet at the U.S. Mission to the UN and subsequently appointed them, frequently without regard to their qualifications, to key positions in the State Department four years later. He had little visible knowledge of foreign policy, no background which prepared him for the bureaucratic swamp he was entering, and least of all no adequate appreciation of the adversary he faced in Henry Kissinger. Rogers lacked the acquaintance with the people and problems of foreign affairs which members of the foreign policy establishment possessed. He was a man Nixon apparently liked at some personal level, perhaps preferring him as Secretary of State precisely for his inexperience with foreign policy.

Elliot Richardson, Rogers's Under Secretary, was no better prepared to measure the meaning of the new system. To the degree that he did recognize its impact, Richardson seemed ready in December 1968, as so often later, to make his own accommodation with the flow of power. Another former Eisenhower official whom Nixon knew, Richardson had been first an Assistant Secretary, then acting Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare in the late fifties, having risen early and easily from a Boston Brahmin family, gone through Harvard Law, and benefitted by the patronage of Massachusetts Republicans Leverett Saltonstall and Christian Herter. He returned to Boston in 1959, appointed by Eisenhower as U.S. attorney, and since 1964 had won two terms successively as lieutenant governor and attorney general of the state. Now at forty-eight, a gifted sketcher with an agile mind and a chafing, though calculated, ambition, he was an Under Secretary of State whose foreign policy experience was largely confined to his heavily decorated service as an army corpsman in World War II. He would soon present a sharp contrast to his superior. If Rogers often seemed groping, his wiry, aristocratic deputy down the hall was crisp and alert. But Richardson's exterior assurance was only a more effective disguise for his similar lack of experience with issues of foreign policy. Intent above all on his own advance, perhaps sobered too by Kissinger's Harvard credentials, Richardson reviewed the new NSC structure and gave it his enthusiastic support. When Kissinger, armed with Goodpaster's endorse-

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[ 87 ]

ment, came to Rogers's State Department office later in December to discuss the proposal, Richardson urged its immediate adoption, impressing Kissinger as an ally and swaying Rogers, already reassured by General Goodpaster's endorsement of the plan. The meeting took less than an hour. Afterward, his State Department aides argued heatedly against his approval, and begged him at least to ask for more time to study the structure; but Rogers waved off their objections by saying that "Ike's man" had said it was all right. "What do all these committees mean anyway?" he asked an aide. Once, after Kissinger, Goodpaster, and Richardson had gone and his agreement was given did Rogers hint at some doubt. "It doesn't make any difference," Rogers said to one assistant, "I have a relationship with the President."

Designated as Secretary of Defense in the new administration, Melvin Laird, the former Wisconsin congressman, was less a mismatching of man and responsibility than Rogers, though enough to assure the success of the coup. Just forty-six in 1968, Laird possessed a fifteen-year record in the House as a vigorous and much-honored legislator. Beside Kissinger the professor, Rogers the New York attorney, even Nixon the self-conscious introvert, Laird was in many ways the quintessential politician and the most interesting. After six years in the Wisconsin state legislature, he had come to Washington in 1953, serving with increasing influence on the powerful Appropriations Committee, rising in Republican ranks by taking on many of the party organizing tasks most of his colleagues spurned. His voting record was conservative to moderate. Laird's 1962 book on defense problems, *A House Divided: American's Strategy Gap*, was the simplistic and partisan inspiration of his work on the Defense Subcommittee of Appropriations, but unlike Rogers he was generally familiar with some of the programs and ranking officers of the department he was about to take over. His more impressive background by far was in the fields of health, education, and welfare, where his legislation and parliamentary maneuvering won him numerous citations ranging from one by the American Cancer Society to distinguished service awards from United Press International and the American Political Science Association.

