BOARD OF EDITORS

Raymond Aron, John E. Burchard, Clarence Faust,
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R. M. MacIver, Archibald MacLeish, J. Robert Oppenheimer,
Paul B. Sears, Harlow Shapley, George Wald

Stephen R. Graubard, *Editor of the Academy and of Dædalus*
Geno A. Ballotti, *Managing Editor*
Stephanie D. Jones, *Manuscripts Editor*
Elizabeth W. Miller, *Assistant Editor*
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Copyright © 1966 by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

DÆDALUS

Contents

iii Preface to the Issue "Conditions of World Order"

455 STANLEY HOFFMANN
Report of the Conference on Conditions of World Order—June 12-19, 1965, Villa Serbelloni, Bellagio, Italy

479 RAYMOND ARON
The Anarchical Order of Power

503 HENRY A. KISSINGER
Domestic Structure and Foreign Policy

530 JAN TINBERGEN
International Economic Planning

558 JEAN FOURASTIÉ
Remarks on Conditions of World Order

572 HANS-GEORG GADAMER
Notes on Planning for the Future

590 JOSÉ LUIS L. ARANGUREN
Openness to the World: An Approach to World Peace

607 HELIO JAGUARIBE
World Order, Rationality, and Socioeconomic Development

627 D. P. O'CONNELL
The Role of International Law

644 IVAN MALEK
World Order and the Responsibility of Scientists: A
Functional as Opposed to an Institutional Approach

666 C. H. WADDINGTON
The Desire for Material Progress as a World Ordering
System

674 DAVIDSON NICOL
Toward a World Order: An African Viewpoint

694 LORD GLADWYN
World Order and the Nation-State—A Regional Approach

704 Notes on Contributors

706 Recent Issues of *Dædalus*

SPRING 1966

ISSUED AS VOL. 95, No. 2, OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF
THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

HENRY A. KISSINGER

# Domestic Structure and Foreign Policy

## I. *The Role of Domestic Structure*

IN THE traditional conception, international relations are conducted by political units treated almost as personalities. The domestic structure is taken as given; foreign policy begins where domestic policy ends.

But this approach is appropriate only to stable periods because then the various components of the international system generally have similar conceptions of the “rules of the game.” If the domestic structures are based on commensurable notions of what is just, a consensus about permissible aims and methods of foreign policy develops. If domestic structures are reasonably stable, temptations to use an adventurous foreign policy to achieve domestic cohesion are at a minimum. In these conditions, leaders will generally apply the same criteria and hold similar views about what constitutes a “reasonable” demand. This does not guarantee agreement, but it provides the condition for a meaningful dialogue, that is, it sets the stage for traditional diplomacy.

When the domestic structures are based on fundamentally different conceptions of what is just, the conduct of international affairs grows more complex. Then it becomes difficult even to define the nature of disagreement because what seems most obvious to one side appears most problematic to the other. A policy dilemma arises because the pros and cons of a given course seem evenly balanced. The definition of what constitutes a problem and what criteria are relevant in “solving” it reflects to a considerable extent the domestic notions of what is just, the pressures produced by the decision-making process, and the experience which forms the leaders in their rise to eminence. When domestic structures—and the concept of legitimacy on which they are based—differ widely, statesmen can

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HENRY A. KISSINGER

still meet, but their ability to persuade has been reduced for they no
longer speak the same language.

This can occur even when no universal claims are made. Incom-
patible domestic structures can passively generate a gulf, simply
because of the difficulty of achieving a consensus about the nature
of "reasonable" aims and methods. But when one or more states
claim universal applicability for their particular structure, schisms
grow deep indeed. In that event, the domestic structure becomes
not only an obstacle to understanding but one of the principal
issues in international affairs. Its requirements condition the con-
ception of alternatives; survival seems involved in every dispute.
The symbolic aspect of foreign policy begins to overshadow the
substantive component. It becomes difficult to consider a dispute
"on its merits" because the disagreement seems finally to turn not on
a specific issue but on a set of values as expressed in domestic
arrangements. The consequences of such a state of affairs were
explained by Edmund Burke during the French Revolution:

I never thought we could make peace with the system; because it was
not for the sake of an object we pursued in rivalry with each other, but
with the system itself that we were at war. As I understood the matter,
we were at war not with its conduct but with its existence; convinced
that its existence and its hostility were the same.¹

Of course, the domestic structure is not irrelevant in any histori-
cal period. At a minimum, it determines the amount of the total
social effort which can be devoted to foreign policy. The wars of the
kings who governed by divine right were limited because feudal
rulers, bound by customary law, could not levy income taxes or
conscript their subjects. The French Revolution, which based its
policy on a doctrine of popular will, mobilized resources on a truly
national scale for the first time. This was one of the principal reasons
for the startling successes of French arms against a hostile Europe
which possessed greater over-all power. The ideological regimes
of the twentieth century have utilized a still larger share of the
national effort. This has enabled them to hold their own against an
environment possessing far superior resources.

Aside from the allocation of resources, the domestic structure
crucially affects the way the actions of other states are interpreted.
To some extent, of course, every society finds itself in an environ-
ment not of its own making and has some of the main lines of its
foreign policy imposed on it. Indeed, the pressure of the environ-
ment can grow so strong that it permits only one interpretation of

504

its significance; Prussia in the eighteenth century and Israel in the contemporary period may have found themselves in this position.

But for the majority of states the margin of decision has been greater. The actual choice has been determined to a considerable degree by their interpretation of the environment and by their leaders' conception of alternatives. Napoleon rejected peace offers beyond the dreams of the kings who had ruled France by "divine right" because he was convinced that *any* settlement which demonstrated the limitations of his power was tantamount to his downfall. That Russia seeks to surround itself with a belt of friendly states in Eastern Europe is a product of geography and history. That it is attempting to do so by imposing a domestic structure based on a particular ideology is a result of conceptions supplied by its domestic structure.

The domestic structure is decisive finally in the elaboration of positive goals. The most difficult, indeed tragic, aspect of foreign policy is how to deal with the problem of conjecture. When the scope for action is greatest, knowledge on which to base such action is small or ambiguous. When knowledge becomes available, the ability to affect events is usually at a minimum. In 1936, no one could know whether Hitler was a misunderstood nationalist or a maniac. By the time certainty was achieved, it had to be paid for with millions of lives.

The conjectural element of foreign policy—the need to gear actions to an assessment that cannot be proved true when it is made—is never more crucial than in a revolutionary period. Then, the old order is obviously disintegrating while the shape of its replacement is highly uncertain. Everything depends, therefore, on some conception of the future. But varying domestic structures can easily produce different assessments of the significance of existing trends and, more importantly, clashing criteria for resolving these differences. This is the dilemma of our time.

Problems are novel; their scale is vast; their nature is often abstract and always psychological. In the past, international relations were confined to a limited geographic area. The various continents pursued their relations essentially in isolation from each other. Until the eighteenth century, other continents impinged on Europe only sporadically and for relatively brief periods. And when Europe extended its sway over much of the world, foreign policy became limited to the Western Powers with the single exception of Japan. The international system of the nineteenth

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century was to all practical purposes identical with the concert of Europe.

The period after World War II marks the first era of truly global foreign policy. Each major state is capable of producing consequences in every part of the globe by a direct application of its power or because ideas can be transmitted almost instantaneously or because ideological rivalry gives vast symbolic significance even to issues which are minor in geopolitical terms. The mere act of adjusting perspectives to so huge a scale would produce major dislocations. This problem is compounded by the emergence of so many new states. Since 1945, the number of participants in the international system has nearly doubled. In previous periods the addition of even one or two new states tended to lead to decades of instability until a new equilibrium was established and accepted. The emergence of scores of new states has magnified this difficulty many times over.

These upheavals would be challenge enough, but they are overshadowed by the risks posed by modern technology. Peace is maintained through the threat of mutual destruction based on weapons for which there has been no operational experience. Deterrence—the policy of preventing an action by confronting the opponent with risks he is unwilling to run—depends in the first instance on psychological criteria. What the potential aggressor believes is more crucial than what is objectively true. Deterrence occurs above all in the minds of men.

