H KISSINGER ..7

between consumers and producers is essential. The proposition of producers is that they can
organise themselves but that if consumers do it it is a confrontation. I do not
believe that it is in anybody's interest for producers to tell us whether or not
we can have stock piles. This will create a climate of confrontation and
insecurity that will be very dangerous, just as I believe that the consumers
have an interest in the political stability and independence of the producers,
even of producers whose domestic policies we do not always approve, such as the
current Government in Iran. I believe the producers have a stake in a stable
and growing world economy because their very independence depends on this,
but if they do not then obviously we must defend ourselves. So a producer/consumer
dialogue in which three things are assessed - the safeguarding of the independence of
the producers; the safeguarding of the vitality of the world economy; and the
development and economic progress of the developing countries - must be on the agenda of
the future relationships as soon as after our election preoccupation can again
focus on international affairs.

We have talked about the facts now for a decade of interdependence. We have
tried to deal with a major crisis by stopgap measures, partly because in many of the
industrialised countries the term of office of most leaders is shorter than the time
it takes to solve their problems, so they always have a temptation to push the
fundamental solution into a more distant future, but we are now
running out of time, all of us. Many of the things I have described here
require efforts by the industrial democracies alone, some by the United States alone,
but ultimately there has to be a dialogue based on equality in which there is
a comprehensive approach to all of the problems that I have discussed,
and only in this way will we be able to turn the slogan of interdependence
into a reality that ennobles all our peoples.