-3-

rightly -- the day when the communist system would be judged by its
performance, when it would be found wanting, and when the people under
its rule would reach out for another, a better system.

Again, quite rightly, the U. S. anticipated that, one day, the
evidence of failure would become plain to the peoples under communist
rule. Sooner or later, the rulers of the communist states would have to
confront the necessity of change, and, if they did or could not yield to
necessity, their peoples would pressure for necessary change. Then, too,
the turn of these people towards concerns of domestic improvement and away
from communism's aspirations to global rule would, so we hoped, ease the
settlement of international issues-in-conflict and conclusively shift inter-
national competition from arms to trade. In brief, these peoples would
discard obsolete doctrines and become true revolutionaries -- revolutionaries
under the banner of scientific-technological progress -- like ourselves.

These were reasonable expectations. They were based upon an
astute diagnosis of communism's "inherent contradictions" -- its inability
to square its political-ethical claims with its economic-social performance,
and its consequent reliance upon force rather than the theoretical Marxist
preference for economic achievement. They were reasonable too, because
the U. S. had the means to resist communist force whenever it threatened
to spill over into the Free World and to make up by successful aggression
abroad for domestic failure.

-4-

The formula of U. S. foreign policy was a simple one, though not easy of application: the prudent use of power to forestall aggression and, thus, war; and the prudent use of power to negotiate the settlement of issues that might erupt into war. U. S. policy sought to strike that subtle balance between power and goals, between ethical principle and objective necessity, between aspirations and realities which lies at the heart of statecraft.

The crucial element of U. S. policy toward the Soviet Union was, and still is, time. A process that was to bring about a fundamental alteration in a society so tightly governed as the Soviet Union and in a ruling elite so powerful and dogmatic as Soviet leadership, could not but require, for decades to come, patience and watchfulness. There always would be one alternative beckoning the Soviet rulers, namely, to isolate and, ultimately, destroy the center whence radiated the forces making for change within their own system and blocking communist expansionism throughout the globe.

In this sense, the U. S. has always been, is now, and, for a long time, will be the principal antagonist of the Soviet Union. This antagonism, explicitly acknowledged by the Soviet leaders themselves, does not feed on some sort of reciprocal delusions, mutual misapprehensions and self-reinforcing fears that could be removed by psychological therapy; the two systems, the American and the Soviet system are incompatible with one another.

During the last decade, American diplomacy has sought to "de-demonise" the U. S. - Soviet relationship, lest eschatological visions

-5-

blur the prospects of negotiated settlements. There has never been a
historical political system that has stood for either absolute good or
absolute evil. Notwithstanding this manifest imperfection of all political
contrivances, ethical standards for evaluating the real life performance of
political systems do exist.

After the Cuban crisis, there may have been good reasons,
especially strategic ones, for seeking to dampen that crusading fervour of
anti-communism, which, in the early years of the Cold War, buoyed
American public attitudes and official declaratory policies. Sobriety is a
necessary condition for the conduct of foreign policy in the age of nuclear
confrontation. But keeping one's cool for the sake of continuing the
diplomatic dialogue does not require the adoption of ideological quietism,
not to speak of the pretense that the self-avowed adversary does not mean
what he says and does. During the last few years, American policy makers
have come perilously close to glossing over the contradictions of not only
Soviet and American world political objectives but also respective value
systems -- as if these divergencies were intriguing paradoxes rather than
fundamental conflicts.

While the present rulers of the Soviet Union might be hardened
bureaucrats rather than "demons," (though Stalin and his henchmen might
well have been), the Soviet regime fully meets the classical criteria of
despotism and imperialism. To this extent, the value system of the Soviet

-6-

state is far removed from the ethics of Western democracy and should be
as repugnant to us as any historical member of its specie. The explicit
acknowledgement of this irreconcilable difference does not signify
infatuation with the Cold War or rejection of the diplomatic search for the
peaceful resolution of conflict. To the contrary: the recognition of the very
real antagonism in motivation and goals must be an integral part of our
bargaining strategy.

From a variety of cautious hints, asides and equivocations
which have seeped from official levels into the media of elite and mass
communications, we may infer that our professional policy makers have
not taken such widely touted terms of detente rhetoric as, for example,
"building bridges," "partnership," and "peaceful engagement," at full face
value. They could not help noting how meagre has been the past decade's
harvest from efforts at reaching substantive agreements with the Soviets,
and how many tensions still remain unrelaxed. Yet, figures of speech, when
they are used often enough, acquire cumulative suggestive power.

The relaxation of the Western allies' cohesiveness and military
stance has been due, at least in part, to the public relations phraseology
in which some of the West's political leaders saw fit to couch their quest for
understanding with the Soviets. This contention is borne out by the Western
public's pained surprise at Soviet behavior in Czechoslovakia, which was
thoroughly consistent with Soviet principle and practice, and at the dominant

-7-

involvement of the Soviets in the Indo-Chinese conflict, long known to all Western officials concerned, though not to their uninitiated countrymen.

Civility in human intercourse, diplomatic and private, needs neither praise nor apology. The U. S. has wisely refrained from reciprocating the invectives which the Soviet Union's official media of mass communications have hurled, day in and day out, against all things American, including the President. But the limits which constrain attempts at creating a more benign climate of U. S. - Soviet relationships need be clearly perceived. Beyond these limits, the unrequited quest for a "better understanding" and "good feelings" becomes ludicrous and even dangerous: it befuddles the Western public, and it misleads the Soviets into believing that we do not see what is so plainly visible, namely, the avowed antagonism of their intentions and the unavowed, but massive growth of their conflict capabilities.

The Soviet rulers have every reason to fear the U. S. revolutionary thrust against a system reared in the name of a hidebound, unworkable doctrine. To reconcile the Soviet rulers, the U. S. would have to do more than stack its arms and nullify its foreign policies: it would have to cease being the humanist leader of the scientific-technological world revolution.

If the Soviet rulers had not faced up to the American challenge, they would have been deviants from both normal psychology and communist personality patterns. They understood the impossibility of compromise. They drew the proper conclusions and conducted their strategy accordingly.

