KISSINGER, HENRY A. / L *

JAN 20 1971

Dear Zuzana:

I cannot tell you how pleased I was to receive a long letter full
of news of what you have been doing. I think that Martin alone
is adequate justification for your immigration, if the two are
indeed related.

It sounds as if the projects you have undertaken are interesting
and stimulating enough to warrant your attention, and the general
picture of your life sounds good. I am immensely pleased. It
would have been distressing if you had found that you regretted
your move to Germany.

The news of Sorm is dismal, but perhaps we would have been
foolishly optimistic to have expected otherwise. I understand
the privileged nature of your information about him and will
not pass it on.

Your letter recalled to mind many good conversations and I do
miss our talks. As you surmise, time for personal visits with
old friends is severely restricted for me now, but this condition
will not last forever.

Please do stay in touch.

Mrs. Zuzana Libich
Max-Planck-Institut
D-813 Starnberg Riemerschmidstraße 7
Postfach 1530
West Germany

Rewrtn: HAK:jlp:lds:1/19/71

Max-Planck-Institut zur Erforschung der Lebensbedingungen der wissenschaftlich-technischen Welt

Direktor: Professor Dr. C. F. Freiherr v. Weizsäcker

D-813 Starnberg Riemerschmidstraße 7
Zuzana Libich

Postfach 1530

Telefon 08151 - • 7164

Telegramm: weltplanck starnberg

December 28, 1970

Dear Henry,

This letter is intended firstly to wish you all the things
you wish for yourself in the coming year and secondly as a
sort of progress report.

I am including a photograph of Martin now 10 months old,
who is the most tangible product of my emigration / I was in
the fifth month НХ when I made up my mind and while it seemed an
act of lunacy at the time it has worked out pretty well/. The
second "success" is my job, although that is due much more to
Pugwash and v. Weizsäcker's and Ahfeldt's kindness than to
any merit on my part. The job is not easy /I am now translating
an essay on Husserl's Phenomenology, to give but one example/,
but very challenging and I enjoy it.

As to other matters, my mother is with me and takes care of
the children, Martin is the integrating factor for the whole
family, especially for Catherine, who passed her exams for the
"Oberschule" and is doing very well in German and not too badly
in other subjects. I make a good salary for a female in Germany,
although I have the feeling that the German tax system is
really ... a sentiment echoed by everybody else in every other
country in the West, so that it is not a justified cause for
complaint.

Finally I would say that I am convinced that my decision
to leave Czechoslovakia was right and for the rest of it I
can only quote an old refugee anecdote from the time of WW II:
Two refugees meet in London in 1945, one of them says to the
other: I hear that you have been granted British citizenship,
aren't you happy? The answer: Happy bin ich, aber glücklich bin
ich nicht. This would to some extent sum up my feelings, for
reasons that are much more emotional than rational. It probably
is always very difficult to jump over one's own shadow and
when the jump is one over a shadow involving all that 1968 and
1969 was and into the German version of the pre-post-industrial
society, to choose a qualification that would avoid the cliché
of "welfare state or consumer society" is not an easy one.

Or rather, while in practical terms Germany was the best possible choice - thanks to my father who had German citizenship until 1932 I am now a German citizen with all the advantages that this implies-I find the lack of a spontaneous sense of humor, even among intellectuals whose other qualities I greatly admire, something I miss constantly and that makes me homesick, of course, for a home that is no longer there. But all this is not so very important, if I have written it, it is more because I am aware that it is to a considerable extent my talks with you in Poland and Mariánské Lázně, feeling scared for having been told off for calling you by your first name and being ashamed of being scared that helped me to take a decision that is in both moral and practical terms the right one.