His crew-cut, balding head too suggestive of a bullet, his eyes slightly askew, Laird later fell easy prey to cartoonists on grounds of his hawkish policy as well as his physiognomy. But behind the counte-

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nance lay an acute, recurrently underestimated intelligence, an edu-
cated political sense for the country beyond Washington, and yet
another outsized ambition, which conjured up visions of the presi-
dency. The attribute he lacked in 1968 was what he needed most as
Secretary of Defense, an equally adroit sense of the bureaucratic
politics within the executive branch. As Nixon and Rogers had been
before him, Laird was duly impressed with Goodpaster's imprimatur
on the proposed system. Meeting with Kissinger and Goodpaster in
his temporary offices in the Pentagon, he gave his approval. There
was one extraordinary sequel, though, when Laird, having second
thoughts about one detail, flew to Boston a few days later to see
Kissinger, who had returned briefly to complete the semester's
teaching at Harvard. It was not that the new system robbed the
Pentagon of the power to enforce its will on consensus memoranda
against a feeble State Department, nor that Kissinger's position gave
him almost unlimited scope to meddle in strategic and arms control
questions in which the joint chiefs customarily supplied the appropri-
ate briefings. Instead, Laird told an anxious Kissinger, he was worried
that the CIA was not represented on the various groups. The Agency
was part of the process and should have a voice, even if, as Kissinger
briefly pointed out, it was not technically a policymaking institution.
Kissinger promptly agreed to the change, the amendment a seem-
ingly small price to keep Laird's full-fledged support. Whether Laird
requested the change on his own initiative, or whether he was ap-
proached by a CIA aware of and concerned about its absence from
the proposed reorganization, the restoration was not in itself decisive
in the CIA's continuing interventions under the Nixon administra-
tion. The new NSC system left untouched the apparatus for covert
operations, the 303 Committee (rechristened the 40 Committee),
which gave the CIA its singular role in American foreign policy. But
Laird's change destroyed what might have been at least a symbolic
precedent—a bureaucratic expression of the heretofore unacknowl-
edged fact that the CIA had no proper policymaking role. To have
formally excluded the Agency from the policy machinery on those
grounds might have been the beginning of a long-needed reassess-
ment. The price of passage of the NSC structure, however, was that
the new administration failed even to go that far toward facing the
problem, which was to break scandalously into the open a few years
later.

[ 89 ]

One effort was made to stop the reform, but it too foundered on the personalities involved. Days before a scheduled meeting of all the principals at Nixon's Key Biscayne vacation retreat to promulgate the system, Kissinger was visited in New York at the Pierre by U. Alexis Johnson, the senior career officer of the foreign service. Now sixty, Johnson had been Deputy Under Secretary for Political Affairs, the ranking career position, under both Kennedy and Johnson, serving as ambassador in Vietnam and Japan in the years between. At the close of 1968 he was about to assume the same job for the third time, appointed by Rogers as by his predecessors for want of any equally unexceptionable bureaucrat of comparable seniority. In the stagnant pool of State Department officialdom, Johnson was, as Kissinger acidly characterized him, "each administration's gift to the succeeding administration." His endurance at the highest levels was an example of both the best and the worst of the foreign service. As a young FSO, he had served courageously in Japanese-occupied China until interned and finally repatriated after Pearl Harbor. Over the next twenty years he rose swiftly to ambassador, and won praise in the mid-fifties as a patient negotiator with the Communist Chinese for the release of U.S. citizens held in China. But as one of the Department's few Asian specialists to survive McCarthyism, he was also a dutiful, unquestioning onlooker while two presidents sank into Indochina. Dour, cautious, fleshed with the ubiquitous paunch usually accompanying seniority in his profession, Johnson, like many FSOs, was shielded from ultimate responsibility for policy, his job being to execute the cable instructions. As a result he was most of all, as his record showed, acceptable; acceptable to superiors appreciative of loyalty, acceptable to peers and subordinates unthreatened by his authority. Johnson embodied Kissinger's prototype of the bureaucrat who rises to the top as a result of longevity. And it was Johnson who came to the Pierre, primed by the frustrated men around Rogers, to persuade Kissinger to change the system to allow more role for the State Department. Johnson was vague. Perhaps the Secretary of State should review the papers from the IG before they went to the Review Group. As men on both sides of the argument remember, Kissinger was coolly unyielding, reassured by his encounters with both Rogers and Laird. If Johnson or the Secretary of State had problems, he replied, they should go to Nixon, bearing in mind, of course, that Rogers, Laird, and the President-elect had all approved

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the system. The matter was considered closed. Johnson returned to
the State Department and made a last effort to persuade Rogers to
oppose the system. Once more the Secretary refused and the brief
counter-coup collapsed.

