The Listener 6 December 1973

777

land mass. Possibly such a relationship
may ensue, but, although the Chinese
have stopped talking about the dangers of
Japanese militarism, although the Taiwan
issue has been defused, and although Sino-
Japanese trade is rising to the same level
as that between Russia and Japan, there
are a number of obstacles in the path of a
warm relationship between Peking and
Tokyo. In no circumstances will the Chinese
leadership allow the country to become
dependent on one major trading partner
or to pile up external debts. Much of
the China Sea is continental shelf which
may be an important source of oil and
other minerals, and jurisdiction over it is
likely to be a continuing source of friction
in Sino-Japanese relations. And even if
China were prepared to swallow its revolu-
tionary principles to the extent of allowing
a major influx of Japanese capital, the
Japanese themselves would have to walk
warily as long as Sino-Soviet tension con-
tinues at its present level: an embattled
Soviet Union that saw Japan moving in-
creasingly close to China could exert ser-
ious strategic pressure on Japan. This is one
reason why Japan, even more than the rest
of the world, has an interest in the windin-
doing of the Sino-Soviet dispute, though
she can have little influence on its course.

Japan has, in theory, another option either to remaining within the Western political and economic system or to embarking on closer relations with the mainland powers. She is an economic super-power, with the most dynamic economy in the world. If the rest of the world takes her compliance too much for granted, why not embark on its reorganisation? Why not

translate her economic strength into military power, and develop her own sphere of influence? If nuclear weapons are the ticket of entry to the top table, as British politicians used to argue, then why not Japanese nuclear weapons? Why should she not do in Asia in the Seventies and Eighties what De Gaulle did in Europe in the Sixties? After all, the reduction of American military power in the Pacific, plus the growing intimacy of Soviet-American relations, makes the political value of her Mutual Security Treaty with the United States look dubious even if the declining reputation of American leadership were not increasing popular Japanese opposition to it. China has a much narrower technological base than Japan, and the Soviet Union cannot deploy as much power or influence in the Pacific area as she can in the Atlantic area. Besides, in an era of rising oil and raw material costs, it is the countries with the largest investment programmes in the developing world that are likely to get the best treatment.

## Japanese Gaullism

But we have only to pose the hypothesis of a kind of Japanese Gaullism—though a crisis in Japanese-American relations or a degeneration of the Western trade and payments system might tempt the Japanese to translate this latent political strength into the real thing—in order to see the pitfalls. A decision to become a nuclear power would almost certainly lead to the end of her American nuclear guarantee, for she would be breaking the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty and would become a dangerous

ally, and would force her to traverse a
period of not less than ten years before
she could build up an effective submarine
missile force. Even then, she would remain
vulnerable to strategic pressure, for a third
of her population is concentrated in three
metropolitan areas, around Tokyo, Nagoya
and Osaka, and her dependence on im-
ported raw materials, including uranium,
means that no level of strategic power
could guarantee permanent freedom of
action.

A strong Japanese fleet? Certainly, the
modest posse of destroyers in her Self-
Defence Force could be expanded into a
powerful naval task-force more rapidly
than any other power could do it, by reason
of her enormous ship-building capacity.
But what purpose would it serve? It would
revive a host of fears from the pre-war
years, and could do nothing to assure her
supply of oil from the Gulf, or its passage
through the Malacca Straits between
Malaysia and Indonesia, for the days of
gunboat diplomacy are over. A politico-
military sphere of influence in the world,
especially Asia? There is none that would
meet Japan's economic interests, for—
though she may have about a third of
Asian trade—in terms of investment in raw
material supplies, Central and South
America are as important to her as South-
ern Asia.

