UNIVERSAL
PRESS
SYNDICATE

4400 Johnson Drive • Fairway, Kansas 66205 • Phone 913/362-1523

Georgie Anne Geyer

May 9, 1984

Dear Dr. Kissinger,

My deepest thanks for the splendid interview.
It was terrific.

Asl we agreed, I am herewith sending you the notes,
as I took them directly off of the recorder. Please feel
free to make any changes at all; as I said, I am far more
interested in having the best interview possible than
catching people.....

It struck me that there was one directly related
question that was not specifically asked: "Why is it
that the political class in our country has become so
weak and, I believe, basically unreflective of the healthiness
you find in the country?" If you would care to add any
thoughts on this subject, I would be very grateful.

Incidentally, Bud McFarlane told a small agroup of
correspondents in Honolulu that he shouldn't be NSA
and that the only hope was for you to come back!
Between us...

I know you don't have time to read books but if you
want to be amused, look at my sections on Allende in my
book. I knew him quite well and I think you would be
diverted. Also, the first chapter on living with the
Guatemalan guerrillas in 1966---the first guerrilla movement
in Central America and a very early warning from me.

My whole theory---indeed, it is more than a theory
because it arises out of my own personal experience in
20 years of covering the Third Word---is that, if there
is one problem in our interchange with the world since
World War II, it is that it is an increasingly "irregular"
world and we have constantly responded to it in a
"regular" way. Like putting conventional military power into
a wildly irregular situation like Lebanon.

Time & Life Building • Suite 3717 • 1271 Avenue of the Americas
New York, N.Y. 10020 • 212/582-0650

LC

Secy of State Henry Kissinger, May 2, 1984

**Question:** Lot of questions als to whether with our structure as a nation as to whether we are really capable of leading the free world? Do you think there's a structural problem? Second, how do you view the problems of the rest of the world---permanent distinetration.????

**HENry:** I do believe there's a structural problem, but one does have to believe the nature of that structural problem.

I believe the country as such is healthy. The people's instincts are good. But we're talking about foreign policy, and they don't have the same good horse sense about foreign policy that they have about domestic policy. But it is not a people that has lost faith in itself--quite the contrary.

In foreign policy, it tends to trust its leaders. Its bound to be confused by what it hears. Our structural problems, I think, are, 1.) the disintegration of the relationship between the presidency and the Congress, which is accentuated by the disintegraton of congressional leadership so we have to build a consensus on each issue and therefore you give high incentives to each pressure group to make treaties with other pressure groups even if they are not interested in the topic but they're interested in putting pressure. Second, is the organization of the executive branch by which policy emerges through an adversary process. that makes the outcome, even within the executive branch, quite accidental. It hink it looked wrong to make a decision of the magnitude of the LEbanon withdrawal with the President in Las Vegas and the Secy. of State in Barbados. I was also opposed to the decision, but that's a separate question.

Third, and most important, there is something wrong with the philosophy with which we approach foreign policy as a nation. And there is a crisis in our leadership's perception of what our role should be and what our vital interests are. I think we're almost approaching Argentine conditions in foreign policy. By that I mean that, in Argentina, if you look at their history over the last 50 years, every government that came in had about 53 % support and then lost it by acting like a government. So that there was an inherent tendency toward paralysis because the country was so profoundly divided. I think in the field of foreign policy we're beginning to approach that condition.

I'm not even saying the country, it's our leadership group--- and since the country trusts our leadership group, there is nothing that is being pushed to its rational conclusion. I don't think we have the option of stepping back, because if we step back we create so many more problems.

**Question:** so then, where do we go for a new leadership group?

**Dr. Kissinger:** I don't know. I think what will surely happen is the crisis will accelerate.

Page 2:

Dr. Kissinger:

And then the question is, will a serious leader appear, or will a demagogue appear? And I don't have the answer to that. The Democratic candidates are putting forward a vision of the world that I consider so wrong ---and I just said this to someone at dinner---that if they promise us competence, it's even more scary because they'll move rapidly and in a more dangerous direction.

Question: What is that vision?

Dr. Kissinger:

I cannot detect from them whether they have any definition of an American vital interest, or any definition of how to protect it (long pause). Or how to achieve it.

Question: I've heard you say several times that we cannot afford any more debates....but....

Dr. Kissinger:

But we're heading for more.

