HAK Interview with Lesley Stahl for "60 Minutes"

Air date March 7, 1999

KISSINGER

**LESLIE STAHL:** If, as Douglas MacArthur said, 'Old soldiers never die; they just fade away,' that can hardly be said about an old secretary of state. Henry Kissinger refuses to fade away. Let a head of state visit America, and chances are, one of the people he'll want to see is Henry Kissinger. Let a crisis break out somewhere in the world, tonight, and tomorrow morning Henry Kissinger, who left office 22 years ago, will more than likely be on someone's talk show or on someone's op-ed page. Let him write a book, as he has just done with, "Years of Renewal," the third installment of his memoir, and the odds are it'll end up a best seller.

(Cover of "Years of Renewal")

**STAHL:** (Voiceover) Henry Kissinger's memoir begins with a portrait of Richard Nixon.

You write about Richard Nixon, that he was the most complex president of the 20th century.

**Dr. HENRY KISSINGER (Former Secretary of State):** And I might throw in the 19th century, too.

**STAHL:** What did you mean when you talked about the cult of the tough guy? You were describing a quality about him that disturbed you, I think.

**Dr. KISSINGER:** Well, I'm not sure whether Nixon, by nature, was a particularly tough person. But he felt the need to demonstrate to his friends that he really was tough.

(Footage of Dr. Henry Kissinger talking with Leslie Stahl)

**STAHL:** (Voiceover) To demonstrate he was tough, Kissinger says Nixon would issue wild orders and often denigrate his associates, even Kissinger.

And who we learn in the tapes called 'my Jew boy'?

**Dr. KISSINGER:** Well, but I—that's another one of these things that if you knew Nixon, I don't take all that seriously. That was...

**STAHL:** Why not?

**Dr. KISSINGER:** Well, he was showing off to his Orange County buddies.

(Vintage footage of Kissinger and Richard Nixon walking outside)

**STAHL:** (Voiceover) But when Nixon made impulsive decisions in foreign policy to show off for his buddies, Kissinger says the staff learned to ignore the orders.

**Dr. KISSINGER:** He was capable of firing off a whole string of orders which, in foreign policy, weren't carried out.

**STAHL:** Were not carried out?

**Dr. KISSINGER:** Well, you—you knew when you worked with Nixon what he meant.

(Vintage photo of Nixon and B.B. Rebozo)

**STAHL:** (Voiceover) For example, in 1969, Kissinger called Nixon, who was with his friend, B.B. Rebozo, to tell him of the hijacking of a TWA plane to Damascus, Syria. Kissinger writes, 'To impress Rebozo, Nixon ordered the bombing of Damascus and the Pentagon began moving ships into place.'

**Dr. KISSINGER:** And the next day, he never—he didn't want to hear of this anymore.

**STAHL:** Here's the president of the United States issuing wild orders, left and right...

**Dr. KISSINGER:** Not left and ri—if you knew Nixon, you knew what orders to take seriously and what orders not to take seriously. I think he needs to...

**STAHL:** That's crazy.

**Dr. KISSINGER:** But he needs to be judged by the major decisions he took. And those decisions he took very cautiously and with maddening deliberation.

(Vintage footage of Nixon and Kissinger walking outside and talking)

**STAHL:** (Voiceover) Kissinger thinks that this cult of the tough guy is what led to Watergate, that Nixon issued one of his exuberant orders and it was carried out.

**Dr. KISSINGER:** The essence of Watergate was best summed up for me by Bryce Harlow, who was a wise old man around Washington, and he said, 'Some fool went into the Oval Office and did what he was told.'

(Footage of Kissinger talking with Stahl; vintage footage of Nixon)

**STAHL:** (Voiceover) Nixon kept Kissinger and just about everyone else in the White House off-balance and Watergate only made things worse...

**Former President RICHARD NIXON:** (From vintage video) I shall resign the...

(Vintage footage of Gerald Ford being sworn in as president)

**STAHL:** (Voiceover) ...but then Gerald Ford became president and healed the nation overnight.

--15--

**Dr. KISSINGER:** The combination of Vietnam and Watergate was as low as America could get. And I believe that President Ford, a simple man from Grand Rapids, came in and restored America's face in itself.

(Vintage photo of Ford and Kissinger; Kissinger, and young Elizabeth and David; Kissinger and teen-aged Elizabeth and David; Kissinger and David)

**STAHL:** (Voiceover) Amidst the scandal and all his globe-trotting, Kissinger managed to maintain a private family life, often taking his children from his first marriage, Elizabeth and David, along with him on his foreign policy missions. And now, at age 75...

**Dr. KISSINGER:** I brought you a dress. A dress.

(Footage of Kissinger playing with grandchildren; of man on sound stage; of Kissinger and two men on stage)

**STAHL:** (Voiceover) ...one of his favorite things to do is play with his grandchildren. He keeps up his close ties to his family. In fact, that's why the once-powerful force on the world stage, agreed to do a turn on a sound stage.