A slightly farcical meeting at Key Biscayne on December 28
sealed the issue. Following a talking points paper written by Kiss-
inger, Nixon went over the outline of the organization with Rogers,
Laird, Vice President Agnew, Kissinger, and Goodpaster. It was
Nixon's first meeting with all his senior foreign policy advisers, and
a foretaste of the NSC sessions to come. Rogers hesitantly suggested
there might be some unspecified problems with the arrangements,
a comment Nixon seemed not to hear as he went on to solicit the
approval of Laird and Agnew. Agnew, as he later confessed to an aide
about the description of the structure, did not quite understand
"what I'm supposed to do with this." Most of the five-hour meeting
was consumed by a Nixon monologue, with occasional interjections
by Laird and Kissinger, on the priority of getting a complete policy
review on Vietnam. Kissinger, having heard the monologue before
at the Pierre, was already preparing the lengthy list of questions that
would constitute the later famous NSSM 1 on Vietnam. The meeting
in Key Biscayne, observed *The New York Times* the next day, had
been about "machinery and procedures for developing alternative
courses of action" in foreign policy. The new President "clearly in-
tends to elevate the prestige and enlarge the role of the NSC," the
report continued from sources in Key Biscayne. In the next few
weeks Kissinger would provide plans for a sweeping reorganization,
plans "to which the President-elect," concluded the *Times*, "is ex-
pected to give a sympathetic reception."

## II. Soviet-US Relations

### Introduction

- Soviet attitudes in the years to come will be affected by disparate fears, desires and pre-conceptions.

- Pressures for conciliation with the West will come from a rising tide of desire for consumer goods, from the fear of war, and perhaps from those who hope for a relaxation in police-state controls.

- Pressures for continued confrontation with the US will come from Communist ideology, suspiciousness of leaders, and the Party apparatus, which sees itself as the principal bulwark against the outside world. They will come, as well, from the military, and from those who fear that any relaxation of tensions can only encourage the satellites to try, once again, to loosen the Moscow apron string.

- Moscow's foreign policy since the August invasion of Czechoslovakia has focussed on two issues:

- As the invasion showed, the security of the Soviet position in Eastern Europe, and the preservation of the status quo there count for much more than the good opinion of the outside world.

- But it's also clear that Moscow believes its interests would be seriously damaged by a rupture of East-West relations, or if the possibility of a dialogue with the US on certain issues were lost.

- 2 -

-- For now, the Soviet aim is to ensure and re-enforce its authority in Eastern Europe, while keeping lines to the West as open as possible.

-- In terms of the US, the Soviets seem particularly anxious to keep open the possibility of talks on strategic arms limitations.

## Soviet Purposes in Negotiating with the US

-- A real desire to lessen tensions?

-- As a tactical device to gain respectability.

-- As a device to split the Alliance and isolate the US and/or the FRG.

## Why the Soviets Want Strategic Arms Talks

-- Continued escalation can become an extremely expensive proposition for them.

-- It may be that they believe a reasonably stable relationship between Soviet and US capabilities to be inevitable and have therefore decided to try for agreement to hold at the present level.

-- Or, it could be that they are on the verge of a technical breakthrough, and want to keep us where we are while they see what they can do to develop the breakthrough.

-- But it is more likely than not that they think we will make a technical breakthrough if we continue to test and build, and want to avoid this.

-- Finally, talks with us now would demonstrate that they need pay no permanent price for Czechoslovakia, and that they are still respectable people.

- 3 -

Issues

-- If this is truly to be a period of negotiation, not confrontation, we must look carefully at what is the most effective way for us to negotiate. We must have clearly fixed in our own minds exactly what issues we want to negotiate about.

-- Our past policy has often been one of "confidence building" for its own sake, in the belief that as confidence grows tensions will lessen.

-- But if one takes the view that tensions arise as a result of differences over concrete issues, then perhaps the real way to approach the problem is to begin working on those differences.

-- There is also a widely held view that we must make a choice between a policy of "detente" and a policy of support for a strong Western Alliance.

-- But this is a false choice. Certainly the Soviets are prepared to use "detente" as a tool to weaken the Alliance. Our task is to coordinate our East and West European policies, being careful not to sacrifice basic US interests for what may well be illusory and often temporary gains.

# I. The Arab-Israeli Situation

-- If nothing changes in the present state of conditions in the Middle East, it seems reasonably certain that the Arabs and Israelis will once again go to war some time during the new Administration's tenure in office.