To achieve an international consensus on the significance of these developments would be a major task even if domestic structures were comparable. It becomes especially difficult when domestic structures differ widely and when universal claims are made on behalf of them. A systematic assessment of the impact of domestic structure on the conduct of international affairs would have to treat such factors as historical traditions, social values, and the economic system. But this would far transcend the scope of an article. For the purposes of this discussion we shall confine ourselves to sketching the impact of two factors only: administrative structure and the formative experience of leadership groups.

## II. *The Impact of the Administrative Structure*

In the contemporary period, the very nature of the governmental structure introduces an element of rigidity which operates more or

506

less independently of the convictions of statesmen or the ideology
which they represent. Issues are too complex and relevant facts too
manifold to be dealt with on the basis of personal intuition. An
institutionalization of decision-making is an inevitable by-product
of the risks of international affairs in the nuclear age. Moreover,
almost every modern state is dedicated to some theory of "planning"
—the attempt to structure the future by understanding and, if
necessary, manipulating the environment. Planning involves a quest
for predictability and, above all, for "objectivity." There is a delib-
erate effort to reduce the relevant elements of a problem to a stand-
ard of average performance. The vast bureaucratic mechanisms that
emerge develop a momentum and a vested interest of their own.
As they grow more complex, their internal standards of operation
are not necessarily commensurable with those of other countries or
even with other bureaucratic structures in the same country. There
is a trend toward autarky. A paradoxical consequence may be that
increased control over the domestic environment is purchased at the
price of loss of flexibility in international affairs.

The purpose of bureaucracy is to devise a standard operating
procedure which can cope effectively with most problems. A
bureaucracy is efficient if the matters which it handles routinely
are, in fact, the most frequent and if its procedures are relevant to
their solution. If those criteria are met, the energies of the top
leadership are freed to deal creatively with the unexpected occur-
rence or with the need for innovation. Bureaucracy becomes an
obstacle when what it defines as routine does not address the most
significant range of issues or when its prescribed mode of action
proves irrelevant to the problem.

When this occurs, the bureaucracy absorbs the energies of top
executives in reconciling what is expected with what happens; the
analysis of where one is overwhelms the consideration of where one
should be going. Serving the machine becomes a more absorbing
occupation than defining its purpose. Success consists in moving the
administrative machine to the point of decision, leaving relatively
little energy for analyzing the merit of this decision. The quest
for "objectivity"—while desirable theoretically—involves the danger
that means and ends are confused, that an average standard of
performance is exalted as the only valid one. Attention tends to be
diverted from the act of choice—which is the ultimate test of
statesmanship—to the accumulation of facts. Decisions can be
avoided until a crisis brooks no further delay, until the events

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HENRY A. KISSINGER

themselves have removed the element of ambiguity. But at that
point the scope for constructive action is at a minimum. Certainty is
purchased at the cost of creativity.

Something like this seems to be characteristic of modern bureau-
cratic states whatever their ideology. In societies with a pragmatic
tradition, such as the United States, there develops a greater con-
cern with an analysis of where one is than where one is going.
What passes for planning is frequently the projection of the familiar
into the future. In societies based on ideology, doctrine is institu-
tionalized and exegesis takes the place of innovation. Creativity
must make so many concessions to orthodoxy that it may exhaust
itself in doctrinal adaptations. In short, the accumulation of knowl-
edge of the bureaucracy and the impersonality of its method of
arriving at decisions can be achieved at a high price. Decision-
making can grow so complex that the process of producing a
bureaucratic consensus may overshadow the purpose of the effort.

While all thoughtful administrators would grant in the abstract
that these dangers exist, they find it difficult to act on their knowl-
edge. Lip service is paid to planning; indeed planning staffs prolif-
erate. However, they suffer from two debilities. The "operating"
elements may not take the planning effort seriously. Plans become
esoteric exercises which are accepted largely because they imply
no practical consequence. They are a sop to administrative theory.
At the same time, since planning staffs have a high incentive to try
to be "useful," there is a bias against novel conceptions which are
difficult to adapt to an administrative mold. It is one thing to assign
an individual or a group the task of looking ahead; this is a far cry
from providing an environment which encourages an understanding
for deeper historical, sociological, and economic trends. The need
to provide a memorandum may outweigh the imperatives of creative
thought. The quest for objectivity creates a temptation to see in the
future an updated version of the present. Yet true innovation is
bound to run counter to prevailing standards. The dilemma of
modern bureaucracy is that while every creative act is lonely, not
every lonely act is creative. Formal criteria are little help in solving
this problem because the unique cannot be expressed "objectively."