**Dr. KISSINGER:** (From TV production) Even I can't bring peace between these two.

**Unidentified Woman:** Cut!

**Dr. KISSINGER:** Hi, Dave.

(Footage of Kissinger off stage talking to David)

**STAHL:** (Voiceover) He's doing a favor for his son, David, a Hollywood executive, by appearing on one of his TV sitcoms.

**Dr. KISSINGER:** Well, for my family, I'll do anything.

(Footage of men laughing with Kissinger; Kissinger looking over script)

**STAHL:** (Voiceover) The author of 12 books and Nobel Laureate has only one line to deliver, yet even here, he negotiates.

**Dr. KISSINGER:** This doesn't make any sense to me.

(Footage of students going into Kissinger's classroom)

**STAHL:** (Voiceover) He's also teaching again. The professor, who used to teach at Harvard, now goes back to poor neighborhoods in New York, like the one he grew up in, to teach inner city kids. Today he's at Cardinal Hayes High School in South Bronx.

**Dr. KISSINGER:** (Talking to class) When I came to the United States, I was 15 years old and we had three rooms and we had two people in each room. So, you probably know some of these conditions.

**STAHL:** This is where you lived, this is the apartment you moved into, very soon after you got to the United States.

**Dr. KISSINGER:** In 1938.

**STAHL:** Your mother...

**Dr. KISSINGER:** My mother would never leave it.
(Vintage footage of Kissinger's mother)

--16--

**STAHL:** (Voiceover) His father had been a teacher, but he says his mother was the most important person in his life.

A couple of years ago, she fell and went into a coma.

**Dr. KISSINGER:** Yes. In fact, they wanted to cut off her life-support system.

(Footage of Stahl and Kissinger talking outside Kissinger's old apartment building)

**STAHL:** (Voiceover) But Kissinger wouldn't let them, telling the doctors, 'You don't know my mother.' And sure enough...

**Dr. KISSINGER:** Three days later, she came to and she had a respirator down her throat so she couldn't talk, so she wrote, 'Where am I?' We told her. 'What day is it?' We told her. 'What time is it?' Then she wrote 'I have a dental appointment at 11 and if you don't cancel it, I'll have to pay for it.'

**STAHL:** And Mom's back.

**Dr. KISSINGER:** And—and she was back.

**STAHL:** Well, you—you said once that you—everything that you achieved, you owed to your mother.

(Vintage photo of Kissinger and brother)

**STAHL:** (Voiceover) He emigrated with his parents and brother to America in 1938 as Heinz Kissinger, a 15-year-old Jewish refugee from Nazi, Germany.

When you were a young man, a young boy in German, kids often beat you up walking down the street, then you move here into this neighborhood. What was that like? That change?

**Dr. KISSINGER:** Well, at first when I saw children come towards me, other children, I'd cross the street.

**STAHL:** Afraid they were going to beat you up?

**Dr. KISSINGER:** Exactly. And then I suddenly realized this is America, this won't happen to you here.

(Footage of Stahl and Kissinger riding in car, talking)

**STAHL:** (Voiceover) In Kissinger's early years in the White House, President Nixon told him not to hold news briefings because his accent wouldn't play in Peoria.

So how come, in all these years, you've never lost your accent?

**Dr. KISSINGER:** Well, my brother has and he said it's because he's the Kissinger who listened.

(Vintage footage of Kissinger at a press conference; Nixon, Kissinger and China's president; Kissinger walking with Russians; Kissinger talking to the Russians; Kissinger and man; Kissinger and woman)

--17--

**STAHL:** (Voiceover) The Kissinger who didn't listen became one of the most forceful and controversial voices in the history of US foreign policy. Along with Richard Nixon, he opened relations with Communist China. At the height of the Cold War, slowed the arms race with the Soviet Union. And later, paved the way for peace between Egypt and Israel.

**Dr. KISSINGER:** (From vintage footage) I don't stand on protocol, if you'll just call me 'excellency,' we'll begin.
(Vintage footage of Kissinger entering plane; Kissinger talking to reporters; Kissinger walking into crowd)

**STAHL:** (Voiceover) Kissinger courted the media and skillfully used them to move negotiations along. He became history's first celebrity secretary of state.

Henry Kissinger, you are still, probably, today even, one of the most famous men in the world. It's true. Recognized everywhere. It wasn't long before you came in the Nixon White House that you were—I hope you're not insulted by this—but kind of like a nerdy professor at Harvard, Egghead.

**Dr. KISSINGER:** It's true. Power has a certain attraction, apparently.

**STAHL:** Is power an aphrodisiac?

**Dr. KISSINGER:** Yes, I think it is.

(Footage of Kissinger on Newsweek's cover; magazine photos of Nixon and Kissinger; cover of Time magazine 'Men of the Year: Triumph and Trial')

**STAHL:** (Voiceover) He was in the limelight and got so much publicity, he often upstaged, and thereby, irked Nixon. Especially when Time magazine made the president's assistant co-man of the year. When Kissinger heard of the decision, he says he was horrified and called the editor five times.