-- Soviet interests and involvement in the area have expanded to the point that, should there be another war, there will be a strong likelihood of some form of direct Soviet intervention.

-- Despite our own efforts, and despite UN mediator Jarring's efforts to get the two sides together, there has been no real progress since the June 1967 war.

## Israel

-- In this atmosphere, the Israelis have been unwilling to give up at all on what they consider to be their principal bargaining card--occupation of some 25,000 square miles of Arab territory (Sinai, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank of the Jordan, and Syria's Golan Heights).

(Note: The land seized by Israel during the June war is equivalent to a 300% increase in its territory.)

-2-

-- Israel has said it will withdraw from Arab territories to "secure and recognized borders" in exchange for a solid Arab commitment to peace, arrived at through direct negotiation and agreement. "Secure and recognized borders" has never been defined.

-- While Israel has accepted indirect talks through Jarring as a first step, it insists that the final settlement must be directly negotiated.

-- Israel's hesitancy to give any ground on the occupied territories issue is understandable. Obtaining recognized borders--which is what they say they want as a final settlement--really only gets them to the point where most other nations start. In fact, it is only because they now hold extensive enemy territory that they have any guarantee for their security.

-- Recent indications are that Israel's territorial aims are much more than "minor modifications". It now appears that they want to hold on to a long defensive strip along Jordan's West Bank, as well as the Golan Heights in Syria and all of the city of Jerusalem. They also are intent on keeping the Gaza Strip out of Egyptian hands, and insist that they must have free transit rights through

-3-

the Suez Canal, and permanent control of a defensive
area at Sharm-el-Sheik (to guarantee them access to the
Gulf of Aqaba).

-- We can expect the Israelis to be very tough
bargainers. They have no faith in the UN, have resisted
any suggestion that the Jarring Mission be expanded to
a mediatory role and have rejected any proposals for an
imposed settlement.

-- Israel's ability to compromise is further limited
by Eshkol's political weakness. The conflicting views
and aims of the governing coalition make it extremely
difficult for the Government to stand against Israeli
extremists.

## The Borders

Tensions have risen over all borders during the past
few months. Frontier fire fights, ambushes, artillery
duals, mining incidents and terrorists' bombings in urban
Israeli areas have occurred with regularity.

-- This constant harassment has led to a new and
tougher Israeli line. There have been retaliatory raids,
and talk of more to come.

-4-

Since the end of the June war 233 Israelis have been killed in terrorists' attacks, and 873 have been wounded. This would be about the equivalent in comparable US terms of 17,475 killed and 65,475 wounded.

## Military Strengths

Israeli military superiority, in quality if not quantity, continues.

Israeli pilots and maintenance of equipment are vastly superior to the Arabs. The interceptor strength was reduced by losses during the War, so they now are trying to buy 50 F-4's from us.

The army is well-equipped and in a high state of readiness. Its navy is small, but good.

## Israel's Advanced Weapons Program

A French firm has already designed and tested for Israel a 270-mile range ballistic missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.

Israel already has two of these missiles and is expecting five more.

Domestically produced missiles may be possible by mid-1969.

-5-

Egypt

-- Nasser continues to face increasing domestic problems but no clear contender for his position has emerged.

-- The military apparently is increasingly discontented and there have been numerous purges over the past year. For example, about a month after the June war the entire army and air force high command was cashiered. A number were sentenced to prison terms for negligence.

-- Civilian unrest is widespread. Intellectuals and students are unhappy with the regime and the course of Nasser's "revolution".

-- The most recent examples of this unrest were student riots last month in Alexandria and Mansur. These riots were deeply disturbing to the regime, but there is little it can offer to placate this disaffected group. More trouble may be in the offing.

There are, however, formidable obstacles to any sudden move against Nasser.

His efficient intelligence network is still hard at work; there are still many military units loyal to him; opposition is diffused and disorganized.

-6-

Nasser's problems are exacerbated by a slow deterioration in his health. He is diabetic, and this condition continues to worsen.

But, barring unpredictables, he is not likely to retire on purely medical grounds in the next year or two.

All in all, Nasser's pre-eminence in the Arab world may have shrunk, but he remains the most respected (or feared) Arab leader.