Question: when i was in yenan, in mao's china, last year, i began to think about the 'Who Loses' of the U.S.

dr. kissinger:

We don't seem to be able to separate the cause of these problems from the evolution of them. You can say in Central America, and you would be correct, that poverty is the central cause of the problem. Although I think that the idea that poverty is the main problem is too simplistic---because when you look at history, really poor people don't rebel. Then you can say social inequity---social inequiaity and poverty combined,---tio cause a great reservoir of dissatisfaction. It is true that that is not created by Havana and Moscow. But it is also true that, once a guerrilla movement exists, who organizes it, disciplines it, finances it and leads it brings about a kind of autonomous development and then it can create security problems for the United states., that are quite independent from the original cause.

We have a tendency to say, the real cause is poverty, or the real cause is whatever we say That may be true, but it doesn't help us. You can say that Somoza was repressive, that doesn't make the Sandinistas harmless...or unrepressive,... or, better, harmless.

Question: it's never really been the poverty, it's always been the middle class, politicized youth cut off from power.....

3.
<u>dr. kissinger;</u>

Oh yes, look at Castro.

<u>question; Does this means we're going to have to keep</u>
<u>repeating in 'who losts?' Has there beensome sort of</u>
<u>misunderstanding between the United States and these movements</u>
<u>ever since World War II?</u>

Dr. kissinger;

Well, We don't like to think strategically anymore, we like to think morally. So it becomes an important issue in America, What is the moral cause? We don't like to face the question, What is it we cannot prevent no matter how it happens?

The question of the "Who Loses?" Because it is infinitely more important to realize that, at some stage, these were not primarily ours to lose It is also true that if we act in time, we can prevent a situation in which that question hasl to be asked. But to act in time, you have to have some conviction of what your interests are---and if you don't have that, then you get caught in the morass of these civil war situati ons.

It's the essence of civil war situations that the incumbent government looks inefficient---and, indeed, is, particualrly in the manner of what a government does in controlling its own y territory. So then, it always looks unworthy of support--- but that'
s what the guerrillas want to bring about.

World War II was a lovely war. You had an enemy with extermination camps and was racist and appealed to no intellectual preconception. But when you can have a, say, Cambodia. Here you have a government that has killed 3 million people. When you have intellectuals who say that that was possible because of the bombing of uninhabited sanctuaries of NOrth Vietnamese troops six years earlier, you are in a period of intellectual disintegraiton. Whether that bombing was right, that's a different issue. But it doesn't make any sense to think that the bombing of largely uninhabited sanctuaries lead tot he death of 3 million people. They were not crazed byt our actions, they were crazed by their ideology.

Actually, the PhD thesis of the PRime Minister of Cambodia exactly foreshadowed what they were going to do.

<u>Question: Is American moralism now going over into American utopianism?</u>

4.

Dr. Kissinger:

I don't want to ever say that American should be free or
can be free of its moral convictions. It is our strength as
well as our liability. But it is sometimes used as a kind
of alibi for inaction. We had an isolation in the '20s
in which we did not consider ourselves good enough for the
world--now we consider ourselves too good for the world.

Question; let's go on to the outer world. Are you concerned
about breakdown, about disintegration....?

Dr. Kissinger;

I'm concerned that we are becoming too irrelevant to
too many events. I think in the Middle East now, it will not
be easy to construct a policy direction. I think Central
America may soon be in the same state. I think in another
12 months.... I think the evolution is symbolized by the debt
problem, which will soon be out of control. And while
Europe is not out of control, I think that when we keep
marking time long enough---and that is what we are doing in
Atlantic relations--- I can't say that any disintegration will
develop, but a consciousness will develop that governments are
not in control of their destiny, which is a great threat to
democracy.

At least we can see that the Soviet problems are worse. They have
a huge structureal and leadership problem. They are in a
terminal leadership crisis. The changing composition of society. It is
a stagnating society. I'm less concerned they'll march with
100 divisions. If you look at Russian history, you can't be sure
what happens when they give the order to march.

I think the shooting down of the Korean jetliner is a kidn
of sobering sequence of events. Ac crisis could develop which,
while they did create the conditions for it, they would
lack theimagination to extricate themsleves from. And if that
happens, I can imagine a lashing out---and if the area in
which you're most competent is the military field, well,
it's not an encouraging sign. BECAUSE ONE IS ALWAYS TEMPTED TO
rely more on what one does best.