Undoubtedly, the actions of the other
major powers might force Japan into a
more self-assertive policy. But the fact that
it is neither in her interests nor theirs to
do so means that this disciplined, proud yet
uncertain country, with only half the popu-
lation of the United States and less than
half that of the Soviet Union, holds it in
its power to change the context of inter-
national politics to a greater extent almost
than any other. For Japan's fourth and best
alternative is to place her considerable
weight behind the effective functioning,
through its institutions, of an interdepen-
dent economic and political order. She feels
entitled to a permanent seat on the UN
Security Council, in which she now has
American backing, and this posits a revision
of the UN Charter and redefinition of the
real function of the Security Council, since
Japan has virtually no military power. If
she can make a constructive contribution to
the forthcoming trade and monetary nego-
tiations, her diplomatic influence will rise.
An increase in the proportion of her
wealth devoted to development aid to the
British and French level would make her
by far its largest source. Her latent military
strength provides a strong incentive to
other major powers to control and reduce
their own. Because Japan is something
quite new in modern history—a great
industrial and trading power that is not a
military power—she offers a challenge to
her peers, which they dare not evade, to
reconsider the nature of power and influ-
ence in international politics. The extent
to which this challenge can be met depends
partly on the evolution among the major
powers of tacit ground rules about their
relations with the rest of Asia.

Radio 4. Next week's lecture is entitled
'Maintaining Peace in Asia'.

## Traherne by R. D. Lancaster

I recognised him

From a stall at their bazaar.

I wasn't to case

Past that mop of light red hair
With my outmoded transport

And not stop. One glance

And I was his audience.

The hill we stood on

Almost shoulder to shoulder

Commanded a wide wild waste

Of sun and shadow

Racing over cows and crops.

'You see that far peak?'

He pointed up to Shropshire,
Then turned left to point out Wales.

'And those dark rain clouds

Squatting on the Knob?' I did.

Shifting his pointer

He indicated more peaks

To Severn Bridge and Malverns

And held the whole thing

In a coming together

Of thumbs and fingers.

'From here to there, and all round
Within, a new city's planned!'

Some pathetic crow

Flapped across behind his ears
Doing a vulture.

'Sea and air and road and rail!'

'And what about the people?'

'Jobs, jobs, and more jobs!'

Docks, airport, motels, stations!'

'Nothing there for me,

I'm afraid, nothing at all,

I said, 'unless I'm retrained'

As a road-sweeper.'

'Roads won't ever get dirty!'

'But you can't destroy—'

'You can lead a protest group.

If nobody protested

We'd have to invent

All the protest groups ourselves.

Protest's a service,

Part of the service sector

With travel or retail trade,

Banking or welfare,

Closest to entertainment,
Press or government.

So absorbed in what he said

My Raleigh fainted and slid

Beneath his Rover

But he grinned aside the griee

'Some cloak!' The sun, too,
Was on his side, his right side,
Framing him against ripe corn,

THE SECRETARY OF STATE
WASHINGTON

7 MAR. 1974

Dear Alastair:

I had wanted to write to you when an excerpt of your
Reith Lectures appeared in the _New York Times_ last month
but I decided to delay until I had had a chance to read a
fuller text. There obviously is much in these lectures that
we should talk about when we next have a chance to meet. I
found them one of the most reflective and insightful commen-
taries on contemporary problems that I have seen. Much of
the context of your observations about the United States which
you so carefully set out in the third lecture was lost in the
excerpt.

Without now debating your general critique of our
evolution and policies, I do want to pick up briefly your
remarks about the so-called Atlantic Charter speech. I
must with some sadness accept your point that the speech
was "ill-judged," that it irritated our allies and achieved
nothing. But I must say, with perhaps equal sadness, that
you might have come closer to the truth if you had cited the
speech not as an example of showmanship on our part but as
an illustration of the decline of statesmanship in Europe.
Had that initiative been received in the spirit in which it was
advanced it would have fostered a process of welding a new
and perhaps unique relationship among our democratic
societies under the evolving circumstances which you so ably
discuss in your lectures. Instead it was turned into a process
of procedural bickering and drained of the content that vision
and statesmanship could easily have given it. It would have

Mr. Alastair Buchan,
Waterloo House,
Brill,
Bucks,
England.