I read the different articles in the German press about you with interest and of course sometimes with amusement / there have been two or three in the picture magazines dealing with your personal life that are lovely in their idiocy/ and can to some extent imagine the burden of responsibility you are carrying. I only hope that the caustic sense of humor you always had has not left you and that in spite of all the inevitable frustrating turns of events what you are doing gives you satisfaction. I should very much like to share the remnants of a bottle of whisky with you and talk about the rights and the wrongs of what will once be history, as we did on that interminable trip through Poland, but since this is highly improbable I merely want this to be a brief contact, a hello, and above all my very best wishes for you / although I still think we would argue/ in every respect. If things continue going relatively well, I should very much like to visit the US sometime, but I'll have to wait a while yet. I can imagine how busy you are, so I do not expect an answer to this/ as always/ long letter, although I will be glad you received it and that you are well,

P.S. Šorm lectured in Munich, I saw him/but he asked that I be very careful not to let the fact that we met get back to Prague/, he has continued to act courageously, has refused to make any "self-criticism" and has been expelled /which is the worst category/ in the party clean-up, demoted from all offices, including directorship of his institute, but is allowed to work there and for the time being is allowed to lecture abroad once a year on subjects covered by licenses or patents sold abroad of which he is the author or co-author. The general picture he gave is a very dismal one in the contrast between the demands for political compromise made and the ability to resist them in terms of the existential pressures brought to bear. He said something I found heartwarming: If I managed to have the courage to abstain in the

Capital Closeup

# Dark Days for Liberals

By CROSBY S. NOYES

Washington

The anger of the liberals over recent developments in Southeast Asia defies rational analysis. What is it that they want? What do they really feel? What would they do if they were making the decisions about our policy in Asia?

The answers, I submit, are not nearly as simple as they seem. The fatal weakness of the liberal position at this point is that it is inherently a minority position — not because the government or the majority of the country is reactionary and warlike — but because what the liberals recommend could not be adopted by any American government.

The one consistent characteristic of liberal thinking today is that of dissent — not from any particular policy, but from any policy that has the slightest chance of success. When it comes to Southeast Asia, the failure of American policy has become a primary article of faith to practicing liberals.

The anger at the present course of events is real enough. There is little that happens in this country or abroad that does not fuel their sense of exasperation and dismay. Their capacity for dire predictions is limitless.

The liberals are even angry at each other. The peace movement, they complain, is dead, killed off by the machinations of the devious administration. Even the peace bloc in the Senate seems to be showing new signs of indecision and impotence.

And meanwhile, of course, everything for them is going to hell in a handbasket.

The Cambodians, despite all the predictions, are showing signs of determination in resisting the invasion of their country by North Vietnam. The South Vietnamese are said to be invading Laos with the object — just imagine it — of breaking up Communist supply lines into their country. And worst of all, the Americans are helping them, even while claiming that they intend to withdraw the bulk of their forces in Vietnam as quickly as possible.

Small wonder if the liberals feel betrayed. This is hardly when the Senate doves pushed through the Cooper-Church amendment last summer. And if, in the end, they were unable to limit the use of American air power in supporting actions in Laos and Cambodia, why surely the administration should have understood what they meant to do.

But what is it exactly that they did intend? The liberal lexicon is a bit murky when it comes to practical policy, but a few solid points show through the rhetoric.

## The Other Extreme

They would, presumably, prohibit all help for Cambodia and Laos and for the South Vietnamese operating in these countries. They also would set a firm date for the end of the American involvement in Vietnam — including the withdrawal of all American troops and support for the Vietnamese army. And finally, they would pull the rug out from under the "unrepresentative and repressive" government in Saigon and set up in its place a coalition willing to come to terms with Hanoi.

Or would they?

The curious thing about the Senate liberals is that while they readily make ruinous suggestions about what others might do, they show little zest for putting such suggestions into effect. The chances, for instance, of extending the Cooper-Church amendment to cover the use of American air power in Cambodia and Laos are rated at practically zero.

If you ask them, furthermore, whether they really would prefer to see a Communist government in control in Cambodia or Laos, they will say of course not. If you ask them who would be served by a public timetable for an American departure from Vietnam, they change the subject. If you ask them whether they consider the government in Hanoi more representative and less repressive than the one in Saigon, they say it is beside the point.

