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PROGRAM NBC SPECIAL

DATE NOVEMBER 20, 1977 11AM

STATION WNBC/TV AND THE NBC
TELEVISION NETWORK

CITY NEW YORK

HENRY KISSINGER INTERVIEW

JOHN HART: Watching all this with the rest of us here
In New York has been former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.
And for his point of view, we go over now to Ed Newman. Ed.

EDWIN NEWMAN: Dr. Kissinger, hopes were high before the
speeches were made. Do you think that hopes are still high
now that they have been made?

HENRY KISSINGER: Yes, I think hopes should still be high.
One has to separate the visit from what was said. It was inevitable
that each of the speakers had his own audience. Sadat is speaking
to the Arab nation, to the United States, and to Israel. The
Israelis are speaking to their own people, and also trying
to affect international perceptions. Which may account for
the length of some of the replies.

It seems to me that both sides have to know that they
have taken a step which if it falls can only lead to a degree
of tension which would exceed anything that has preceded, and
will not really permit any negotiation on the lower level to
have any hope of success.

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[2]

NEWMAN: What you are saying is that if this meeting doesn't succeed, there won't be any Geneva Conference. Or if there is --

KISSINGER: I think there could be a Geneva Conference, but it is hard to imagine that instructed diplomats in a meeting which has all the parties, including the most radical elements, and which has the Soviet Union whose interests in the Middle East are not parallel to ours -- that such a conference could achieve what heads of government could not achieve in a meeting of such historic and dramatic import.

NEWMAN: For a meeting of historic and dramatic import, it seemed to me, I don't know what your view of it is, it seemed to me that Sadat was being upstaged by Prime Minister Begin and then by Shimon Peretz. And I wondered if it was wise for them to make speeches of such length, and to go into such detail.

It was almost as if Sadat weren't there, the speeches they were making.

KISSINGER: They went on at great length. And I suppose after thirty years of not talking, not having any Arab leader talk to them, there was a compulsion to make every point that accumulated over a period of time.

But whatever may have been said, I cannot believe that the parties will miss the historic nature of this visit. And that they will lose themselves in repeating well known positions and not find the solutions.

[3]

NEWMAN: What about the United States, Dr. Kissinger.
What if anything ought the United States to be doing?

KISSINGER: I think the United States at this point should not make any declarations of what it thinks a settlement ought to look like. We should not be either for a comprehensive or for a partial settlement. Our interest is peace, and failing peace, the greatest degree of easing of tension that is attainable.

And if that is not, and therefore I think we should now wait until the meetings are concluded. And if they succeed, give the full backing to it. And if they fail, I think we ought to reassess our whole strategy so that we do not with the best of intentions exacerbate the situation which would then be very difficult.

NEWMAN: Dr. Kissinger, Richard Valeriani in Washington has a question he wants to put to you.

RICHARD VALERIANI: Dr. Kissinger, do you think the United States ought to keep pushing very hard for a Geneva Conference now?

KISSINGER: I think the United States ought to wait until this meeting is over. If it succeeds, it should take its lead from the participants. If it fails, it will face a new situation. And it ought to look at it very carefully under those conditions.

VALERIANI: Well you say, Dr. Kissinger, if it succeeds. In what specific terms are you referring to?

[4]

KISSINGER: If it succeeds, if President Sadat and Prime Minister Begin agree either on a result or on a procedure, then the United States should back that result or that procedure and not substitute its own preferences.

Our interest is easing of tensions, and not implementing our own views.

VALERIANI: You think the meeting has to be judged by those standards, then. Results, or a procedure, an agreement on that.

KISSINGER: It is possible that nothing will be announced, but we are close enough to the parties to know what really occurred. That should be our position. Now, whether Geneva should meet, under what conditions Geneva should meet -- I don't exclude this meeting. But I am saying Geneva is a means and not an end.

VALERIANI: And there were earlier suggestions that neither Begin nor Peretz gave very much. Was it likely that the Prime Minister of Israel would make some concessions in a public statement like that.

KISSINGER: No.

VALERIANI: As part of it.

