INTRODUCTION: VADM JAMES B. STOCKDALE,
PRESIDENT OF THE NAVAL WAR COLLEGE

Under Secretary Woolsey, ladies and gentlemen.

My interest in the political history of the Vietnam years
is intense and tightly focused. It centers on the variations
in our national military policy. For you see, I represent
a constituency of about 400 Americans who were committed to
battle by one Administration and rescued by another. I mean
rescued because at least 300 of us would still be behind bars
if the conditions of our release had entailed appeasement,
pardon, amnesty or any plea or apology from us. Any form of
parole is against the Code of Conduct and against what we grew
to agree was proper national and personal pride and honor. It
is a psychological fact that resolve intensifies rather than
decays as the years of degradation wear on.

So we were the guys who cheered the Cambodian operations,
booted the bombing pauses, and wept with joy on that magic night
of December 18th, 1972 when the B-52's thundered in and com-
menced the bombing that finally registered a national commitment.
We knew from the street sounds and from the reactions of our
captors that we were going home at last.

Emotional kooks were we? Not exactly, for we had sensory
inputs that were not available in Washington. We grew to know
that pauses and retreats meant gloating and contempt on the
streets of Hanoi and that attacks, blockades and B-52's brought
silent blanching and even solicitousness toward American
prisoners. That tells you something right there.

The recent proliferation of written memoirs makes it hard
to know who to credit with what during those years. Naturally
I prefer the version that casts our speaker of the evening as
a "hawk of hawks." But of course I was not in Washington in
those years and I can't speak with authority. But my wife,
Sybil, was there, time after time when a certain Assistant to
the President for National Security Affairs met privately and
without fanfare with the wives of the captured and missing.
He spent hour after hour with them, month after month, not to
get them off his back but to level with them and tell them the
truth they deserved to hear. "Vell ladies," Sybil remembers
him saying, "I'm sorry to say that I see no hope of relief at
all for the next six months and very little for the succeeding
six . . ." Why not appease, promise them victory, as certain
others had done for the preceding six years? Because he was
not capable of that falsehood, that ultimate cruelty.

Ladies and gentlemen, a diplomat of consummate skill, a
man of truth, compassion and character, a great American, the
Honorable Henry Kissinger.

DR. KISSINGER:

Admiral Stockdale, Sybil, ladies and gentlemen:

I don't think I have had any introduction, any speech, of which I'm more proud than of this one. I only met the Admiral personally a few minutes ago, but I felt I met an old friend, because Mrs. Stockdale visited me frequently in a very difficult period. As I said to the Admiral, the thing that moved me most was that never once was I asked to do anything dishonorable, or weak. The ladies whom she headed always knew that the honor of the United States was at stake, that we had to bring the War to a conclusion commensurate with our history, and with the sacrifices that had been made.

It is not the fault of those who had fought so bravely and who had suffered so much that our domestic divisions brought about a situation in which an honorable outcome could not be maintained. But I hope that we all learned, not the lessons of defeatism, but the lessons from this conflict that *never again* must we permit our domestic divisions to debase *what brave men have fought for*.

Now, I thought I would speak to you tonight about the relationship of military power to foreign policy in the contemporary period. The Admiral very kindly suggested that I might do so relatively briefly. I don't know whether that is because he had read Admiral Zumwalt's book or because he really wanted to leave time for questions. Probably he is also unaware that somebody with a German background will find it difficult to place the requisite number of words in a brief period of time. But I will make a few general observations. Then, in the question period you can raise any topic that is of concern.

If I have learned any lesson in my 8 years of governmental service, it is that the United States, when it applies its power, has only two choices. It can apply it, or not apply it! If it applies it, it will get no rewards for losing with moderation! If power is used, then we have to win. And if we are not prepared to win, then we should not ask people to sacrifice themselves. I think that is the fundamental lesson from which everything else *must* flow!

The second is that, in the crises in which I was involved, the use of naval power--particularly of carrier power--turned out to be almost invariably--I would say, invariably--the crucial element. As our bases around the world are diminishing, the capacity to move our power quickly and without political inhibitions, the ability to signal our determination, is most frequently represented by the deployment of naval ships.

Whether this was in the Jordan Crisis of 1970, in Cienfuegos in 1970, in October 1973 during the Middle East War, or in several situations in the Indian Ocean, I found that a crucial element.

I feel very strongly and I will have occasion to say so publicly, that I cannot imagine reducing the number of our carriers. If anything, I think we should increase it. Whether they should all be of the supercarrier size is a technical question into which I do not want to delve.

