TRANSLATION - jw

19 November 1990

Dear Henry:

I was very grateful for the many good wishes which reached
me during the Landtag [provincial diet] elections in Saxony
and following my election as Ministerpräsident.

Knowing that so many friends who kindly follow my political
activity will help me accomplish the many difficult tasks
that face me.

With warmest thanks,

KISSINGER ASSOCIATES
350 PARK AVENUE
NEW YORK NY 10022-6022
(212) 759-7919
FACSIMILE: (212) 759-0042

FACSIMILE COVER SHEET

NO. OF PAGES:
(Including this one)

1

DATE:

October 25, 1991

RECIPIENT:

NAME: Secretary to Prof. Dr. Kurt Biedenkopf

LOCATION:

FAX NO.:

SENDER:

NAME: Suzanne S. McFarlane

MESSAGE:

I have been trying to reach you by phone in Bonn for several
days, but there has been no answer. I hope this reaches you.

Dr. Kissinger has learned that Dr. Biedenkopf will be in New
York in mid-November to attend a conference by the American
Assembly. Unfortunately, Dr. Kissinger cannot attend the
conference but he very much hopes Dr. Biedenkopf might have
time to see him while he is here.

If Dr. Biedenkopf is available, could you please let us know
the dates he will be in town and how best to contact you?

Thank you.

Duplicate

Ultimately, they did not overlap

OCT-16-91 WED 16:39

US/GERMANY ASSEMBLY ACCEPTANCES FROM U.S. (as of 10/15/91)

Mr. James D. Bindenagel
Ex-Deputy Chief of Mission,
U.S. Embassy, Bonn
Rockwell International
USA

The Hon. Robert D. Blackwill
Lecturer in Public Policy
John F. Kennedy School of Government
Harvard University
USA

Mr. Carroll Brown
President
American Council on Germany
USA

Ambassador Richard R. Burt
Special Consultant
(Former U.S. Ambassador to F.R.G.)
McKinsey & Company
USA

Mr. James W. Cicconi
Partner
Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld
USA

The Hon. Tom Coleman
U.S. House of Representatives
USA

Mr. W. Bruce Cook
Vice President,
Financial & Corporate Affairs
Exxon Company, International
USA

Mr. Alexander T. Ercklentz
Partner
Brown Brothers Harriman & Co.
USA

THE RECTORY, CHURCH BRAMPTON, NORTHAMPTON

APRIL 8

APR 23 1991

Dear Dr. Kissinger,

I wrote a while back, but surmise that it was probably passed on by Nancy
to your office, where it waits in the pending file. I'll be in New York from
June 3 for about a week and would like very much to do'a childhood'interview
for The Times Saturday magazine. It's an on-going series, and I'd hope you
would find it relatively painless; it would take about 30-45 minutes, and
would deal with the influences before and up to, say, age 21 or somewhere
around that period.

Life in rural England is somewhat boring after Washington, I find, and I state
that with considerable British understatement! There is a deep national apathy,
plus a jealousy of all things American which can be trying to combat, even though
we don't strike it on a personal level. In fact our villagers have taken like
ducks to water being preached at in American tones each Sunday from the pulpits
of our 700-year-old churches, but I get itchy for a good dose of American get-up-
and-go every now and again. And Washington seems both remote and immediate - remote
in that the names are almost all different, immediate in the sense of Henry Adams'
'Democracy', or rather one should say perennial. Anyway, freelancing is tough these
days, because of the recession and because of one's time being past, but I continue
undaunted, trying to put jam on the clerical bread and butter! Which brings me
back to my request. I'll be in Washington until mid July, so if a later date suits
you, I could come up from Washington to do the interview.

Thank you, and I'll hope to see you,

Sincerely,

Joy Billington

PS Nancy: Would you consider letting an English magazine, House and Gardens, photograph your NY apartment? I'd write it here.

Feb 19

Dear Nancy,

I wonder if you'd ask Dr. Kissinger to do me a favor—sit still for an interview about his childhood for The Times? The feature is purely childhood years, and would only take about half an hour. Joe and I plan to spend a month in the States starting mid June, but if he agreed, I'd fly to NY about early June for a week's work, so any date between June 3 and 13 will do, if you plan to be in NY then?