KISSINGER: No. You would have to expect that both sides would state their formal positions. You would not expect Sadat to deviate from the Arab position when he has already

[5]

made this enormous move of visiting Israel. And it is unlikely
that Begin would make concessions from the rostrum of the Parliament.
Whether he needed to state his opposition at this length or
not, as Mr. Newman suggested, is a stylistic question and not
a substantive one.

NEWMAN: Mr. Kissinger, I'd like to press you a little
bit on what you described as success. Could you tell us what
would be the specific elements that would be required to occur
that you would say, all right, that's a little success. Or
with these added elements, there would be a little more success.
Or with the absence of these, this would be failure. What
specifically would be success and failure?

KISSINGER: I think the speeches have two parts. The
general statement and the specifics. I think in the general
statement, both sides spoke with considerable ability and considerable
feeling. In the specifics they repeated well known positions.
The trick in the remaining time is to capture in the negotiations
the spirit and embody it in some complete steps.

Now what could this be? I would like to, I recall in
the second Sinai negotiations, there was an endless dispute
about a road from Suez to Upper Rodez(?). Who would own it.
Whose sovereignty it was. And we spent weeks on the subject.
Until one day somebody came up with the idea that the road
should be used on alternate days by both parties. Which is
exactly what has happened for three years. And to my knowledge

[6]

Without any difficulty.

Now from my knowledge of Sadat, and from my knowledge
of the Israeli leaders, that if they can break through the
legalistic points, and agree on what they want to accomplish.

NEWMAN: Which points?

KISSINGER: The points on frontiers. The point on security.
The point on the nature of peace. They will find some formulas
to deal with it. On the nature of peace, the very visit of
Sadat has removed blocks that, you can no longer worry so much
about the form of diplomatic relations, than an Egyptian President
can visit Israel.

On the nature of the security of frontiers, security is
always composed of a psychological element and a physical element.
And the art is to bring those into relationship. And whether
security has to be identical with physical protection is one
of the problems that needs to be resolved.

I think Sadat has made very clear so far as Egypt is concerned
what his view is. I think, I don't want to go into what my
Ideas would be for settling it because I really think this
is one of those occasions in history where one symbolic act
can change the course of events. And where it is important
for us not to lecture the parties on the details.

NEWMAN: Dr. Kissinger, you say this is a situation in
which one historic act can change the course of history.

(LC)

[7]

Sadat has taken this historic step. Can he go back to Cairo
without something specific?

KISSINGER: No. I do not -- the facts are these. If the visit fails, Sadat's position in the Arab world can be salvaged only by his taking an extremely radical course. If it can be salvaged at all. If this visit fails, Israel will go back into isolation. And the tendency towards radicalization of the whole situation will accelerate. Since both sides know this, I cannot believe that they will lose the significance of this occasion in a lot of legalistic arguments.

NEWMAN: You're saying that if Sadat does not get something useful in Israel, he will have to take up a strongly anti-Israel position?

KISSINGER: Well, I would hate to say, to give the impression that Israel has to give something to Sadat. The problem is to emerge from this meeting with a sense on both sides that they have made maybe some sacrifices for the sake of a peace and a relationship that opens a new era. Nobody should leave with a sense that he made a concession, or that he made a victory.

I don't want to put it in terms of what Israel has to give.

I would like to put it in terms of what both sides can do to lift it above the debate of the last thirty years. That opportunity still exists. I didn't expect much different from these people.

[8]

And except maybe the language. But the content didn't surprise me. And I still believe the opportunity exists and must be seized.

NEWMAN: Dr. Kissinger, if nothing more occurs concretely between these two leaders than what we have heard from them today, nothing more, is that failure? What is failure?

KISSINGER: Well, if they both said at private meetings nothing other than what they said publicly, and if they leave without having agreed on how to proceed, I don't, it isn't necessary for them to have an agreement on substance. But it is necessary for them to have an agreement on how to proceed from here. If the two sides leave with confidence in each other that a genuine effort will be made for peace, and knowledge of how that will be made, then that will be progress. But if they should leave without either of those things, then we will see a rapid worsening of the situation.

NEWMAN: Dr. Kissinger--

KISSINGER: I don't expect that. I'm just telling you what might happen.