-2-

contributed to precisely that "positive half" of a grand
strategy the absence of which you deplore in your lecture.
As a historian, I must say that this unhappy train of events
is a more telling commentary on the decline of vision in
Europe than in America. I say this not polemically but
perhaps in that spirit of philosophical pessimism to which
you refer.

Let me simply conclude that the challenge you lay down
at the very end of your third lecture does indeed come very
close to my own view of the task ahead.

Best regards

Henry A. Kissinger

Irredentism and Western Europe into a sulky neutralism, risking the creation of that Fortress America, colder, poorer, less secure, which it is their prime objective to avoid.

There is a more disquieting variant on the same theme, namely that under the leadership of these two figures who have no deep roots in their own society, the United States may be lured into perceiving a greater coincidence of interests with her fellow superpowers than with her fellow democracies.

But is it an American interest to help solve the domestic problems of the Soviet Union without demanding any quid pro quo in the form of the liberalization of her domestic policies, her treatment of Jews or intellectuals, for instance?

A foreign policy that consists primarily in acrimonious arguments with countries who are not only allies but, more than that, open and free societies as the United States herself is, while striking bargains with the world's most powerful dictatorship is unlikely to command a wide domestic consensus. Despite their fondness for lofty statements of principles, negotiated with other heads of governments, Mr. Nixon and Mr. Kissinger have done singularly little to clarify to the American people the immense complexity of the international agenda that lies ahead of them, the need for both American activity and restraint that it will demand, still less to re-elicit the generous instincts and constructive genius of American society.

Nor is it clear whether a President and a Secretary of State who are by temperament secretive and suspicious can reap the fruits of America's own achievements, namely convert a position of lonely responsibility for the United States, dominating a group of disparate and much weaker allies, into an interdependent coalition of complementary responsibilities, now that Japan and Western Europe have grown much taller in economic strength.

For so far Mr. Kissinger has failed by the standards he posited before he went to Washington for the conduct of a more complex and less idealistic American diplomacy: the reform of its large, cumbrous and internally divided bureaucracy, the evolution of a better relationship between the making of policy and its execution. Instead, he and Mr. Nixon, having played on these divisions in order to centralize decision-making in their own hands, have thereby made the conduct of government more not less capricious and opaque.

Unless Mr. Kissinger can change now that he is the head of a great department, he may prove to have outlived his usefulness and to have become an anachronism more trusted there by adversaries than friends, his conservative conception of the content of diplomacy an outdated one when the political, economic, technological planes of interaction between nations are so closely linked. We may have to wait until 1976 to know what kind of policy can provide the American people with a new center of gravity. All that one can say with certainty is that its execution will be infinitely more difficult, and may have to be more pragmatic, than any set of foreign policies the United States has pursued since she became a world power.

Alastair Buchan is professor of international relations at Oxford. This article is excerpted from the Reith lectures on B.B.C. radio.

WILEY T. BUCHANAN, JR.
1100 NEW HAMPSHIRE AVENUE, N. W.
WASHINGTON, D. C. 20037

202 332-7320 331-7320

March 28, 1975

My dear Mr. Secretary:

I want to tell you how grateful I am
to you for suggesting Austria to me late
last Fall.

I have completed my briefings, which
were fascinating, and was sworn in yesterday.
I leave on Sunday for Vienna.

Indeed you were right to urge me to make
that choice. Every briefing session and
every type of information that has come to me
in the briefings is certainly proof that this
is one of the most interesting and challenging
posts we have.

I am grateful for the confidence you have
shown in me and assure you that I will do
everything in my power to justify your confidence.

Ruth joins in our warmest good wishes
always to you both.

The Honorable
Henry A. Kissinger
Secretary of State
Washington, D.C.

JAMES L. BUCKLEY
NEW YORK

7408082

United States Senate

WASHINGTON, D.C. 20510

March 18, 1974

The Honorable Henry A. Kissinger
Office of the Secretary
Department of State
2201 C Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20520

Dear Henry:

Because of my high respect for your views and good opinion, I am enclosing a copy of a statement that I intend to release tomorrow, in which I recommend that the President resign.