More than anything else, one feels, there is an apprehension that it may all work out — that the disaster they have been predicting so relentlessly over the years may not actually come about. It is, quite obviously, a luxury which only the opposition can afford. And the liberals at this point seem devoutly attached to their opposition role.

SEN. JOHN S. COOPER
How Far to Go?

SEN. FRANK CHURCH
Constantly Dissident

KISSINGER, HENRY A./L

NOV 29 1971

Dear Mr. Lindquist:

Just a short note, after my many visits to Disneyland with my children, to let you know how appreciative I am of the many kindnesses that have been extended to us. The people we have met at Disneyland have been, without exception, friendly, courteous and most gracious and our visits there have always been the highlight of the trips we make to California

I regret that after all you and your staff have
done for me I have never had a chance to
thank you personally. I hope that opportunity
will present itself in the not too distant future.

Mr. Jack Lindquist
X Disneyland
Anaheim, California

jlp:11/29/71

GENERAL

KISSINGER, HENRY A. /L*

December 10, 1969

Dear Frank:

Many thanks for your note on Song My.

I appreciate your letting us have the benefit of your thinking and will pass your message along to the President. I know he will appreciate it.

As you will have heard the President say last night, he does not believe that a civilian commission at this time would be useful, since it might be used by the defendant's attorneys as evidence his rights were prejudiced. However, if he believes it necessary, he will consider the formation of a commission at a later date.

I hope you will never hesitate in continuing to send me your thoughts and counsel.

Mr. Franklin Lindsay.
President
ITEC Corporation
Lexington, Massachusetts

(Hand-written): I have missed seeing you!

HAK:TL:1ds:12/9/69

RECEIVED
DEC 1 1 1969
CENTRAL F

Message for Mr. Henry Kissinger -- December 8, 1969

From Mr. Franklin Lindsay, Pres. ITEC Corp.
Lexington, Mass (617, 276-3001)

Dear Henry:

The Song My disclosures will, I know, further complicate the
already difficult tasks of the President in respect to disengagement
in Vietnam. It seems to me terribly important that we neither appear
to pin the blame exclusively on officers directly involved nor appear
to indict the whole of the nation for complicity in the events. The
former course will be regarded by many as an attempt by the govern-
ment to avoid the acceptance of responsibility for the conduct of the
war. The latter course will be interpreted as a failure to understand
that all wars, and especially this kind, tend to result in isolated
atrocities committed by a small number of individuals. Either
extreme will give the anti-Americans abroad new opportunities to
attack us and thus to make more difficult the development of support
for orderly disengagement.

It seems to me that if you are to appoint a commission of
investigation, the members, and especially the chairman, be wise
and mature men who understand both the nature of war and the
domestic and foreign implications of their conclusions. Cyrus Vance
seems to me to be such a person.

Please convey to the President my support and sympathy in
this difficult time.

CHRISTIANITY TODAY

WASHINGTON BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D. C. 20005 • PHONE 202/347-1753

A
fortnightly magazine
of evangelical conviction

HAROLD LINDSELL
EDITOR

March 30, 1972

GENERAL

Dr. Henry Kissinger
The White House
Washington D.C.

Dear Dr. Kissinger:

I appreciated the opportunity of being present at the briefing session yesterday which had been arranged by the Rev. Dr. William F. Graham through the courtesy of the President of the United States.

Holding a Ph.D. in History myself I was impressed not only by your knowledge of contemporary affairs but by your ability to see them in the perspective of past history. Your openness, the acuteness of your perspective, the analytical capacity you enjoy, and the frankness with which you approach the problems were appreciated by me.

As one who is committed to the Christian faith I am deeply persuaded that the larger and the long-range interests of any nation depend in great measure upon policies forged within the framework of a life and world view based upon the Judeo-Christian heritage. I am sure you have a full understanding of what I have in mind here.

