DEC 12 1968

NICOLAS NABOKOV
450 West 20th St.
New York, N.Y.10011
USA

December 8, 1968

Dear Dr. Kissinger,

Remember me? I do sincerely hope that I haven't
disappeared entirely from your memory.

Nothing of late has given me more pleasure and
enhanced my feeling of confidence in the judicious judgment
of the Head of the oncoming Administration than the glorious
news of your appointment as one of the chief presidential
advisors. Please accept my warmest heartfelt congratulations.

When things will have settled a bit for you and after
a breezing trip through France, Italy, Germany and the USSR
that I am undertaking in a few weeks, and once you are instal-
led in Washington, may I come over and call on you some day?
I would so much like to submit to you a few observations I
have made during my long years of association with the Congress
of Culture of Freedom, as cultural advisor of Willy Brandt
while he was mayor of Berlin and as someone who as of late
has been greatly concerned about and dealt with intellectual
and artistic exchanges between this country and the rest of
the world. Without any presumption I do think that I had
quite a lot of experience in this field, particularly since
I have been often travelling lately to the Soviet Union, to
the Middle-East etc. etc.

But presently I just want to tell you how elated
I was when I heard of your appointment, and also to give you
my present permanent New York address.

With warmest regards and best season's greetings,
I remain,

Prof. Dr. Henry Kissinger
Center for International Affairs
Harward University
Cambridge, Mass. 02138

THE WHITE HOUSE

WASHINGTON

HAK

Do you want to accept the invitation to
the Ballet on the 12th or dinner with
Towsend Hoopes. Evidently, Hoopes
doesn't want to go ahead with any other
invitations for dinner until you have
confirmed.

HAK

I called Balanchine's secretary. She was delighted that you were coming but unfortunately, Mr. B is leaving the country on the 14th. Do you still want the tickets for the 15?

Yes ✓ No

or try to get up there on the 13th?

Yes ____ No ____

NICOLAS NABOKOV

450 West 20th St. apt.3
New York, N.Y.10011

January 30th, 1969

Dear Dr. Kissinger,

Thank you for your kind letter of January 15th. I was
most happy to learn from it that you remembered me.

I understand from George Balanchine that you might
possibly be coming to this year's premiere (it is the fifth
year now) of George Balanchine's and my ballet "Don-Quichotte"
on the 13th of February. Alas, I will not be there this year
for I have to give lectures and assist at performances of my
music in Pittsburgh. But our mutual friend Arthur Schlesinger
will be there in company with Sir Isaiah and Lady Berlin, both
of whom are arriving in New York on February 12th. I am sure
that both Sir Isaiah and Arthur will be delighted to meet you
at the ballet. As for Balanchine and myself, we will be most
honoured by your presence in the theater.

I am not quite certain yet at what time I can come to
see you at the White House. May I leave it open and call your
secretary to arrange a convenient date?

Thank you again for your nice letter, and with all my
best wishes for your difficult and important tasks at the
White House, I remain with warmest regards,

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

official

(Type of request)

3/16/70

(Date received)

jlp

(By)

Name: Nikola>Nabokov

NABOKOV

(Last name and pending date)

KISSINGER, HENRY A.

To:

From:

**Request:** Will be in New York for the next two weeks, and would be glad to come to Washington for an appointment to see Mr. Kissinger. He is free any day during the next 2 weeks except Thursdays. (I believe he and Mr. Kissinger have talked about having an appointment in person and before he left the area we said that we would try to arrange an appointment after he got back.)

Contact Mr. Nobokov at 212/243-1522.

DRY's Recommendation:

HAK's Answer: yes

Date and Time:

Party Contacted:

Additional Information:

Resolution:

NICOLAS NABOKOV

June 3, 1970

Dear Henry,

I'm sorry that we couldn't get together so far, but I quite understand
that, given the present political conjectures you cannot possibly have
time for, what in fact would comparatively amount to "small talk."

I am leaving tomorrow for Aspen, Colorado (c/o Aspen Institute for
Humanistic Studies, Box 219, Aspen, Colorado 81611, tel.: Code 303-
925-7715), where I will be hiding and writing a new opera.

I am sending you under separate cover the book by Werner Heisenberg
which I got for you in Germany. I draw your particular attention to
chapter 17 on page 279. I like it best.

Warm regards,

Mr. Henry A. Kissinger
The White House
Washington D.C.

NICOLAS NABOKOV

2

P.S. My Greek friends, not revolutionaries, not communists, but responsible intellectuals, have asked me (and not only me) to intervene on behalf of a number of Greek intellectuals, in particular one of them, Anghelos Diamantopulos, born in 1921, who is kept without trial at the Leros camp in Greece. He has an ulcer of the stomach and a severe case of displaced disks in his spine. I know Diamantopulos as an acquaintance. All that people are asking for is that he be transferred to a hospital in Athens. Could you do something about it? N.N.

N.N.

German TV Interview
(Type of request)

22 May 70
(Date received)

Mary Stifflemire
(By)

Naggiar; 10-20 June
(Last name and pending date)

To: DM

From: GENERAL

KISSINGER, HENRY A./N*

Name: Miss Pat Naggiar (212) 265-2640
West German Television (government owned-noncommercial)

Request: Doing film about changing mood of America. Would like HAK to speak for 3 to 10 minutes on the situation in America, seeming division between the young and the others. Dr. Edmond Wolf, the "Cronkite of West Germany" is making a 45-minute documentary, mainly about the young men returning from Vietnam, talking about changing America - a political film. He is interviewing Sen McGovern on 18 June, so it would be convenient to do it around that time, but would come any time, anywhere he wants and will set up and wait 5 hours if necessary. They do not have anyone from the Government who will talk about the Government's point of view, and they think HAK would be the best one to do it. Would like him to talk in German and make a statement for the present Administration of what it is doing; or to talk about anything he wants to. She also mentioned they are going to try to get Clark Clifford. This show will be seen by an audience of 30 million in Germany.

DRY's Recommendation: NO

HAK's Answer: NO - 6/8

Date and Time:

Party Contacted:

Additional Information: Miss Naggiar said they knew HAK had done a film for French TV and she feels he should do this for German TV.

She would like a call by 2:30 today if possible. She is writing a letter in requesting this.

Resolution:

ms

RECEIVED

JUN 1 1970

CENTRAL FILES

Bayerischer
Rundfunk

Bayerischer Rundfunk 8 München 2 Postfach

Anstalt des öffentlichen Rechts

Dr.Henry A.Kissinger,
Assistant to the President
for National Security Affairs,
The West Wing,
The White House,
Washington D.C.

Abteilung

Telefon 59 00

38 06

Please reply to:

Dr.Edmund Wolf,
c/o German Television,
460 West 54th Street,
New York City,N.Y.

Ihre Zeichen

Ihre Nachricht vom

Unsere Zeichen

XXXXXX New York, 22.5.1970

Dear Dr. Kissinger,

I am producing for the 1st German TV-Network, for a nationwide and very large audience, a long feature which will attempt to document and elucidate the present political division in this country on the issue of South-East-Asian involvement. We feel that the picture of violent agitation and controversy within the United States that Europeans get through newsreel and press coverage needs to be put into a sober and realistic perspective, and it would seem to be essential for this brief to give pride of place to an authoritative assessment of present ills and probable cure. It is certain that for any audience nobody could do this more effectively than you, and particularly so for a German audience since in your case the great drawback, the necessity of translation, would disappear. I need hardly say that I would not bother you if this programme were not, in our view, of sufficient importance.

The filming would take a minimum of your time, not more than ten minutes if you so wished; it would be done anywhere you like; and as to dates, I hope that a suitable time could be found before 20th June. If this should prove too difficult, the final possibility would be about 15th July.

Your office is informed about all this since our office in New York (Mrs.Patricia Nagyar) has discussed it with your staff on the telephone.

I very much hope that you will be able to agree.

8 München 2

Rundfunkplatz 1

Sammel-Ruf-Nr.

München 59 01

Drahtwort

Bayernfunk München

Fernschreiber

München 05 23428

Bank-Konten

Bayerische Staatsbank München 81 513

Postscheckkonto

München 84 01

KISSINGER, HENRY A./N*

APR 28 1971

Dear Mr. Naidu:

Thank you for your letter of April 19. I
was pleased to hear from you.

I would have liked very much to meet with
you while you are in Washington and regret
that I will be leaving town tomorrow and
will be away for about 10 days. I always
enjoy meeting with former Seminar mem-
bers and am sorry that I will miss this
chance to see you again.

Mr. P. S. Rajagopal Naidu
c/o The Fairfax Hotel
Room 623
2100 Massachusetts Avenue, N. W.
Washington, D. C.

jlp:4/27/71

RECEIVED
APR 2 9 1971

CENTRAL FILES

NTV

NIPPON
TELEVISION
NETWORK
CORPORATION

14 Niban-cho, Chiyoda-ku,
Tokyo, 102 Japan

Mrs. Kaoru Nakamaru
Director
INTERNATIONAL AFFAIR INSTITUTE
995, Oizumi-Gakuencho,
Nerimaku, Tokyo, Japan
December 11, 1971

Dr. Henry A. Kissinger,
Presidencial adviser,
The White House,
Washington D.C., U.S.A.

Dear Sir,

We have the pleasure of informing you that we are now
planning to broadcast a program titled "104 figures in the world
with Kaoru Nakamaru". Over our 27 station network, it will be
televised in color every Sunday night for thirty minutes, and
will reach an audience of at least 10 million.

In the program, Kaoru Nakamaru will interview famous people of the world. Our aim is to promote mutual understanding of the people throughout the world, socially and culturally, by showing the daily life of world-famous figures. We will avoid political issues; we are interested in people.

We-myself and a camera crew of four-will stay in your country according to the attached schedule. It would be appreciated very much if you could consent to be our interviewee.

In this connection, please inform us your most convenient date, hour and place for the interview during our stay. We estimate about 2 hours total for all technical arrangements, including the interview itself which will take approximately 10 minutes.

When we receive your reply (you may cable us collect), we will set the filming schedule and send you a confirming telegram.

Thank you in advance for your co-operation in a program, which we believe can contribute significantly to greater understanding between our two nations.

Yours faithfully,

Kaoru Nakamaru
Director

Sachikiku Matsumoto
Executive Director
Nippon Television Network Corp.

Telephone : 265-2111 Cable : JOAXNTV TOKYO Telex : TK4566

THE INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS INSTITUTE

Mrs. Kaoru Nakamaru
Director

Dr. Henry A. Kissinger,
Presidential Adviser,
c/o The White House
Washington, D. C., U. S. A.

637 Bancho-heim
1-2 Bancho Chiyoda-ku
Tokyo, Japan

Tel : 261-7231

Cable: NAKAKOKUSAIKEN

Jelie: Pls. regard

September 12, 1972

Dear Dr. Kissinger,

I write to beg your generous participation in a Special Project of the International Affairs Institute of Japan, of which I am Director. We are making a series of 104 special interest films, for presentation weekly over a period of two years on a major Japanese television network and in other countries. The project is backed by Japan's leading business and financial newspaper, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun. Each film will feature an interview with a personality well known internationally and to the Japanese public. Its theme is that the world is one, regardless of the superficial distinctions that raise barriers between men.

Among those whom I have already interviewed are His Holiness Pope Paul VI, U. N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim, Yehudi Menuhin, U. S. Senator J. W. Fulbright, Giacomo Manzu, Aristotle Onassis and Henry Ford II. Premier Chou En-lai of the People's Republic of China is among others who have also agreed to be interviewed.

I am a graduate of the Departments of Political Science and International Affairs and of the East Asia Institute of Columbia University, and spent four years in postgraduate studies in Europe and in related world travel. I have since been active in this field in Japan, where I hope through the Institute and my work in the public media to convey a wider vision of the issues that even now are moving history to unite us.

I already had the pleasure of meeting you in Tokyo when you were here in June, being introduced to you by both Mr. Donald Kendall and our host, Mr. Iwasa. It will be my great pleasure again, and subsequently of much interest to the Japanese public, if you find it possible to meet me during my forth coming visit to America. I shall

KISSINGER, HENRY F.

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Nasmyth:

Thank you for your telegram. I share your
family's joy at the safe return of your son.