RICHARD VALERIANI: Dr. Kissinger, this is Dick Valeriani in Washington. Do you think it was significant that Sadat did not mention the Palestine Liberation Organization, since there's been so much focused on that?

KISSINGER: I think it was significant that he did

[9]

not mention the Palestine Liberation Organization, and that,
In effect, he stated the formal position without great detail
and great passion, and without a particular time reference.
So that, that one of the problems may be how to relate the
objectives which he stated with the necessities of Israel over
a period of time, and that does not seem to me precluded by
his remarks.

NEWMAN: Dr. Kissinger, how does it come about that after
a period in which your version of diplomacy, called shuttle
diplomacy, played such a key part in the Middle East, we are
now in a situation, where the two are meeting face-to-face?
There's no intermediary.

KISSINGER: Of course, part of the problem is, again, like
Geneva, not an end in itself. It was the only means of proceeding
at a time, when even low-level Arab diplomats would not meet
Israelis at the first Geneva conference--

NEWMAN: Which Sadat mentioned today.

KISSINGER: Which Sadat mentioned. At the first Geneva
conference, which I attended, its opening was delayed for an
hour, because no Arab present would sit next to the Israeli
Foreign Minister, and we had to find a seating arrangement,
where even in the peace conference they wouldn't sit next to
each other. So, this is what made shuttle diplomacy necessary.

[10]

I think what made Sadat decide on this tremendous step was his conviction that a Geneva conference that was prepared only in a procedural way was bound to lead to a deadlock, and was bound to leave no way out, except an explosion which he doesn't want, as he explained; and this led him into this direction.

NEWMAN: Dick Valeriani, another question?

VALERIANI: What would you say, Dr. Kissinger, that if President Sadat had a great deal of faith in Geneva conference, in American diplomacy as a buoyer(?) to get it there, that he would have taken a step like this?

KISSINGER: No. No. I think that, I think that Sadat believes, he didn't doubt that we could get it to Geneva. My instinct is that he had some question about what would happen, once everybody got to Geneva, and whether we would not be spending an enormous amount of time on procedure, without having any idea on substance, and that if the substance had to be negotiated by instructor diplomats, it was bound to lead to a deadlock.

NEWMAN: Thank you very much, Dr. Kissinger.

FOR DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

PROGRAM NBC News Special

STATION WRC TV
NBC Network

DATE November 20, 1977

11:15 AM CITY

Washington, DC

SUBJECT An Interview with Dr. Henry Kissinger

EDWIN NEWMAN: Dr. Kissinger, hopes were high before the speeches were made, do you think hopes are still high now that they have been made?

DR. HENRY KISSINGER: Yes, I think hopes should still be high. One has to separate the gesture of the visit from what was said. It was inevitable that each of them -- each of the speakers had his own audience. Sadat is speaking to the Arab nations -- to the United States and to Israel; the Israelis are speaking to their own people and they're also trying to affect international perception. Which may account for the length of some of the replies.

But it seems to me that both sides have to know that they have taken a step, that if it fails can only lead to a degree of tension which would exceed anything that has preceded, and that will not really permit any negotiation on a lower level to have any hope of success.

NEWMAN: What you're saying is if this meeting doesn't succeed there won't be any Geneva Conference, or if there is it won't...

KISSINGER: Oh, I think there could be a Geneva Conference but it is hard to imagine that instructed diplomats in a meeting which has all the parties, including the most radical elements, and which has the Soviet Union, whose interests in the Middle East are not parallel to ours -- that such a conference could achieve what heads of government could not achieve in a meeting of such historic and dramatic import.

(10)

-2-

NEWMAN: Well, for a meeting of historic and dramatic
import, it seemed to me -- I don't know what your view was -- it
seemed to me that Sadat was being upstaged by Prime Minister Begin
and then by Shimon Peres, and I wondered whether that was -- whether
it was wise for them to make speeches of such length and to go into
such detail. It was almost as though they -- as though Sadat weren't
there, the speeches they were making.

KISSINGER: Well, they went on at great length, and I
suppose after 30 years of not talking, of not having any Arab leaders
talk to them, there was a compulsion to make every point that had
accumulated over the period of time.