Thank you again for the way you conducted the conference. With every good wish, I am

HL:ip

KISSINGER, HENRY

May 25, 1973

Dear Mrs. Link:

Thank you for your letter of April 7 and the
enclosed book. Unfortunately, as much as
I would have enjoyed meeting with you, my
itinerary changed and I did not pass through
Sweden.

May I extend my best wishes to you and my
appreciation for your thoughtful inquiry.

Mrs. Ruth Link
Sweden Now
Box 40058
103 42 Stockholm, Sweden

RECEIVED
MAY 30 1973

CENTRAL FILES

KISSINGER, HENRY A.

APR 7 1970

Dear Sol:

Many thanks for your letter of March 24. The
luncheon was my pleasure. I am sorry it took
us so long to get together.

Thank you also for the reprint from last Aug-
ust's Saturday Review. I had not seen it when
it was published, and in view of our conversati
tion, found it most interesting.

I am sorry that I missed your party. The work
and various obligations really piled up during
my all too short vacation and Monday night was
hæctic. Thank you for inviting me. I hope we
will have a chance to get together again soon.

Honorable Sol M. Linowitz
Coudert Brothers
One Farragut Square South
Washington, D. C. 20006

jlp:4/6/70

RECEIVED

APR 7 1970

CENTRAL FILES

COUDERT BROTHERS
ATTORNEYS AND COUNSELLORS AT LAW
ONE FARRAGUT SQUARE SOUTH
WASHINGTON, D. C. 20006

202 783-3010
CABLE ADDRESS
"TREDUOC" WASHINGTON
TELEX-24594 CBLAW

NEW YORK CITY
200 PARK AVENUE

PARIS, 8 E
52, AVENUE DES CHAMPS-ELYSEES

LONDON, W. C. 2
ALDWYCH HOUSE, ALDWYCH

1040 BRUSSELS, BELGIUM
2, RUE BELLIARD

March 24, 1970

Dr. Henry A. Kissinger
Assistant to The President
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D. C. 20500

Dear Henry:

This note is just to thank you again for the
luncheon yesterday, and to tell you how very much
I enjoyed it. I'll be very pleased if we can do
it again soon.

When I got back to the office, I spoke to
Galo and he was delighted with the suggestion.
I believe he'll be in touch with you shortly about
it.

In the light of our discussion, I'm presuming
to send along this article which appeared in The
Saturday Review last Fall. You might perhaps want
to give it a quick glance.

With best regards,

TINDERBOX IN LATIN AMERICA

by SOL M. LINOWITZ

For some time now it has become a tired Washington cliché to issue periodic pronouncements to the effect that United States relations with Latin America are in a state of crisis and we must, finally, do something about it. It would be difficult to find anyone, no matter how sparse his knowledge of the hemisphere, who would argue about the crisis half of the cliché. It is the latter part—"do something about it"—that causes all the trouble.

James Reston once observed that the American people will do anything for Latin America except read about it. The apathy is so widespread and endemic, however, that the usually reliable Mr. Reston may have overstated the case with regard to the American people's willingness to do

anything for their hemispheric neighbors.

There is a paradox about the situation that contributes to making it one of the most perplexing among the many foreign policy problems that periodically plague Washington administrations, no matter what their political gender. Beginning with Franklin Roosevelt and his Good Neighbor Policy through John Kennedy and the Alliance for Progress, Lyndon Johnson and the summit meeting of American presidents, and now Richard Nixon and the Rockefeller Latin American study mission, no President, Democratic or Republican, in nearly two generations has denied the importance of Latin America, or has claimed it can be neglected or ignored.

Yet despite all the programs and official avowals of concern, who can find any sense of excitement about Latin America among the people of the United States? That does not mean we do not get worked up over a Castro, a Cuban missile crisis, a Dominican Republic crisis, an oil company expro-

priation, a fishing boat seizure. Or that we are not shocked when the visit of a Governor Rockefeller, who is rightly regarded as a friend of Latin America, touches off nasty demonstrations.