## Arab Position on a Settlement

-- The basic Arab dilemma is that the governments are probably too weak to make a settlement on their own, though they might be able to accept a settlement imposed on them from outside.

**UAR.** UAR continues to insist that Israel pledge to withdraw from occupied territory as the first step to a settlement.

Israeli transit of the Suez Canal is tied to a settlement of the long-standing refugee problem.

Nasser is willing to allow a UN presence at the Strait of Tiran, and to work out some arrangement on Gaza so long as it is not ceded to Israel.

-7-

He has also indicated a willingness to allow Jordan to work out its own settlement with Israel. But King Husayn doesn't feel he can get too far out in front of Nasser.

**Jordan.** Husayn is fighting for his life. His efforts to prevent Palestinian terrorist organizations from becoming the major political force in Jordan have led to a number of recent bloody clashes between terrorists and the army.

Further violence is likely, as is increased public pressure on Husayn to let the terrorists have a free hand.

Husayn, of course, wants the West Bank returned, but would probably agree to some minor border rectifications. In any event, political pressures on him at home will make it extremely difficult for him to go very far to compromise his differences with Israel.

-8-

## Arab Rearmament

The USSR has nearly restored Arab arms inventories to their pre-June 1967 levels.

Soviet technical assistance to the Arab armed forces has been greatly increased.

## The Soviet Position in the Middle East

There has been both a qualitative and quantitative increase in the Soviet presence in the Mediterranean since the June War. This is true both militarily and politically.

Their Mediterranean naval squadron has been significantly strengthened (at times they have had more than 50 ships in the squadron).

Currently their strength is 34 ships, including a helicopter carrier, escort vessels, and some submarines. This falls far short of the Sixth Fleet's strength.

The Egyptians are providing bases for Soviet reconnaissance flights over the Sixth Fleet. Some of these planes probably use Egyptian markings.

-9-

The Russians now have some 3,500 military advisers--
down to Bn. level) in the area (against 1,000 before 1967).

The "no-war, no-peace" situation permits them to
expand their military and political presence. They would
probably like to see this situation continue.

## Issues Facing the US

The Middle East could become the Balkans of a new
international crisis. Intense local rivalries far over-
shadow local concerns for the maintenance of peace
between the great powers.

-- Can we in some way separate the Arab-Israeli
conflict from US-Soviet rivalries?

-- Given the traditional interests both powers have
in the area, and its strategic importance, it is almost
certain that US and Soviet interests will clash.

-- The Soviets certainly like the fact that a Middle
East crisis presents the US with very serious problems,

-10-

but at the same time it is probable that they are as
interested as we in avoiding a great power confrontation
not of their choosing.

-- If this is true, a first task of the new
Administration must be to examine strategies for separating
the Arab-Israeli confrontation from a US-Soviet confrontation. One possible strategy would be to include the
Middle East in US-Soviet negotiations on outstanding
issues.

It would appear that we have little leverage over.
either side, but we ought to make our own study of the
tools we may have.

-11-

(Mauritania)

IV. <u>Vietnam</u>

Introduction

-- The present state, and future course, or our
negotiations is too complicated and sensitive for
detailed discussion here.

-- What is important is that we understand that this
war is substantially different from any other we have
fought. Our success depends in large measure to our
ability to interrelate our economic, political and
military policies into a coherent whole.

-- Also, the Paris negotiations themselves are an impor-
tant factor, since they have such an impact on the
expectations of the Vietnamese populace.

First Challenge to the NSC Structure

-- This administration proposes to make Vietnam the first
test of the new NSC structure. Very early on we will,
after full consultation with the Secretaries of State
and Defense, and other senior Presidential advisors,
present the full range of options to the NSC for con-
sideration.

-- The NSC task will be to make a rational whole of all
our programs, and to end the tendency to make policy
by answering cables from Saigon and Paris.

V. BIAFRA

The Situation

-- This may be the first major foreign crisis facing
the new Administration.

-- The 18 month old Nigerian Civil War has already
caused the death by starvation of many thousands
of Biafrans.

-- But most recent reports indicate that, unless some
way is found to get thousands of tons of food and
medicines into Biafra, some <u>3 to 4 million</u> people
will die within the next few months.

-- The heavy increase in the death rate is now expected
to begin in February.