Mr. and Mrs. John H. Nasmyth, Sr.
1238 North Delta Street
South San Gabriel, California 91770

RECEIVED
MAR 17 1973

CENTRAL FILES

KISSINGER, HENRY A./N*

HAK - Personal ②

Press 8/16/71
Type of Request & Date

Nassiter
(Last name and pending date)

Name: Bernard Nassiter - Washington Post

Request: He would like to see you to have a background talk on European Defense and the future of the Comman Market. He is leaving in a couple weeks to replace Al Friendly in London.

DRH's Recommendation:

HAK's Answer:

Date and Time:

Party Contacted:

Additional Information:

Resolution:

RECEIVED
SEP 14 1971
CENTRAL FILES

CBS

Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc.
51 West 52 Street
New York, New York 10019
(212) 765-4321

KISSINGER, HENRY A.

# 1970 NATIONAL BROADCAST EDITORIAL CONFERENCE

## Loyal Opposition

Remarks by FRANK STANTON, President, CBS

Park City, Utah, July 10, 1970

The National Broadcast Editorial Conference this year is an extremely appropriate forum to explore the many pressing problems that come under the • umbrella of the general theme of your meetings.

The function of the editorialist in a democratic society is a high one.
An essential proposition of democracy is, in the words of Washington's
Farewell Address, that "in proportion as the structure of a government gives
force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be en-
lightened."

There are two necessary ingredients in the creation of an enlightened
public opinion. One is the straightforward, thorough and prompt reporting
of the facts without which no opinion can be enlightened. The other is the
stimulation of discussion that can lead to a national sense of purpose,
direction and priority, without which no opinion can be effective.

You are in the vanguard of that second process. I congratulate you on
the opportunity for service that you have and for the sense of responsibility
that you are showing in making the most of it. I am happy and proud to have
this privilege of participating in your meetings.

There is no question that, as change is the first law of nature, it
is the basic law also of the relationships between all human institutions, and

-2-

neither the White House nor the press has been any exception. Without any major legislative or judicial intervention, the press has evolved in this country from the bitter partisan broadsides of the eighteenth century through the strident personal journalism of the nineteenth century into the increasingly disciplined concept of the press, on the whole, as a profession in our own time. The Presidency, too, has changed, particularly with the expansion of its powers and -- especially in the context of our discussions here today -- the direct access, made possible largely by television, of the President to the people, very much on his own terms and with his own timing.

*The Mainspring of Self-Government* No single fact of our changing political life -- certainly no single factor in the changing relationship between the government and the press -- seems to me more significant than this, because it bears directly and strongly upon the shaping of that enlightened public opinion which is the mainspring of any form of self-government. For the words of the President, speaking as he does both in his constitutional roles of chief executive and commander-in-chief and in his extraconstitutional role as the head of his party, carry an authority, a prestige and a visibility that have a counterpart in no other institution, governmental or non-governmental.

Moreover, there is an inherent newsworthiness in anything that the President says. In addition to his huge direct audiences, in most cases over all nationwide commercial television and radio networks simultaneously, all of what he says is later reported somewhere and something of what he says is reported everywhere. In the case of the incumbent administration, these built-in advantages of the Presidency in forging public opinion have been pressed to an unprecedented degree. Our records reveal a very pronounced

-3-

increase in the use of prime time (7 to 11 p.m.) by the Presidents.

Here are the figures since the first Eisenhower administration for the appearances of the last four Presidents on prime time network television, during the first 18 months of their administrations:

<table><tr><td>President Eisenhower</td><td>3 times</td></tr><tr><td>President Kennedy</td><td>4 times</td></tr><tr><td>President Johnson</td><td>7 times</td></tr><tr><td>President Nixon</td><td>14 times</td></tr></table>

These exclude appearances on regularly scheduled news broadcasts; reports on foreign trips; charity appeals; convention and campaign appearances in the case of President Johnson; and, in that of President Nixon, his Apollo appearances.

Now, in a period when the vastness, the speed and the complexity of national and world problems put a strain upon our political institutions wholly unimagined by their creators, no one can complain because the elected leader of the nation has direct and unfiltered access to those to whom he is ultimately responsible. It is, in fact, one of the great triumphs of the broadcast media that they have made this possible. There can be no doubt that in the distillation of an informed public opinion such appearances play a very basic role.

But if the words and views of the President become a monolithic force, if they constitute not just the most powerful voice in the land but the only one speaking for a nationwide point of view, then the delicate mechanism through which an enlightened public opinion is distilled, far from being strengthened, is thrown dangerously off balance. Public opinion becomes, not informed but instructed, and not enlightened but dominated.

-4-

To minimize the risks of imbalance and to treat opposing views on public issues fairly, our approach at CBS is on three fronts. First, in our regularly scheduled news broadcasts we provide continuous opportunity not only for the views of the administration, whose actions make news, but also for the views of those, frequently making news in Congress, as well as others, who have different views. Second, we present extensive and in-depth additional coverage of points at issue -- on the regularly scheduled Tuesday evening CBS News Hour, on FACE THE NATION, or on specially scheduled pre-emptive broadcasts the format of which provide for the expression of views not limited to dissent along partisan lines.

Third, we have adopted a "Loyal Opposition" concept, under which from time to time during the year CBS and its affiliated stations will provide the principal opposition party free prime network time to present its views in any way it sees fit. It is about this concept and the role it can play in contributing towards an enlightened opinion that I would like to talk with you briefly.

**The Loyal Opposition Concept**
The fundamental reason behind this decision -- which, by the way, is merely an application of a long-standing CBS policy to give the public a fair opportunity to have the views of the party out of executive power -- is simple and obvious: we live in a two party system. Both of the parties represent broad cross sections of the American people. They represent all regions of the country. Each has within its ranks conservatives and liberals. Each has members holding major state and local offices as well as Federal offices. Each speaks for millions of our citizens, not merely on a single or a dominant issue, but on all issues -- foreign and domestic, economic and social, civil and military. Both parties,

-5-

too, have a strength generally unknown in the political parties of other nations: both parties accommodate very wide ranges of views, the differences within them often being as great as the differences that divide them. Although this characteristic has been of saving uniqueness to the American political experience, because it has rendered splinter parties unnecessary, it has also posed the problem of who speaks for the parties -- a problem which we at CBS had to face in offering time to the opposition party.

In the case of the party in executive power, this is not a problem. Obviously the Presidency of itself is of preemptory power in partisan politics, and the President speaks for his party. It is inconceivable that his party would require time to differ with him. In the case of the party out of executive power, however, there is no one government official who, because of the office he holds, speaks with the same authority for the party out of power as a whole that the President does for his party. Congressmen and Senators represent their constituents, and not their party, in their duties -- and those constituencies, unlike the constituency of the Presidency, are formed of state and local bodies rather than one national in scope. Further limiting the role of Congressional leaders as national party spokesmen is the fact that some states very often have delegations that include no members of the opposition party. In the present Congress, four states -- Delaware, Kansas, Nebraska and Vermont -- have no Democrats in either house; seven -- Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Kentucky, New York, Oregon and Pennsylvania -- have none in the Senate; and eight more have none in the House -- Alaska, Idaho, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming.

In view of these facts, the one place in which logically to put responsibility for speaking for the opposition party -- or for deciding who

-6-

should speak for it -- is that party's National Committee. This is what we
at CBS decided to do. And it seems to me to conform with the facts of
political life.

**The Role of the Congress**

Suggestions that, as in the British system, the legislative opposition should constitute the party spokesmanship seem, on the contrary, based on an inexact parallel and to be in conflict with the clear intent of our constitutional doctrine of the separation of powers as a safeguard against parliamentary government with its inevitable dangers of unpredictability. In Britain, the principal party out of power is continuously organized under a "shadow cabinet" and functions as a formal and disciplined opposition. It has a designated leader, who speaks with undisputed authority for his party, who is the Prime Minister's accepted counterpart, and who would in all probability succeed him should his government fail. Thus, the chief executive in England always comes directly from the Parliament and, in fact, remains a member after he becomes Prime Minister.

This is not the case either in theory or in practice in the United
States. Theoretically, the Constitution specifically separates the legis-
lative and executive powers. In actual practice, only twice in the 17
times that the Presidency has passed from one party to another did the in-
coming President come directly from the Congress, the cases of Harding
and Kennedy being the only examples. Of the other 15, only one, Jefferson,
held Federal office, four of them being Governors and the majority -- 10 --
holding no public office at all when elected.

This is not to say that Representatives and Senators of either party,
whether or not opposed to the President and whether or not in control of

-7-

the Congress, should not be heard as frequently on the issues before the
country as events or their activities and influence justify. In the case
of CBS, such appearances are the rule rather than the exception not only
on hard news broadcasts but in special interviews and in panel discussions.
On FACE THE NATION, during the first 18 months of the present Congress,
out of 46 broadcasts involving Federal officials, 27 came from the Congress,
as compared to 19 from the executive branch. Moreover, if the National Com-
mittee of the opposition party should designate Senators or Representatives
as its spokesmen, we would certainly have no objections providing the require-
ments of Section 315 were met by our affiliates offering equal time to their
opponents or securing waivers.

Recently a proposal was made to amend the Communications Act of
1934 to require broadcasting licensees to "provide a reasonable amount of
public service time to authorized representatives of the Senate of the
United States, and the House of Representatives of the United States, to
present the views of the Senate and the House of Representatives on issues
of public importance." This institutional approach to hearing from the
Congress is, I think, one of those propositions that seem highly plausible
until you really look at it. What are the views of the Congress? Are they
arrived at by how the Congress votes? Are they the views of the majority
and of the minority as such? Are they the views of the committees to whom
specific legislation is referred? Are they the views of the policy committees?

And who would speak for an institution not conspicuous for its unanimity of expression even in the rare cases when there is near unanimity of view? Do the Speaker of the House and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate speak for all the members of their respective houses or only for the majority in each case? Would not the minority leaders and minority

-8-

whips then want a voice -- followed by the majority leaders and the majority
whips? Would the chairmen of 59 joint, standing, select and special com-
mittees not insist on addressing themselves to the legislation referred to
their committees -- followed by the 59 ranking minority members of those
committees? Would not then the sponsors of specific bills demand to be
heard -- followed by the opponents? Woodrow Wilson once said of the House
that it "has as many leaders as there are subjects of legislation." Under
the fairness principle, it has twice as many, for certainly no broadcast
representing itself as presenting "the views" of Congress could fail to
give the views of opponents of legislative acts. And of the Senate, Daniel
Webster said, "This is a Senate, a Senate of equals....not an arena for the
exhibition of champions." In short, the only views of Congress are the
views of its individual members -- 535 of them. Even presenting two at a
time, it would take a broadcast every day including weekends for over eight
months to present "the views of the Senate and the House of Representatives."

More recently, in yet another of the endless proposals to commandeer
television time, the criterion suggested for "requiring" networks to provide
time was that the recipients be "any substantial group of Senators opposing
the President's views." Fourteen out of 100 Senators represented themselves
as the first "substantial" group. By this quantitative standard, the Senators
opposing virtually every administration-sponsored bill would constitute a
"substantial group," since relatively few bills pass the Senate by a majority
of 86 or more. And would not "substantial groups" of Representatives im-
mediately seek a similar provision? If the same percentile factor were em-
ployed, this would mean that any 60 out of the 435 members of the House of
Representatives could claim the time -- with any number of combinations

-9-

making up the 60 providing only that they oppose the President. The pro-
posal is obviously wholly untenable.

The Role of the National Committees As for the appropriateness of
making time available to the National Committee, the Committee does represent
the party as a whole. Every state has representatives on it and a voice in
its procedures and decisions. The Chairman speaks from a position organiza-
tionally representing the whole party. He and the National Committee,
theoretically at least, are interim custodians of the party platform -- the
only set of principles and priorities formally adopted by the entire party.
Finally, the National Committee and its Chairman are ordinarily the last re-
maining political agencies readily available for consultation to the losing
candidate for the Presidency.

Some concern has been expressed that by limiting the offer of time
to the "principal opposition party," the contributions of third parties to
our political life would be neglected or impeded. At CBS -- and I am sure
that this is true of other broadcasting organizations -- we have always
recognized the significance of third parties. They have often been influential
correctives to the directions or emphases of the major parties. Historically,
they have been the progenitors of the principal parties. On several oc-
casions, they have been the decisive factor in the outcome of elections.