That is the heart of the paradox, for the emotions are genuine and the concern is real. Yet when the crisis of the moment is over, emotion subsides and concern is shrugged off, and once again we turn our attention to another part of the world—until some new Latin explosion, such as the El Salvador-Honduran clash, reluctantly drags it back again to our own hemisphere.

To suggest that this lack of public interest is directly responsible for the state of affairs in Latin America would be less than accurate. Surely it is not responsible for the nagging economic underdevelopment that grips the continent and its 240 million people—240 million who will be 600 million before the century is out, and, if circumstances continue as they are, many times poorer.

The other side of the coin, however,

Sol M. Linowitz, former United States Ambassador to the Organization of American States, is presently practicing law in New York and Washington, D.C.

SR/AUGUST 16, 1969

10

REPRINTED FROM THE

Saturday Review

August 16, 1969

© Saturday Review Inc
380 Madison Ave, New York NY, 10017

The time has long since passed when we can
afford to shrug off our neighbors to the
south with empty rhetoric, halfhearted
concern, and bargain-basement programs.

is that our public disinterest sharply
points up the inescapable fact that
there is no real Latin American con-
stituency in the United States—a politi-
cal nuance that the Congress has not
failed to notice.

Last year, for example, we disap-
pointed the people of Latin America
with cuts in our appropriation for the
Alliance for Progress—cuts that made
it the lowest since that vital program
was launched in 1961: $336-million
against some $500-million in 1966 and
$460-million the following year. This
year President Nixon has proposed an
appropriation of $603-million, and al-
ready we are beginning to hear the
sound of chopping on Capitol Hill.

Obviously, it is far from the intent
of Congress to do anything that would
slow the rhythm of development in
Latin America, for that could only
weaken the constructive forces of
peaceful change and give impetus to
those who believe in violence as the
way to alter the status quo. But cut-
ting our share of the alliance appro-
priation has this precise effect, wheth-
er that is the intent or not, and the
United States cannot evade responsi-
bility.

What it all boils down to is that we
cannot help Latin America solve its
economic problems with bargain-base-
ment tactics. We cannot do it on the
cheap. Rhetoric is fine in its place, and
the ringing words of our regard for
Latin America make for fine speeches.
But without the financial commitment
to back up the words we are in trou-
ble in this hemisphere, we had bet-
ter make no mistake about it.

Too often in our relations with Latin
America over the years we in the
United States have not done as we
said, nor have we always said clearly
just what it is we would do. Our prom-
ises, moreover, have not always with-
stood the test of time or pressure. The
people of Latin America have good rea-
son to be confused about how serious-
ly we regard them and their problems
and, based on past experience, even
better reason to have skepticism with
regard to the credibility and continuity
of the commitments we make to them.

There should be no doubt that this

uncertainty in Latin America is a con-
tributory factor in the repeated dem-
onstrations of anti-U.S. sentiments that
crop up with disturbing frequency, or
that it is a potent weapon in the hands
of those who relish the notion of a
fragmented Western Hemisphere, with
the South being played off against the
North. Nor can there be any question
that the time is long past for Washing-
ton to undertake a credible commit-
ment to the republics of Latin America
that will resolve the doubts that now
give rise to such uncertainty and even
to fear.

President Johnson, following the
summit meeting of American presi-
dents at Punta del Este in 1967, went
a long way toward extending such a
commitment when he said, "We will
persevere. There is no time limit on
our commitment." But realistically
speaking, the words he spoke did not
have the force of law or of a treaty—
a fact Congress made all the more
evident when it cut the alliance funds
last year. And with a change of Ad-
ministration, accompanied by all the
uncertainty that such a change brings
with it, the Latins are still wondering
how far we will go, and to what extent
we will persevere.

It was not, I am sure, President Nix-
on's intent to add to this uncertain-
ty when, a few months after taking of-
fice, he addressed the Organization of
American States and strongly criti-
cized the alliance for all that it had
left undone. Even the dispatch of Gov-
ernor Rockefeller on his fact-finding
mission, rather than help assuage fears
that Washington was contemplating a
major change in its Latin American
policy, only intensified the uncomfort-
able feeling that, once again, things
were up in the air.