Also, I remember what you said about Bill Blass' house, and wonder whether I might as him if we might do a feature. Could I write to him directly, at his Connecticut address? I can imagine you thinking, am I ~~running an agency?~~

But freelancing is being affected by the recession, and everything in London is hurting. Did you ever get that photographer to reproduce those excellent shots he took of you and Tyler? I was very sorry to hear about his death. Ben has developed a whiteness around the month which heralds his aging; he is seven now, but still in good health. Speaking about which, I'm going to be 60 on March 20, which doesn't seem possible, except that my birth certificate says 1931, so I must be!

Oh yes, if you came to London between now and June I, I could do the interview there, if your schedule allowed. Either way,

[ic]

Henry Kissinger is chubbier now, a little stooped, and his summer tan is a pale one, for at 68 he is only half retired to a Connecticut farmhouse. The balance of time he spends in his Manhattan office suite, from where, like the old Super K of yesterday, he flies off to foreign capitals to the governments that call on him (for a price) to solve their problems, or at least point the way to go.

High above Park Lane in his Chinese-theme office, Kissinger reluctantly talks about his childhood, reluctant because as an intensely practical man, he'd rather spend his time on contemporary issues rather than delving into the past, indulging in introspection. "I'd rather solve my conscious problems than my unconscious ones", he says, adding, lest this be interpreted as distaste for psychological analysis, that he has absolutely nothing against it, for others. This alertness for the way a thing may sound, or read, is typical of Henry Kissinger. In the 25 years that he has been a major player in the world's affairs, many journalists and biographers have sought in his childhood in Nazi Germany, in the beating of young Heinz Kissinger by passing street gangs of Hitler youth, the roots of some hidden hatred in the adult statesman. This reluctance to leave himself open to such interpretation - for the question has persisted - has prevailed. "I've just not had enough problems to bring me to a psychiatrist, but I have no emotional reaction against it," he repeats.

Born May 27, 1923, in Furth, near Nuremburg, he was the first son of Louis Kissinger, a teacher-advisor or studienrat in a girls' high school. Their home was a roomy apartment "typical German middle class of the thirties, very old fashioned, with stained glass windows on the landings" on Marienstrasse, where his mother Paula produced a brother, Walter, the following year. They grew up in the 500-year traditions of Furth's schools and synagogues, with the aroma of Jewish cookery wafting comfortably from the kitchen. The young Heinz was crazy about soccer, and still is. "It was the passion of that little town of 80,000 which in the space of ten years, won the German national championships three times, though there was no rational reason why a town that size should produce such teams." He played everything: "goalie until I broke my hand, inside right (they had a different formation then), and centre half." Was he any good? "Mediocre - I played for my school team and did OK."

The ethos of those days was set upon unchanging values, which were never questioned. Families walked in the park together on weekends, and Louis and Paula seemed to be one person to their children. "This was German middle class, where no one ever got divorced. I don't know if they suffered privately. They never told their troubles to their children, and they weren't receptive to troubled children. You weren't supposed to have troubles when you were a child. It was an almost pre-World War One bourgeois upbringing."

2

Louis Kissinger was too good natured to be a disciplianer; "He had to work up a head of steam, and it was visably harder on him than on me. It was not an imminent danger, but you knew it wouldn't happen more than every three months, usually when I didn't get the grades he thought I should have, because I was not a great student in those days." He was the despair of his father for never studying, for always cutting off to soccer games, for pulling girls' pigtails at school, and for generally being mischeivous. "We were so naughty. We were no good," he admits about himself and his friend Heinz Leon. They pulled tricks like making noises when the teacher backs were turned, or putting water traps on the tops of doors when the teacher was due. "You get this in German schools where you had corporal punishment. They had the right to beat us up - and not just for doing things like that, but for not giving the right answers - so the children had the right to retaliate. I remember my drawing teacher did it regularly, because he didn't believe that anyone could draw so badly unless it was deliberate." Usually the punishment was a slap on the face, yet he insists, "I had a good time in school. It was all part of the environment, and we got back at them in return. I hadn't heard of Freud in those days, so I didn't know I was supposed to brood about it."