What is Needed

-- If mass starvation is to be avoided, there must be
a ceasefire, establishment of a land corridor into
Biafra, and a massive international relief opera-
tion (perhaps 40,000 tons per month; costs--perhaps
$20 million per month).

-- The outlook right now is that it will be extremely
difficult to get the parties to agree to a ceasefire
or a land corridor. While the Biafrans are slowly
losing the war, it now appears that they can hold
out for many more months.

-- The question we may soon have to face is just how
deeply we want to involve ourselves in forcing some
compromise on the parties.

-- Too deep an involvement (so far we have let
H. Selassie take the lead in proposing solutions;
we have supported him) could lead to an extreme
African reaction, with charges of colonialism, etc.

-- Whatever more we decide to do, it should be done
in conjunction with as many other nations as possible.

Background

-- This is basically a tribal conflict. The Ibos
(Biafra) are the "doers"--the doctors, engineers,

etc.,--in the society. They were the victims of large-scale riots several years ago. This, in turn, led to the move to secede.

-- With few exceptions, other African states support the central government. They know that if tribal separatism succeeds in Nigeria it may easily spread through all of Africa.

-- The Nigerian Government has cooperated reasonably well with the International Red Cross Biafran relief effort. This international airlift of food and medicine, though it has already cost some $30 million (about 65% from public and private U.S. sources), has only scratched the surface of the problem.

-- The Biafrans have been far less cooperative. They have permitted relief flights only at night (and used them as cover for arms flights), and have steadfastly refused to permit a land corridor relief operation.

--They have refused to cooperate because they hope to use starvation as a means of generating international support for independence, and because they fear that Central Government will move troops in through the land corridor should it be set up.

November 6, 1968

MEMORANDUM FOR PRESIDENT-ELECT NIXON
ON UNITED STATES RELATIONS WITH CHINA

As scholars in the field of East Asian studies who have completed a year of private discussions of America's relations with East Asia under the auspices of the Institute of Politics of Harvard's J.F. Kennedy School of Government, we write to give you our thoughts on the pivotal issue of United States relations with China.

United States Objectives

The past two decades of American-East Asian relations have been dominated by the central reality of Sino-American hostility and deadlock. It seems evident that, whatever the nature or timing of a Vietnam settlement, the China problem will continue to dominate our East Asian relations in the years of the new Administration and, indeed, through the decade of the 1970's.

Communist China's size, ideology, relative isolation, potential power and current internal upheaval increase the dangers of instability in a chronically unstable part of the world. The central objective of America's China policy has been and should continue to be to avoid war with China and to minimize its disruption of surrounding areas.

-2-

Since the end of the Korean War, previous Administrations have generally followed a two-fold policy to achieve these objectives: on the one hand, military containment in order to deter possible Chinese aggression; on the other hand, a limited and tentative effort at communication with the China mainland through ambassadorial talks and, from time to time, proposals for unofficial contacts. Through much of this period, of course, the first of these approaches has been given such priority as to dwarf the significance of the second.

It seems to us that the time has come for a more equal balance between these two approaches, so that, while continuing to avoid war with China and to discourage Chinese military intervention abroad, we move more positively toward the relaxation of tensions between China and the United States, and the eventual achievement of reconciliation.

The specific steps we propose below in pursuit of these objectives require some important words of caution. Although the outcome of the domestic turmoil that has disrupted mainland China for the past three years remains unclear, we do not now anticipate any Chinese desire to improve relations with the United States. It is therefore highly likely that any and all of the initiatives that we propose will be rejected out of hand by Beijing's leaders in the foreseeable future.

-3-

We propose these initiatives, nonetheless, because of our conviction that our national interests in Asia will best be served by an American policy that offers the Chinese the clear option of a less hostile relationship with the outside world. At a minimum, we will complicate a Peking decision-making process that has all too easily been based on a theory of implacable American hostility; at the same time, we will be speaking--through our deeds as well as our words--to present or future Chinese leaders who harbor doubts about Mao Tse-tung's vision of the world. Unless we achieve this better balanced policy, we may at the least miss significant opportunities to moderate Peking's behavior and, at the worst, may help lay the groundwork for a war with China that neither side can hope to "win."