-8-

The weight of their counter-offensive fell upon the most vulnerable target offered by their opponents: the West's impatience with policies requiring sustained effort over a long time. Not without good reason, they presumed on the West's lack of political staying power.

The richer the Western people grew in material goods, the less they seemed prepared to not only increase their defense contribution to NATO, but also to meet their agreed quota of NATO defense requirements. In fact, over the last ten years, the share of the defense budget in the gross national product of all the major NATO nations, the U. S. included, has declined gradually, though perceptibly. Even the figures of the U. S. defense budget, inflated by the costs of the war in Vietnam, lag behind those of the ever-rising gross national product and income. Thus, widely held, though erroneous assumptions to the contrary, the sacrifices which the West in general and U. S. in particular, is making for its military defense and, hence, the containment of Soviet power, are a great deal less onerous today than they were throughout the first ten years of the Western Alliance. By contrast, the military contributions exacted by all communist rulers from their subject peoples have remained, in relation to gross national product, at least constant and, in the case of the Soviet Union, have increased. As can easily be seen from available statistics, the West, had it kept its defense expenditures proportionate to the sensational rise in its over-all wealth, could have comfortably "raced" and easily outpaced the Soviet and Warsaw

-9-

Pact arms effort. That the West has not chosen to do so, this is a tremen-
dous advantage accruing to Soviet policy. One of the two prongs -- the will
to deter and the will to negotiate -- of the West's strategy towards the
Soviet Union, has weakened: the credibility of the West's deterrent -- and,
especially the American strategic deterrent upon which hinges the collective
safety of the Western Alliance -- is not as absolute as it was in the moments
of global crisis from Berlin to the Lebanon and on to Cuba.

The reasons why the Western states, including the U. S., chose
to concede this boon to the communist states and now audibly groan under an
arms burden that has grown lighter rather than heavier, are complex -- as
complex as the ways and by-ways of the West's public psyche. More likely
than not, the growth of prosperity throughout the Western democracies has
not only failed to satisfy rising popular expectations but also aroused ever
more precipitously rising expectations. "The appetite," as the French
saying goes, "comes while eating." Then, too, in democratic politics, the
charm of novelty commands a premium in the competition for votes. So
powerful is, in contemporary democratic discourse, the magic of change
that patient perseverance, essential ingredient of foreign policy, ranks lowest
among political appeals.

From statements made by members of the Johnson Administration,
it is not clear as to whether the goal of the U. S. defense effort has been to
maintain strategic superiority to, or to accept strategic parity with the

-10-

Soviet Union. Notwithstanding these ambiguities, published data point to an unmistakable shift in the strategic balance; ever since the Cuban crisis, the Soviet Union has come closer not only in the number and kind of deployed missiles, but also in the quality and quantity of ready conventional forces, both on land and on sea, to replicating the _aggregate_ strategic posture of the U. S.

Although professional views on the dialectic of deterrence -- on the very meaning of strategic superiority and strategic parity -- diverge, it is possible to predict some of the _political_ consequences of strategic parity, real or perceived. The policy of containment has been predicated on the strategic superiority of the U. S., a status-quo-minded power and leader of a status-quo-minded alliance, vis à vis a revisionist and, hence, potentially dynamic power, the Soviet Union, leader of a communist alliance. Politically, to embrace the concept of strategic parity is to equate the purpose in world affairs of the Soviet Union with ours. If this equation should turn out to have been false, then the era of strategic parity will be an era of increasing world-wide instability -- and the Soviets will have pierced the dykes of containment. Then, the maintenance of the present balance of power, especially in Europe, the Middle East and the Indian Ocean, will be fraught with difficulties and risks which do not have precedents in the post-World War II history. Under these circumstances, elementary prudence suggests reappraisal of the Johnson Administration's defense policies, especially as regards strategic offensive and defensive forces and the effort directed

-11-

towards weapons research and development. At the time of the Cuban
crisis, the U. S. Administration, beneficiary of its predecessor's long and
unstinting defense program, was able to rely on a wide margin of strategic
superiority. It is idle to speculate what would have happened had the Soviets
not perceived this margin to exist. The outcome suggests that, in crisis
situations, the U. S. 's strategic edge is the most reliable conditioner of
Soviet behavior. The one and only valid reason for deliberately dispensing
with this tried and proven lever would be incontestable evidence of
irreversible change in Soviet behavior.

Only demonstrable change in Soviet intentions can warrant
policies aimed at achieving -- step by step -- first, a modus vivendi and
then, ever closer cooperation with the Soviet Union. Indeed, perceived
change in Soviet intentions supplies the rationale for increased trade and
cultural exchanges between East and West, and for the conclusion of arms
control agreements which, since they defer to the Soviets' aversion to inter-
national inspection and verification, must rely mainly upon the Soviets' good
faith as ultimate sanction. Since, in international politics, it is much easier
to recognize another party's capabilities for war than its intentions for peace,
the re-evaluation of Soviet purpose had to be entrusted to the sophisticated
expertise of sociology and psychology rather than laborious military intelli-
gence. This circumstance might explain that growing divergence between
U. S. civilian policy makers and their military advisors which even the

-12-

censored texts of Congressional Closed Hearings have not been able to
conceal.

The hypothesis of the diminished Soviet threat has furnished
the necessary premise for the diminished need for containing it. Since
the military capabilities of the Soviet Union have increased, the hypothesis
that the Soviet Union will not use military means to break the West's
containment, must be based upon considerations other than those of Soviet
capabilities. Only profound changes in the value system of Soviet
society and its dominant elite could plausibly resolve the glaring contra-
diction between capability for aggression and commitment to "peaceful
coexistence," let alone détente. Indeed, the assumption of such a
beneficial transformation underlies the concept of NATO which, prior to
the Soviets' invasion of Czechoslovakia, was adopted explicitly by its
major members: NATO could serve as a "bridge" for negotiating peaceful
accommodations with the Soviet Union; the ready forces of NATO not only
need not be strengthened, but could be thinned out or redeployed to their
respective national territories; the problem of armament was no longer a
canonical
how to produce more of it and how to pay for its improvement, but how to
reduce and control it.