However, by the time he was seven, there was always the danger of getting beaten up by a Nazi gang. "It happened whenever I got in the hands of a group of kids who were passing. Certainly it was painful. Humiliating? After I came to the United States and saw what freedom was, yes. But at the time it was part of the landscape. It wasn't pleasant, but after all I was a young man when Hitler came to power, and I didn't have yet such a formed identity. It was much worse for my parents. I didn't enjoy it either, but I don't want to give the impression that I was in a state about it."

Since Kissinger was getting beaten up by the teachers, by his friend's father for various misdemeanors, and by the street gangs, there really wasn't a lot of need for his father to work himself up in order to discipline him. And anyway, the time was coming, when young Heinz - a bearded Henry - would shape up and become a worker. By 1938 life in Furth consisted of staying one step ahead of the next Nazi roundup of Jews. Of the 3000 living in Furth in 1933, only 70 would be counted in 1945. Twelve of their relatives would die in the Holocaust, but the Kissinger family got out one day in August, 1938.

The first stop was London, where Paula Kissinger had an aunt, who they stayed with for two weeks. But there was no question of staying on. America was their destination, for Paula had been left a small legacy by an uncle there, and she had cousins. Also it seemed to offer greater opportunity. "We didn't know anything about England then, or America. Do you think I could have become English foreign secretary, with my accent?" Kissinger asks in his deep, gravelly voice, as he grins at the idea.

The Americanization of the Kissingers was not easy.

The Americanization of the Kissingers wasn't easy. Henry went to school for a year, Walter for two years. At 15, he learned self discipline, getting a job in a shaving brush factory, squeezing acid out of the brushes as they came off the assembly line, an act similar to milking fast moving cows. "For eight hours a day I squeezed, or my rubber gloves did. It was not the most stimulating job in the world." The day came when he was made an errand boy, "a huge promotion." A handcart packed with shaving brushes was to be wheeled about the area, or if he had to deliver farther away, he got five cents for the subway. Another year passed: "I was moving up in the world. Now I actually got to box the stuff. I'd started at 5 dollars a week, and after five years I was at 15 dollars. I gave my parents 8 dollars, and I kept 2.89, from which I saved a dollar."

Living in the German colony at the northern tip of Manhattan island, working during the day and attending night school and college (for his high school equivalency and first degree), he didn't have much sense of the divergence of New York. He worked with the Italian immigrants who didn't have much English either, and lived among the German refugees. His brother Walter, who was famous for not having any German accent, went for school for longer, and, Kininger notes with typical irony: "It's said he's the Kissingers who listens!"

Louis had a difficult time with European qualifications which were not then, or ever, recognised in the U.S. "IT was a paralysing experience. In Germany he'd had high social standing as a teacher in a gymnasium, but when he came here he had nothing to do. He'd never worked in his life, apart from teaching. Later, Louis learned book-binding, then book-keeping. Kissinger remembered his father was unhappy, but was "too disciplined to inflict his emotions onto others." His mother, "a more worldly" creature adjusted herself easily, establishing herself as a caterer. The German Jews were not cut from the same cloth as the other Jewish families of New York. "They were much more like the Germans. That may not be a nice thing, but in their manner they were not significantly different." This meant that the stereotypical Jewish mother, as celebrated in a thousand American jokes, had little meaning to the German Jew; and also the fierce Jewishness of American Jews was foreign.

On the day, at 20, when Kissinger guesses that his childhood ended, he joined the U.S. Army, and got a sense, for the very first time, of what it meant to be an American. He recalls his insistence that despite everything, his youth was not a particularly difficult one, and seems to be saying that the German experiences were at times painful, but never ego threatening...which in the end confirms all the Kissinger-expect theories about an ego too big to be threatened.

There was less, of a Napoleonic sense of destiny. If luck hadn't been with him in the subsequent years, he can conceive that he might have lived out his life

as, say, an accountant, his world views mere theories, his balance-of-power theories untried, his gruff voice unheard.