## Proposals

### A. Relations with Mainland China

#### 1. Exploratory Meeting

You should seriously explore the possibility of arranging confidential--perhaps even deniable--conversations between Chinese Communist leaders and someone in whom you have confidence. Your emissary would convey the new Administration's interest in hearing Chinese views on a wide spectrum of subjects including Vietnam and disarmament and in probing,

-4-

unofficially and in a more informal setting than at Warsaw,
the prospects for a normal relationship. It may well be
that the Chinese will refuse to receive such an emissary;
the effort should nonetheless be made to signal a revised
American attitude.

## 2. <u>Vietnam Negotiations</u>

The arduous process of a Vietnam settlement may well
offer an opportunity for the improvement of relations with
China and engagement of China in the international order.
Despite China's present hostility to a negotiated solution,
the new Administration should be alert to opportunities to
involve Peking in some stage of the Vietnam negotiating
process--perhaps through the re-convening of the Geneva
Conference, perhaps through a restructured forum, perhaps
through a packaged end-product that would bring China, both
Vietnams, and other divided nations into the United Nations.
The chief consideration: Vietnam negotiations should be
looked upon as a possible step toward a wider Asian settlement,
and, thereby, an instrument for the potential inclusion of
China in the international community.

## 3. <u>Lowering of Polemics</u>

It is essential that all Administration spokesmen
refrain from provocative statements in their comments about

-5-

China, regardless of Peking's hostile rhetoric. In the past, pious hopes for "reconciliation" have often been undermined by press releases such as those that compared the Chinese Communists to the Nazis. Especially galling to the Chinese Communists is the apparent American stand that Taiwan is the only China. The new Administration should find an early opportunity to erase this lag between rhetoric and reality. Since 1955, under two parties and three Presidents, the U.S. Government has dealt, in Geneva and Warsaw and in Taipei, with two regimes that call themselves "China." It would be most useful for you or your Secretary of State to find an occasion to take note of the fact--without fanfare--that we have in effect accorded Peking _de facto_ recognition for a decade and a half, but that _de jure_ recognition is obviously a far more complicated matter that remains to be discussed.

4. Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM)

The new Administration will have to decide whether to continue with the recently authorized "thin" ABM system. In our view, insufficient consideration has been given by the present Administration to the consequences for Sino-American relations that this system may entail. Aside from questions of the Soviet-American military balance, present plans for an ABM are not only militarily unnecessary as a

-6-

deterrent to Peking but may well be viewed by the Chinese
Communists as evidence of American intent to attack China.
We urge that the ABM decision be reconsidered.

5. <u>Trade</u>

The new Administration should seek an early opportunity
to modify America's trade embargo against China, a residue
of the Korean War which denies China nothing she needs, is
supported by none of our major allies, acts as periodic
irritant in our relations with third parties, denies America
even the possibility of marginal economic leverage in a
changing China, and prevents our businessmen from sharing
in the China market. In this regard, the new Administration
should build on the tentative rhetoric of its predecessors
and place our trade with China on the same basis (non-strategic
goods) as our trade with the USSR and Eastern Europe.

6. <u>Travel and Other Contacts</u>

The new Administration should likewise remove the
last vestiges of controls on the travel of Americans to China
and, at the same time, should make known its willingness to
admit as visitors to the U.S. any Chinese the Peking government
is willing to send to our shores. These steps will not only
reflect the confidence and strength of a free society; they
will open the door to the possibility of de-isolation when

-7-

some future Chinese leadership is ready to choose that option.
In addition to official contacts, the new Administration should
encourage private and unofficial meetings between Chinese and
American journalists, educators, scientists, artists, and
others.

## B. Relations with Taiwan

The foregoing steps involve preliminary attempts to
restructure the Washington-Peking relationship. Simultaneous
with such steps should come, inevitably, a restructuring of
the Washington-Taipei relationship. Here again the aim
should be to bridge the gap between rhetoric and reality.
The United States recognizes the Chinese Nationalists as
the Government of the Republic of China, purporting to rule
the mainland as well as Taiwan and the Pescadores; but
Washington has long since begun to treat them as a government
restricted to Taiwan and the Pescadores, tacitly accepting
the fact that the Nationalists will not reconquer the mainland.
Ever since 1951 every Administration has made it clear that
Taiwan is not legally part of China, leaving the question of
its status open to future developments. The new Administration
should now build upon this reality. It should reaffirm America's
commitment to the defense of Taiwan and the Pescadores, so
long as people in Taiwan wish to retain a separate identity
from mainland China. But by taking four particular steps
it should anticipate and defuse Chinese Nationalist potential

-8-

for causing Washington embarrassment:

1. Your Administration should send as Ambassador to Taiwan a man who understands the Administration's broad China strategy and can communicate it. In order to demonstrate the importance that you attach to political rather than military considerations, he should not be a military man.