The third point, of a more general nature, that I would like to make is that the most difficult lesson for the United States to learn is the continuing relationship between power and foreign policy. Our founding fathers were sophisticated men, who used the European balance of power with extraordinary skill to establish the independence of this country, and then to maintain it for the delicate first generation of our national independence. After that period we were protected by two great oceans and the existence of the British Navy, and for over a century we came to believe that we were immune from the experiences of other nations. The balance of power is an invidious term still in many universities. We like to believe that we can prevail through the superiority of our maxims and, of course, our moral convictions are of great importance. But there can be no security without equilibrium. There can be no foreign policy without the ability to pose risks and to provide incentives.

Outsiders, academics and journalists can contemplate events, but statesmen have to assess the risks to their country--the alternatives that the country faces. Foreign statesmen have to make their judgments on the basis of the performance of the United States, or of any other country with which they have a relationship.

Now, among the free countries today only the United States possesses the military capabilities and the domestic cohesion to maintain the world balance of power. Without our commitment there can be no security. Without our dedication there can be no progress.

This has confronted us with a novel experience. In the past all the challenges that the United States recognized as challenges proved to be manageable. We could wait until a threat became overwhelming before we dealt with it, and we could then deal with it through a massive deployment of resources. We forget that during both World Wars, if the security of the world had depended on the American understanding of the nature of the danger, the aggressors would have won. We were lucky that there were other countries willing to commit themselves before we did. That gave us the margin of time to wait to assess the danger.

I say this because the most difficult problem for any
national leader is this: that when the scope for action is
great, the knowledge on which to base such action is at a
minimum. When the knowledge is greatest, the scope for action
has very often disappeared.

In 1936 one French division could have stopped the German reoccupation of the Rhineland. Professors would still be arguing today whether Hitler was a misunderstood nationalist, or a maniac bent on world domination. Five years later everybody knew that he was a maniac bent on world domination, but it was a knowledge acquired at the cost of twenty million lives. If you want moral assurance, you must be willing to pay a tremendous physical price. If you want to reduce suffering, you have to be prepared to act on an assessment which you cannot prove at the time that it is made.

In 1975 I was one of those in our government who believed
that the massive commitment of Soviet military equipment in
Angola represented a potential threat to the United States. I
believed that, if the Soviet Union could operate at the farthest
point from its territory conceivable, and if it could introduce
a proxy army from a small Caribbean country thousands of
miles away, where it had no historical tradition or geographic
contiguity, then this would create massive problems later on.
Again, we were prevented from doing this by our own domestic
disputes, and are paying the price for it today in the Horn of
Africa. I daresay that in the Horn of Africa the predicate is
being created for even more complex situations; maybe in Southern
Africa and maybe in the Middle East.

It is not possible to have stability if there is one
country or a group of countries that is free to upset any local
equilibrium they choose by introducing any amount of arms
and any degree of foreign troops. Other nations may speak
about the aspirations of humanity and principles that are
highly worthwhile. However, principles will not be decisive
for leaders who are confronted by opponents of those principles,
backed by the Soviet Union and by Cuban troops with
Soviet arms.

Therefore, any nation, and particularly the leading nation
in the Free World has to decide what it will resist and by what
means. What force is relevant, and in what proportion? In
this respect, we do face a situation which is not only unprecedented
in our history, but in human history. Never before have
there been weapons capable of destroying humanity. Never before
has there been a situation in which additions to the military
arsenal, in some categories of power, do not automatically produce
a political benefit.

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Before World War II it would have seemed preposterous that any country could possess too much power for effective political use. But today, in the field of strategic weapons, the problem is to establish some relationship between the weapons and the objectives that a nation can want to achieve. Therefore, depending upon the kind of weapons that a nation builds, determining ability to use them and the type of situation that is most likely, have become matters of extraordinary difficulty.

For the greater part of the post-War period, this was obscured, because American nuclear superiority was so overwhelming that it could act as a resistant on aggressiveness--at least by major powers. But the moment is clearly approaching--it probably is already here--when the strategic forces are crucial to prevent a strategic attack, but where the international equilibrium will be importantly shaped by the capacity for regional intervention. In this respect, as one looks ahead to the next 5 to 10 years, I think we are heading into a period of grave peril. It is not possible to be behind in every significant weapons category without paying some political price, somewhere down the road. This is independent of the issue of whether the Soviet Union has a design for world domination. Even granting that they may not have such a design, crises will arise--not necessarily planned by them--in which the capacity for local intervention will be absolutely decisive. If we are ever made to back up vis-a-vis the Soviet Union, then the whole pattern of international relations in NATO, in the Middle East, and in East Asia, will change.