"Something has to happen in life, either through a mentor, as was the case with me in the Army (when he met Fritz Kraemer, who advanced his career in Intelligence), to get you out of the mass of your age group into a position from which you can be noticed, and can prove something. A mentor alone can't do it. There have to be qualities there, and luck. If one is talented enough, and someone is generous enough to recognise that talent....but you cannot substitute a mentor for ability or character."

There is also another characteristic, that bulldog determination for which he is both famous and infamous. "I think it appeared when I came to America, when I was poor, when I had an accent, when I did not think I had social graces. Then I began to try to excel at events which I could control. Then what came afterwards...came afterwards."

SOVIET-EAST EUROPEAN STUDIES INSTITUTE

P.O. Box 852, Great Falls, Virginia 22066

TEL: 703 759 5808 FAX: 703 759 3919 TELEX: 6731049 CMPUW

January 22, 1991

The Honorable Henry Kissinger
Kissinger Associates
350 Park Avenue
New York, N.Y. 10177

Dear Dr. Kissinger:

I wrote shortly before Christmas to request that you consider assisting the Soviet-East European Studies Institute in 1991 when the work of the past year has resulted in the development of several projects to be conducted in Poland and Prague.

I am enclosing a copy of that letter for your review.

Since writing in December, a second proposal has come in--this one from the Polish Foundation.

They seek to conduct a weekend seminar on the topic, "Prospects for Privatization in Poland."

I am assisting them by circulating their proposal to about ten or twelve foundations that may possibly be interested in Eastern European developments, but, as you can imagine, this is a difficult process.

Again, I wish to renew my request that you be the main speaker at a dinner to be held in New York for about fifty top business executives, the proceeds of which will go to the conduct of these events.

COPY

December 21, 1990

JAN 20 1991

Dear Dr. Kissinger:

I spoke to Christy Neumann late last week to request that you
participate in a New York fundraising dinner we hope to conduct in
1991.

As you may recall when we first met, Dr. Hans Merkle had arranged
for me to work with Dr. Nikolaus Lobkowicz to establish a
fundraising effort in West Germany on behalf of the Catholic
University of Eichstätt.

At that time, we had yet to form the Soviet-East European Studies
Institute in the United States and to commence the development of
new programs in Eastern Europe.

The direction of our fundraising has changed since we last spoke and
we are now seeking project funding for a number of special
programs that we hope to conduct in Poland and Czechoslovakia in
1991.

I am enclosing an application for support for a week-long program of
seminars to be held in Warsaw in late May that will be our first
project.

The Karol Adamiecki Foundation will hold these seminars titled,
"How to be Successful in Business in Postcommunist Poland." Eight
lecturers will be recruited from top businesses in the United States
and two from Germany with the cooperation of my organization and
Dr. Lobkowicz' university.

This joint American/German/Polish project is in need of about
$134,000 for this event and the proceeds from the dinner in New
York that we hope to hold with you as our main speaker will go only
to facilitate this project.

This is a shift from the direct fundraising I had anticipated we would
conduct on behalf of Eichstätt. We conducted an initial effort in
December of last year consisting of a mailing to about seven hundred
German companies. That proved quite successful for a first effort,
but I did not anticipate how difficult it would be for a state
university in Germany to engage in private fundraising.

The difficulty I encountered derives from the fact that
administrative "reforms" that changed the German university system
in the late 1970s deprived German university presidents of any staff
to conduct a fundraising effort. This role now falls under the
authority of tenured Chancellors who, as it turns out in the case of
Eichstätt, are, to put it mildly, supreme bureaucrats.

The situation would not be unlike what we can imagine would
happen if our own Department of State sought to supplement its
representation budget by engaging in a fundraising effort conducted
by career officers.

As a result, we have decided to direct our efforts exclusively to the
facilitation of project specific programs and events developed and
designed by East European organizations such as is represented by
this series of seminars proposed by the Karol Adamiecki Foundation.

Fortunately, it is a bit easier to raise funds here for these types of
events, though, as you know, philanthropic sources of financing are
always limited.

It would seem, however, if you were willing to participate, to be easy
enough to raise the amount we need for this first project and I
thought I would try again by asking you to be the main speaker at a
dinner to be held in New York for about fifty top business
executives.