Despite the very real part that third parties have played, however,
they are the great variables in American national politics. Their durability
is necessarily uncertain, either because they take their main stand on a
single issue, frequently lacking permanent significance, or because they
respond primarily to a single set of events or to a single set of attitudes.
In some years, for example, a conservative third party is of special signi-
ficance and in other years a liberal party. For these reasons, it is absolutely

-10-

essential that the options remain open for all news media to cover third parties in the context of the atmosphere and events of specific campaigns.

No news organization interested in, if nothing else, its own survival would or could ignore the impact of third parties when that impact becomes apparent to the professional journalist. The record of broadcasting in the United States with regard to significant third parties seems to me to attest quite convincingly to the opportunity the public has had to hear their views and to the fairness with which those parties and their candidates have been afforded opportunities to express their views. But this situation does not exist between elections when frequently the most important of third parties are not even sure whether they will offer candidates and a platform of their own, support a major party or sit the campaign out. There is, in any case, no implication in the CBS offer to the principal opposition party that when events justify it third parties will not also be given appropriate opportunity to present their cases.

**Selling or Mandating Time** Some have contended that a better policy would be to sell time to political parties, rather than to provide it free. But we believe there are persuasive arguments against this. One is the advantage that automatically accrues to the party with the largest war chest. Another is the urgent matter of the public interest: if time could be bought without limit and indiscriminately at any period by any politician or party who could afford it, the result would not be the enlightenment of public opinion but its oppression. It would result in a public bored to death and a medium crippled by permitting it to happen.

Finally, it has been supposed that if it is desirable for CBS to make an offer of free time to the principal opposition party, it would be even

-11-

more desirable if all broadcasters were required by law to provide such time.
I think that this is wholly specious reasoning. As a matter of fact, the
experience of Section 315 has clearly demonstrated that attempts to regulate
in this area defeat their own purpose. Legislative or regulatory action
would certainly defeat our very purpose in having chosen this path, individ-
ually and not in response to government, party or industry pressures. We
do not think that it is the *only* path. We are not even sure that it is the
*best* path. But it is *one* path to ensuring that public opinion, the foundation
of action in a free society, is formed on the basis of a balanced presenta-
tion of national political viewpoints -- a balance that cannot be achieved
by any one device, legislative or administrative in its inception, that
locks all broadcasters into a single approach to this problem.

**The Need for Pluralism**

There is no technique, no stratagem, no instrument by which law or regulation can create by fiat or by formula an enlightened public opinion. It has to rise from a multiplicity of sources of information, a multiplicity of articulated views and a multiplicity of methods of conveying that information and of circulating those views. Whenever all the media, or all the elements within a medium, are required to do the same thing in the same way, that multiplicity is reduced, and the likelihood of an enlightened public opinion is diminished.

I am sure that everyone in this room would be profoundly disturbed if
unanimity of either matter or manner were imposed on editorials by anybody
or any agency, public or private, for any reason whatsoever. At CBS, in
fact, we don't even know what editorial positions the managements of our owned
stations are going to take on any issues until they are taken, and more than
once they have been in disagreement with one another. This pluralism, when

-12-

multiplied by all the broadcasters in radio and television and by all the
publications and other forums in other media, is the only safeguard of a
free society. For it is the sole effective guarantee that the public has the
opportunity to arrive at its opinion only after it has had all the facts and
after all the views interpreting and appraising those facts that merit a
hearing are made available.

In making our time offer to the principal opposition party, we were
not seeking to create a pattern for all broadcasting. We hope our counterparts
will seek to achieve the same effect in different ways. Our purpose was --
and remains -- to provide for the addition to the national dialogue of a
voice of responsible dissent or difference that represents a major body of
political thought.

I hope that I have not imposed at too great length upon your time.
If I have, it is only because of my awareness of your professional devotion
to the construction of a lively, informed public opinion in America. You
could hardly be devoting your energies and your talents to a more essential
cause -- a cause into which one of the ablest commentators on our political
processes -- Lord Bryce in his now classic *The American Commonwealth* -- showed
remarkable insight, when he concluded:

"Of all the experiments which America has made, this endeavouring
to govern by public opinion is that which best deserves study, for
her solution of the problem differs from all previous solutions,
and she has shown more boldness in trusting public opinion, in
recognizing and giving effect to it, than has yet been shown
elsewhere. Towering over Presidents and State governors, over
Congress and State legislatures, over conventions and the vast

JAN 10 1969

CLAREMONT GRADUATE SCHOOL AND UNIVERSITY CENTER

CLAREMONT, CALIFORNIA

January 8, 1969

Mr. Henry A. Kissinger
Center for International Affairs
6 Divinity Avenue
Harvard University
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138

Dear Henry:

COPY

One, with regard to the conference with the
Japanese at the Center for the Study of Democratic
Institutions, I can well appreciate your inability to
be out of Washington at that time (January 24-25). Please
understand that although I would have liked to have had
you there personally, my main purpose in extending the in-
vitation was to make it clear that the Center would be
pleased to have the Nixon Administration represented by an
observer if you all so desired. Accordingly, if it should
develop that you would like to send somebody, we would be
pleased to receive them. Just let me know.

Two, another matter altogether: There is in the
Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union a new Institute
for the Study of the United States. These institutes in
the USSR, of course, are very important bodies. The director
for this new Institute for the USA, Mr. Georgi Arbatov, is
coming to the United States this month for three or four
weeks. On behalf of the Center for the Study of Democratic
Institutions, I agreed earlier with a State Department sug-
gestion that the Center act as "sponsor" for Arbatov's visit
to this country. I am now stuck with arranging various plans
for him. He wants very much to see you, and given his impor-
tant position in the Soviet Union, I think it would be highly
useful for you to talk to him if it is at all possible. I
just wanted to alert you to this so you will have it in mind
when, in a week or two, I am able to suggest times for a pos-
sible appointment.

I hope you are surviving in good shape.

FWN:pd

Original mailed to above
address.

March 29th

Joan:

Mr. Neal called back - said he would probably be returning to New York the middle of the week and would call to see if you could reschedule him.

Muriel

THE WHITE HOUSE

WASHINGTON

4-3-69

HAK:

Fred Neal is back in town and would like to see you.

Yes ____ No ____

KISSINGER, HENRY A./N*

MAR 9 1971

Dear Fred:

Many thanks for your untiring efforts toward
our getting together while you were in this
part of the country. I am sorry that my in-
credibly busy schedule prevented me from
seeing you and hope that your trip here was
profitable.

Please do stay in touch.

Dr. Fred Warner Neal
Claremont Graduate School
Claremont, California
91711

jlp:3/8/71

-2-

theme of Pope John's *Encyclical Pacem in Terris*, for which John's successor awarded me a Papal Medal. In serving in these various capacities, I have spent a considerable amount of time in the Soviet Union and Europe, both Western and Eastern--I suppose more time, if one considers my extensive stays in Yugoslavia, than almost any other native-born American scholar. I have combined whatever expertise I have acquired in these areas with intensive study and observation of American foreign policy, which I consider--literally--to be the most important subject in the world today. I have published several books and have written rather widely for scholarly publications, newspapers and magazines.

Perhaps I should also add that I consider myself politically an undoctrinaire moderate. I was a Republican until 1960--having been brought up that way--and became a Democrat only because by that time the climate for Republican moderatism in California had become somewhat arid. In 1968, I was the Democratic nominee for Congress in the 24th California District--since 1970 represented by Mr. John Rousselot--and although I received more votes than any Democrat ever received in that district, I found an election is like baseball--and foreign policy, missing by just a little means you don't get to base at all. I realize this is a theme to which you gentlemen may on occasion have given some contemplation.

I apologize for going into so much detail about this background, but I did want to lay at least some claim to modest authority for what I have to say and to indicate to you my general position in the political spectrum.

First, permit me to congratulate the Foreign Affairs Committee, and in particular the Subcommittee on Europe and its distinguished chairman, on these hearings on the Cold War. This is the first time, as far as I am aware, that Congress has attempted an investigation in depth on the underlying assumptions of our post World War II foreign policy, and I

-3-

think the effort is long overdue--say, by about 25 years.

There has been some excellent testimony presented to you. I would be less than honest, however, if I did not say that some of it seemed to me to be bland to the point of obfuscation. Some of it merely repeated as "givens" the very assumptions your Subcommittee is examining. Some of it tended to dismiss the Cold War and the assumptions underlying our thinking about it as something now happily in the past and not still posing an important problem any more. Nothing, in my opinion, could be further from the fact. The Cold War is alive, and it is in Washington, New York, the Midwest, the South and in California. Since the roster of the Foreign Affairs Committee indicates that the competence of the Subcommittee for Europe "includes the European 'captive nations'"--which include inter alia areas legally if unhappily within the Soviet Union--one must conclude that the Cold War is even in this chamber.

In a longer and fairly well documented written statement submitted for the record, I have discussed some alternative concepts and alternative policies, and I earnestly hope you will give them some attention. They are indicative of the kind of approaches I think are necessary if our country and its ideals are to survive and flourish. They are in no sense radical departures; indeed, they represent only the first minimum steps in possible arrangements for better security. But there is no use even considering them--or anything like them--until we get over the Cold War hangups which like hobgoblins in a closet still haunt us.

In 1840, that prescient and much-quoted Frenchman, Alexis de Tocqueville, observed that "when once an opinion has spread [over the United States] and has struck root there, it would seem that no power on earth is strong enough to eradicate it." What struck de Tocqueville during his travels in this country, he wrote, "was the difficulty of shaking the

-4-

majority in an opinion once conceived or of drawing it off from a leader once adopted. Neither speaking nor writing can accomplish it," he said, and he concluded: "nothing but experience will avail, and even experience must be repeated... "

In this passage, M. de Tocqueville was not writing about the Cold War, but he nevertheless spoke to the heart of the problem as I see it 130 years later. All one can say is, "le plus ca change, le plus c'est la même chose."

The Cold War stemmed from--and produced--a series of attitudes and assumptions about the nature of the world and America's role in it. Most of them concerned the Soviet Union and Communism. In the years since World War II, the material and political bases of the world in which the Cold War burgeoned have substantially changed. Some of those who helped formulate the Cold War concepts have repudiated or abandoned them. There has been penetrating challenge to them from a small but articulate segment of the scholarly community. Yet so deeply did the original Cold War ideas come to be embedded in the public consciousness that today, a quarter of a century later, they still underlie much thinking, official and unofficial, about foreign policy. So deeply have they come to be embedded in the public mind that it is doubtful if there can be real foreign policy flexibility, or genuine new directions in foreign policy, until they have been exorcised.

One reason for the persistence of Cold War concepts is that there never has been real debate about them. There has been frequent and often impassioned discussion about tactics but no public examination of the fundamental bases of policy of sufficient scope and depth to make an impact on the national consciousness. There is, indeed, almost no public awareness of the extent to which legitimate questions can be raised concerning the validity of these underlying concepts and assumptions.

-5-

Meanwhile, these ideas have found their way into scholarly commentary and educational texts, news reporting and analysis, novels, movies and TV programs and even the comics. As the Cold War developed, careers, bureaucracies and industries--large segments of the population--came to have a built-in proprietary interest in affairs as they were; to suggest doubts was to challenge a way of life. The resulting public rigidity became such that no national political leader--and very few lesser ones--have ever had the courage--and usually not the insight--to call for examination of the basic Cold War concepts or suggest policies at variance with them.

The essence of American Cold War thinking has been as follows:

> The Soviet Union, by its very nature, posed a constant danger of physical, military aggression against us and/or the "free world." Bent on world domination and Communization, the Soviet Union, when temporarily unable to expand by military means, would inexorably seek to further its objectives by "exporting" violent revolution to other countries via Communists whom it controlled. Thus the Soviet Union and Communism and revolution were all parts of the same whole, constantly threatening the United States. Our security, therefore, could be insured only by "containing" all three by superior military force wherever they appeared to threaten. Thus American interests were perforce global, all of equal priority.

These Cold War assumptions were inextricably associated with further assumptions:

> The United States had and could maintain clear military superiority over the Soviet Union. Compromise with the USSR was dangerous, both because it would only encourage the Russians to make further demands and also because the Soviet Union was an untrustworthy power--really an international conspiracy--which would not keep its agreements. Therefore, negotiations were unwise. Because of our military superiority, they were also unnecessary. Foreign policy, consequently, was dominated not by diplomatic but by military considerations.