The rigidity in the policies of the technologically advanced
societies is in no small part due to the complexity of decision-making.
Crucial problems may—and frequently do—go unrecognized for a
long time. But once the decision-making apparatus has disgorged a
policy, it becomes very difficult to change it. The alternative to the

508

status quo is the prospect of repeating the whole anguishing process of arriving at decisions. This explains to some extent the curious phenomenon that decisions taken with enormous doubt and perhaps with a close division become practically sacrosanct once adopted. The whole administrative machinery swings behind their implementation as if activity could still all doubts.

Moreover, the reputation, indeed the political survival, of most leaders depends on their ability to realize their goals, however these may have been arrived at. Whether these goals are desirable is relatively less crucial. The time span by which administrative success is measured is considerably shorter than that by which historical achievement is determined. In heavily bureaucratized societies all pressures emphasize the first of these accomplishments.

Then, too, the staffs on which modern executives come to depend develop a momentum of their own. What starts out as an aid to decision-makers often turns into a practically autonomous organization whose internal problems structure and sometimes compound the issues which it was originally designed to solve. The decision-maker will always be aware of the morale of his staff. Though he has the authority, he cannot overrule it too frequently without impairing its efficiency; and he may, in any event, lack the knowledge to do so. Placating the staff then becomes a major preoccupation of the executive. A form of administrative democracy results, in which a decision often reflects an attainable consensus rather than substantive conviction (or at least the two imperceptibly merge). The internal requirements of the bureaucracy may come to pre dominate over the purposes which it was intended to serve. This is probably even more true in highly institutionalized Communist states—such as the U.S.S.R.—than in the United States.

When the administrative machine grows very elaborate, the various levels of the decision-making process are separated by chasms which are obscured from the outside world by the complexity of the apparatus. Research often becomes a means to buy time and to assuage consciences. Studying a problem can turn into an escape from coming to grips with it. In the process, the gap between the technical competence of research staffs and what hard-pressed political leaders are capable of absorbing widens constantly. This heightens the insecurity of the executive and may thus compound either rigidity or arbitrariness or both. In many fields—strategy being a prime example—decision-makers may find it difficult to give as many hours to a problem as the expert has had

509

HENRY A. KISSINGER

years to study it. The ultimate decision often depends less on knowl-
edge than on the ability to brief the top administrator—to present
the facts in such a way that they can be absorbed rapidly. The
effectiveness of briefing, however, puts a premium on theatrical
qualities. Not everything that sounds plausible is correct, and many
things which are correct may not sound plausible when they are
first presented; and a second hearing is rare. The stage aspect of
briefing may leave the decision-maker with a gnawing feeling of
having been taken—even, and perhaps especially, when he does not
know quite how.

Sophistication may thus encourage paralysis or a crude popu-
larization which defeats its own purpose. The excessively theoretical
approach of many research staffs overlooks the problem of the strain
of decision-making in times of crisis. What is relevant for policy
depends not only on academic truth but also on what can be imple-
mented under stress. The technical staffs are frequently operating
in a framework of theoretical standards while in fact their useful-
ness depends on essentially psychological criteria. To be politically
meaningful, their proposals must involve answers to the following
types of questions: Does the executive understand the proposal?
Does he believe in it? Does he accept it as a guide to action or as an
excuse for doing nothing? But if these kinds of concerns are given
too much weight, the requirements of salesmanship will defeat sub-
stance.

The pragmatism of executives thus clashes with the theoretical
bent of research or planning staffs. Executives as a rule take cogniz-
ance of a problem only when it emerges as an administrative issue.
They thus unwittingly encourage bureaucratic contests as the only
means of generating decisions. Or the various elements of the
bureaucracy make a series of nonaggression pacts with each other
and thus reduce the decision-maker to a benevolent constitutional
monarch. As the special role of the executive increasingly becomes
to choose between proposals generated administratively, decision-
makers turn into arbiters rather than leaders. Whether they wait
until a problem emerges as an administrative issue or until a crisis
has demonstrated the irrelevance of the standard operating pro-
cedure, the modern decision-makers often find themselves the pris-
oners of their advisers.