## II. PROJECT DESCRIPTION

### 1. Introduction

The Polish Foundation is a private organization organized under Polish law to support economic change in Poland by attracting foreign investment to Poland. The Polish Foundation conducts management training courses for Polish citizens interested in engaging in private enterprises and operates a clearinghouse that provides information about investment opportunities in Poland.

We propose to conduct a weekend seminar commencing in late May or early June, 1991, titled "Prospects for Privatization in Poland".

The purpose of this three day seminar is to provide a forum for privatization experts from other countries to address an audience of Polish citizens with responsibility for conducting the Polish privatization effort and for those persons whose companies are likely to be privatized during this period of economic reform in Poland.

### 2. Background

Privatization is one of the principle priorities of the Balcerowicz Plan that outlines those reforms necessary for the Polish economy to undergo. Under the auspices of the Ministry of Finance the first tentative steps have been taken to commence privatization of Poland's state system of enterprise. Though not as bad off as Czechoslovakia where fully 90% of all business enterprises are owned by the state, clearly a substantial majority of Polish workers are employed by state-owned companies. Six state enterprises were chosen for the first privatization efforts and a public sale of stock in five of these companies was conducted in late November, 1990 that was quite successful.

Under the presidency of Lech Walesa this privatization effort is to be accelerated and it is likely that measures developed by the previous government will undergo certain changes. What those changes are to be cannot be predicted, though it is clear that there is still a great deal of confusion about how best to proceed and what problems should be avoided that were encountered by other countries engaged in a similar process.

To that end, we propose to invite six speakers from a variety of backgrounds in privatization to come to Warsaw to address an audience of persons engaged in Poland's process.

Those persons are: 1) George Gilder, noted author and theorist on free market economics; 2) Dr. Edward Feige, Department of Economics at the University of Wisconsin, author of the "Feige" plan for privatization; 3) James Freeman, responsible for an employee buyout /ESOP/ of the British state-owned company, Peoples Provincial Buses; 4) Ralph Luders, Professor, Pontifical University of Chile who played an important role in the privatization efforts of the "Chicago Boys" in Chile; 5) Juan Gandolfo Gahan, a privatization expert engaged in assisting the privatization efforts of the government of Ecuador and formally responsible for privatization efforts in Argentina and 6) Dr. Theo Thiemeyer, Professor of social politics and political economy at the University of Bochum in the Federal Republic of Germany.

Panelists at each lecture will be composed of prominent, English speaking, Polish citizens and government officials with responsibility for Polish privatization.

### 3. Project Objectives

This weekend seminar will bring approximately fifty people from government ministries, consulting firms engaged representing foreign companies with an interest in Poland and representatives of state companies likely to undergo privatization in the next two years.

The objective of the seminar is to challenge the Polish audience with the need for decisive action in the privatization area and to give the Polish audience the benefit of the success and failures of privatization efforts in other countries throughout the world.

### 4. Project Activities

Poland today has many open-minded and motivated people who understand that privatization of state companies is a necessity, if Poland is to experience complete economic recovery.

Nevertheless, old ways die hard and there are strong political and social currents at work in Poland that will severely challenge any privatization effort. Concerns about foreign ownership are rife and there is a general fear that valuable Polish assets will be given away in a privatization frenzy.

-3-

As a result, the Polish privatization effort is in its infancy and it may be possible early in this process to positively affect public perceptions and those specialists within Poland who will be enriched with carrying out this policy.

Our proposal attempts to address the need in Poland for more expert information on privatization and greater dissemination of that information by conducting a weekend seminar in the late May or early June, 1991 attended by approximately fifty participants specially recruited for their role in the Polish privatization process and their need for more information about privatization successes elsewhere.

Recruitment of privatization instructors will be conducted in the US and Latin America by the US consultant, Dr. Richard Bishirjian, executive director of the Soviet-East European Studies Institute and in Western Europe by Dr. Nikolaus Lobkowicz. Though the process of inviting speakers has only begun, we believe from numerous conversations with American and German privatization experts that recruiting the speakers listed above or suitable substitute speakers will not be difficult.

## 5. Anticipated Results

Lectures will be recorded and translated into Polish. There is a lack of publications addressing this topic.

Participants will be able to provide information about privatization to the management of their existing companies and to share information with civil servants about privatization.