**Dr. KISSINGER:** And begged him, which I'm sure had never happened in the history of Time, to take me off the cover and make Nixon sole man of the year.

(Vintage footage of Kissinger working in office; Kissinger walking into conference room; Kissinger talking to reporters)

**STAHL:** (Voiceover) Kissinger is generally regarded as a brilliant strategist who had the idea that he could shuffle the cards to the advantage of the United States. But his critics say he was too secretive. And that while he understood the use of power, his approach to diplomacy gave short shrift to human rights and democratic ideals.

You know, your son told us that your approach to diplomacy, your emphasis on balance of power came from your experiences in Nazi, Germany.

**Dr. KISSINGER:** My son wasn't alive then.

**STAHL:** Yeah, but he knows you pretty well and this is his analysis.

**Dr. KISSINGER:** I'm going to ground him.

--18--

**STAHL:** No, you're not going to ground him.

**Dr. KISSINGER:** I don't think it's as simple as that I saw disintegration of order. And then I go around the world and all I want is order, never mind what it does to human beings which is the way some of my critics put it. That just isn't true.

**STAHL:** (Voiceover) Another thing his critics say is that he prolonged the Vietnam War, unnecessarily.

There was an opportunity for us to get out of the war in Vietnam in 1969.

**Dr. KISSINGER:** Absolute nonsense.

**STAHL:** Well, there were terms on the table and we—you chose not to get out in '69.

**Dr. KISSINGER:** The terms on the table in '69 were the terms that had always been on the table. The offer of surrender was always open to us.

**STAHL:** Four years later, when we continued to fight, we lost 20,000 more Americans, plus. We fled from the rooftop of the embassy...

**Dr. KISSINGER:** No, no, that wasn't true. No, no.

**STAHL:** ...in total humiliation.

(Vintage footage of Marines and South Vietnamese getting on planes; helicopter leaving launch pad; aerial view of Vietnam)

**STAHL:** (Voiceover) In 1975, US Marines evacuated the remaining Americans and as many South Vietnamese allies as possible, in a frantic, last-minute escape that he blames on Congress for slashing aid to South Vietnam.

**Dr. KISSINGER:** Certainly, if you cut somebody off from all aid, the end is going to be terrible.

(Footage of Kissinger talking with Stahl)

**STAHL:** (Voiceover) And with some bitterness, he also blames the anti-war movement, the establishment and the media, never himself, for the way the war ended.

**Dr. KISSINGER:** It ended as it ended, because America tore itself apart, domestically. The government has a certain responsibility for it. But the protesters to this day, have never admitted the slightest fallibility in their judgement on the matter. Viciousness with which these attacks were conducted and the manner in which the war ended is the reflection on our domestic divisions and not about the original judgments that we made.

**STAHL:** The secret bombing of Cambodia, do you regret this, today?

**Dr. KISSINGER:** No.

**STAHL:** After what happened in Cambodia.

**Dr. KISSINGER:** Well, what happened in Cambodia?

**STAHL:** (Voiceover) What happened is that Nixon and Kissinger expanded the Vietnam War into neighboring Cambodia to wipe-out enemy sanctuaries.

--19--

JUN 14 1969 1:00 AM

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But the mission failed and the Cambodian government collapsed. Kissinger's critics say that paved the way for Pol Pot and his slaughter of one million Cambodians.

**Dr. KISSINGER:** I do not accept the proposition that you can base four divisions on this, all over country, kill 500 Americans a week and that the United States cannot react to this because six years down the road, some intellectuals can construct the theory by which anything can happen after that day, is due to that event. So I think the people who cut off aid to Cambodia, which was venerable, or which was, at least, stabilizable, have a lot more to answer for.

**STAHL:** (Voiceover) It's been 22 years since he left public office but he admits the criticism still stings.

Unidentified Man: Dr. Kissinger?

(Footage of Kissinger in classroom talking with students)

**STAHL:** (Voiceover) Overall, he thinks his policy were the right ones and that he helped create a safer and freer world.

Man: You would like to change our events?

**Dr. KISSINGER:** Are you asking me what I would change anything that I had done?

Man: Yeah, ones that you feel sorry for or something?

**Dr. KISSINGER:** I don't—you're asking the wrong person. No, let me tell you, I get asked that question often and I would love to have an answer where I could say, 'If I'd only done this one thing differently,' then everyone would think I'm very open-minded. But the fact is, from the mainline of our politics, I wouldn't change anything. I tried to do the best we could, and looking back on it, I have no second thoughts.

**STAHL:** Kissinger's book, "Years of Renewal," will be excerpted in Time magazine tomorrow, and it'll be in the bookstores in about a week.

(Announcements)