Representative statements such as those by President Johnson on
the timeliness of "building bridges" to the Soviet Union; by Defense Secre-
tary McNamara on the wisdom of accepting nuclear "parity" and desisting
from the deployment of an ABM system matching that of the Soviets; and

-13-

by Vice President Humphrey on the policy of "reconciliation" with the
Soviet Union which the U. S. should now pursue, would be incomprehen-
sible if it were not for the underlying assumption of fundamental change
in Soviet aspiration and purpose. Indeed, the complex structure of U. S.
foreign policies has been anchored on this one assumption. If it were not
so anchored, then such "unfriendly acts" as, for example, Soviet support
of North Vietnam; the massive incursion of Soviet power in the Middle
East and the Mediterranean; the gross vituperation by Soviet leaders of
NA TO, in general, and West Germany, in particular; and, last but not
least, the unceasing denigration by Soviet propaganda of the U. S., would
have to be taken as affirmations of communism's irreconcilable antagonism
to the U. S. and the Western Alliance, rather than regrettable, but
inconsequent deviations from the Soviet Union's sure progress towards
"reconciliation" and "partnership."

Under conditions of rationality, one must presume that Soviet
conduct in Eastern Europe, July-August 1968, should have furnished an
acid corrective for the basic assumptions about the Soviet Union which have
dominated U. S. foreign policy. On the face of it, Soviet behavior should
have persuaded the U. S. and its allies to launch themselves with a will
upon the build-up of their military capabilities rather than upon the
speculative exploration of the Soviet Union's social psychology. On the face
of it, too, the Soviet Union's manifest reliance upon armed force for the
settlement of international differences should have argued for increased

-14-

caution and circumspection in the U. S. Administration's quest for arms control treaties, though not necessarily for the abandonment of the search for the reduction of the international arms burden.

It is far from clear how savings extracted from the military budget can be effectively applied to the improvement of our cities, and as to whether such savings are indispensable to the achievement of a just social order in the most affluent country on earth. Yet, even if the correlation of these variables were as close as it is alleged to be, the priorities of U. S. foreign policy are still largely determined by the foreign policies of other states, notably the Soviet Union. If the purposes of the U. S. and the Soviet Union were symmetrical -- if the Soviet Union would attribute the same importance to the amelioration of its society as does the U. S. -- than a mutually symmetrical behaviour in matters of armament would follow as a matter of course. There is no hard evidence showing that the domestic priorities of the Soviet Union are the same as ours; there is abundant hard evidence showing that in domestic, foreign and military affairs, the priorities of the Soviet Union are *not* the same as ours.
In brief, the gap is still about as wide as it was when the Johnson Administration decided that it had narrowed and could now be "bridged."

The foreign and national security policies of the Johnson Administration have weakened the Western Alliance. The fallacy of its basic assumption eroded the morale of the Alliance: the policies of our major European allies towards the Soviets turned into replicas of our own.

-15-

The rhetoric of our official spokesmen confirmed them in their error.

When the U. S. officially conceded the priority of arms control agreements, bilaterally negotiated between the U. S. and the Soviet Union, over the interests of major alliance members, it put in doubt the raison d'être of the Alliance.

The Alliance was created to serve the self-interest of its members. Yet mutual trust engendered ethical consenses. Ethical consensus ennobled the aggregation of national self-interest and projected goals beyond the commitment to mutuality in defense. It was the hope that the military alliance would evolve into the political union of the West which buoyed the idealism of the post-war generation. Then, in Berlin, Paris and Rome, students marched under the banners of Atlantic and European unity. Then, the Atlantic idea enjoyed the acclaim of American and European statesmen and intellectuals. Nothing bespeaks more poignantly the distance which separates the U. S. and Europe from that epoch of great expectations than the slogans of those student demonstrations which have laid waste the West's greatest halls of learning.

In politics, cynicism is the unavoidable excretion of the practitioner's glands. Yet, cynicism cannot give ethical direction to policy.

The Western Alliance has been going nowhere: it is now a makeshift without a purpose -- without an idea. The young have turned their backs; the West's enemies are unimpressed by the publicity releases which celebrate

-16-

the renaissance of Western unity in Bruxelles. The West's enemies have much to fear, for they are feared by their peoples. Yet one spectre no longer haunts them, namely, that of the West United.

The U. S., as democratic leader of the scientific-technological world revolution, challenges the international system -- the system of nationstates. The obsolescence of this system has braked the progress of mankind. Virtually everything in the world that need be done and, thanks to available scientific-technological resources, now can be done, calls for the establishment of supra-national orgnaizations. Federalism has always pointed the way to the political union of like-minded states; now it points the way to the world's economic development.

What made NATO so objectionable to the Soviets was not only its military power to contain military aggression, but its innate capacity for political growth and economic growth. The immense success of the European Economic Community -- the "show-window effect" of free enterprise -- has so effectively exposed the fallacy of communist doctrine as to force upon the communist rulers "reforms" which, meagre though they were, whetted the rebellious appetites of their peoples. Yet, the political disunity of the West has weakened the pressure which the West's challenging economic example exercises upon the communist system.

The West's political disunity mars its economic performance: Gold and liquidity crises are political rather than economic phenomena. These

-17-

crises are grist to the mills of communist propaganda. Within a federal
system, they could be handily resolved and, probably, could not occur
at all.

U. S. policy, insofar as it has placed the Western Alliance
beneath other concerns, has lowered the sights of its creative vision.
The unity of the West is needed to deter communist aggression. The
unity of the West is needed to negotiate with the Soviet Union settlements
of the issues-in-conflict in Europe and the Middle East. The unity of the
West is needed to consummate the global scientific-technological revolution
which will not only sweep away oppressive political systems, but also
forge the unity of mankind.

Our opponents are in trouble. This trouble, though it is of the
communists' own making rather than of ours, affords us a precious
breathing spell; we can put our own houses in order -- if we do so with
dispatch. The quality of the professional staffs in our foreign policy and
national security establishment is unmatched by any other country. Yet
this precious asset needs to be exploited; only the Presidency can decide
how our capabilities shall be used. Although foreign policy-making should
be based on calculations of probabilities, the fortunes of the U. S. foreign
policy do not depend entirely on rational calculus: the wisdom, resolution
and sensitivity of national leadership, supported by the trust of an
informed public -- it is these imponderables which give purpose to the
instruments of power.