There was also another Cold War assumption, always implicit, sometimes explicit:

-6-

The Soviet Union, and consequently Communism as an international political force, were not permanent features of the world to which adjustment was necessary, but, rather, passing phenomena doomed to failure either by defeat in a war or as a result of internal upheavals. We had to be ready for the first by round-the-clock military preparedness sufficient for all eventualities, and we had to assist the second by constant manifestation of disapproval as a part of a campaign to tell the truth to peoples behind the Iron Curtain. This assumption amounted to a psychological non-acceptance of the Soviet Union and its system which permitted us to be afraid and contemptuous of them at the same time.

From the very end of the war, and in some cases before, American decision-makers interpreted Soviet ideology and statements and actions in this light. Originally the threat was seen as emanating only from Moscow. "One nation, and one nation alone," said President Truman, referring to the Soviet Union, was responsible for the world's troubles. When Communism came to power in China, it was thus automatically assumed--in the face of facts, logic and four thousand years of history--that it was something the Russians rather than the Chinese had done. Soon the aggressiveness attributed to the Soviet Union was associated with China. And then, gradually, the threat came to be not just the Soviet Union but "international Communism." And then it became revolution, and the aggression which had to be combatted became, in the face of verbal logic, "internal aggression."

The Cold War posture of the United States had another side, of course. Our perceptions of Soviet actions as invariably aggressive and unjustified mirrored our perceptions of our own actions as invariably defensive and justified. There was, therefore, a certain built-in solipsism. The logic of containment, for example, meant that for the United States to seek to deny the Soviet Union influence outside its borders was defensive while for the Soviet Union to seek to assert such

-7-

influence, however limited, was aggressive. (Much the same attitude has
carried over in regard to China).

The original American view of the Soviet Union as a relentless
and inflexible enemy did not arise altogether out of our perceptions of
what the Russians did and said. It was also conditioned by religious
beliefs, political ideals and economic factors. It is true that some
officials who helped formulate our Cold War policies emphasized the latter,
believing that free access to markets and resources considered vital to
our welfare were threatened by Soviet expansion. It is true also that
much official rhetoric seemed to take its cue from Senator Vandenberg's
advice to President Truman to "scare hell out of the American people."

Yet it seems to me that the core assumption in our Cold War
thinking was that we faced the continuing danger of Soviet aggression.
A new school of Cold War historians not only denies that there was such
a danger but also insists that the decision-makers of the Truman Administra-
tion did not in fact think there was a danger. The implication of their
analyses is that the idea that there was a danger of Soviet military
aggression was a conscious hoax, simply made up out of whole cloth as a
cover for expansionist policies of the United States. I think these
historians serve a useful purpose in challenging the Cold War concepts,
but at the same time I am quite persuaded, if only on the basis of my own
experience in the State Department in the early Cold War years, that the
fear expressed by our decision-makers was quite genuine. It may have been
inchoate, but it was there. Merely to cite the absence of logic or
factual basis for it as evidence of insincerity is to ignore the limitless
capacity for irrationality to which statesmen are so prone. If the fear
was consciously exaggerated, the motive was, I am convinced, less to
deceive than to stir the American people to what was believed to be the

-8-

efforts necessary for their security. In the process, doubtless many in official
circles were further frightened by their own alarums. The point is, however, that
regardless of its basis or the extent to which our leaders honestly hold it, the idea
of the danger of Soviet military aggression came to be accepted as an article of faith,
not only in official circles but by the widest body of public opinion. It simulated
domestic fears of Communism, and these in turn exacerbated fears of an external threat.
If ultimately this central Cold War assumption came to be less vivid and blatant, it
none the less remained deep in our psychological outlook as a conditioning factor in
our foreign policy thinking.

This assumption was demonstrably unfounded, at least as far as the early
post-war period is concerned. One has, really, only to compare our position with that
of the Soviet Union at the war's end. The USSR had virtually no productive capacity
left standing, no offensive air force, no navy and no atom bombs; and if its army was
large it was ill-equipped, over-extended and jagged with physical and psychological
weariness. On the other hand, despite our post-war demobilization, the United States
had a military-industrial system of incomparable capability, our control of the seas
and skies was absolute, our forces were based well around the Soviet periphery and we
and we alone had the Bomb. One of the reasons that young students today find it so hard
to believe our Cold War leaders were sincere is that in retrospect the idea that the
Soviet Union could have posed a military threat to anybody, let alone the United States,
seems so utterly absurd.

Nevertheless, the American fears were real enough, and they are explain-
able. We had misread inter-war history, particularly in regard to the Munich Pact
and the supposed identity of all non-democratic regimes. Our ignorance of the world
was matched only by our idealism about how it should be reorganized. This, plus the
fact that we never had before faced, except in actual wartime, a resolute opponent
believing in concepts repugnant to us, contributed to what Professor Brogan has called
"the illusion of American omnipotence." And also we were suffering from the shock of

-0-

the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, a unique kind of experience for us but one not uncommon in history.

In suggesting that these factors led to an American misperception of reality, I am by no means implying that the United States alone was responsible for the Cold War. Soviet interests often conflicted sharply with ours, and the Russians-- whether acting or reacting--were not infrequently churlish, hostile and provocative. But there was no evidence to indicate that they contemplated physical military aggression, either to conquer or expand Communism. Here out faulty understanding of Soviet Marxist theory was in part responsible for the confusion. I have gone into this in some detail in the material I have submitted for the record. Here I want only to emphasize that Marxist-Leninist ideology, as threatening as it may be in other respects, has never called either for export of revolution or for war with capitalism. This is an extremely important point.

A second factor is the view that developed in the United States about the war-time conferences and the resulting situation in Eastern Europe. In part, I think, because of the large size and the strategic location of Polish votes in the United States, these matters became distorted through domestic political controversy. Contrary to the fact, it was widely concluded that President Roosevelt "gave" Eastern Europe to the Russians. Contrary to logic, Stalin is then condemned for taking it and proceeding to "destroy" democracy there. We never had Eastern Europe to give; the Russians were there in force before our troops had even crossed the Rhine. And there were no democratic institutions to destroy, despite the sympathy we all have for anti-Communist Poles and other Eastern Europeans. It is not clear that even in Eastern Europe that Stalin initially opted for Communism. It is far less clear that he violated the war-time agreements on Eastern Europe and Germany any more than we did, no matter how abhorrent to us many Soviet actions and policies in these areas were.

It was entirely proper that the United States be concerned with the spread of Communism and should try to estop it where we could. The trouble is we tried where we couldn't, and, outside Eastern Europe, Stalin's post-war policies were defensive,

-10-

inward-looking and isolationist. Rather than promoting revolution, he opposed it even where it was in progress, restrained the Communist Parties in the West and altogether ignored the Third World. Stalin was a very bad man in many ways and certainly bore us little good will, but we should concentrate our censure of him for what he did do rather than what he didn't do. (It is true Stalin called for something of a foreign policy offensive just before he died, but all during his life Soviet international policy was more cautious and restrained than at any time since).

How greatly we misread this situation is illustrated by the great grand-daddy of our Cold War policies, the Truman Doctrine, which was sold to the country as necessary to save Greece from Soviet domination. At the time, our decision-makers believed this was the case, on the basis of their Cold War assumptions, just as later Dean Rusk undoubtedly believed his assertion that Chinese Communism represented only an extension of Soviet power. But since the time of the Truman Doctrine, it has become crystal-clear from well-documented sources that not only did Stalin not aid the Greek revolution but he firmly opposed it. Stalin's reasons are quite clear: he was acting within the confines of Soviet tactical theory and his own well-known interpretations of the state of the world; he was already suspicious of Tito and the Yugoslaves, whose influence on the Greek Communists was predominate; and he did not want conflict with the West. Indeed, it may not be too much to say that it was Stalin who administered the coup de grace to the Greek revolution. Quite possibly General Van Fleet and his American troops could have won out on their own, but it was Stalin's economic blockade of Yugoslavia which dried up the main source of material for the Greek revolutionaries and finally brought them to their knees.

That we continue to cite the Truman Doctrine as having preserved Greek democracy from the Russians, despite what we know now about Stalin's policies, to say nothing about later developments in Greece, only demonstrates how much we remain prisoners of the original Cold War concepts, even though many of the key international conditions which made our fears of the Soviet Union and Communism so poignant in the

-11-

early post-war years obviously no longer obtain. Economic and social conditions in Western Europe and Germany are stable. Consequently subversion is no longer the threat there it was once. Communism is no longer monolithic. Except for the Soviet bloc-- and sometimes not even there--neither Communist parties nor Communist regimes any longer necessarily march to the beat of Moscow's drum. In particular, China has appeared as a power in its own right, and, if considered inimical to the United States nevertheless is in sharp conflict with the USSR. Nationalism has become widely recognized as a dominant motif in the under-developed world, and neutralism, if not desirable, has at least become accepted. Thermonuclear weapons have changed the whole concept of the use of arms by the superpowers, and the clear and unquestioned American military superiority ended with Sputnik if not before. Domestically, if the Soviet Union has not become more democratic it has at least liberalized, and with its new concept of coexistence some of the ideological positions seen as a basis for fearing Soviet aggression have been altered if not abandoned. At home, in the United States, the strain of maintaining an ever more powerful military posture and mounting repeated foreign military interventions has contributed to, if it did not cause, domestic problems of truly dangerous proportions.

There have been some American responses to these changed conditions. The tenor of official rhetoric is usually less frenetic; and some subsidiary assumptions have been modified. We have achieved more flexibility. There is less tendency to shoot from the hip. There is more awareness of the difficulty, if not the impossibility, of maintaining global military commitments. There is wider recognition of the desirability, if not the necessity, of reaching some understanding with the Soviet Union and China, and we have, indeed, even concluded certain peripheral agreements with the USSR.

In spite of all this, it seems to me that the underlying Cold War concepts persist in much American thinking about foreign policy, consciously or unconsciously. There could be no clearer illustration of it than the frenzied outcry which arose recently over Senator Mansfield's attempts to reduce our NATO troop strength.

-12-

The Cold War concepts continue to pervade our military planning and make us fear the risks of nuclear arms control agreements more than the nuclear arms race. They lead to our opting for the ABM and MIRV systems on the eve of the SALT talks. They are responsible for our objections to a European security conference. They impede our negotiations on Berlin. They condition our thinking about the Middle East and the Mediterranean. They underly what we do--and don't do--in Southeast Asia. Indeed, there are few aspects of American foreign policy which in one way or another--either in terms of the beliefs of decision-makers or in terms of what they consider, probably correctly, to be the beliefs of a majority of the American people--are not affected in some way by Cold War concepts and assumptions.

This situation has been obscured by the rising dissatisfaction with the war in Southeast Asia. A number of former officials who presided over earlier phases of our Vietnamese policy with varying degrees of enthusiasm now oppose the war. The polls show a majority of the people as believing our intervention in Vietnam was an error. Presumably a large percentage feel we should get out forthwith. It seems evident, however, that this dissatisfaction--if, for example, certain published accounts of those who served in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations are any indication--for the most part concerns the failure of the policy rather than its underlying conceptions. Thus the debate over Vietnam--as salutary as much of it is--has not really served the purpose of examining the fundamental bases of our foreign policy. But until such examination takes place, there is no assurance that we will be able to extricate ourselves from Southeast Asia without ignominy or catastrophe, if not both, or that this essay will not be repeated in another form, in another place.

It may be useful in this regard to glance briefly at the foreign policy record of the Nixon Administration, which has asked to be judged on the basis not of what is said but what is done. The fact is that thus far much more has been said than done. How much of it reflects considerations of public relations and politics rather than policy is, therefore, still an open question. If some of President Nixon's

-13-

statements seem to indicate a desire to break away from the confines of Cold War concepts, others seem to indicate that these concepts have a continuing hold. Although the President has said he sought a foreign policy based on "an evaluation of the world as it is, not as it was 25 years ago," he also speaks of "the necessity to stop Communist encroachments on the free world." Although he has referred to being satisfied with a "sufficiency" of nuclear armaments, his Secretary of Defense emphasizes of the need for "superior military strength." Although Mr. Nixon has promised to "end the war [in Vietnam] and our involvement," he also warns that anything short of victory by Saigon "would greatly increase the danger of aggression and also the danger of a larger war in the Pacific and in the world."