Faced with an administrative machine which is both elaborate
and fragmented, the executive is forced into essentially lateral means
of control. Many of his public pronouncements, though ostensibly

510

directed to outsiders, perform a perhaps more important role in
laying down guidelines for the bureaucracy. The chief significance
of a foreign policy speech by the President may thus be that it
settles an internal debate in Washington (a public statement is more
useful for this purpose than an administrative memorandum be-
cause it is harder to reverse). At the same time, the bureaucracy's
awareness of this method of control tempts it to shortcut its debates
by using pronouncements by the decision-makers as charters for
special purposes. The executive thus finds himself confronted by
proposals for public declarations which may be innocuous in them-
selves—and whose bureaucratic significance may be anything but
obvious—but which can be used by some agency or department to
launch a study or program which will restrict his freedom of deci-
sion later on.

All of this drives the executive in the direction of extra-burea-
cratic means of decision. The practice of relying on special emis-
saries or personal envoys is an example; their status outside the
bureaucracy frees them from some of its restraints. International
agreements are sometimes possible only by ignoring safeguards
against capricious action. It is a paradoxical aspect of modern
bureaucracies that their quest for objectivity and calculability often
leads to impasses which can be overcome only by essentially
arbitrary decisions.

Such a mode of operation would involve a great risk of stagna-
tion even in "normal" times. It becomes especially dangerous in a
revolutionary period. For then, the problems which are most obtru-
sive may be least relevant. The issues which are most significant
may not be suitable for administrative formulation and even when
formulated may not lend themselves to bureaucratic consensus.
When the issue is how to transform the existing framework, routine
can become an additional obstacle to both comprehension and
action.

This problem, serious enough *within* each society, is magnified
in the conduct of international affairs. While the formal machinery
of decision-making in developed countries shows many similarities,
the criteria which influence decisions vary enormously. With each
administrative machine increasingly absorbed in its own internal
problems, diplomacy loses its flexibility. Leaders are extremely
aware of the problems of placating their own bureaucracy; they
cannot depart too far from its prescriptions without raising serious
morale problems. Decisions are reached so painfully that the very

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HENRY A. KISSINGER

anguish of decision-making acts as a brake on the give-and-take of traditional diplomacy.

This is true even *within* alliances. Meaningful consultation with other nations becomes very difficult when the internal process of decision-making already has some of the characteristics of compacts between quasi-sovereign entities. There is an increasing reluctance to hazard a hard-won domestic consensus in an international forum.

What is true within alliances—that is, among nations which have at least some common objectives—becomes even more acute in relations between antagonistic states or blocs. The gap created when two large bureaucracies generate goals largely in isolation from each other and on the basis of not necessarily commensurable criteria is magnified considerably by an ideological schism. The degree of ideological fervor is not decisive; the problem would exist even if the original ideological commitment had declined on either or both sides. The criteria for bureaucratic decision-making may continue to be influenced by ideology even after its élan has dissipated. Bureaucratic structures generate their own momentum which may more than counterbalance the loss of earlier fanaticism. In the early stages of a revolutionary movement, ideology is crucial and the accident of personalities can be decisive. The Reign of Terror in France was ended by the elimination of a single man, Robespierre. The Bolshevik revolution could hardly have taken place had Lenin not been on the famous train which crossed Germany into Russia. But once a revolution becomes institutionalized, the administrative structures which it has spawned develop their own vested interests. Ideology may grow less significant in creating commitment; it becomes pervasive in supplying criteria of administrative choice. Ideologies prevail by being taken for granted. Orthodoxy substitutes for conviction and produces its own form of rigidity.

In such circumstances, a meaningful dialogue across ideological dividing lines becomes extraordinarily difficult. The more elaborate the administrative structure, the less relevant an individual's view becomes—indeed one of the purposes of bureaucracy is to liberate decision-making from the accident of personalities. Thus while personal convictions may be modified, it requires a really monumental effort to alter bureaucratic commitments. And if change occurs, the bureaucracy prefers to move at its own pace and not be excessively influenced by statements or pressures of foreigners. For all these reasons, diplomacy tends to become rigid or to turn into an abstract bargaining process based on largely formal criteria such as “splitting

512

the difference.” Either course is self-defeating: the former because it negates the very purpose of diplomacy; the latter because it subordinates purpose to technique and because it may encourage intransigence. Indeed, the incentive for intransigence increases if it is known that the difference will generally be split.