-18-

The U. S. still controls an enormous investment of goodwill throughout the world at large and, especially, in Europe. Not all the foreign policies of the outgoing Administration have been ill-conceived or unsuccessful. The momentum of creative foreign policies, generated by the great statesmen of the forties and fifties, has carried forward into our times. There is, however, hardly any major item on the agenda of U. S. foreign policy for which, within the foreseeable future, a complete solution is in sight.

For a long time, the pathology of communist rule will preclude the creation of a stable world order and the undivided concentration of our resources upon the works of peace at home and abroad. For a long time, the convulsions of Mainland China and idiosyncrasies of Peking leadership will impose heavy military burdens upon the U. S. and regional powers of the Pacific area. For a long time, the issues which divide Europe and the Middle East will remain unsettled. Great as is the power of the U. S., it will be constrained not only by internal necessities, but also by the inhibitions which the calculus of nuclear deterrence imposes on the use of military force.

It is tempting to look for global solutions, summary and instant, which afford escape from our frustrating dilemmas. Hence the immense attractiveness of the idea -- or rather the myth -- of the U. N. as the *deus ex machina* of international diplomacy. Not only is this idea belied by the routine of the U. N. whenever it has been confronted by gritty issues

-19-

of international conflict; the myth also beclouds the important, though explicitly limited purposes of the international organization. Hence, U. S. foreign policy must carry on its step-by-step, piecemeal search for solutions to vast problems, nearly all of which are rooted in mankind's titanic struggle for new political and social forms and for the place of individual man in the scientific-technological age.

I believe that the new Administration, following the path hewn by its predecessors, will seek to carry forward the work of regional integration -- of forging political, military and economic links between like-minded states. The making of an Atlantic community is a distant goal. No one can now say as to whether it will ever be attained; yet, staking this goal, vague as may be the terms of the commitment, signified a choice among alternatives and directed resources towards the achievement of select priorities. Under the outgoing Administration, the grand design has been blurred, and, sometimes, the priorities have been shuffled. Yet, the Western Alliance seems to have survived not only the crisis sparked by the withdrawl of French forces but also the ambiguities of U. S. foreign policy, painfully caught between bilateral U. S. - Soviet diplomacy and the exigencies of Alliance cohesiveness.

If the first objective of the next Administration's foreign policy is to repair the Western Alliance, then the second and closely related objective should be pooling the productive resources and financial

-20-

reserves of all the free world's advanced industrial countries. The Club of the Ten, which includes Japan, need be given a charter that insures not only the free flow of exchanges among the ten richest trading nations but also their teamwork in the development of the third world. Such a consortium could enable the U. S. to discharge its unique responsibilities towards the Alliance for Progress more effectively than, so far, has been the case. This is not the counsel for creating a monolithic front of the "haves" against the "have-nots." The operation of the free market precludes such a "capitalist monopoly," the bogeyman of Marxist propaganda.

The time has come for enlisting the participation of the leading industrial powers, especially Germany and Japan, in developmental undertakings which have placed an excessive burden upon U. S. resources. The U. S. beholding the "economic miracle" of Western Europe, has a good case for urging its major allies to contribute a larger share to what should be a common budget of defense. Conversely, the U. S. needs to reciprocate such contributions by sharing with its allies the determination of common strategies, not to speak of desisting from policies which restrict its allies' freedom in certain fields of advanced technology. They, no less than we, must fear the indiscriminate proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Yet, the alternative to such a danger is not necessarily a freeze on the present constellation of nuclear powers. An other and feasible alternative would be the creation of regional defense communities, especially a modern

-21-

European defense community built around the consolidation of the nuclear establishments of the United Kingdom and France. No doubt such a prospect is not pleasing to the Soviet Union. Pleasing or not, it does not pose an aggressive threat to the Soviet Union.

Although arms control agreements do not remove the political issues which, in the first place, have given rise to the arms race, they can result in substantial economic savings and, in the field of nuclear weapons, safeguards against the dangers of surprise attacks and accidental firings. If they will be conducive to those improvements of the psychological atmosphere which could ease the negotiations on substantive political issues, this still will remain to be seen.

Since World War II, all U. S. Administrations have sought to rid the world of the nuclear incubus and the economic waste of armament. The next Administration will continue upon this path and, specifically, will seek to halt the spread of nuclear weapons and the vertiginous escalation of defense technology. Yet, likely future arms control agreements need be scrutinized for their possible disruptive effects upon alliance solidarity. In the past, the Soviets have not been above exploiting disarmament negotiations as means for disrupting the collective defense of their opponents--of seeking to disarm the Western democracies. American statesmanship needs heightened awareness of the place which disarmament negotiations hold in the armory of Soviet political-psychological warfare.

-22-

The partnership between a Western Europe that has integrated
its defense and economy, on the one hand, and the U. S. on the other,
will be fraught with risks -- as is every political innovation. In particu-
lar, the Atlantic Community cannot be built at the expense of weakening
the bonds which the U. S. has forged with the free nations of Asia.
Hypothetically, a united Europe might isolate itself from the U. S. This
contingency must be weighed against the even less attractive prospect
of the indefinite continuation of a massive U. S. military presence in
Europe. It will be the task of American statesmanship to find the middle
ground between these two equally distasteful alternatives.

The U. S., having boldly placed its wager, twenty years ago,
upon the Atlantic Alliance, has set in motion a development which, lest
failure might undo all that American power has wrought, must culminate
one day in the unity of the Atlantic peoples. For a while, the U. S. will
retain the means for achieving this goal. Of late, centrifugal forces have
assailed the Western Alliance. To master these and to foster the
evolutionary growth of this, the greatest of the world's communities, this
is the foremost task of future U. S. foreign policy.