Participants will make contact with top Western privatization experts who will possibly work in the future with Polish experts.

## 6. Method of Evaluation

Contact with seminar participants will be maintained through a questionnaire that they will be asked to complete at the end of the seminar and again one year later. The questions will try to determine whether the seminars gave sufficient information.

## 7. Schedule

### December-March:

Recruitment of Western instructors.

### March-May:

Recruitment of Polish participants; organization of seminar.

### May 31-June 2:

Conduct of one-week *end* seminar program.

### June-October:

Publication of Polish translation of seminar lectures.

## 8. Program Personnel

**Project Manager:** Ms Aldona Kozlowska is director of the Foreign Business Service at the Polish Foundation; she was in charge of organizing a few business seminars for foreigners interested in investing in Poland. As a graduate of the Central School of Planning and Statistics /Foreign Trade Faculty/ she also has a good background regarding economics and business administration.
Ms Kozlowska joined the Polish Foundation in February, 1990.

**US Consultant:** Dr. Richard J. Bishirjian is executive director of the Soviet-East European Studies Institute that was formed in December, 1988 to work with East European groups to organize symposia and seminars on topics relevant for functioning in a market economy.
Dr. Bishirjian is the author of two books and was a college teacher of political science for thirteen years. After government service with USIA, he served on the U.S. Senate staff of Sen. Alfonse M. D'Amato and was president for five years of a non-profit organization engaged in the production of educational programming for public television.
In 1987 he joined Boston University's College of Communication and directed the Washington office of the Institute for Democratic Communication. Dr. Bishirjian is president of a private management consulting firm based in Great Falls, Virginia.

☎️ 7037593919

CMPINTL

10/01/91 15:05

P01

OCT 02 1991

FAX

DATE: October 1, 1991
TO: Dr. Henry Kissinger
FROM: DICK BISHIRJIAN, CMP INTERNATIONAL
RE: Dr. Hans Merkle

NUMBER OF PAGES ( INCL. COVER: 3 )

RESPOND TO: TELEPHONE (703 759 5808) FAX 703 759 3919

Dear Dr. Kissinger:

I am enclosing a copy of a FAX I sent to Christie Neuman in May of
this year to renew our request that you grant us an opportunity to
conduct a dinner on behalf of Soviet-East European Studies Institute.

I received a call from Dr. Merkle's office last week asking if I had
heard back. Unfortunately, I think our requests have fallen through
the cracks.

Would it be possible for me to meet with you sometime before
Christmas to explain what we've done since we first met in 1988?

I look forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience.

7037593919

CMPINTL

10/01/91 15:06

P02

COPY

FAX

DATE: May 9, 1991

TO: Christie Neumann, Kissinger & Associates

FROM: Dick Bishirjian, CMP International Consulting, Inc.

RE: Dinner with Dr. Kissinger

Number of pages (including cover sheet): 2

Reply to: 703 759 5808; FAX: 703 759 3919

Dear Christie,

I received a telefax from Germany yesterday asking that I once again
call your office to arrange a fundraising dinner on behalf of
Soviet-East European Studies Institute.

Dr. Hans Merkle spoke to Dr. Kissinger recently about this matter and
Dr. Kissinger agreed once again to speak at such an event provided
we were flexible regarding time.

Since my meeting in late 1988 with Dr. Kissinger at which he agreed
to such an appearance, we have established relationships with three
organizations in Poland and Czechoslovakia and are cosponsor with
Charles University in Prague to conduct a year long series of events
on privatization. Partial funding for this series will be provided by
the Center for Private Enterprise.

As Dr. Kissinger knows from previous communications from me,
raising funding for East European programs of this type has been
extremely difficult and my colleagues at the Katholische Universität
Eichstätt and I have resorted to holding fundraising dinners as the
primary fundraising vehicle.

7037593919

CMPINTL

10/01/91 15:06

P03

Such a dinner will be held on October 22 in Munich at the invitation of Dr. Merkle and the Prince of Bavaria and the main speaker will be the Finance Minister of Czechoslovakia, Vaclav Klaus.