With regard to military intervention, we have the Nixon Doctrine. The Nixon Doctrine is not officially written down anywhere. Emerging from remarks the President made at a press conference in Guam, there is no text and thus no official language. The Nixon Doctrine apparently asserts that the United States will not go in for full-fledged military intervention militarily any more unless absolutely necessary. One may welcome the indication of restraint while remembering that even John Foster Dulles never advocated intervention when not absolutely necessary. The effort at Vietnamization stems from the ideas implicit in the Nixon Doctrine. The Nixon Doctrine seems to envisage less abandonment of Cold War concepts than a new kind of Cold War, in which other people will do the ground fighting for us while we supply massive air support, money and material, plus some advisors. Vietnamization appears to be a pilot project. If so, the Nixon Doctrine may be to the new-type Cold War what the Truman Doctrine was to the old one. The trouble is that if the policy is seen as a way to maintain American influence—in Southeast Asia, for instance—while supporting one side of an internal conflict with everything but ground troops, it is very, very likely to lead to the old kind of Cold War in short order. What kind of a Cold War there will be if Vietnamization does not work is anybody's guess.

-14-

With regard to other areas, the President has, or seems to have, an under-
standing with the Soviet Union on what the meanderous SALT talks will focus on hence-
forth, but there is no indication that agreement is really any closer. His opting for
ABM and MIRV hardly seemed to presage a de-emphasis on military posture any more than did
his "gunboat diplomacy" in the Mediterranean some months ago. If Mr. Nixon understands
that we no longer face "monolithic Communism," still it is not clear he does not harbor
an illusion that somehow the Russians could help us in Vietnam if they would would.
If he seeks a better understanding with the Soviet Union, it is not easy to see how this
was promoted by his visit to Romania, any more than it is by the hard line permitted
Mr. Shakespeare's foreign propaganda operation. If the President is aware of the central
significance of German problems in our relations with Moscow, there has been no hint of
it in any initiatives in our negotiations on Berlin, where our policy remains very much
what it has been in the past. Discovering China via the pingpong table is encouraging,
but thus far it is more declaration than policy, and the only discernible results to
date have been the stimulation of fears in Moscow. To effect a real rapprochement
with China while also improving relations with the USSR would be a great stroke of
statesmanship. An attempt to play Peking against Moscow would only be another Cold
War ploy. This possibility constitutes a real danger, against which we should be on
guard, and which we should not permit our desire for a more rational policy toward
China to obscure.

In any event, if the record up until now indicates some awareness of the
need for new directions, it is still far from being free of evidence of Cold War thinking.

Bertrand Russell once said that reason and rational argument were in-
adequate tools to overcome positions arrived at through un-reason and irrationality.
Nevertheless, for those who believe in the democratic process there is no alternative
but to try. This is undoubtedly the most propitious moment since the end of World
War II to make the effort to exorcise the Cold War concepts. The widespread opposition
to Vietnam provides a conducive public mood. Such organizations as the Business

-15-

Executives Move for Vietnam Peace appear to have broadened their horizons to consider more basic foreign policy questions. The challenge to Cold War concepts from scholars is receiving more attention. The Administration's public posture at least partly seems to welcome a new approach. If Congress will still do almost anything asked of it in the name of anti-Communism and more defense, Congressional dissatisfaction with existing policies is nevertheless at an all time high. The very fact that your distinguished Committee is undertaking these hearings is a dramatic manifestation of the possibilities which exist. The same criticisms I made here about, for example, the Truman Doctrine, can be made a fortiori in regard to other policies dealing with other situations. I am very much afraid that, despite our come-uppance in Vietnam, there will continue to be support, if not demand, for such policies until the ideas which generated them are demonstrated to have been erroneous.

I can imagine nothing more discouraging—in an age when discouraging phenomena are commonplace—than if these hearings prove to have no impact on official thinking and public opinion. Having become a terrible cynic, however, I shall be surprised in the extreme if they really do have an impact. In such event, to celebrate it, I would be glad to donate a year's time working for the Foreign Affairs Committee; or, should the Committee prefer, a year's time not working for the Foreign Affairs Committee.

In any event, I commend you on your endeavors and thank you for your attention.

THE VIETNAM CONSPIRACY AND
AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY*

By Fred Warner Neal
Professor of International
Relations and Government
The Claremont Graduate School

Professor Leggewie, Ladies and Gentlemen:

I realize speakers are prone to exaggerate the importance of their subject and the moment of their delivery, and maybe I have succumbed to the disease. But I do not think it too much to say that tonight our country faces one of the most crucial moments in its history. The United States stands at the crossroads, not only in regard to its foreign policy, and hence to the question of war and peace, but equally if not more importantly, in regard to the future of American democracy. It is a crisis of truly awesome proportions, which I find as yet is little understood in the country at large.

The publication by the New York Times of secret documents on Vietnam is important not so much because they reveal a great deal actually new. The errors in knowledge, understanding, ability and moral conception in our Vietnam policy have long been obvious to all except the most blind or ignorant. It has also been obvious for a long time that the Government was lying. Now all this is documented, fully. But what is especially important is that the New York Times documents spell out in detail the elaborate lengths to which a President--particularly Johnson but certainly not only Johnson--would go to deceive--the

*Address opening the 1971 Lecture Series
Claremont Summer Session, June 28, 1971

-2-

extent and the deliberateness of the deception and the falsification of which our highest leaders have been capable. One must distinguish here, I think, between the more or less usual--and accepted--deception in diplomacy--however cruel its objective--as, for example, in the connivance of the Kennedy Administration in the murder of President Diem of South Vietnam in 1963--and the long-run, repeated over and over again lying to and withholding of vital information from our own people about a whole policy involving the welfare of the republic, the life and death of our sons, the expenditure of billions of dollars of our money and the utter squandering of our moral credit. The New York Times lays open the whole sorry Vietnam conspiracy. This raises significant questions not only about Vietnam policy but about the very nature of American foreign policy as it has been carried on since World War II.

As important as all this is, however, much more important, in my opinion, is the fact that the Nixon Administration, in trying to prohibit The Times from publishing this material, has struck--as no other administration in American history has done--at the very vitals of the American democratic system. The attempt of the Nixon Administration to censor the New York Times--and the Washington Post--is now being considered by the Supreme Court of the United States. This may well be the most important case ever to come before the Supreme Court, at least in my time. How it will be decided is more important than the Vietnam war itself; for what is at stake is not simply victory or defeat in an undeclared war but the survival of American democracy. There must be no confusion on this point.

-3-

When I met with editors of the New York Times last week, they told me it was inconceivable to them that the Court would grant an injunction against them. It is inconceivable to me, too. But it was almost as inconceivable that the Administration would seek an injunction. And so much has happened in recent years that I considered inconceivable that I think we have to be prepared for anything. Already, The Times has been stopped from publishing the Vietnam documents-- that is, it has been censored--for two weeks, and today the Supreme Court refused, at least for the moment, to sweep aside the temporary injunction against them.

The issue must be clearly understood. It is whether the first amendment to the Constitution does or does not prohibit the government from censorship of the press. The issue is not whether the Vietnam documents should or should not be published, not whether they would or would not harm the national security, not whether the New York Times did or did not violate a law in obtaining and publishing the documents. The issue is whether under our Constitution the government has the legal authority to estop the Times from publishing. What is involved is the so-called doctrine of prior restraint. Nobody questions the government's authority to act against a newspaper for violation of the law. The newspaper is responsible for what it publishes--after it publishes it. The first amendment is very, very clear. It says: "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech or of the press...." It does not say, "except in matters affecting national security" or any other "except." And what the courts have held, from the earliest infancy of the republic, has been that the first amendment

-4-

means what it says: that the government is not empowered to restrain
a newspaper from publishing. Indeed, up until now no Federal govern-
ment has seriously challenged it. Let me repeat, the first amendment
does not mean that a newspaper or newspaper editors and reporters
cannot be sued, or fined or sent to jail if their publication of
something violates a law. It means only that they cannot be stopped
from publishing in the first place.

It is the first amendment, more than any other single part of
the Constitution or the American governmental system, that sets the
United States off from all other governments and, of course, especially
from non-democratic regimes. Communist regimes, for example, thrive
on censorship. It was this issue, perhaps more than any other, that
brought the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. The Czech
regime was refusing to exercise prior restraint on the Czech press,
and the newspapers were, consequently, publishing material Moscow
thought was harmful. This doctrine of no prior restraint is not an
easy one for foreigners--even such democratic folk as the British-to
understand. The Communists quite honestly never have understood it
and do not really believe it. Neither, apparently, it now must be said,
do the present President of the United States and his Attorney General.

I find the attempt by the Administration to censor the press
utterly incomprehensible. It may be that they honestly believe that
further publication of the Vietnam papers would seriously jeopardize
American national security. I do not believe it would, but it is
possible--it is possible secret codes may be broken, certain intelligence

-5-

and even military operations compromised--even though none of the documents deals with government actions after 1968 and the major documents as yet unpublished concern government actions which occurred eight to 16 years ago. If security is compromised, this would be unfortunate. What one must weigh is whether one wishes to risk having the codes broken or having the American Democratic system broken. Only those who operate on the theory that it is necessary to destroy something to save it could possibly opt for the former.

The embarrassment of officials in past administration, now that their chicanery has been exposed, is acute, as indeed it should be. One can understand that the Nixon Administration is anxious to be able to maintain military and diplomatic secrecy, which is, of course, often necessary. Such desire could, possibly, justify legal action against the New York Times for *having* published the material, as it justified, apparently, action against those who made the documents available to the Times.

But how can one explain the Nixon Administration's frantic effort to violate the Constitution and impose censorship? One possible answer is that the Administration is itself deceiving the American people and is continuing to follow the same falsely-based, discredit policy on Vietnam which past Administrations have followed. Another is that the Nixon Administration, in its efforts to discredit the news media, is willing to destroy the American Democratic system for its own political ends. I hope neither of these is correct. But the very

-6-

best that can be said of the Administration's action is that it be-
trays an almost total lack of understanding about the nature of the
American democratic system. Our system is not a particularly efficient
one, at least in any short-run, cost-accounting sense. The doctrine
of no prior restraint on the press means that all kinds of nonsense
and even material really dangerous to the commonweal can be, and some-
times is, published. It means the government may be constantly subject
to embarrassment if not harrassment by having its innermost secrets
made public. Why? So that government policy at all levels can be
constantly subjected to public scrutiny and on-going debate that will
help prevent willful men, however pure their intentions, from taking
irretrievable action which the American people will not support, as in
regard to Vietnam; to help keep the government from violating the
basic moral values on which our Republic is founded, as in regard to
Vietnam; to help keep power from corrupting so absolutely, as in
regard to Vietnam, that individual and partisan political success is
confused with the national interest; and, finally, so that free men
will have the information necessary to enable them to rule themselves
and determine their own fate. As Mr. Justice Jackson said in his
Jehovah's Witness Flag Salute case opinion, "Authority here is to be
controlled by public opinion, not public opinion by authority. ..."
And he added: "Freedom...is not limited to things that do not matter
much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its sub-
stance is the right to differ [with the government] as to things that
touch the heart of the existing order."

-7-

The Nixon Administration's attempt to gag the press be-
speaks of an authoritarian mentality which is dangerous in the ex-
treme. If it succeeds, the first real step toward fascism in the
United States will have been taken. Whichever way the Supreme Court
decides, the decision will be a great landmark in American history.

Now I feel fairly confident that the Court will this time, as
it has so often in the past, adequately safeguard the American Demo-
cratic system from those who, consciously or unconsciously, would
destroy it. Let us, then, turn to the implications of the Vietnam
documents and their publication for American foreign policy.

First and foremost, it should now be apparent that the United
States cannot undertake policies--or engage in tactics designed to
implement them--which cannot survive public discussion and debate.
As Professor Galbraith has written, the idea that because other
countries--e.g., the Communist countries--do not have public debate
or public decisions therefore we should not, is perniciously false.
What may work for Communist countries does not work for us. The
worst conceivable policy is that made in secrecy by so-called experts.
That is the real lesson of the Vietnam conspiracy.