UNIVERSITY of PENNSYLVANIA

FOREIGN POLICY RESEARCH INSTITUTE

133 South 36th Street
PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA 19104
EVERGREEN 2-0685

DEC 1 3 1968

ROBERT STRAUSZ-HUPÉ, Director

11 December 1968

Dear Henry:

I hasten to reply to the two questions which you put in the course of yesterday's meeting, and I do so with brevity.

1. What should be, during the next ninety days, our course towards Europe?

The sense of urgency which the Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia is supposed to have engendered in our European allies has not been translated into any notable substantive action. Europe is not any nearer to unity than she was before the Soviets marched into Czechoslovakia. Within Europe, leadership is lacking. French aspirations to leadership have been wrecked by the events of last May and the subsequent financial crisis. The disappearance of DeGaulle will not be likely to create the conditions for the assumption of leadership by either the United Kingdom or Germany. Nor will the assumption of power by the two strongest men in France, namely, Faure or Pompidou, be likely to restore the influence of France. The departure of DeGaulle will thus create simply a vacuum which neither his successors nor Kiesinger nor Wilson can fill. Europe's own motive power is inadequate for moving Europe towards unification. The concept of the twin pillars, although it remains devoid of operational significance, should not be abandoned. The most practical approach is to push European unity within the framework of the Atlantic Alliance and Atlantic political and economic cooperation. These practical solutions will have to be spelled out by the United States. In brief, the United must lead.

Dr. Henry A. Kissinger

11 December 1968

Page 2

The first obstacle to be gotten out of the way is the lingering
concept of an independent European deterrent. A study should be
undertaken in order to determine the feasibility of such a deterrent,
be it composed of the merged French and British strategic forces,
or be it composed of these two merged national deterrents and the
industrial and logistic back-up supplied by West Germany and Italy.
Predictably, this study will show that these projects cannot be
realized, and that, even if they were realized, they would not vouch-
safe Europe an independent strategic role. There is one caveat: this
might work if the United States determines to help create a modern
European deterrent within the framework of NATO. We cannot and
should not return to a MLF-type concept. Hence we must move forward
to a higher degree of political cooperation within the framework of
NATO. Moving in this direction, we should:

A. State explicitly what we are prepared to do to strengthen Alliance control of central weaponry;

B. Propose the creation of a NATO arms control and disarmament agency;

C. Propose that NATO negotiate collectively on long-range settlements in Europe (including arms reduction in Europe) with the Warsaw Pact as the opposite partner;

D. Propose the collective making of contingency plans for major Soviet moves such as the one in Czechoslovakia which caught NATO by surprise.

I do not propose here a joint NATO policy on East-West trade, for I consider this problem, at least in the short range, insoluble. This does not mean that we should not press, in and out of season, for better coordination, but the chances of getting the Europeans to display the proper self-restraint and solidarity are quite dim.

Furthermore, a review of the Department of Defense' policy of selling arms in Europe is urgently needed. The present heavy-handed practices should be abandoned, and more flexible, low-key policies should be adopted.

As far as the NPT is concerned, it should not be ratified without the expression of the Sense of the Senate, namely, that the NPT does not preclude a collective deterrent within NATO. Even with this reservation, the NPT would be a bad treaty. Since the President-elect

Dr. Henry A. Kissinger

11 December 1968

Page 3

envisages the ratification of the treaty, I suggest that, in the future, treaties of this nature be negotiated in close concert with our allies, and that the United States propose the setting up of the machinery, suitable for this purpose, within NATO.

## 2. What should our course be in Vietnam?

Since I lack information on the strategic net balance between the United States and the Soviet Union, I am discussing this problem in a global strategic void.

The fundamental fact about Vietnam is that the North Vietnamese cannot fight South Vietnam and us without the support of the Soviet Union, and that the South Vietnamese cannot fight North Vietnam and the Soviet Union without us.

Several months ago, the President-elect pointed to the vital role of the Soviet Union in the Vietnamese war. I cannot see any viable settlement in the foreseeable future for Indochina that is not based upon a United States-Soviet understanding and that is not guaranteed by these two powers. With the experience of Laos fresh in mind, such guarantees would have to be more binding than those given under the Geneva agreement on Laos.

You would know better than I do what are the chances of working out such an arrangement with the Soviet Union. If such an arrangement cannot be worked out, then the United States has no other choice but to maintain its military presence in Vietnam and to deny North Vietnam the possibility of a military or political takeover of South Vietnam.

President Johnson's bombing halt has removed a crucial bargaining lever from the hands of the next President. Again, you know better than I do as to whether, within the next ninety days, the public climate in this country would permit the resumption of bombing. If bombing cannot be resumed, and if the strategic extension of operations should be fraught with global risks which our present defense posture does not permit us to accept, then the present untidy situation is all that we will be left with. Whether we should continue the current Paris negotiations which can only issue in the further weakening of the Saigon government, this question must be weighed against the cost-effectiveness of our

Dr. Henry A. Kissinger

11 December 1968

military investment in Vietnam (in relation to our overall military
defense budget) and the attitudes of our friends in the Pacific area,
notably Japan, the Philippines and Thailand. If the latter can be
persuaded that the defeat of our purpose in South Vietnam does not
spell disaster for them, then one might accept our withdrawal from
Vietnam as the liquidation of a bad risk. Although I am not a Far
Eastern expert, I cannot contemplate this prospect with equanimity.
Mr. Johnson has made the war in Vietnam a test case of our
resolution. The United States is stuck with this commitment, just as
the British were stuck with the Boer war and we were stuck with the
war in Korea.

If, as I am told, the military situation in South Vietnam is
becoming increasingly favorable -- and if the North is hurting -- we
should set a time limit to the Paris negotiations. The North should be
advised that we will assist the South to continue to fight indefinitely
for its own independence -- even as we reduce our own direct military
involvement.

Dr. Henry A. Kissinger
Room 1136
Hotel Pierre
New York
New York

RSH:sg

cc: Dr. Richard V. Allen

January 27, 1969

Mr. Robert Strausz-Hupe
University of Pennsylvania
133 South 36th Street, Room 102
Philadelphia, Pa. 19104

Dear Robert:

Thank you very much for your note of
January 3.

