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PROGRAM The Today Show

STATION WRC TV
NBC Network

DATE October 2, 1979 7:11 AM

CITY Washington, D. C.

SUBJECT An Interview with Dr. Henry Kissinger

TOM BROKAW: President Carter on television last night, outlining his administration's position on the presence of Russian troops in Cuba; in effect, saying that that Soviet brigade will stay there, even though the Soviets will not admit that it's a combat brigade. The United States military presence in the Caribbean will be stepped up, as will surveillance of Cuba.

One of those that the President talked to before announcing his decision last night was former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who's here with us this morning to talk about that and about Part II of his book, which is out in Time magazine, dealing with his own White House years.

Was President Carter tough enough on the Russians last night?

DR. HENRY KISSINGER: I don't think one can talk about tough or soft in a matter like this. I think the key issue is that for the first time ever, we have accepted a Soviet combat presence in the Western Hemisphere. We're taking compensatory measures, but, for the first time, there's a hostile military force, small to be sure, in the Western Hemisphere.

BROKAW: What kind of a threat does that represent; the President saying last night that it really does not interfere with our national security?

DR. KISSINGER: Well, that force is in a country that is sending, that has sent 50,000 troops into Africa, adjacent to the Middle East oil lines. It is threatening vital American interests. And one has to look at the whole combination of

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OCT 19 1979

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the sending of a combat force, which has a symbolic effect, and
the dispatch of Cuban forces into other parts of the world. I
think this has to be seen as a complex. And that sort of be-
havior cannot go on.

BROKAW: Sounds like you don't approve of what the
President did last night. He didn't go far enough in your judg-
ment.

DR. KISSINGER: In my judgment, the existence of a
Soviet combat force in the Western Hemisphere, of a foreign,
hostile force in the Western Hemisphere has profound symbolic
consequences. And in my judgment also, tying this with the
dispatch of Cuban forces all over the world, undermining Wes-
tern interests, again with Soviet equipment, have profound
consequences. And we have to find a means of making clear
to the Soviets that if the Cold War has to be ended, as the
President said yesterday, they have a responsibility in this
matter too, and it cannot be entirely on our side.

BROKAW: Well, two other questions about this before
we move on to your White House years.

First of all, how much of a price are you willing
to pay to try to get the Russian troops out of there? I mean,
that's part of the problem. The Russians said we're not going
to move them out there; they're not even combat.

DR. KISSINGER: Yes. But the other question is
how much of a price are you paying if you don't get them out
of there. This is what a President always has to balance: the
price he has to pay for taking action before the situation is
out of control or the price he will have to pay when people
-- when the impression is created that perhaps the United States
can be challenged safely. This is a judgment that the President
has to make, which I don't want to second-guess on tactics.

BROKAW: Well, but you're critical in your book about
the protesters and the demonstrators during Vietnam and the
people who were your former colleagues at Harvard not having
a solution; only having criticism. What about in the case
of President Carter in this case? What is the real solution
that he could use short of a stronger confrontation with
the Russians? Is it worth that?

DR. KISSINGER: There is no solution short of a stronger
confrontation with the Soviets. But there're many kinds of con-
frontations. There're economic countermeasures we can take.
There're many ways that the United States has to show its dis-
pleasure. The issue is not military confrontation or nothing.

BROKAW: What about SALT? Should it be held hostage

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to this process, in effect, politically?

DR. KISSINGER: The relationship of the Soviet Union internationally is certainly one of the elements in the consideration of SALT. I have not in any public statement linked the Soviet brigade to SALT up to now. I want to reflect about that a little more.

BROKAW: You're not sure yet whether it should go forward or not.

DR. KISSINGER: I will -- I will -- I would like to think about a little more where we stand.

BROKAW: Let's talk now about *The White House Years*, your book. Part II of the installment is out in Time magazine. You write that you were outraged by the press stories on the Cambodian bombing decisions and the raids themselves, because, as you put it, North Vietnam accepted those raids and Cambodia encouraged them. This is the kind of question that I know you're going to be getting in the future. But the criticisms were not based just on the reaction of those countries. weren't they based on the fact that the war was widened geographically by this country into a country that we still recognized as being neutral, even though it had been violated by North Vietnam, and it was done without congressional authorization?

DR. KISSINGER: Well there're two things to keep in mind. First of all, we're talking about the sanctuaries occupied by the North Vietnamese for four years. There were, by our estimates, 100,000 troops; by the Cambodian estimates later, 300,000 troops in territories from which they launched raids on Americans, which, during the first four weeks that we were in office, they have killed close to 1500 Americans in an offensive all over South Vietnam. The head of Cambodia, Prince Sihanouk, in the administration preceding us and in our administration, had made clear that he would not object to attacking territories of his country that had been occupied by the North Vietnamese.