In practice, this means the United States cannot continue to
engage in many of the foreign activities we have been engaging in.
What it means above all is restraint, pulling in our horns, abandoning
the idea of universal military power, of foreign bases, of CIA plotting
and intrigue. It means accepting the right of other societies to take
their own directions, whether we like it or not. It means, really,

-8-

giving up the Cold War--not losing it, because we don't have to lose
it, but stopping the vain attempt to "win" it. First, we must
recognize that it is our underlying Cold War assumptions that have
led to our sorry plight at home and abroad in regard to Vietnam.
These assumptions--the core of which is that the United States faces
some deadly danger from the Soviet Union and other Communist states--
never had validity, in my opinion. In any event, they do not now.
Yet they continue to dominate our foreign policy thinking. If the
Great Vietnam conspiracy will only lead us to re-examine and abandon
these concepts, it will not have been altogether in vain.

In this connection, let me touch on another aspect of the
whole Vietnam fiasco. During the whole nearly 25 years of the Cold
War, there never has been real public debate on our Cold War assump-
tions because, just as in regard to Vietnam, it was always said that
the national security would not permit it. Critics could always be
silenced by reference to the idea of a military threat from Communism
and statements that surely the President and the Secretary of State
and all the other great leaders in Washington could not be wrong. Will
it now be easier for the American people to understand the extent to
which statesmen are capable of error and irrationality? Here we have
to ask, was it only their capacity for error and irrationality which led
us via the path of the Cold War into the Quagmire of Vietnam? Up until
now, I have thought so. I have thought the fears of our leaders, from
Truman on, were real and sincere, however unjustified. I have thought
this despite recorded statements from some of these men that we really

-9-

did not face a military threat; despite statements--such as that of
Senator Vandenberg in 1947--that it was necessary to "scare hell out
of the American people;" despite statements that what we really sought
was not defense but economic advantage. A whole new school of
historians is now contending that successions of American governments
did not really fear a military threat from the Russians or the Com-
munists at all, that they merely drummed this up out of whole cloth
as an excuse to gain public support for expansionist policies. Maybe
now we should look anew at the position of these revisionists and
their conspiracy theory. Have we had--do we have--government by
conspiracy? Certainly it is true that every time a possible break-
through in the Cold War appeared possible, something mysteriously arose
to block it. The peace efforts of U Thant, the British and Russians
and the North Vietnamese, we know now, were secretly stymied by Johnson.
The infamous missile gap of the Kennedy Administration is well known.
What about the U-2 flight, on the eve of Eisenhower's summit conference?
What about, even, the murder of President Kennedy, so soon after he
had signaled new directions in the foreign policy of the New Frontier?
Once I would have dismissed these questions as silly and fantastic.
Now I no longer can be quite so sure.

Certainly the problem posed to all of us is henceforth to
question every government statement and policy; to demand more publica-
tion of official documents, not less; to suspect, to doubt and above
all to debate all facets of our foreign policy.

-10-

As I say, this means restraint, abandoning grandiose thoughts of an American century and the like. Some say this means the United States would become a Second Class nation. Maybe it does. We have to ask, would this be so bad? Vietnam has made us a second-class nation morally and proved us one diplomatically and militarily. Domestically, in terms of pollution of our environment, the plight of our cities, the decay of our transportation, the inadequacy of our health care, we are hardly a first-class nation anyway. Does anybody anymore think the dollar is a first-class currency? Perhaps we need more symmetry. And, remember, Second Class nations don't have it so bad. Their citizens can afford their prices, they have reasonable taxes and their sons don't get killed fighting unwinnable wars for undefinable causes in jungles half-way around the world. If being a First-Class nation means continuing to try what we have been doing; the sooner we give it up the better. For not only is our system not geared for it, neither are our people. We lack the national cohesiveness and restraint, the knowledge and understanding of the world, the ability to deal with other cultures. And we had better face it. Professor Brogan of Oxford once spoke of the "illusion of American omnipotence." After the Vietnam conspiracy, somebody should speak of the illusion of American competence.

What we need is a plan whereby the United States can become a good second-class nation. This doesn't mean isolation. It doesn't mean not aiding others. It doesn't mean not opposing Communism. It simply means recognizing the world as it is, defending our own traditional national interests in our way while permitting others to defend

-11-

in their way. It means seeking agreements with the Soviet Union and China about which areas we will stay out of and for neutralization of those areas not within the security sphere of any of us; and for building up the United Nations into a workable instrumentality for international development, for peacekeeping and for supervision of arms control and disarmament. It means withdrawing our missiles and troops from Europe and elsewhere. It means recognizing God's geography and ceasing to offer the excuse that we cannot withdraw them because then the Soviet Union, or China, or somebody else, is closer to something than we are. And it means, first of all, getting out of Vietnam, immediately and totally. In short, it means acting like a normal state and not some super-nation riding our thernomuclear missiles off in all directions at once and trying to tell the world what to do according to our standards.

It also means beginning at once a public reexamination of the Cold War assumptions that got us into this mess in the first place. The public discussion over Vietnam is all to the good. But we must take care that it is not limited to Vietnam, that it is not confined merely to tactics, that it does not see the error in Vietnam only in failure to achieve success.

We have a very grave crisis in America. Let no one be deceived about it. It is not confined to foreign policy, but foreign policy is central to it. It involves whether we can recapture our souls, whether we can make America work at home the way it is supposed to, whether we can achieve a government that will regain the trust of its own people.

-12-

To succeed in these endeavors will not be easy. I am not sure it
can be done. If it can't, the survival of the American idea--as our
Founding Fathers conceived it--is much in doubt. If it can't, maybe
we shouldn't survive. But if we can do it, then America may become
again what it was in the past--a shining beacon of hope for all who
believe in freedom and peace and well being, all around the world.
It is a great goal and still, I believe, one worth striving for.

THE FUND FOR THE REPUBLIC, INC.
Box 4068, Santa Barbara, California 93103

GENERAL

FEB 11 1972 KISSINGER, HENRY A.

KISSINGER, HENRY A.

August 29, 1972

Please reply to:

Dr. Henry Kissinger
Western White House
San Clemente, California

Dear Henry:

I wrote you a letter last week addressed to Washington
without thinking that--as my friend Carroll Kilpatrick reminded
me over the weekend--you are in San Clemente. What I said in the
letter was that the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions
is planning a large, high level convocation on "New Directions for
American Foreign Policy" in Washington in March. We very much need
your advice and assistance in connection with it. What we are
really trying to do is to help public opinion catch up with you
(not geographically--that would obviously be impossible--but so
far as ideas and general thinking go).

I would appreciate it very much if it would be possible for
Harry Ashmore and/or me to come talk to you about it for a few
minutes at some point when you are in Washington to pick up your
laundry. I am off for Europe tomorrow for most of September, but
Ashmore could come at any time. I know you are busy, but this is
quite an important matter.

March is a long ways away, but this is to be of such a nature
that we are already involved in planning it. The convocation will,
of course, be strictly non-political and non-partisan, so that from
that point of view the outcome of the election does not matter.
(Not, I guess, that there is much doubt about it). The only real
political figure that we are considering as a participant is
Fulbright. I think that such a meeting as we have in mind--probably
about three days--could be very salutary from all points of view.
In any event, I would appreciate it very much if you could drop a
note either to my office in Claremont or directly to Ashmore in
Santa Barbara indicating some time when you could spare fifteen
minutes or so to discuss it.

I hope the Hawaii trip comes off well.

New York office:
136 East 57 Street
New York, N. Y. 10022
(212) 753-1340

FRED WARNER NEAL:

The Moscow Declaration

If the Declaration of Principles signed at the Moscow summit conference means what it says, the Cold War is over.

The Declaration of Principles set forth for the first time a verbal American commitment to the idea of peaceful coexistence, as enunciated by Nikita Khrushchev in 1956. In it, both the United States and the Soviet Union have committed themselves to promote conditions in which no state will be "subject to outside interference in [its] internal affairs." The two countries also agreed to support the peace efforts of the United Nations.

I have long contended — most recently in the May/June issue of this magazine — that American foreign policy should be based on the principles of coexistence, core interests, neutralization, and internationalization. With others, I urged the United States and the U.S.S.R. to agree on these ends, contending that peace can be served only by a realistic acceptance of the basic facts of international politics. The Declaration of Principles signed in Moscow explicitly includes the first two points — coexistence and core interests. This means that each country will respect the vital security of the other. The Declaration implicitly includes the goals of neutralization and internationalization. This means that both nations agree to stay out of areas not within the core interests of either side. It also means that they agree to use the United Nations for peacekeeping. The communique signed at the end of the summit negotiations

cited general and complete disarmament as an ultimate objective.

Especially when taken in conjunction with the joint acceptance of the recent Berlin and German accords, of a European security conference, and of the desirability of mutual military reductions in Europe, the Declaration of Principles — if it actually means what it says — provides for the first time a realistic basis for escaping the nuclear nightmare.

On its face, then, it opens the way not only for an end to the arms race but for assurances to both sides of security for their core interests and an agreement to neutralize other areas of the world, including the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean. Again if it means what it says, European issues can be defused through Western acceptance of the German Democratic Republic and a withering away of both NATO and Warsaw Pact forces. The U.S.S.R. can be assured that there will be no American intervention in Western Europe or Latin America. The way is now open, as it was not before, for both the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. to put pressure on their respective client states in the Middle East to come to terms with each other. And the United Nations gets a chance for a new lease on life.

Only if all this works out can one talk realistically about nuclear arms limitation, to say nothing about disarmament. The SALT accords — like other agreements signed during the Moscow summit — are important in themselves but, like the other agreements,

THE CENTER MAGAZINE

26

On its face, the agreement reached
during the President's visit
marked the end of the Cold War

they have real significance only if the Declaration of
Principles is put into practice.

If the Declaration does in fact mean what it says, it signals changes in the positions of both superpowers, but the shift is greater in the case of the United States, for several reasons. First, the United States has long seen the Soviet Union as being committed to military expansion. Second, we have tended to believe that ideological conflict made peaceful relations impossible. Third, our various doctrines of containment have meant if not an actual denial of Soviet core interests at least challenges to them and a reluctance to consider the neutralization of other areas. The result, a continuing insistence on military superiority and military encirclement of the U.S.S.R., posed an absolute bar against coexistence. If the Declaration of Principles is to be carried into practice, such a policy cannot now be maintained.

For the Soviet Union, up until now, devotion to "coexistence" did not cancel out support for nationalist liberation movements and the military defense of socialist regimes wherever they existed, even if this resulted in confrontation with the United States. The contradictions in these stances, plus the disquieting Soviet position on "socialist sovereignty" which emerged from the Czechoslovak invasion, long raised the specter of Soviet intervention in American core interests; they seemed to preclude mutual abstention from neutralized areas, especially those with socialist governments.

For the Declaration of Principles to work, these
positions will have to be changed.

The American military presence is ubiquitous out-
side Eastern Europe, and even here NATO naval
forces play games in the narrow confines of the Baltic
and the Black Seas. And Soviet naval forces have
been in the Caribbean. If both sides mean what they
said in the Declaration of Principles, this kind of
"show the flag" rivalry will have to be halted.

The principal problem is to avoid policies which result in confrontation. The Soviet desire in this regard now seems clear. Moscow's mild reaction to the mining of Haiphong is one example. Immediately after the summit meeting, the Middle East more than any other area, seemed to worry the U.S.S.R. for here both sides were already committed at least indirectly. Whatever the ultimate result of the withdrawal of Soviet advisers from Egypt, such considerations were involved to some extent.*

If the Russians consider the summit meetings a success — and they seem to, unqualifiedly — it is primarily because they consider the American commitment to coexistence in the Declaration of Principles a great victory for Soviet policy. It was they who proposed the Declaration, and it took some urging on their part to persuade a somewhat skeptical Nixon to sign it. To make it possible, they were willing to suffer in silence the humiliation of the Haiphong mining, accept German arrangements less favorable than those they had hoped for, agree to a SALT settlement which — at least in the years immediately ahead — insures continued American nuclear superiority, and forego a general trade agreement by which they had set great store — all major concessions on the part of the U.S.S.R. The only possible explanation for them, I believe, is that the Soviets really accept the Declaration of Principles as an American commitment to a new foreign policy.