As much as I appreciate your thoughtfulness
in asking me to submit a paper for the Twentieth
Anniversary of NATO, I am afraid that my schedule
at this point just will not permit it.

Thank you again for thinking of me.

P.S. I appreciated hearing your views on my
**Foreign Affairs** article.

Foreign Affairs article.

P.2. I appreciated hearing your views on my

Henry V. Kissing or

Warm regards,

at this point just will not permit it.
Anniversary of NATO. I am strived that my schedule
in making me to submit a paper for the Twentieth

January 3.

Dear Robert:

Philadelphia, Pa., 19104
133 South 36th Street, Room 105
University of Pennsylvania
Mr. Robert Strauss-Hupe

January 27, 1969

UNIVERSITY of PENNSYLVANIA

Orbis
A QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF WORLD AFFAIRS
Published by
THE FOREIGN POLICY RESEARCH INSTITUTE
133 SOUTH 36TH STREET - ROOM 102
PHILADELPHIA, PA. 19104

ROBERT STRAUSZ-HUPÉ, Editor
ROBERT C. HERBER, Managing Editor

Editorial Board

HANS KOHN STEFAN T. POSSONY
NORMAN D. PALMER ARTHUR P. WHITAKER

JAN 6 1968

January 3, 1969

NO

Mr. Henry Kissinger
Hotel Pierre
5th Avenue and 61st Street
New York, New York

Dear Henry:

In April, the members of NATO will celebrate the Twentieth Anniversary of the Alliance. The editors of ORBIS plan to devote the spring, 1969, issue to an examination of the Alliance and its prospects for the 1970's. We are assembling a list of distinguished contributors from Europe as well as the United States and Canada.

I invite you to contribute an article. May I propose that you prepare a paper on:

"U.S. Policy and the Atlantic Alliance."

In order to complete this issue for publication during the month of April, we must have your article no later than March 15.

I hope that you can join the list of contributors to this issue of ORBIS.

With kindest regards.

UNIVERSITY of PENNSYLVANIA

133 South 36th Street

EVERGREEN 2-0685

ROBERT STRAUSZ-HUPÉ, Director

DEC 3 1 1968

26 December 1968

Dear Henry:

On December 22 I received my copy of the last issue of *Foreign Affairs* which contains your article. Your analysis is not only astute but also witty; it sets an admirable example for how to deftly pull apart grimly knotted preconceptions about the Vietnam war.

When you deal with the problem of negotiation you distinguish between two styles, i. e. our bureaucratic-legalist approach and the subtle, opaque indirectness of the North Vietnamese. The Vietnamese are not only an old Asian people, situated in the lee of physically stronger powers -- somewhat like the Poles and Czechs in Europe, and the Burmese and Koreans in Asia -- they are also culturally Francophone. This combination would be enough, under the best of circumstances, to make communications between them and us difficult. To top it, the political and intellectual elite of Hanoi represents one of the oldest Asian branch establishments of communism, boasting direct descent from the Baku Conference.

Collectively, American negotiators as negotiators and Hanoi negotiators as negotiators have not much in common other than the conflict which brought them together, the table on which they sit and the simultaneous translation set-up. This is, of course, not true of empathetic individuals -- as, for example, you yourself. But such exceptions are not enough for lubricating the diplomatic dialogue. Hence, I am skeptical about what can be done with signals and gestures and even with substantive moves which are supposed to be understood as signals. Even if our negotiators would understand perfectly the style of Hanoi and refrain from blurring their understanding with value-laden judgements, they would still have a hell-of-a-time arriving at an

Dr. Henry A. Kissinger

26 December 1968

Page 2

equitable bargain that, while equitable for us, would still look advan-
tageous to Hanoi.

If I am not very sanguine about the degree to which improved
bargaining techniques can advance our disengagement from Vietnam--
which I deem as desirable as do you -- it is because I view the
situation in Vietnam somewhat less optimistically than do you. The
North Vietnamese are by no means convinced that they cannot lick us,
and that the foreign (chiefly Soviet) military assistance needed for
licking us will impair their autonomy. As long as we do not escalate
the war beyond the established limits, the North Vietnamese will
continue to modernize their country which is now, thanks to foreign
assistance, better equipped industrially than it was ten years ago.
Furthermore, the Soviets would be fools if they would seek to turn North
Vietnam into a satellite à la Romania. They got tremendous mileage
out of North Vietnam, paying out relatively little and imposing upon us
vast costs, material and moral. They, too, want to keep Hanoi independent, and, on that score, the issue is between them and the Chinese, and
not between them and us. They know that we want to disengage, and
they believe they know that we are, to say the least, loath to reescalate
the fighting. All this, the North Vietnamese know, too. They might not
always plumb the depth (or shallowness) of our diplomatic intentions; they
are about as sure of our motivations as they are about anything. For us,
this is an uncomfortable diplomatic situation. Even if our diplomats
were more adroit, they still would have to operate from a severely
restricted base.

In your paper, you pointed out that the North Vietnamese have
sought to drive a wedge between us and Saigon. I do not know as to
whether it was they who have been instrumental in engendering tensions
between us and Saigon, or as to whether it was the incumbent Administration who managed to create this rift. Since you wrote, much has
happened. Certainly, Washington-Saigon relations have worsened, and this
deterioration has been attended by wide publicity. In this respect, our
diplomatic posture is now weaker than you could have anticipated.

Within the context of the above observation, I would like to
comment on your proposals.

Dr. Henry A. Kissinger

26 December 1968

Certainly, we should seek, if we still can do so, to subdivide the bargaining pie. As you showed so cogently, Korea does not supply a useful analogy: in Vietnam, the military status quo cannot be ratified, and a new political reality has to be created -- or will create itself. (If an analogy is needed, our experience in China 1946-49 furnishes an apposite one).