Inevitably, there will be much of
value in what Governor Rockefeller
will be reporting to the President, but
the point cannot be overstressed that
we need, above all, patience, perspec-
tive, and the determination to see the
job through. Latin America should not
be an issue for domestic party politics.
Quite the contrary, it offers what is
perhaps the most inviting area for con-

structive and imaginative bipartisan
foreign policy cooperation.

It is the kind of cooperation that
must look beyond the immediate hori-
zon and focus on another far off, one
still shrouded in clouds of uncertainty.
For no matter what we do, no matter
how firm our commitment, no matter
what funds we appropriate to help the
people of Latin America to build and
to develop their continent, no matter
what our trade policies, we cannot
guarantee the future; we cannot say
that if we do this Latin America will be
an unwavering ally and firm friend of
the United States, that it will offer us
a vast commercial market for our
goods. No one—politician, economist,
or seer—can offer any such guarantee.
And even if he could, it would be a
poor motivation for the kind of effort
that must be undertaken for the re-
mainder of this century.

Latin America is not for sale to the
highest bidder, and if we gear our pro-
grams with the idea that it is, we are
in for a sad awakening—an awakening
that, as recent events demonstrate, has
already begun. What we must under-
stand is that change in Latin America
is inevitable. The only question remain-
ing is whether it is to be a violent
change or a relatively peaceful one, and
obviously, therefore, our own best in-
terests would dictate that we aid those
forces seeking to build and to strength-
en economic and political democracy
in Latin America.

If they should fail, the change that
is bound to follow can only be one of
violence. All the explosive ingredients
are present. For in Latin America, even
as in the United States, we cannot ex-
pect people denied hope and dignity
to sit patiently while life and the world
pass them by.

The point has been made that if
Latin American governments do not
pass badly needed economic and social
reforms they deserve to fall. And it has
been argued too that perhaps some
violence may be necessary to convince
the oligarchies and military govern-
ments that desperate conditions beget
desperate actions. To some extent it is
difficult to answer these arguments. It
is all too true that in too many cases

11

SR/AUGUST 16, 1969

"Time is not on the side of those who would shelter the status quo."

Latin governments are not doing all they should and all they could to cope with the underlying causes of economic and social underdevelopment, nor are they doing enough of what must be done to promote the growth of representative government responsive to the will of the people. These facts are all too glaring to be swept under the rug, and we should recognize them for what they are—part of the reality of Latin America today.

What all this points up is the truism evident wherever people are struggling to be free—economically, socially, and politically: Time is not on the side of those who would shelter the status quo. Those who would see democracy and freedom fulfill their destiny have the responsibility of seeing to it that the vicious circle of poverty, sickness, and illiteracy is broken once and for all. People within its orbit live outside the mainstream of society and really play no part in shaping their nation's policies; because they are not part of the democratic process, they have little stake in it.

Clearly we must do all we can to encourage the growth of orderly, democratic procedures sensitive to the needs of the people they are designed to serve. But we can not and must not elbow our way into another country's system, telling it how it should manage its affairs, as if we had all the answers. We haven't, as the problems before us of putting our own house in order aptly testify.

What we can do, however—and what we have not done with any real consistency—is to make clear our firm commitment to representative government and to the growth of political democracy in this hemisphere. Such a policy will enable us to develop special friendships with Latin America's men of vision, with the men who know that peaceful social progress is endangered by any entrenchment of the privileged few.

Today the despair that exists in

much of Latin America provides the climate in which a Batista or a Castro flourishes best, or in which a despotism of the right can provide the foundation for a dictatorship of the left. Or vice versa. It is a situation that only underscores the urgency of continuing the partnership launched eight years ago this month when President Kennedy, following a Latin-inspired initiative known as "Operation Pan-America," pledged the support of the United States to the Alliance for Progress.