Ideological differences are compounded because major parts of the world are only in the first stages of administrative evolution. Where the technologically advanced countries suffer from the inertia of overadministration, the developing areas often lack even the rudiments of effective bureaucracy. Where the advanced countries may drown in "facts," the emerging nations are frequently without the most elementary knowledge needed for forming a meaningful judgment or for implementing it once it has been taken. Where large bureaucracies operate in alternating spurts of rigidity and catastrophic (in relation to the bureaucracy) upheaval, the new states tend to take decisions on the basis of almost random pressures. The excessive institutionalization of one and the inadequate structure of the other inhibit international stability.

### III. *The Nature of Leadership*

Whatever one's view about the degree to which choices in international affairs are "objectively" determined, the decisions are made by individuals who will be above all conscious of the seeming multiplicity of options. Their understanding of the nature of their choice depends on many factors, including their experience during the rise to eminence.

The mediating, conciliatory style of British policy in the nineteenth century reflected, in part, the qualities encouraged during careers in Parliament and the values of a cohesive leadership group connected by ties of family and common education. The hysterical cast of the policy of Imperial Germany was given impetus by a domestic structure in which political parties were deprived of responsibility while ministers were obliged to balance a monarch by divine right against a Parliament composed of representatives without any prospect of ever holding office. Consensus could be achieved most easily through fits of national passion which in turn disquieted all of Germany's neighbors. Germany's foreign policy grew unstable because its domestic structure did little to discourage capricious improvisations; it may even have put a premium on them.

The collapse of the essentially aristocratic conception of foreign

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HENRY A. KISSINGER

policy of the nineteenth century has made the career experiences of leaders even more crucial. An aristocracy—if it lives up to its values—will reject the arbitrariness of absolutist rule; and it will base itself on a notion of quality which discourages the temptations of demagoguery inherent in plebiscitarian democracy. Where position is felt to be a birthright, generosity is possible (though not guaranteed); flexibility is not inhibited by a commitment to perpetual success. Where a leader's estimate of himself is not completely dependent on his standing in an administrative structure, measures can be judged in terms of a conception of the future rather than of an almost compulsive desire to avoid even a temporary setback. When statesmen belonged to a community transcending national boundaries, there tended to be consensus on the criteria of what constituted a reasonable proposal. This did not prevent conflicts, but it did define their nature and encourage dialogue. The bane of aristocratic foreign policy was the risk of frivolousness, of a self-confidence unrelated to knowledge, and of too much emphasis on intuition.

In any event, ours is the age of the expert or the charismatic leader. The expert has his constituency—those who have a vested interest in commonly held opinions; elaborating and defining its consensus at a high level has, after all, made him an expert. Since the expert is often the product of the administrative dilemmas described earlier, he is usually in a poor position to transcend them. The charismatic leader, on the other hand, needs a perpetual revolution to maintain his position. Neither the expert nor the charismatic leader operates in an environment which puts a premium on long-range conceptions or on generosity or on subordinating the leader's ego to purposes which transcend his own career.

Leadership groups are formed by at least three factors: their experiences during their rise to eminence; the structure in which they must operate; the values of their society. Three contemporary types will be discussed here: (a) the bureaucratic-pragmatic type, (b) the ideological type, and (c) the revolutionary-charismatic type.

**Bureaucratic-pragmatic leadership.** The main example of this type of leadership is the American élite—though the leadership groups of other Western countries increasingly approximate the American pattern. Shaped by a society without fundamental social schisms (at least until the race problem became visible) and the product of an environment in which most recognized problems have

514

proved soluble, its approach to policy is *ad hoc*, pragmatic, and
somewhat mechanical.