I have agonized over this matter for weeks, and have come to the reluctant but unavoidable conclusion that whatever the outcome of the current investigation, it is now impossible for the President to recover the authority and leadership essential to guide this country through the next three years.

As I make clear in my statement, I would view his resignation as a supreme act of patriotism and courage, an act of sacrifice essential for the good of the country, of the Presidency, and for the attainment of his stated national goals.

This is, beyond any doubt, the most difficult decision I have ever had to make. I am conscious of the fact that my motives will be impugned, my statement misunderstood, and that I will be hurting many friends whom I most respect.

UNITED STATES SENATE
WASHINGTON, D. C.

JAMES L. BUCKLEY
NEW YORK

June 14, 1976

PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL

The Honorable Henry Kissinger
Department of State
2201 C Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20520

Dear Henry:

Thank you for your civil and civilized reaction
to my remarks before the American Defense Prepared-
ness Association.

Obviously, there is little point in trying to
re-examine the whole range of areas (individually
small but cumulatively large) which have led me to
conclude that the foreign policy of which you have
been the principal architect falls short of what we
need at this time. I would, however, like to touch
upon some of the points raised in your letter.

I deeply appreciated, and valued, the many pri-
vate meetings you have arranged with me over the
years, in which you gave me the opportunity to gain
insights into your policy objectives and in which
you sought my own reactions and advice as to how to
enlist the understanding and support of the admitted-
ly strange breed labeled "conservative."

I believe you will agree that I have helped you
whenever I could; and have gone to bat on the Senate
floor and before the press for all those objectives
-- a substantial majority of them -- with which I
found myself in full agreement. These have included
support for the blockading and bombing of North Vietnam,
the resupply of South Vietnam, and for the ability to
conduct covert action in Angola.

page 2

By the same token, I know you will also agree that I never, from the beginning, hesitated to express my concerns over the political perceptions and what I felt to be the inherent shortcomings of the policy of detente as it was developed.

I had hoped you would take me at face value when I told you, in our earlier telephone conversation after I had written General Scowcroft, that my decision to question publicly whether you ought to continue as Secretary of State was not motivated by any considerations of personal political advantage. The fact is, there is nothing substantive in my address before the Association that I had not written one and a half years earlier for a book published last fall (copies of the relevant pages enclosed).

As I pointed out to General Scowcroft, however, as a candidate for re-election I owe a duty of candor to my constituents. Over the past year and more, I have managed to sidetrack direct questions by affirming my belief that a President has an absolute right to select whomever he will to be his chief foreign policy advisor. Recent questions, however, have been more pointed; and I felt I could not afford to evade them much longer.

Finally, I deeply regret that you felt that my reference to your failure to understand the American public and the American political process was an alusion to your own non-American origins. Believe me, it did not occur to me that my words could be interpreted that way. Certainly, the inference was never intended.

I have said as much about Richard Nixon's failure to understand the political consequences of his own action, and implied as much in the enclosed pages from my book. I am sure I have said the same to you directly -- that given the political context, your advocacy for detente would inevitably undermine your attempts to secure the military strength and back up which you at the same time declared to be essential to detente.

But the fact is, that you did so interpret my re-

marks, and for this I am deeply sorry and apologize.
I might add, in this context, that I am the last
person you will find to claim that naturalized Ameri-
cans are somehow less American than the rest of us.
In fact, in recent years, I have come to the opposite
conclusion: that those who have most recently arrived
on our shores most acutely understand the blessings
we enjoy, blessings that far too many "old" Americans
have come to take for granted or even to despise.

Henry, I took no pleasure in making the public
statement I felt I had to make. I hope that you are
right, and that I am wrong; but I have no choice but
to express my own beliefs. But the fact that I have
had to give explicit expression to my disagreement
with you in no way diminishes my respect or friend-
ship for you. And I hope that you on your part will
regard our relationship in the same light.