Maybe the Soviet leaders overestimate the Decla-
ration of Principles, for they are inclined to put more
faith in such documents than we do. On the other
hand, Dr. Kissinger, in his Moscow briefing, though
he did not denigrate the Declaration, seemed to be
playing it down. What really counts however is how
President Nixon himself sees the Declaration.

Many American opponents of Mr. Nixon put no
trust in him as a man dedicated to coöperation with
communist countries. Some of them tend to think

*The Middle East, of course, remains a prime danger spot. It is by no means certain at this writing that withdrawal of Soviet personnel will in fact have a stabilizing effect on conditions there, nor should one assume that the Soviet protective umbrella does not still extend to the Arabs.

27

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1972

that the Soviet Union, by accepting a new relation-
ship with Nixon, strengthened an Administration
committed to Pax Americana abroad and harsh con-
servatism at home. But one must understand that for
Moscow the differences between Presidential candi-
dates — even between a Nixon and a McGovern —
are much less than American political partisans as-
sume. The Russians are quite aware of the thesis that
a conservative Republican may be more likely to
move toward détente than a liberal Democrat because
the latter's anticommunist credentials will be ques-
tioned.

A conversation I had a year ago with a leading Soviet official illustrates the point. "If I were an American," he said, "I would almost certainly oppose Nixon. But in the Soviet Union we have to consider not your domestic politics but the objective forces at work. If Nixon responds to these and helps us make peace, then we will work with him. We are going to get some agreements now. I think we are either likely to have very little or a whole lot. There may even be a big breakthrough. The whole situation could change."

2

Several questions immediately arise about the extent
of the American commitment to the Declaration.
First there is President Nixon himself, a man whose
political career has been based on extreme distrust of
the Soviet Union. There are at least three schools of
thought about the President. One sees his anticom-
munism as the doctrinaire commitment of a true
believer. Another sees him as essentially unprincipled,
with anticommunism merely serving his political for-
tunes. A third sees him as a complete pragmatist who
was sincerely concerned about a Soviet menace at
one point but was able to change his mind as the
realities changed.

Which is the true Nixon?

Henry Kissinger believes it is Nixon the pragmatist. And this is the view which Mr. Nixon himself is seeking to project. Writing in *U.S. News and World Report* (June 26th), he stated that on taking office he decided "one of the most dangerous elements in the world" was the "policy paralysis" in American relations with the Soviet Union and China. He saw that rigid hostility to the communist powers was working against the interest of the United States. He also discovered that communist policies had changed, that the U.S.S.R. and China were now looking for ways to live with the noncommunist world, that they

had "accepted the idea that their best interests would
be served better by negotiation than by confronta-
tion." He added that "we held the same view con-
cerning the best way of serving American interest."
Mr. Nixon's statement went further than any previous
Presidential statement in admitting that American
interests required a change in foreign policy.

People do change, and the President's explanation
of his present position does not sound implausible
even to one who has not been noted for trusting him.
Additionally, the change is by no means a 180-degree
turn. It is not clear, for example, that he has really
abandoned certain concepts which cannot be recon-
ciled with true coexistence.

For instance, Mr. Nixon appears to be so com-
mitted to the necessity of a strong global military
posture it is by no means certain that he is psycho-
logically able to turn away from it. But if he means
what he said in Moscow, some pulling in of the
American horns is essential. This has nothing to do
with "isolationism" against which Administration
spokesmen solemnly warn us. Indeed, the frequency
and intensity of their warnings suggest that they are
opposed to any restriction on American interests.

Again, the Declaration of Principles assumes at

THE CENTER MAGAZINE

28

least a modicum of mutual trust. At times Mr. Nixon talks as if he has it, at other times he talks as if he does not. Nevertheless, much of what he says indicates that he *thinks* some of his important foreign policy conceptions have changed. This, if true, could be highly significant, even if the President is deceiving himself.

�

Mr. Nixon himself has admonished us to be guided by his actions rather than his words. Here there are serious questions about the Administration's new coexistence posture — if such it be — first in relation to projected military budgets and second in regard to Vietnam.

As the Declaration of Principles states, a major aim of coexistence is the reduction, if not the complete elimination, of strategic armaments. The idea is not only that serious negotiations to curb the arms race are now possible but that, with distrust eroded, the need for such weapons is less pressing. The SALT accords signed at the Moscow summit meeting leave the United States with an overwhelming superiority in nuclear armaments, contrary to the almost incredible interpretations placed on them by Senator Jackson.* Several years ago, the United States decided to abandon increasing the number of its missiles in favor of increasing the number of its warheads and improving their accuracy. In this area, we are so far ahead of the Russians it is doubtful if they can ever catch up. (They certainly cannot within the five-year period of the SALT agreement, according to Ambassador Smith, head of the American SALT delegation, in his June 19th testimony to the Foreign Relations Committee.) Additionally, we still have our bombers and the so-called "forward strategy" missiles, which are not included in the SALT limitations. The U.S.S.R. has neither.

Given this situation, given the goal of major reductions of nuclear armaments, and given the mutual commitment to coexistence understandings, one might logically anticipate that if the United States did not actually reduce its nuclear arsenal we would at least let up on the constant expansion of our strategic

arms program. But not only is this not the case, Secretary of Defense Laird has called for even greater increases. Why? The Secretary says it is necessary to maintain U.S. "supremacy" and to give us bargaining power for the next round of SALT negotiations.

It will be remembered that the last big American nuclear arms splurge — the MIRV — was said to be necessary in order to insure penetration of a Soviet ABM system. But the SALT accords limit us and the U.S.S.R. to only two ABM deployments, which, logically, should make the vast superiority in nuclear warheads that MIRV has given us unnecessary.

Why, if we really have arrangements for coexistence, do we need muscle for bargaining power in negotiations aimed at a result already mutually agreed on, especially since we have such vastly preponderant nuclear superiority already? Why, indeed, under such conditions do we need nuclear "superiority" at all? Isn't this just the same old policy we have been following all along? If, with our present superior strength, we got the Russians to agree to freeze their missiles without any curb on our superiority in nuclear warheads, still greater superiority now, according to the old reasoning, would be likely to force them to freeze their inferiority in warheads.

The idea of "negotiating from strength" is deeply ingrained in many Washington minds, but it is hardly conducive to coexistence based on trust and equality.

2

Some might conclude either that the Administration isn't really committed to a policy in line with the Declaration of Principles or it doesn't think the Soviet Union is. There are, however, other possible explanations. One is that the policy for still further nuclear expansion reflects the military-industrial complex syndrome in operation at the Pentagon and the President's inability to get the military to go along with him. But though the Joint Chiefs of Staff have some independent leverage, the Secretary of Defense is subject to direct Presidential control and, presumably, speaks for the Administration. And it is not out of the question that the appeal for further strategic arms expansion is only a domestic political ploy designed to quiet the right wing, and does not really reflect the Administration's position.

On the other hand, some of Mr. Nixon's critics believe that his acceptance of coexistence is primarily a domestic political ploy to enhance his campaign by undercutting the Democrats' "pro-peace" position. The more extreme among these people suspect the

*Senator Jackson sounds like a stalled Pentagon phonograph record. His is a puzzling case. Can there be any other explanation for his insistence that the SALT accords weaken American security other than stupidity, ignorance, or venality? Senator Jackson is not stupid. Far from being ignorant, he is an expert in strategic arms matters. And despite his well-known obeisance to Bocing, I assume he is fundamentally honest. Maybe he is motivated by a misguided political instinct. Whatever the explanation, he simply does not make sense to me.

29

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1972

President is "making peace" with the Russians primarily to cover up an escalation of the arms race and to camouflage an even more aggressive foreign policy. The tenor of Republican campaign tactics should tell us something on this score. It will not be easy for the President, for all his reputation as a wily politician, to play it both ways at once.

In any event, the Administration's present stance on nuclear weapons raises some important questions about how real its commitment to coexistence is.

Vietnam provides another contradiction. If Mr. Nixon really gets us out of Vietnam and permits the Vietnamese people to work out their own problems, of course the war will be removed as an election issue. And even if he is determined to maintain an American-oriented, anticommunist bastion in South Vietnam, this would not necessarily prove an immediate barrier to coexistence arrangements with the U.S.S.R. But it is extremely doubtful that the United States can maintain such a position without at the same time applying great military pressure against North Vietnam, and, at some point, this would jeopardize, and might even cancel out, a policy of coexistence.

In order to understand why this is so, it is necessary to recall the doctrine of coexistence as it is put forth by the Soviets. One of its basic ingredients is Soviet defense of socialist regimes. This does not necessarily commit the U.S.S.R. to support all the policies of such regimes. It does not, for example, require them to support a particular North Vietnamese military offensive. But it does require them to act if the regime in the North seems to be going down the drain. In short, they are committed to defend North Vietnam, but not necessarily to assure its military victory over South Vietnam. At least in theory, the Soviet Union could continue to assist the North Vietnamese and the Americans could continue to pound away at them, without either violating the minimum coexistence arrangements.

At this point, one does not know whether the U.S.S.R. has backed off from supplying Hanoi for a continued offensive, but it looks that way. If so, this could have been either because the Russians were afraid of a military confrontation with the United States at Haiphong or because they considered restraint a necessary price to pay for the Declaration of Principles, or both. If, previously, Moscow had assured Hanoi it would produce the supplies for this

particular offensive — an assumption that cannot be proven — then in one sense the Russians really did "sell out" the North Vietnamese, as I. F. Stone and others have charged. But such a "sellout" does not contradict the basic commitment to defend the North Vietnamese regime.

The question arises as to what happens if the indomitable and independent-minded North Vietnamese decide to keep on the offensive, come what may. The Americans are betting that without immediate massive outside assistance, they can't do it. But American bets about Vietnam up to now have been more often wrong than right. The Nixon policy seems to be that in such case there would be even more intensive American bombing of the North. The capacity of the North Vietnamese to take this kind of punishment is probably without equal in the annals of warfare. But it is doubtful that it is limitless. If the merciless bombing continues, at some point the North Vietnamese infrastructure will surely break. As this point gets nearer, the moment of decision for Moscow will be at hand. Either the Russians will have to intervene to save the regime, which would pose a risk of direct confrontation with the United States, or their whole position as a world power, to say nothing of their position in the communist world, would be destroyed along with North Vietnam.

Would the Americans push this far? Again, this depends on the extent of the Administration's commitment to the principles of coexistence. One might think that if we are truly committed to the principles of coexistence and understand the Soviet imperatives, we won't. But it would not be surprising if there are those in Washington who believe that since the Soviet Union has backed down before shows of force, first in Cuba and then in Haiphong, a third showdown should be risked. Whether Mr. Nixon shares this view is not certain.

There is another problem about Vietnam and coexistence. The Moscow Declaration of Principles applies to relations between the United States and the Soviet Union, but ultimately it must also involve China. Can there be coexistence arrangements between the United States and China if the United States maintains a client anticommunist bastion in Indochina, to say nothing of military forces elsewhere in Southeast Asia? It is entirely possible that President Nixon recognizes this problem and, if he can only get out of Vietnam without damage to his po-

THE CENTER MAGAZINE

30

political position or his ego, intends to work out ar-
rangements with both the Chinese and the Russians
for neutralizing Southeast Asia. Such an effort would
mean, of course, that the United States would have to
withdraw totally from the entire area. To date,
America's Vietnam policy offers few indications that
the President has this in mind. It would, however, be
a logical objective of the principles of coexistence,
and unless it materializes it will be difficult to talk
about coexistence as far as the Chinese are concerned.

Writing in *The New Yorker* (June 3), William Pfaff
sees the policy implications of the Declaration of
Principles as following the Metternichian realism to
which Henry Kissinger is so disposed, based on ac-
cepting "legitimate, de-facto power." Mr. Pfaff con-
trasts this approach with the Nixon policy in Viet-
nam, which he sees as the attempted imposition of
an alien will based on national (i.e., American)
concepts of self-interest and justice. The one, he says,
is the policy of the statesman, the other the policy of
the conqueror; and they are contradictory.