The difficulty we had was that if we announced it, he would be forced to ask us to stop it or be attacked by the North Vietnamese from these sanctuaries, all of which were within five miles of the border and from which Cambodian authority had been expelled.

Secondly, as far as congressional authorization was concerned, we consulted at least 25 leading members of the Congress....

BROKAW: All of them sympathetic to your point of view before they came to the White House, though, right?

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DR. KISSINGER: Of course. But on the other hand, they were in a position to say that this was -- that this was not the correct procedure to use. These were leaders of the Senate, like Senator Russell, Senator Stennis, and the heads of the Armed Services and Appropriations Committees. We were in a very difficult position there, that a country had been, in effect -- its territory had been occupied by an enemy that was killing Americans. It was too weak to expel these foreign troops themselves. And I, to this day, do not understand in what way one is violating neutrality when one is attacking troops that are killing Americans from territories in which no Cambodian authority had been tolerated and when the head of government of the country concerned isn't objecting.

BROKAW: But the problem with the Sihanouk objection is, isn't it, that he's been on both sides of this issue over the last several years? I mean he's been on your side at one point; then he's been critical of you at another point. It's very hard to get a firm fix on where....

DR. KISSINGER: Sihanouk has always been on the Cambodian side. He was -- and Sihanouk is a patriotic who tried to protect his country the best way he knew. He was confronted there with over 100,000 North Vietnamese troops on his soil. He could not oppose them himself without great danger to his own country. He therefore, in effect, while we were bombing these sanctuaries -- and I repeat; we're talking about within five miles of the border -- he publicly stated that no Cambodians were being killed, but he did not know what was going on in parts of the territory of Cambodia occupied by the North Vietnamese; and established a diplomatic relationship with us and invited President Nixon to visit Phnom-Penh.

BROKAW: You also write that the first raid, which was a single attack three miles into Cambodia, worked its way into the folklore, as you put it, as a wantonly illegal act. It's, first of all, an action in which you have a violation of neutrality, however you define....

DR. KISSINGER: But how can you speak of a violation of neutrality when there were a hundred thousand -- at least -- North Vietnamese....

BROKAW: But that's what North Vietnam did. We still recognize it....

DR. KISSINGER: But the North Vietnamese had the troops there. Those troops -- they had -- we picked up close to 50,000 tons of supplies in 1971 -- in 1970 in these sanctuaries. How can you speak of neutrality when the -- when people that are killing Americans have their troops there and their supply depots

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there, and when the ruler of that country doesn't protest?

**BROKAW:** Why couldn't you go public with that decision at the time?

**DR. KISSINGER:** Because the judgment at the time, rightly or wrongly, was that Sihanouk was not strong enough to support us publicly in this, that this was in one of these gray areas between overt military action and quiet diplomacy. It was a close call at the time. We indicated to go public, as a matter of fact. We expected Sihanouk to protest. We would then have paid compensation -- offered to pay compensation. But we were surprised that he didn't protest. Once he didn't protest, we were, in a way, caught by his own decision.

**BROKAW:** I'm going to ask you finally about another decision in which you concurred privately, but left a public impression, as you write in the book, that you were in mild opposition, and that is the Christmas bombing of Hanoi.

**DR. KISSINGER:** Yes.

**BROKAW:** That was a recommendation, that kind of bombing raid, that came from then -- was he Colonel or General; I can't remember -- Haig, who was -- his title was changing at the time.

**DR. KISSINGER:** No, I want to make absolutely clear. I was in favor of resuming the bombing of North Vietnam.

**BROKAW:** But not in the manner in which it was done.

**DR. KISSINGER:** I wanted to resume it the way it had been before. We had stopped it when the peace negotiations seemed to be succeeding. And at that time we had not been bombing with B-52s. General Haig, who was a military man, understood that weather conditions in December make that very difficult with fighter bombers. And in fact, there were only 18 hours where we could have used fighter bombers in that period.

I was -- in that period, there was a tremendous public uproar. I was extremely depressed by the fact that peace, which had seemed so near, was collapsing. There were some journalists who confused this general unhappiness with the specific unhappiness about the bombing. I had not at first recommended the B-52 bombing. But I think President Nixon and General Haig were absolutely right. And there were very limited casualties.

**BROKAW:** Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. The name of the book is *The White House Years*, now out in Installment II in Time magazine. Thank you very much.