A staged withdrawal of external forces from Vietnam would accord with the wishes of most Americans: our men would be brought home and our budgetary burden would be lightened. Our staged withdrawal of forces could easily be verified at the ports of exit. However, the staged withdrawal of North Vietnamese troops could not be so easily verified: North Vietnamese regulars could be deactivated -- and transferred to the NLF, a practice which probably is not without precedent. Even if the North Vietnamese would desist from such a subterfuge, their troops would remain deployed within a short distance from the Vietnamese borders; our forces, even if they were not demobilized forthwith, would be deployed 8,000 miles away. This solution would be fraught with risks similar to those which we would have incurred had we agreed to disengagement in Central Europe. In this connection, the reduction of our base facilities in Okinawa would further lessen our ability to cope with violations by Hanoi of a staged withdrawal agreement, especially after it had been completed. Without some kind of control and supervision, I cannot see that we can rely on the faithful implementation of such an agreement. Since we would have to win the war conclusively to guarantee unilaterally such a faithful implementation, we would be left, if we eschew a military victory, only with one other alternative, namely international supervision. Such international supervision would have to be acceptable not only to us but also to North Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.

Thus we return full cycle to the solution advocated by Lord Avon, namely negotiation of a Geneva-type agreement between ourselves, the local parties -- and, unavoidably, the Soviet Union. If this is the road to peace in Vietnam, then Paris is only a way station and not one where much time should be lost.

Since the warring parties in Indo-China have been subverting and killing one another for 25 years, the chances of working out, after we have gone, a political settlement between the contending forces in

Dr. Henry A. Kissinger

26 December 1968

South Vietnam will be about as good or as bad as they were after
1954 and before we came in. We tried to facilitate a settlement of this
kind between the Chinese Nationalists and the Chicommes during the
truce period. Although then we occupied formally the position of
umpire, if not arbiter, we failed. The communists took over.

Tacit accommodations such as those in the Mekong Delta
are feasible now, the present military balance in Vietnam making it
possible to conclude, revoke, and then again conclude local comprom-
ises. If no substitute is found for the forces withdrawn by us, these
local accommodations will, in all likelihood, favor the NLF.

Again, even in case a staged withdrawal of external forces
can be arranged satisfactorily, I do not see how we can safeguard an
orderly political process in Vietnam, except by international super-
vision. Since international supervisory authority would have to be
agreeable to us, the South Vietnamese, the NLF and North Vietnam, the
Soviet Union would have to be invited to help set it up and, probably
participate in it, either directly or by proxy.

There is one other alternative; we could stage our withdrawal
so slowly as to permit Saigon to gain superior military strength, superior
enough to deal effectively with the NLF and to define sovereignly the
political structure of the country. But is not this a prospect almost as
grim and, timewise, as unpredictable as the situation in which we find
ourselves now? If the South Vietnamese do not become militarily much
stronger than they are now, whatever schedule we establish for our
withdrawal and the parallel unfolding of the political process in South
Vietnam is likely to be badly upset. Moreover, North Vietnam is
bound to discern our design and manifest forcefully its opposition to
strengthening Saigon as well as isolating South Vietnam against external
aggression. After all, this is the outcome Hanoi has been fighting
against for the last ten years.

In sum, I do not cavil at your proposals within the geograph-
ical context of Vietnam. If we really believe that, in Paris, we are
talking with the parties who determine whether it is to be war or peace
or cease fire in Vietnam, then your breakdown of procedure is a possible--
perhaps, the best possible -- way for getting us off the hook. Now, I

Dr. Henry A. Kissinger

26 December 1968

believe, as I stated in my letter of 11 December, 1968, that the geographical context of all of Indo-China is too narrow, and that we have to work *first* for an understanding with the Soviets, without which the necessary international guarantees of a Vietnamese settlement cannot be provided. I believe with you that Moscow neither will nor can "force" Hanoi to simply give in; I do believe that Moscow's power of persuasion in Hanoi is about as great as ours in Saigon. Once the Soviets have given the sign, your proposals, which should seem fair to both Hanoi and Saigon and do not dishonor us, could be made the basis of our schedule of moves in Vietnam. The international conference to which you refer would be the grand finale. But, to paraphrase your wording, our understanding with the Soviets should be about ultimate goals *first* so that we can work back to details of implementation. If such an understanding cannot be arrived at, we are left no other choice but to "achieve as many of our objectives as possible unilaterally."

Dr. Henry A. Kissinger
Room 1136
Hotel Pierre
Fifth Avenue and 61st Street
New York
New York

P. S. Since I deem the effort towards achieving peace in Vietnam of transcendent importance, I am sending a copy of this letter to the President-elect, his Secretary of State, his Secretary of Defense, Bryce Harlow and Robert Murphy. I also enclose the summary of an interesting series of conversations between Vladimir Petrov and Yurii M. Melnikov, of the Soviet Academy of Science.

Institute for Sino-Soviet Studies

December 24, 1968

Dear Bill:

A FOLLOW-UP

I had another long talk with Melnikov (who was grateful that I took him for a chat with Arleigh Burke and Lincold Landis) and I wonder whether those of our leaders who direct the Paris Peace Talks realize what they are up to. According to Melnikov, if we are not prepared to deliver a Vietcong-dominated government in South Vietnam, there really isn't much to talk about. And as he (rightly) pointed out, with the bombings suspended, Hanoi has extremely little incentive to concede anything. Whenever a possibility of resumption of the bombing is mentioned (Burke did that, for instance) he replies vaguely that "that would be a disaster" and when I suggested a possibility of invasion of the North, he starts talking about "volunteers" - Chinese or Russian or both - but distinctly without enthusiasm and even conviction. If he reflects the views of the higher-ups in Moscow accurately, my own feeling would be that the comrades are very unsure of the whole thing. would be happy to close the operation in Vietnam, and are quite apprehensive about the Nixon administration's likely moves. there BUT they'll quit either after scoring an impressive political victory _or_ under a credible threat of a major escalation; nothing in between is likely to work.

There were other interesting things in our conversations, but they are of a less topical nature. I invested good 10 hours into these discussions, hopefully not for nothing; and there was a considerable give and take with this chap. By the way, he saw W.W. Rostow and when in Boston (in two weeks) intends to see Millikan, Hoffman, etc I am sure the guy came here with high references

Merry Christmas & best regards

THE
GEORGE
WASHINGTON
UNIVERSITY

Washington, D.C. 20006

Yurii Mikhailovich Melnikov, Institute of World Economy, Moscow, on cultural exchange here, specializing on U.S. global policies, esp. vs. the communist world. December 17, 1968. 12:15-4:30 p.m.