The alliance was a magnificent concept, with goals and aspirations to match its grandeur. If it can be faulted in hindsight, it would be for assuming that the job could be done in ten years. That, and setting an annual growth-rate goal without recognizing that the birth rate was shooting up at a pace that far exceeded Latin America's growth-rate capabilities.

But who can argue that any program of the scope and reach of the alliance—a program designed to bring about the upheaval of the Latin American continent and build a healthy, vibrant, economically secure, and politically sound inter-American community—must not set its sights high, and that it must not keep them there? Surely not the people who live without amenities of civilization, or without hope of a better tomorrow. For they can attain that tomorrow only if there is no compromise in the fight to attain the goals the alliance so eloquently set forth—goals for better housing, education, health, tax and land reforms, a revitalized and modernized industry and agriculture, and an integrated continent-wide economy.

Yet the yearly per capita growth rate still is well behind the Punta del Este goal of 2.5 per cent. The birth rate soars. Fifty per cent of the people are illiterate. The cities are clogged with workless campesinos. Tight protective tariffs protect inefficient monopolies. Feudalism persists in the countryside,

and the people there go hungry or move away.

If it was a mistake then to hope that this could be changed in ten years, it would be catastrophic now to turn our backs on what has been done. True, economic sufficiency remains a distant goal, but for the first time a way has been charted out of the Latin American jungle of underdevelopment.

The statistics add up to an impressive total, particularly in an area of the world that has never experienced such concentrated doses of progress. But no statistic can possibly convey the meaning of a new road that slices through an Amazon jungle and links up a hitherto isolated village with the heartland of its country. Nor can it convey the significance of a new classroom opened for children in the plateaus of the Andes or in the barrios of the cities; of a campesino who now works his own farm; of water supplies made potable; of infant mortality rates reduced; of a family able to quit the sordid life of the slums for a new start in a new apartment.

And with all the statistics totaled up, it is clear that the alliance has devoted more of its resources to investments in the social areas, particularly education and health services, than in any other sector.

The actual rate of Latin American development, therefore, is higher than the economic growth charts indicate simply because social investment is not reflected in Latin America's gross product. But the direct effort to speed up the processes of education and social welfare is the surest guarantee that an obsolete social order will be peacefully transformed, as in Japan or Britain, rather than explosively altered via the violent, revolutionary routes of eighteenth-century France or twentieth-century Russia.

What must be understood above all about the alliance—and perhaps the most misunderstood feature, even among a number of our own key government officials—is that it is not a bilateral American aid program, but rather a cooperative self-help program, to be carried out primarily by the people of Latin America. The United States is one partner in this program, of which 90 per cent is financed by the countries of Latin America. The alliance is not ours to manipulate, and the amount we appropriate, therefore, is no handout, but a hand of help extended in friendship. Congress must not forget this when considering how much we can afford to appropriate for our share of the effort.

When all is said and done, and with all that remains undone, there is no escape from the conclusion that eight years ago the alliance launched a tru-

SR/AUGUST 16, 1969

12

ly creative, regenerative development program. But it was, and is, only the first step in a long journey. In our inter-American relations, we need most of all a sense of propriety, a sense of time, a sense of scale, and a sense of destiny.

As for propriety, Americans may find wry amusement in cartoons that depict the stereotyped Latin American—the sleepy, guitar-playing, sombrero-wearing, not too ambitious but pleasant fellow. But the stereotyped North American—the Yankee with the dollar sign for a heart—is hardly the object for smiles in Latin America. The truth, of course, is that neither stereotype is valid today, if it ever was.

The people of Latin America are a combination of some of the wealthiest cultures our civilization has known. Its young people, with their passion for country and their zeal for the future, are restless and prone to impatience. They are skeptical of our aims and so are more willing to blame us for their problems than to understand the difficulties in solving them. Yet these are the people with the mystique and the vision of grandeur who can spark the enthusiasm and loyalties of their countrymen. These are the people who are so anxiously searching for a revolution of social justice—the very people we must convince that we want to work with them because our continued partnership is essential to the future of freedom. In so doing, anti-Communism as such will not get us very far. It is not a powerful argument for the average citizen who is steeped in a personal struggle to keep his head above water.