Dr. Merkle will host the dinner in the United States with Dr. Kissinger

Ideally the evening with Dr. Kissinger would be held immediately after that event so that we might build on its success. As to the location of the event, we could successfully conduct such a dinner at any of three places: Los Angeles; Chicago; New York and Washington.

I offer these as alternative locale in order to assist you to find a time and date most convenient to Dr. Kissinger's busy schedule.

Hope to hear from you at your earliest convenience.

Sincerely yours,

Richard J. Bishirjian

THE FINANCIAL POST. TUESDAY, MARCH 12, 1991.

PART 1.

10 Tuesday, March 12, 1991

COMMENT AND OPINION

INSIGHT BY CONRAD BLACK

Everything now in place
for a Pax Americana era

FOLLOWING THE first truly "splendid little war" since Teddy Roosevelt walked his men up San Juan Hill in 1898, the shambles of the international anti-American left is a delicious spectacle. All those apostles of the inexorable, who ardently desired the evaporation of American strength and influence, are quavering and prevaricating through an agony of embarrassment and stupefaction.

All those addicted to the theories of the Pentagon's relentless incompetence; of the inefficacy of the weapons procured in the Reagan defence build-up; of $50 a barrel oil; of the Great Arab backlash; of the irresolution of American public opinion; of inevitable Israeli gulf war involvement; of the power of the "world's fourth-largest army" (Iraq's); of tens of thousands of allied casualties; have been durably humbled by one of the most flawless diplomatic, political and military operations of modern times.

The declinists are in terminal decline. The U.S. is overwhelmingly ascendant militarily and diplomatically. And with steadily rising exports and twice the gross national product of Japan (140% of Japan and Germany combined even with the dollar at the low end of its normal cycle), the U.S. now exercises more comparative influence in the world than any country has since the rise of the nation state in the 16th century, except for the five years following the Second World War when America's allies and former enemies had all been more or less devastated and the U.S. was the only real nuclear power.

Shabby confidence trick

It is galling to many that a country so unabashedly capitalistic, so ethnically disparate, so little dominated by a pseudo-academic clerisy, so dedicated to the rights and responsibilities of the individual, so ostentatiously, even garishly, patriotic as the United States is, should be preeminent. But it is a fact the world will have to live with. All is in place for a Pax Americana, at least as effective as the Pax Britannica of 1815-1914.

Even more unambiguously benign is the despatch of many related myths. The world now knows that the instant peace-marchers do not write the song-sheet in Washington. All governments in strategic parts of the Third World now know that the U.S. can successfully prosecute a just war. Where the opponent is unsympathetic, the American national interest and the objective are clear, the constitutional procedures are observed and the execution is professional, the weapons technology will work and American public opinion will be solid. The U.S. volunteer armed forces function well and there is no discernible ethnic imbalance among forces in combat roles.

Even the Gorby-idolaters are relatively quiet,

CONRAD BLACK is a businessman, author and member of the executive board of The Financial Post.

REUTER

U.S. troops celebrate as they prepare to leave for home: The U.S. is overwhelmingly ascendant militarily and diplomatically at the moment

after the Baltic outrages and the Kremlin's inept 11th-hour attempt to salvage Saddam Hussein.

We are not likely to hear much more of the shabby confidence trick implicit in Gorbachev's "common European house" — i.e., an edifice with no place for the Americans, whom Gorbachev affected culturally to disparage in his book on perestroika, before his own regime imploded.

The discomfort of the Canadian left may be measured in the fatuity of the apologia they have produced for the debacle of their own prophecies. Richard Gwyn's argument (Toronto Star, Feb. 26) that the Americans had deliberately encouraged Saddam to think he was more militarily formidable than he really was in order to make him a more tenacious rapist of Kuwait, is a splendid case in point.

The performance of Canada's political leaders has been clear-cut. The prime minister has been unwavering and has had and deserved one of his finest hours. There is nothing wrong with tying oneself to the mast of an American aircraft carrier in a good cause. Audrey McLaughlin gave the old-time CCF Woodsworthian pacifist message: painfully naive and esoteric, but probably sincere. Jean Chrétien sounded for all the world like a Bloc Populaire orator circa 1942, urging all of us into the woods rather than register at our national mobilization office. It was the worst of "let sanctions work" hypocrisy: do nothing and call it idealism and then desert our allies (the whole civilized world) in their hour of victory.