Very curious as to what Mr. Nixon is up to; concerned with the composition of Nixon's advisors and the latter's affiliations with such organizations as FPRI (U. of Pennsylvania; the Georgetown Center for Strategic Studies; the Hoover Institution, etc.). Came here on the eve of the elections, quite possibly with a high level assignment to assess the United States as it enters the Republican administration period (Nixon's victory was anticipated in Moscow; Humphrey was preferred "but not enough to go into trouble of trying to influence the election.").

Grave concern (not quite explicit but obvious) over the possibility of a U.S.-Chinese rapprochement. Insists that they have "downgraded" Chinese menace in Moscow, that China won't become dangerous "for another 20 years" due to its backwardness. To my argument that it might perhaps be useful for the U.S. to establish rapport with China in order to diminish Chinese pressures in Asia, he answered at length that China's power should not be overestimated; that we can pacify Southeast Asia by siding with the "forces of progress" rather than with reactionaries and by stopping our military intervention strategy which only threatens peace. We perhaps should recognize China, he said, but not bother with it too much since it is not a great power; besides, he believes that the Taiwan issue will preclude normalization of relations with Peking.

On Vietnam. A coalition government is the only acceptable solution short of a unilateral American withdrawal. Otherwise, the war will continue indefinitely. If the Thieu-Ky government does not take in the Vietcong, we should overthrow it and put Gen. Minh in charge ("he is a great statesman"). The resumption of the bombing "will be a catastrophe" and, if a landing operation takes place, will be likely to provoke the inflow of volunteers, Chinese or Soviet, or perhaps both. Hanoi is quite independent since it knows that "we cannot let it down" by discontinuing support. But I got an impression that a Korea-like solution is not too unacceptable to Moscow, and that they are watching there how much they can squeeze in terms of political gain in Paris and elsewhere. When I suggested that an obvious defeat in Vietnam will have grave repercussions in this country (he is quite concerned with the Wallace Peril), to the detriment of Soviet interests, he agreed - and found no counterargument.

On Germany. A strong, even if somewhat exaggerated, concern. An "open Czech-German border" was an important factor behind the invasion. Germany dominates Western Europe economically and hence politically. "We are not afraid of the Germans but they have a strong army and can develop nuclear weapons quickly." So can the Japanese - with our continuous prodding (he does not want the U.S. to leave Japanese bases - and inject an element of unpredictability in the situation). The Germans are enemies; but I suspect that Mr. M. is keenly aware of anti-German sentiments in this country and uses this line a bit too often as a good entry.

On Czechoslovakia & Eastern Europe. The main Czech problem was that the government lost control of the situation, "so we came and helped it to reestablish authority." Dubcek will come around and cooperate with the Soviets as Kadar did; if not, someone else will be found. Rumania does not need to worry so long as the government learns the limits of its opposition to Moscow - and keeps the domestic politics under firm control. As to Tito, "let him worry, it won't hurt."

On Israel: "It is not in our interest to let it be overrun by the Arabs."

2

A true peace in US-USSR relations will be possible if we stop our (US) anti-communist propaganda and accept "normal revolutionary development" of the Third World countries' politics. In the meantime, we (both) must steer away from the dangers of a direct military confrontation and avoid local conflicts. Moscow's hostility to the US in the last few years is a result of our assertions of our military superiority ("we do not like to be intimidated"), Vietnam, and our undue interference in Soviet affairs.

I suggested that the criticism of the Soviet internal developments is voiced for the most part by the liberal (and essentially friendly to the Soviets) elements and that they don't need to regard it as a manifestation of hostility. He agreed and expressed an opinion that if these liberals were in power, "the climate would have been different." Western radio-broadcasts will be jammed since the Soviets don't want their people be contaminated; the USSR believes in law and order and will suppress domestic discontent if it goes beyond the limits set by the Party. No outside agitation should be allowed to influence the Soviet public. Dissidents are few and far between. He personally favors booting them out of the Soviet Union.

On Sakharov. His views may have circulation "among technocrats and scientists" but not among Soviet political scientists.

On Solzhenitsyn. He may be a great writer but is confused politically and his writings cannot be published.

The man is bright, well read, and can communicate his ideas (certainly in Russian, with me; his English is stuttering). Published two books, dealing with US-German relations. He clearly tries to plant certain ideas and notions, and probably isn't aware that one can see when he means what he says and when he tries to influence others. Id doubtless of high opinion of himself. Is a stamp-collector (I gave him quite a bit of what I had, he promised to send me Soviet stamps), lives in his own apartment outside of Moscow (in Fili), him with his wife, mother, and child; looks for a chance to buy a larger apartment. His trip here is good for his career (whatever it is), and he is for more exchanges of this kind ("regardless of the political climate; they must be made permanent") and for cutting down the exhibit exchanges ("all exhibits are phony"). He stays at the Continental Hotel, meets Embassy people; was receptive to the idea of visiting my home around Christmas (I guess, if he clears that up with the Embassy).

The man shares a fallacy (common among the Soviets) that Ted Kennedy will make it in 1972 and that things will get better then. He hopes to see some senators on the Foreign Relations Committee(Carl Marcy, of the staff, is arranging that) - another useless exercise. But accepts that for the next four years the U.S. will move to the Right. I suggested that Moscow's intransigence must, in part, be credited with this, and he swallowed it without protest.

On Stalin: the old bastard must be rehabilitated, to assure continuity in Soviet history and (he conceded) the legitimacy of Stalin's successors.

On the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty: Not only a "must" but it is up to the US to assure that Germany and Japan and Israel sign it. Also: no US-USSR major war will occur ("it's suicidal") even if one of them were totally isolated internationally. A seeming conclusion was that we needn't get excited if more countries go communist or lean to Moscow. "Trade will always be conducted, even if big corporations will be nationalized by the more progressive regimes."