Now, let me say a few words in this connection about our relations with the Soviet Union. We have never, in our history, confronted a country of roughly comparable strength, over an extended period of time. We have never before been the guardians of the international balance of power. When you are the guardian of the international balance of power, then one has to be prepared to prevent changes which, if they are permitted to go unchecked, could get out of control. A great deal then depends on one's sophisticated understanding of its requirements. We have never faced a country that is ideologically as complicated for us as the Communist societies. Finally, we have never had to do it under conditions when the survival of mankind depends on our ability to prevent a general war.

How to maintain peace and justice at the same time; how to prevent the desire for peace to turn into a unilateral disarmament; and how, at the same time, to prevent conflict from getting out of hand; those impose enormous challenges to our contemporary statesmanship.

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Our problem derives in part from the fact that the Communist ideology has a great faith in what the Communists call "objective factors." They believe that decisions of statesmen do not derive from what they call their own subjective views but from the industrial processes, the class structure, and similar factors. The attitude, therefore, of Soviet and other Communist diplomats towards American diplomats is that of American psychiatrists towards their patients. No matter what we tell them they believe that they understand us better than we understand ourselves.

On the other hand, we are constantly under pressure to demonstrate our good will, to make a concession. When I was Secretary of State, how often did I receive papers that said, "Of course it isn't such a good idea, but why don't we probe it, to see what flexibility there is?"

Now, I do not believe that Communist negotiators understand this. They don't feel any obligation to respond to demonstrations of good will. If the balance of forces is correctly calculated, then of course you should make a reasonable proposal. But if it isn't correctly calculated, good will is not a substitute.

During the Vietnam War, when I had the dubious privilege of negotiating with Mr. Le Duc Tho, he began every meeting with a 50-minute speech, which was word-for-word the same thing, in order to wear us down. The American newspapers presented it as if the negotiations were a detective story in which the Vietnamese were throwing out vague clues and I had to guess at their answers! If we missed, and if one of these complicated statements was somehow overlooked, that then we had missed what was called, "a great chance for peace."

On one occasion the North Vietnamese made a 9-point proposal publicly, and a 7-point proposal secretly; then asked us to negotiate the 7-point proposal, and beat us to death for not responding to the 9-point proposal. Never in this 4-year period did anybody even hint that just maybe, it was statistically impossible that the United States was always wrong!

I must say that my worst relationship with Mr. Le Duc Tho was after the North Vietnamese had taken Quang Tri. My best relationship came after the misnamed Christmas Bombings, when things were settled very rapidly. Now, I'm not saying that one should use force in all negotiations. I am saying that for Communists not to take advantage of a physical opportunity is theoretically impossible. On the other hand, not to settle when the balance of forces is unfavorable is also impossible for them. There is no sense in making a concession in the

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abstract, but there's also no sense in turning everything into
a test of manhood!

To understand this relationship between power and diplomacy, and to understand it in the context of also having to build a structure of peace, that has been the most difficult thing for the United States. I have believed--and I still believe--that it is important to explore means of restraining the competition with the Soviet Union. But I also think that we can never do this unless we are strong enough so that they know we have an alternative.

I have been in favor--not of any one particular proposal--
but of negotiating with the Soviet Union in principle, about
strategic arms limitations. I also believe that we cannot
possibly permit ourselves to fall behind in the strategic arms
race while these negotiations are going on.

Above all, I believe that it is not possible to negotiate
with the Soviet Union on limited segments. I have believed,
and I continue to believe that linkage is not an invention of
a particular administration, but is an inherent necessity of
the contemporary period. We cannot permit the Soviet Union
to negotiate with us selectively; and to use the negotiations
with us to lower the temperatures in one area while they
exploit difficulties in another. I do not believe that what
is happening in the Horn of Africa is compatible with a relax-
ation of tensions. It is certain that if it is not brought to
a stop, the process will continue until we have absolutely
no choice about it.

These are the general problems for the United States
today. And as we look around the world, we have to conclude
that only the United States is strong enough and cohesive
enough to play this role. Only the United States can conduct
a foreign policy that gives hope to other people against mili-
tary pressures from other societies, and gives prospects to
other people for achieving their more positive aspirations.
We have to learn that the fundamental national interest of
the United States is not something that can be redefined every
four or eight years with the electoral process. It is dis-
quieting to other nations, regardless of what party comes into
office, to pretend that we can constantly invent new doctrine
and new answers. Somewhere our fundamental objectives have to
get settled, and then to be pursued on an essentially bipart-
isan national basis.

As one looks around the world today at the potential for
fundamental changes, the role of the United States becomes more
and more decisive. There will be elections in France over the
next two weeks which could have a very important impact on the

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