This great triumph of international law, secured by American sword bearers upholding the scutcheon of the United Nations, should be completed by a serious peace offensive. A Palestinian entity, the timing and extent of whose sovereignty would be subject to discussion, should be

carved largely from Jordan. Israel would happily
yield Gaza and the eastern fringe of the West
Bank, following the heights defined by the Allon
Plan, and a road access between them.

Anglo-American patience with King Hussein,
the world's most accomplished chameleon, has
been strained by the king's truckling to Iraqi
aggression, but we would do him a favor by
consecrating a quarter of his diminutive realm
for half of his Palestinian majority, giving his
Hashemite dynasty a Bedouin majority to sus-
tain it for the first time.

The Jordanian monarchy would finally have a
stable foundation, and the king, who would still
have the West Bank today if he hadn't suc-
cumbed to Nasser's incitement to join a sneak
attack on Israel in 1967, would be relieved of the
charade of representing the Palestinians. The
Palestinians would realize that their accession to
a passport-issuing entity would depend on their
respectful treatment of the U.S. and Israel, rath-
er than on hijacking airliners, blowing up disco-
thèques and stoning worshippers at the Wailing
Wall and elsewhere.

## Regional common market

Other ingredients in a comprehensive peace
would include a great power regional arms-sup-
ply limitation agreement; a pledge from the feu-
dal Arab monarchies to achieve at least Egypt's
level of an elected consultative legislature; and
an institutionalized transfer payment system
from the oil-exporting states to the poorer and
more populous ones, including the Palestinians;
a regional common market, including Israel,
achieved in stages; release of all prisoners and
hostages; normalization of all diplomatic rela-
tions, including between the U.S. and Iran, and
Israel and all the Muslim powers as well as the
Soviet Union and the Vatican; an Arab League
frontier defence force on the northern borders of
Kuwait and Saudi Arabia; and NATO and UN
Security Council guarantees of all Middle East-
ern borders.

The moderate Arab powers, who distin-
guished themselves in the gulf war; an Israel
well-tried by many decades of attrition; postrate
Iraq, with or without its ruritanian despot; Iran,
apparently regaining coherence; are all ready for
peace. The U.S., triumphant yet unswayed by
triumphalism, is uniquely able to promote peace.
The cradle of ancient civilization, having yielded
up one of history's astounding victories, could
know peace at last. Even the international and
Canadian left might be grateful for that one
manifestation of American strength. Canada,
having earned a modest place at the proverbial
table, without, apparently, sustaining a single
casualty, need not be inactive in the process.

EVENTS IN HONOR OF LINCOLN BLOOMFIELD
An Event of the Inaugural Year

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Monday, 13 May 1991

THEME: **THE UNCONVENTIONAL UNIVERSITY**

PANEL I (10 am - 12 pm) Bush Room (10-105)

## THE CHALLENGE OF GLOBAL ISSUES

Professor Harlan Cleveland, University of Minnesota
President of the World Academy of Art and Science
Former Assistant Secretary of State, and Ambassador to NATO

Mr. Elliot Richardson, Partner, Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy
Former United States Secretary of Defense, and U.S. Attorney General
Former President of the United Nations Association (UNA-USA)

Sir John Thomson
Principal Director, 21st Century Trust
Former British High Commissioner to India, and Ambassador to the UN

Luncheon (12 pm - 2 pm) Center for International Studies (E38-700)

PANEL II (2 pm - 4 pm) Schell Room (E51-332)

## UNCONVENTIONAL EDUCATIONAL RESPONSES

Mr. Frederic Hill, Acting Director
Center for the Study of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Service Institute
Former Editorial Board, *The Baltimore Sun*

Mr. John Hoagland
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Monitor Television, Inc.
Former Manager, Christian Science Publishing Society

Professor Thomas C. Schelling, University of Maryland at College Park
Author of *Strategy of Conflict*
Co-Founder of the Harvard-MIT Arms Control Seminar

Cocktails (5 pm)
Participants Dinner (6 pm) MIT Museum (NE52 - 2nd Floor)