With warm regards,

enclosure

AMERICA AND THE WORLD OUTSIDE

211

Union will have too many advantageous relationships with the United States to risk upsetting them. I find this reasoning less than compelling. Hitler did not hesitate to risk war with his major trading partners when he felt strong enough to do so. I therefore question the prudence of a policy that would strengthen a known adversary in exchange for intangibles of such unproven value.

It is no doubt because of such statements on my part that *Pravda* has taken to branding me as one of the foremost enemies of détente. It is flattering to be so singled out. I am not sure, however, that I deserve the honor, as I am not at all un- sympathetic with the policy—as pursued in Moscow. The Soviets perceive détente (or “coexistence” as they usually call it) as a new phase in the continuing struggle between two competing systems, one that is removed from the arena of potential military confrontation, although they are continuing to prepare for such a contingency. I cannot fault the following statement on the nature of détente that appeared in *Pravda* in May, 1973: “Only naïve people can expect that recognition of the principles of coexistence by the capitalists can weaken the main contradiction of our times between capitalism and socialism, or that the ideological struggle will be weakened.” The Russians are obviously serious people with serious objectives, and we owe it to ourselves to understand and respect their view of the “principles of coexistence.”

My problem with détente is not so much how it is perceived in Moscow as how it is perceived and pursued in the United States. The Soviet view is consistent with the realities that Communist doctrine and power have imposed on the world scene. Our view, on the other hand, has tended to obscure those realities. We have hailed détente as heralding a generation of peace, a new era in which the superpowers will reason together in their common search for harmony. By making such extravagant claims for détente, we have blinded ourselves to the fact that the ongoing conflict has only been shifted to other arenas. The Cold War may be dead, but the Communist struggle against the “imperialist” world continues. It is one thing to establish useful lines of communication

212

IF MEN WERE ANGELS

with the major Communist powers. It is something else to
proclaim the millennium.

Time has given us a more realistic perspective on détente. The Communist leopards have amply demonstrated that they are not yet prepared to change their spots. We learned this the hard way in the Yom Kippur War which the Soviets did their best to widen; and again in Indochina, where Pe-king and Moscow refused to use their leverage on Hanoi to exact compliance with the Paris Accords. The euphoria is gone and we are the better for it.

The Nixon-Kissinger policy of détente involved, of course, far more than the opening of doors to the East. It was an exercise in balance-of-power diplomacy that however brilliantly conceived and executed could never provide a base for a long-term, dependable American foreign policy. The reasons for this have nothing to do either with the soundness of their basic concepts or the manner in which they attempted to carry them out. The problem is that balance-of-power diplomacy is inherently unsuited to our political institutions and alien to the American psyche. Such a diplomacy, with its necessary reliance on maneuver and pragmatism, requires a certainty of execution we cannot deliver and a moral neutrality that destroys the basis for continuity.

For better or worse, Americans tend to see things in terms of black and white, whereas the diplomacy of détente, as practiced by its authors, involves a kaleidoscope of grays which by turning and twisting can be formed into patterns that meet immediate goals without any intelligible thread of objective consistency. This is not to say that Nixon and Kissinger did not have long-term strategies, intelligently conceived, for meeting goals to which all Americans would subscribe. Their problem was an excess of subtleties that our system cannot accommodate, given the need for Congressional cooperation and the hazards of Presidential elections. To speak in elementary terms, we Americans need to know who are the good guys, and who are the bad guys. Then, having identified and allied ourselves with the former, we can be reasonably reliable friends and reasonably formidable opponents.

AMERICA AND THE WORLD OUTSIDE

213

In the post-World War II years, Communism has provided the great divide by which we have decided whom we will work with or against, without being sidetracked by such niceties as to whether this or that regime on our side of the divide is democratic or authoritarian, or meets a standard of purity higher than that of the Hague machine in Jersey City. Given the historical record of international troublemaking during the past thirty years or so, it is hard to fault this formulation. Unfortunately, when with an excess of exuberance Richard Nixon rushed to Peking and raised his glass in extravagant toasts to the high priests of Communist China, and then went on to Moscow to pay the same honors to the Soviet leaders in the Kremlin, he undercut the perceived moral basis of a foreign policy which Americans could understand and support, and for which in times of test they were willing to sacrifice.