The pitfalls of Vietnam for coexistence do not end
there. I was among those who suspected that Mr.
Nixon's earlier dramatic overture to China was
essentially an anti-Soviet ploy, designed to pressure
the Russians into the SALT agreements we wanted
and to move them to restrain North Vietnam. Co-
existence or no, it is still by no means unlikely that
this was in the President's mind. If it was, moreover,
the gambit may have worked, at least to some extent.
The Soviets' willingness to accept the mining of
Haiphong in virtual silence and to sign the SALT
accords — all without the trade agreement which was
dangled before them as bait — may well have re-
flected their anxiety about American-Chinese rela-
tions.

If so, it can only make the Russians more suspi-
cious than ever about American-Chinese relations.
Maintaining even-handed relationships with both
China and the U.S.S.R. is quite compatible with co-
existence as set forth in the Declaration of Principles;
using one against the other is not. If the past hostility
between the two communist countries continues,
following the first policy while avoiding even the
appearance of the other will not be easy.

There is, however, no assurance that Soviet-
Chinese hostility will not be ameliorated. One should
not underestimate the commitment of both countries
to North Vietnam. Indeed, if it really was the Nixon
policy earlier to play one off against the other, the
policy could backfire.

Mr. Nixon's commitment to coexistence — if such

it is — seems to have developed, at least in part, from
tutelage by Henry Kissinger about balance-of-power
politics. The possibilities of playing this game would
narrow considerably if the two communist giants
succeed in overcoming their animosity for each other
and collaborate in Hanoi's behalf. How this would
affect the President's view of coexistence remains a
question.

Be that as it may, one way or another Vietnam is
going to have to be settled before coexistence is put
on an assured footing.

2

In its own right, the Declaration of Principles stands
as a significant accomplishment. That it was signed
is almost certain to have an impact on American and
Soviet policies. There could be a military confronta-
tion that would make a mockery of it, to be sure; but
short of that, the Declaration will go a long way to
put at rest fears that have long plagued both coun-
tries. As a result of the Declaration, it will not be
impossible but it will now be more difficult to em-
ploy the rhetoric of the Cold War in the defense of
Cold War politics on either side of the great divide.
It would be going too far to say that as a result of it
anticommunism is dead or impotent in the United
States, but it seems likely that it has been desexed as
far as foreign policy is concerned. For many years,
our statesmen could plead that they were unable to
alter the course of American foreign policy signifi-
cantly because public opinion would not permit it.
Whether or not this was ever the decisive factor some
made it, it will now be much easier for American
leaders, whoever they may be, to redirect our policy
toward limited rather than global objectives.

This applies particularly to Senator McGovern,
whose positions on foreign policy raise far fewer
questions about his dedication to coexistence than
Mr. Nixon's. But in Mr. Nixon's case, it will now be
necessary to justify refusals to explore possible op-
tions for agreement with our "adversaries."

It may be ironic in the extreme that it is Richard
Nixon we have to thank for this happy state of
affairs — but there he is. Possibly no one else could
have done it. Whatever happens, the first giant steps
have been taken. It will be extremely difficult, it may
even be impossible now, to turn back.

Mr. Neal is chairman of the international relations
faculty of Claremont Graduate School and a Center
Associate.

31

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1972

FRED WARNER NEAL

Sept. 10, 1973

KISSINGER, HENRY /N

Dear Henry--

Warmest congratulations (to you and Nixon) on your appointment. I look forward to telling you in person at the Pacem in Terris foreign policy convocation in October.

Speaking of which, I would appreciate receiving a copy of your paper at the same time you send one to the Center. I am spending some time this fall at Reed College in Portland, Oregon--Visiting Distinguished Fellow but more visiting than distinguished, I fear--but am in fact spending most of my time on the Washington Convocation.

I am extremely hopeful this will turn out to be productive and useful to your general purposes. In this connection, a couple other ideas may also be helpful. I hope I have a chance to talk with you about them in October.

Yours sincerely,

Fred Warner Neal

RECEIVED
OCT 31 1973

CENTRAL FILES

JAN 13 1969

SIPRI

INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR PEACE
AND CONFLICT RESEARCH

Chairman: Prof. Gunnar Myrdal
Director: Mr. Robert Neild
Ass. Director: Mr. Jan Mårtenson

Sveavägen 166
113 46 Stockholm
SWEDEN

Telephone: 34 96 00
Cables: Peaceresearch

January 8th, 1969

Professor Henry A. Kissinger
Harvard University
Center for International Affairs
6 Divinity Avenue
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. 02138

USA

Dear Henry,

I am planning to visit the United States from Saturday January 25th to Wednesday February 5th and would very much like to see you. I plan to go first to Cambridge, then to New York and then on to Washington on Saturday February 1st, staying there until Wednesday, when I shall be flying to London. I could meet you then. Alternatively, if by any chance you are going to be in Boston then, I could meet you there on Sunday January 26th.

I would like particularly to discuss with you what new subjects we might take up here for study by the staff or for discussion at East-West meetings of experts. I shall be going to Russia at the end of February for a similar discussion there. Having established our reputation reasonably well with the report of the Seismic Study Group and the other things we have done so far (many of which are still partly in the pipe-line) I want to be sure that we do not miss any of those subjects where quiet study or talk between experts may alter thinking or help to prepare the way for negotiation. The kind of subjects I have in mind are the meaning of a missile freeze (but I have left this subject on one side since it became active at the official level), the problem of stopping the militarization of the ocean floor and a study of the implications of reconnaissance satellites and other technological developments for inspection. I would very much like to know what you think we could most usefully do, particularly as regards hardware projects of this fairly immediate kind - but I am also interested in your ideas on other more general and political or social subjects.

KISSINGER, HENRY A.

W • W • NORTON & COMPANY • INC • 55 FIFTH AVENUE • NEW YORK 10003

X

JOHN E. NEILL • Vice President

CABLES • SEAGULL • NEW YORK
ALGONQUIN 5-9210

18 March 1970

Honorable Henry A. Kissinger
Executive Office of the President
The White House
Washington, D. C.

Dear Henry:

Don't and I were, of course, disappointed not to
see you yesterday, but we understood in advance
that your appointments cannot always be kept.
If you can name another day, we'll be there.
The late afternoon is probably a good time for
us, and next time we won't leave here before
noon. Then, if a crisis arises for you, your
people can reach us in the morning.

In addition to bomb scares, we are now contending
with a mail strike, so I will drop this in the
Scarsdale post office. If you'd like to share
some of our vicissitudes, I can give you a view
from my office of the dynamited house on West
11th Street.

RECEIVED

APR 7 1970

CENTRAL FILES

JEN:nhc

NEILL

3/17

(Last name and pending date)

Name: John E. Neill and Don Lamm (W. W. Norton & Company Inc.)

Request:

DRY:

I put this on Mr. Kissinger's social invitations list and his answer
on 1/28/70 was Yes, "but office appointment" rather than dinner,
I presume. Would you like to find a good date, and time, for an
office appointment, and I'll call Neill.

Home # 914/GR2-4635

jlp

JTH's Recommendation:

HAK's Answer:

Date and Time: 3/5 @ 5pm

Change to 3/7 at 5:00

Party Contacted: 2/17 at 1:00-please call to confirm if confirmed 2/17

Additional Information: 3/5 is only due in March on Wed. Next week. Can anything be changed? (If not, please let us know.)

Resolution:

W.W.NORTON & COMPANY · INC · 55 FIFTH AVENUE · NEW YORK 10003

June 2, 1972

The Honorable Henry A. Kissinger
Executive Office of the President
The White House
Washington, D.C.

Dear Henry:

Our warmest congratulations on completion
of your latest feat: a merging of theory
and policy in a brilliant chapter of
modern history. From here the Russian
agreements appear to be a perfect textbook
case in international relations -- several
chapters worth!

Perhaps this is not too early to look
toward the time when you'll be able to
start writing for the public -- academic
and general -- which is so eager to know
more about your achievements. Would a
meeting in early July to explore your
plans be a possibility?

JEN:EM

RECEIVED

SEP 18 1974

CENTRAL FILES

Official -- 7/29/71

NEISSER -- week of Aug 9-13

Type of Request & Date

(Last name and pending date)

GENERAL

FG-6-11-1

KISSINGER, HENRY A.

Name: Pat Neisser -- Newport, California -- 714/548-9591

KISSINGER, HENRY A./N*

Request: Going to Russia, Romania, and Bulgaria as part of an official women's visit. Herb Klein has set up appointments for her with State Department officials. Would like to see Mr. Kissinger briefly while in Washington week of August 9-13 (staying at the Mayflower). Can be reached at the Newport number through evening of 7/29 and then on morning of 8/2. Leaving Newport at noon on Monday, 8/2, for Detroit, Chicago and ultimately Washington.

[Said she had had dinner with Mr. Kissinger on the President's first trip to San Clemente and had talked with a couple of times subsequently]

HAK's Answer: 8/23

Date and Time:

Party Contacted: QBE

Additional Information:

Resolution:

SEP 1 1971

CATIONAL FILE:

GENERAL

KISSINGER, HENRY A.

FEB 4 1971

Dear Mr. Nelson:

I share your indignation about the quip in *Time Magazine* and am in
complete sympathy with the views expressed in your letter of January
21, 1971

I was mortified when I learned that such a remark had been attributed
to me. As sometimes occurs in dealings with the press the comment
was taken totally out of context and therefore appears double insensi-
tive and disrespectful. I immediately called the author of the article.
I thought you might be interested in his apology, a copy of which is at-
tached. The magazine offered to make amends for its impropriety in
a subsequent issue but advised that this would only draw more attention
to the unfortunate quote. I reluctantly agreed that the best course was
to drop any further public reference to the matter. I also asked the
magazine to forward any critical letters to me so that I could personal-
ly write to the authors. Unfortunately, the magazine feels such a
procedure would involve a violation of privacy. They have, however,
agreed to indicate my regret to those who were so justifiably offended
by the quotation.

In order to convey my personal embarrassment and chagrin over this
matter to those of the Catholic faith, I immediately called Cardinals
Deardon and Cooke. They also felt it was best to draw as little atten-
tion to it as possible.

I want to reassure you off my deep respect for those women through the
ages who have had the faith, grace, strength and inspiration to devote
their lives to a higher calling, and of my special admiration for those
devout members of the Catholic faith who have dedicated themselves to
service of the church.

Mr. John T. Nelson
1545 N. E. 50th Street
Portland, Oregon 97213

KISSINGER, HENRY A. /N*

MAY 25 1971

Dear Mrs. Nelson:

Thank you for your thoughtful note of May 14.
I am deeply gratified if our meeting of May 7
was of some comfort or encouragement to
your group.

It was good of you to write.

Mrs. Robert F. Nelson, Jr.
National League of Families of American
Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia
1608 K Street, N. W.
Washington, D. C. 20016

HAK:DRH:wgh:19 May 71 (Retyped)

RECEIVED
MAY 2 5 1971

CENTRAL FILES

MAY 28 1971
CENTRAL OFFICE

HAK:DRH:wpd:19 May 71 (Retyped)

Washington, D. C. 20016
1608 K Street, N. W.
Priacacata and Missing in Southeast Asia
National League of Families of American
Mrs. Robert E. Nelson, Jr.

Henry V. Kissinger

It was good of you to write.

your group.
was of some comfort or encouragement to
I am deeply gratified it our meeting of May 3
Thank you for your thoughtful note of May 14.

Dear Mrs. Nelson:

MAY 25 1971

KISSINGER, HENRY V. *W*

barbizon terrace

F-66-11-1

GENERAL

KISSINGER, HENRY A

Uwe Nerlich

KISSINGER, HENRY A

/N*

December 3, 1972

Dr. Henry Kissinger
National Security Advisor to the President
The White House
Washington, D.C.

Dear Henry:

Being in Washington again for a few days it occurs to me that I
might send you a copy of an article on "Big Twoism" which has
been published recently. It is, in fact, the first of two articles
the second dealing with current developments and prospects (due
to appear early next year). I realize that it will be difficult
to tell you anything new on this subject but in spite of some
specific concerns which will be expressed in the second paper
you may take this as expressing my deep admiration for both your
performance and your achievements.

Not having seen you for several years I am sure that this will hard-
ly be the occasion to meet you again. But I am looking forward to
seeing some of your staff members.

With best wishes.

2118 WYOMING AVENUE, N.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20008-20248