A student at the University of Chile once summed it up when he told me: "The United States is constantly talking about the value of political democracy. We agree that it is essential, but we also feel you would accomplish far more if you said less about political democracy and put more of your weight behind the concept of economic democracy."

What he was saying is that city slum dwellers denied hope and illiterate rural Indians denied even a glimpse of the twentieth century neither comprehend the meaning of political democracy nor offer any foundation to sustain or to nurture it. They will either remain mute or give their sullen support to the demagogue or "leader" who elbows his way through the masses' offering them protection and food. These are the staple commodities they want and need, and no promise of a better life made possible by democracy can vie with them. As former Senator Paul Douglas once said, "When you offer a starving man a choice between the Four Freedoms and

four sandwiches, he always chooses the four sandwiches."

When, however, attention is given to questions of basic order, when roads and streets are made safe, when food, clothing, and shelter are made available, when attention is given to living conditions, when the masses discover they can rear, educate, and marry off their children and leave them an opportunity for a better life, political democracy becomes not only possible, but imperative. For as living standards rise, democracy becomes the only political system through which that better life can be sustained and advanced. And this is to the mutual benefit of all the Americas.

As for time, no nation has fully modernized itself in less than sixty years. The United States took much longer. In eight years Latin America, despite false starts and frustrated hopes, has made more progress than we had any right to expect. Realistically, however, it would be unwise to think in terms of less than thirty years for full-scale modernization of the continent. After eight years the alliance must, therefore, be regarded as in its infancy. Any other view does injustice to Latin America.

And this leads to the need for a sense of scale in our relations with Latin Americans, including a sense of proportion in both the United States and Latin America. We must look at our hemisphere with a new eye of understanding, one that recognizes its importance to the future peace of the world. We cannot take Latin America for granted, believing it will be there when we need it. We need it now no less—and perhaps more—than it needs

us, for what happens there in the closing years of this century may well shape the coming years of the next century.

As for Latin Americans, it is time for them to recognize that the United States is not the wielder of the big stick of the 1900s, that we mean what we say about wanting to work with them, that our commitment is to an inter-American community of equal states. In short, they must turn away from memories of the past and turn instead to our mutual hopes for the future.

We talk of destiny, of partnership, of shared hopes and efforts toward hemispheric unity. But what does that tiny look like if our hemisphere ends up half suburb and half slum? Is this the limit we set to the creative, working partnership the American presidents established at Punta del Este to meet the increasing needs of today's "revolution of rising expectations"?

Surely our destiny is more in keeping with the brave new world we have always sought to build. Surely it is more in keeping with our faith that the dream of Simón Bolívar will flourish at last, like the dreams of our own founding fathers—that this hemisphere will grow in prosperity and confidence into a model of how states, with all their diversity of cultures and differences of gifts, can work together to improve and enrich and ennoble their common life.

We shall not do this with cold, lifeless graphs and charts. We shall not do this with Congressional cuts. We shall not do this between today and tomorrow. But with time and with resources, and with the republics of the Americas all working together, it can be done.

"The Alliance for Progress was a magnificent concept."

13

SR/AUGUST 16, 1969

SOL M. LINOWITZ

GENERAL
SPB
KISSINGER, HENRY A.

July 25, 1973

Dear Henry,

I thought you might like to glance at these
excerpts from a talk I made in Mexico City recently
to the American Association for the Advancement of
Science and scientific groups from all over Latin
America about "The Future of the Americas".

For whatever it's worth, I think this would
be a most propitious time for the United States to
join the countries of Latin America in developing
a new policy for the future which will avoid some
of the problems we are confronting today.

With warm regards,

Dr. Henry Kissinger
Assistant to the President
The White House
Washington, D.C. 20500

Enclosure

RECEIVED
AUG.
CENTRAL OFFICE