Because pragmatism is based on the conviction that the context
of events produces a solution, there is a tendency to await develop-
ments. The belief is prevalent that every problem will yield if
attacked with sufficient energy. It is inconceivable, therefore, that
delay might result in irretrievable disaster; at worst it is thought to
require a redoubled effort later on. Problems are segmented into
constituent elements, each of which is dealt with by experts in the
special difficulty it involves. There is little emphasis or concern for
their interrelationship. Technical issues enjoy more careful atten-
tion, and receive more sophisticated treatment, than political ones.
Though the importance of intangibles is affirmed in theory, it is
difficult to obtain a consensus on which factors are significant and
even harder to find a meaningful mode for dealing with them.
Things are done because one knows how to do them and not be-
cause one ought to do them. The criteria for dealing with trends
which are conjectural are less well developed than those for imme-
diate crises. Pragmatism, at least in its generally accepted form, is
more concerned with method than with judgment; or rather it seeks
to reduce judgment to methodology and value to knowledge.

This is reinforced by the special qualities of the professions—
law and business—which furnish the core of the leadership groups
in America. Lawyers—at least in the Anglo-Saxon tradition—prefer
to deal with actual rather than hypothetical cases; they have little
confidence in the possiblity of stating a future issue abstractly. But
planning by its very nature is hypothetical. Its success depends pre-
cisely on the ability to transcend the existing framework. Lawyers
may be prepared to undertake this task; but they will do well in
it only to the extent that they are able to overcome the special
qualities encouraged by their profession. What comes naturally to
lawyers in the Anglo-Saxon tradition is the sophisticated analysis
of a series of *ad hoc* issues which emerge as problems through ad-
versary proceedings. In so far as lawyers draw on the experience
which forms them, they have a bias toward awaiting developments
and toward operating within the definition of the problem as formu-
lated by its chief spokesmen.

This has several consequences. It compounds the already power-
ful tendencies within American society to identify foreign policy
with the solution of immediate issues. It produces great refinement
of issues as they arise, but it also encourages the administrative

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HENRY A. KISSINGER

dilemmas described earlier. Issues are dealt with only as the pressure of events imposes the need for resolving them. Then, each of the contending factions within the bureaucracy has a maximum incentive to state its case in its most extreme form because the ultimate outcome depends, to a considerable extent, on a bargaining process. The premium placed on advocacy turns decision-making into a series of adjustments among special interests—a process more suited to domestic than to foreign policy. This procedure neglects the long-range because the future has no administrative constituency and is, therefore, without representation in the adversary proceedings. Problems tend to be slighted until some agency or department is made responsible for them. When this occurs—usually when a difficulty has already grown acute—the relevant department becomes an all-out spokesman for its particular area of responsibility. The outcome usually depends more on the pressures or the persuasiveness of the contending advocates than on a concept of over-all purpose. While these tendencies exist to some extent in all bureaucracies they are particularly pronounced in the American system of government.

This explains in part the peculiar alternation of rigidity and spasms of flexibility in American diplomacy. On a given issue—be it the Berlin crisis or disarmament or the war in Viet-Nam—there generally exists a great reluctance to develop a negotiating position or a statement of objectives except in the most general terms. This stems from a desire not to prejudge the process of negotiations and above all to retain flexibility in the face of unforeseeable events. But when an approaching conference or some other pressures make the development of a position imperative and some office or individual is assigned the specific task, a sudden change occurs. Both personal and bureaucratic success are then identified with bringing the particular assignment to a conclusion. Where so much stock is placed in negotiating skill, a failure of a conference may be viewed as a reflection on the ability of the negotiator rather than on the objective difficulty of the subject. Confidence in the bargaining process causes American negotiators to be extremely sensitive to the tactical requirements of the conference table—sometimes at the expense of longer-term considerations. In internal discussions, American negotiators—generally irrespective of their previous commitments—often become advocates for the maximum range of concessions; their legal background tempts them to act as mediators between Washington and the country with which they are negotiating.

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The attitudes of the business élite reinforce the convictions of the legal profession. The American business executive rises through a process of selection which rewards the ability to manipulate the known—in itself a conciliatory procedure. The special skill of the executive is thought to consist in coordinating well-defined functions rather than in challenging them. The procedure is relatively effective in the business world, where the executive can often substitute decisiveness, long experience, and a wide range of personal acquaintance for reflectiveness. In international affairs, however—especially in a revolutionary situation—the strong will which is one of our business executives’ notable traits may produce essentially arbitrary choices. Or unfamiliarity with the subject matter may have the opposite effect of turning the executive into a spokesman of his technical staffs. In either case, the business executive is even more dependent than the lawyer on the bureaucracy’s formulation of the issue. The business élite is even less able or willing than the lawyer to recognize that the formulation of an issue, not the technical remedy, is usually the central problem.