(Rhetoric on Russia/) I thought the administration was
excessive in its rhetoric in the beginning. But I also think
we run the risk of going too far in the opposite
direction. The President made clear he will negotiate. Leave it at
that. Not only must we not give them the impression that
we need anything from their either before the election or
after---it will only encourage them to play hardball. Much
more important is for us to think through what we want to
negotiate when the negotiations start.

5.

What? It must have a political component. I don't think that the arms race triggers a war, but political crises trigger wars--or can. Unless there is greater restraints in fueling Third World conflicts, tensions will not diminish.

If Reagan gets reelected, he has an hsitoric opportunity still to reshape the internaitonal syste; because, with all our travails, we are still the most cohesive society, including the totalitarian societies. While we've had a significant setback in the Middle East, and while we've not done that wellin Central America, I think a determined American policy can remedy it over a period of time.

(If there were one)

If there were one.

(in Central America?) Well, I would implement the report, and I would explain to the American public more coherently waht is at stake. It isn't just supporting friendly governments. We always generalize. Central America is very close. Certainly we should support friendly governe,tns, but we cannot afford another Cuba in this hemisphere. That has been as close to a settled American policy and every previous administraiton has (agreed upon it). And I don't think the American people fully understand the nature of the problem. We have lput forward in that bipartisan report a number of conditions and it's interesting to me that the purely economic aspects of it are attafcked, foten by liberals. It used to be that the liberals were oppsed to Communism---I mean the Truman-type lbierals. But now, isolationism seems to have precedence and the fear of our getting involved leads to opposition, even to the very parts of the program that deal with the issue of poverty, which is supposed to be at the heart of the conflcit. So,in Central America, I really don't have any ideas beyond that.

qu4stion; what happened in nicaragua withthe commissions?

Tony Lewis had a column in which he said I used that to push the commission. How do you push Lane Kirland and Robert STraus andHenry Cisneros? The Sandinistas began with an intelligence briefing, which we didn't ask for; which, had they said, look here, we want to show you we are tied itno the Cuban and Soviet system... They introduced intelligence they could not possibly have acquired by themsevles. They showed in on charts, including tracks of airplanes---they have no electronic installations with which to follow airplanes.

Then, their overall posture was one of unremitting hostility. Their foreign minister began the conversation by saying, when he met Secy. Vance, he began it by saying, "I don't trust you and I may never trust any American..

6.

If he had attacked me over Allende or something, but
Vance.... He'd been quite sympathetic to the Sandinistas.
And then Ortega gave us an hour and a half tongue-lashing
along the lines of his speech in the U.N.: almost identical.
I said next to nothing,. After Ortega was through, I told
Ortega that we had invited them to make constructive proposals.
and thatk offer still stood and, if they had any to make,
they could send taheir ambassador. I did leave the room then.
I didn't see the sense in answering. What was the sense of
answering an hour and a half.. It wouldn't have been fruitful
I wasn't there to negotiate.

When youwere SEcy, what were your feelings toward Latin America?

Dr. Kissinger;

If you look at my period as Secy. of State, I started within
six months what we called a new dialogue at Tlatelolco for a
year or so, until the OPEC crisis made Venezuela and Ecuador pull out.
I visited Latin America twice on extensive trips.
Though it is fair to say that we became conscious of it late,
I think it is fair to say that if you read my speeches Brazil
and Venezuela remember it as a good period.

In our relationships I confess I didn't think we should
create a new problem when we had the Middle East war and
a disintegrating presidenty. We might have been tougher on
Somoza, but to create a vacuum without being willing to remain
engaged buys you even more difficulties. IF you overthrow
soembody, you havel to put somebody in his place, or the
most violent group or the most ruthless group will inherit it.

When you are National Security Advisor, there are only a
few things you can concentrate on becasue you have a very
small staff. So I concentrated on the Vietnam war and Soviet
relations and China. Nothing prevented the State Dept. from doing
whatever Latin American policy they wanted.

After I became SEcy. of State and had a larger staff and
could set the priorities on my own, Latin America became a
major aspect and I brought in Bill Rogers. I had to learn
about it---I did'nt know the area as well as I knew others.
I do--I do like it. I like individualistic people.

Since leaving office, I've been down there twice---visited
Brazil twice and Argentina twice. Meeting here with their
business communities just to discuss where we should go.

Mostly from the business community. we don't make it
a very high visibility thing.