We are now without a compass of the sort we need to chart a reliable course in international affairs. There is something very unsettling for most Americans, this one included, about a policy that will go to great extremes to confer economic benefits on governments that in turn encourage and supply our opponents in a costly, bloody, undeclared war.

Yes, we need to be able to communicate with all who can have a decisive influence on the shaping of world events. But this does not require that we pretend that those who intend to bury us are our friends or that we pursue policies so morally ambiguous that it becomes impossible to generate the popular and political support that alone can give American foreign policy the coherence and credibility that friend and foe will rely upon and respect.

This is why I declare myself to be a friend of détente—Soviet style.

### III

#### Power and Peace

One of the predictable political effects of Richard Nixon's policy of détente was to undercut further the willingness of Congress to maintain the level of military power that the

214

IF MEN WERE ANGELS

President held essential to its success. Time and again, he stressed the fact that he had been able to undertake effective negotiations in Peking and Moscow only because he spoke from a position of unquestioned strength. Only if we maintained that position could we expect to make real progress in the forthcoming negotiations for a mutual and balanced reduction of forces in Central Europe and for prudent limitations on strategic arms. But the exalted expectations that the President himself encouraged with his constant talk about a generation of peace merely gave new ammunition to those who in recent years had been working to cut back almost every area of military spending. When I suggested this at a private meeting with Henry Kissinger, he expressed astonishment that Congress should fail to see the connection between a credible military posture and effective diplomacy; and in so doing, he confirmed my long-held suspicion that one of Kissinger's major weaknesses is his inability to understand the political currents within Congress.

It was his and the President's bad fortune that they had launched a new direction in American foreign policy at a time when we were caught up in a mood of antimilitarism triggered by the growing disenchantment with the Vietnam war. The battle cry of the antimilitarists was the need to "reorder our priorities," by which they meant the need to slash military expenditures so that we might have more money to spend on a vast array of social programs.

When I was first elected to the Senate, it never occurred to me that I would be spending any substantial time on military matters. My interests lay in other directions, and I had assumed (along with most other Americans) that America continued to maintain a comfortable superiority in every category of military power. I was aware, of course, that the Congress had imposed substantial cuts in this or that area of military spending and had long since abandoned its habit of rubber-stamping every request that emanated from the Pentagon. The reassertion of Congressional responsibility was long overdue.

I did question, however, whether the Congress might not be overdoing some of the cutting in substantial part because

LOOK
REG. U. S. PAT. OFF.

A publication of
COWLES COMMUNICATIONS, INC.
GARDNER COWLES, Editor in Chief

February 23, 1971 • Volume 35 Number 4

In the know
BY LOUIS BOTTO

One of the most remarkable
artists we've ever
met, Len Bulnes, carves topical
figures on wooden
matchsticks. At left are his
Agnew and Nixon
facsimiles etched on sticks
that are 2½ inches long
and less than one-eighth of an
inch thick. The Peruvian,
who now lives in Manhattan, has
sculpted everything from
a Coke bottle to the Crucifixion
in this minuscule medium.
The artist uses three kinds of
blades to create his
collection of Presidents,
flamenco dancers,
U.S. soldiers and the Statue of
Liberty. He leaves
the match head intact,
which serves as a pedestal
for his striking sticks.