But whatever may have been said, I cannot believe that the
parties will miss the historic nature of this visit and that they
will lose themselves in repeating well known positions and not find
the solution.

NEWMAN: What about the United States, Dr. Kissinger?
What, if anything, ought the United States to be doing?

Our interest is peace. And failing peace, the greatest
degree of easing of tensions that is attainable. And if that is
not -- and, therefore, I think we should now wait until the meetings
are concluded. And if they succeed, give the full backing to it.
And if they fail, I think we ought to reassess our whole strategy
so that we do not, with the best of intentions, exacerbate the
situation, which would then be very difficult.

NEWMAN: Dr. Kissinger, Richard Valeriani in Washington
has a question he wants to put to it.

KISSINGER: I think the United States ought to wait until
this meeting is over. If it succeeds, it should take its lead from
the participants. If it fails, it will face a new situation, and
it ought to look at it very carefully under those conditions.

-3-

VALERIANI: Well, when you say, Dr. Kissinger, if it succeeds, in what specific terms are you referring to?

KISSINGER: If it succeeds, if President Sadat and Prime Minister Begin agree either on a result or on a procedure, then the United States should back that result or that procedure, and not substitute its own preferences. Our interest is easing of tensions, and not implementing our own views.

VALERIANI: You think the meeting has to be judged by those standards, then, results or procedure, and agreement on that?

KISSINGER: Now, it's possible that nothing will be announced. But we are close enough to the parties to know what really occurred. That should be our position.

Now whether Geneva should meet, under what conditions Geneva should meet -- I don't exclude its meeting. I'm simply saying Geneva is a means and not an end.

VALERIANI: And so earlier suggestions that neither Begin or Peres gave very much -- would it be likely that the Prime Minister of Israel would...

KISSINGER: No...

VALERIANI: ...would make some concessions in a public statement like that in front of Parliament?

KISSINGER: No, you would have -- you would -- you would have to expect that both sides would state their formal positions. You could not expect Sadat to deviate from the Arab position when he has already made this enormous move of visiting Israel. And it is unlikely that Begin would make concessions from the rostrum of the Parliament. Whether he needed to state his opposition at this length or not, as Mr. Newman suggested, is a stylistic question and not a substantive one.

JOHN HART: Dr. Kissinger, I'd like to ask here -- I'd like to press you a little bit on what you've described as success. Could you tell us what you think the specific elements that would be required to occur, that you would say, all right, that's a little success, or with these added elements there would be a little more success, or with the absence of these, this would be failure. What specifically would be success and failure?

(10)

-4-

KISSINGER: Well, I think the speeches had two parts. The general statement and the specific. I think in the general statement both sides spoke with considerable nobility and considerable feeling. In the specifics they repeated well known positions. The trick in the remaining time is to capture in the negotiations the spirit and embody it in some concrete steps.

Now what could this be? I would like to -- I recall in the second Sinai negotiations there was an endless dispute about a road from Suez to Abu Rudeis. Who would own it. Whose sovereignty it was. And we spent weeks on the subject until sudden -- until one day somebody came up with the idea that the road should be used on alternate days by both parties. Which is exactly what has happened for three years. And to my knowledge, without any difficulty.

Now I believe, from my knowledge of Sadat, and from my knowledge of the Israeli leaders, that if they can break through the legalistic points and agree on what they want to accomplish...

HART: Which points?

KISSINGER: Well, the point on frontiers. The point of security. The point on the nature of peace. They will find some formulas to deal with it.

On the nature of these, the very visit of Sadat has removed blocks that -- there's no longer -- you can no longer worry so much about will there be formal diplomatic relations when an Egyptian President can visit Israel.

On the nature of the security of frontiers: security is always composed of a psychological and a physical element. And the art is to bring those into relationship. And whether security has to be identical with physical possession is one of the problems that needs to be resolved.

I think Sadat has made very clear as far as Egypt is concerned what his view is. I think -- I don't want to go into what my ideas would be for settling it, because I really think this is one of those occasions in history where one symbolic act can change the course of events and where it's important for us not to lecture the parties on the details.

NEWMAN: Dr. Kissinger...

HART: Well, if nothing more happens...