2. As long as relative peace prevails in the Formosa Strait, the Administration should use this opportunity to press anew for orderly Nationalist evacuation of the offshore islands, Matsu and Quemoy. (While occupied by the Nationalists, these islands provide a lever by which either "China" can draw American forces into an unwanted Asian conflict.) It should also press for an end to provocative Nationalist acts against the mainland.

3. The Administration should prepare the ground, in frank discussions with the Chinese Nationalists, for a gradual shift in America's relationship with Peking and, specifically, for the complex problems which will undoubtedly arise in the United Nations (see below).

4. Finally, the Administration should be alert to political forces that are at work beneath the surface in Taiwan and, when opportunity offers, should press Chiang Kai-shek and/or his successors to offer the eleven million Taiwanese and the two million mainlanders on the island an opportunity for fuller participation in political life.

-9-

C. **Broader Problems**

1. **The United Nations**

The problem of Chinese representation in the United Nations will probably not confront the new Administration until the autumn of 1969. By that time the search for a Vietnam settlement as well as earlier China-related initiatives may have tested the prospects for normalization of relations. In the unlikely event that these previous steps have borne fruit in our relations with China, the UN situation would present a smaller problem. If not, however, it is nonetheless our conviction that the Administration should not seek to block the PRC's representation in the United Nations. For several obvious reasons, UN representation for Peking will undoubtedly come before--and is probably a prerequisite to--improved relations between China and America. In our view, the de-isolation of China requires Chinese participation, whenever possible, in international forums and the long-term "socialization" that such contacts may produce. U.S. policy-makers should therefore accept Peking's membership in the General Assembly and the Security Council while seeking simultaneously to preserve a General Assembly seat for Taiwan, whether as the Republic of China, an independent nation, or an autonomous region of China. Such objectives may best be achieved through acquiescence rather than active leadership

-10-

by Washington; but they will require careful advance
planning.

2. <u>China's Neighbors</u>

A gradual shift in our China policy, while welcome
to our major allies, will cause anxiety among some of China's
neighbors who have tailored their actions to the containment
aspect of our policy. It is imperative that we ease the
transition for these states by keeping them informed of our
progress and plans and by assuring them of our continuing
interest in their welfare.

3. <u>Japan</u>

It is especially important that we take Japan into
our confidence in every step of our strategy. Although Japan
will favor the substance of our strategy, if we abruptly
shift gears without prior notice, we will create acute embarrass-
ment for the Japanese Government.

4. <u>Third Country Contacts</u>

We should welcome the efforts of countries such as
Japan to develop increasing contacts with mainland China,
in the hope of involving the Chinese Communist regime more
substantially in the world community.

5. <u>Washington-Moscow-Peking</u>

Implicit in the foregoing suggestions is the hope
that the new Administration will attempt to view Sino-American

-11-

relations as a separate problem from Soviet-American relations,
though inevitably a related problem. The Sino-Soviet split
provides us with an opportunity to treat each party separately
and to scrutinize our national interests in each relationship
with care. We urge that the new Administration, in its proper
concern with the bilateral super-power balance, avoid judgments
about China and its development that derive from Moscow's
views of Peking. A Soviet-American alliance against Peking
may serve Russia's interests; but it may not automatically
serve U.S. national interests.

* * * * *

We believe that the recommendations outlined above
will establish an American posture of firmness in our declared
purposes and yet of reasonableness, prudence and willingness
to resolve political problems by going half-way to meet the
other side. This is a posture that will command the support
of the broad center of the American electorate and of most
of the nations of the world.

A. Doak Barnett
Professor of Government, Columbia University

Jerome Alan Cohen (Chairman)
Professor of Law, Harvard University

John K. Fairbank
Director, East Asian Research Center,
Harvard University

(over)