LEN BULNES
33 W. 67 St., Apt. 104
N.Y.C., N.Y. 10023

M LOOK 2-23-71

THE
NATIONAL
CARVERS
MUSEUM
REVIEW

PUBLISHED QUARTERLY
BUSINESS HEADQUARTERS
7825 South Claremont Avenue
Chicago, Illinois 60620

Telephone: (312) 925-6696

The Carving Capitol
of America

NATIONAL CARVERS MUSEUM

14960 WOODCARVER ROAD - MONUMENT, COLORADO 80132 - (303) 481-2656

S1.00

VOLUME 5

NO 4

A MEMBER TO BE PROUD OF
By Bruner F. Barrie

Mr. Len Bulnes, a woodcarver and resident of New York City has a unique and gratifying hobby (having in mind to make it a second career) - carving minute and detailed figures from matchsticks. By profession, Mr. Bulnes is an industrial designer with a degree from the University of New York and is an alumni of Miami Dade Junior College in Miami, Fla. Mr. Bulnes has presented his carvings as gifts to the former President of the United States (Mr. Richard M. Nixon), former Vice President Spiro Agnew, and this past summer he presented Mrs. Richard Nixon with a piece of his carving at the White House. Mr. Bulnes has also presented his pieces as gifts to Pope Paul VI of the Vatican in Rome, Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka of Japan, Peruvian President Gen. Belazco, John Lindsay (former mayor of New York City) and the artist Salavador Dali. Now, Mr. Bulnes is in the process of doing a carving for Queen Elizabeth II of England. In addition, Mr. Bulnes has had articles in Life, Look and New York Magazine as well as the New York Times. He has been mentioned in the books: Present Day U.S.A. Woodcarvers & Sculptors, (a British publication) and the Peruvian Almanac. He has had shows at the First National City Bank of New York, the New York University Gallery, the Donnell Art Library, Toledo and Lima, Ohio. Mr. Bulnes has also appeared on the "What's My Line" television show with his unique abilities. Also in Miami on Channel 4, San Francisco T.V. Channel 20, the program of June Miller (Toledo T. V. Channel 13) and the Easter Stracker T.V. Program Channel 35, Lima, Ohio.

To produce his unusual carvings, Mr. Bulnes has designed and made all of his own tools from specially tempered and coated spring steel. Due to the small size of his carvings, his tools are approximately 2 inches long, including the blades that range from 1/10 of 1 millimeter to 1 millimeter in width. One cannot fully realize the difficulty nor comprehend the concentration involved in carving such a small object as a matchstick. To achieve such fine detail, neither a magnifying glass or eye piece can be used, all of the work must be done by the eye alone. When Mr. Bulnes starts a carving, he first selects his subject matter. If a portrait, he often refers to a great many photographs from different views if possible, and draws by hand a sketch of the piece, usually about 4 inches by 5 inches. After he has completed a geometrical sketch, he constructs a three dimensional model of clay (also about 4 inches by three inches by 5 inches) and then makes four to five more identical models. The reason for that is so that absolutely every detail of the figure is so fixed in Mr. Bulnes' mind that he will make no mistakes. A whole piece and hours of work can be ruined by one wrong cut. To carve one matchstick two inches long takes Mr. Bulnes twelve to eighteen hours and between seven to 10 blades of his special tools. Before Mr. Bulnes begins carving, he must relax his body and calm his mind, for carving such small and detailed figures requires a great deal of steadiness and concentration. (This is a good point to remember for any carver, no matter what the piece is, large or small).

There is a great deal to learn and enjoy from the carvings of Len Bulnes, but most of all, it is nice to know that one of our own members is creating and growing with NCM; he is indeed a member to be proud of.

THE BEST GIFT OF ALL IS A
SUBSCRIPTION
TO THE N.C.M. REVIEW

DEC.-1374

24

New York, New York.
39 West 67th Street,
Mr. Len Bruine.

Peraonsal Vaatant
Suzanne 2. McFarlane

Sincerely,

that it will be a treasured memento.
retary's appreciation and thanks. You can be saamed
this week to let you know, and to base along the Sec-
everyone else who sees it. I was hoping to write you
in his private office. He is intrigued by it, as is
indeed, and has been sitting on the Secretary's desk
Secretary Kissinger had been received safely. It was
make ame your marvellous matchstick carving of
I am so terribly sorry that you had to call to

Dear Mr. Bujiba:

June 18, 1976