All this gives American policy its particular cast. Problems are dealt with as they arise. Agreement on what constitutes a problem generally depends on an emerging crisis which settles the previously inconclusive disputes about priorities. When a problem is recognized, it is dealt with by a mobilization of all resources to overcome the immediate symptoms. This often involves the risk of slighting longer-term issues which may not yet have assumed crisis proportions and of overwhelming, perhaps even undermining, the structure of the area concerned by a flood of American technical experts proposing remedies on an American scale. Administrative decisions emerge from a compromise of conflicting pressures in which accidents of personality or persuasiveness play a crucial role. The compromise often reflects the maxim that “if two parties disagree the truth is usually somewhere in between.” But the pedantic application of such truisms causes the various contenders to exaggerate their positions for bargaining purposes or to construct fictitious extremes to make their position appear moderate. In either case, internal bargaining predominates over substance.

The *ad hoc* tendency of our decision-makers and the reliance on adversary proceeding cause issues to be stated in black and white terms. This suppresses a feeling for nuance and makes it difficult to recognize the relationship between seemingly discrete events. Even with the perspective of a decade there is little consensus about the

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HENRY A. KISSINGER

relationship between the actions culminating in the Suez fiasco and
the French decision to enter the nuclear field; or about the incon-
sistency between the neutralization of Laos and the step-up of the
military effort in Viet-Nam.

The same quality also produces a relatively low valuation of
historical factors. Nations are treated as similar phenomena, and
those states presenting similar immediate problems are treated
similarly. Since many of our policy-makers first address themselves
to an issue when it emerges as their area of responsibility, their
approach to it is often highly anecdotal. Great weight is given to
what people say and relatively little to the significance of these
affirmations in terms of domestic structure or historical background.
Agreement may be taken at face value and seen as reflecting more
consensus than actually exists. Opposition tends to produce moral
outrage which often assumes the form of personal animosity—the
attitude of some American policy-makers toward President de
Gaulle is a good example.

The legal background of our policy-makers produces a bias in
favor of constitutional solutions. The issue of supra-nationalism or
confederalism in Europe has been discussed largely in terms of the
right of countries to make independent decisions. Much less weight
has been given to the realities which would limit the application
of a majority vote against a major country whatever the legal
arrangements. (The fight over the application of Article 19 of the
United Nations Charter was based on the same attitude.) Similarly,
legal terms such as "integration" and "assignment" sometimes be-
come ends in themselves and thus obscure the operational reality
to which they refer. In short, the American leadership groups show
high competence in dealing with technical issues, and much less
virtuosity in mastering a historical process. And the policies of other
Western countries exhibit variations of the American pattern. A
lesser pragmatism in continental Europe is counter-balanced by a
smaller ability to play a world-role.

*The ideological type of leadership.* As has been discussed above,
the impact of ideology can persist long after its initial fervor has
been spent. Whatever the ideological commitment of individual
leaders, a lifetime spent in the Communist hierarchy must influence
their basic categories of thought—especially since Communist ideol-
ogy continues to perform important functions. It still furnishes the
standard of truth and the guarantee of ultimate success. It provides
a means for maintaining cohesion among the various Communist

518

parties of the world. It supplies criteria for the settlement of dis-
putes both within the bureaucracy of individual Communist coun-
tries and among the various Communist states.

However attenuated, Communist ideology is, in part, responsible
for international tensions. This is less because of specific Marxist
tactical prescriptions—with respect to which Communists have
shown a high degree of flexibility—than because of the basic Marxist-
Leninist categories for interpreting reality. Communist leaders
never tire of affirming that Marxism-Leninism is the key element of
their self-proclaimed superiority over the outside world; as Marxist-
Leninists they are convinced that they understand the historical
process better than the non-Communist world does.

The essence of Marxism-Leninism—and the reason that normal
diplomacy with Communist states is so difficult—is the view that
“objective” factors such as the social structure, the economic process,
and, above all, the class struggle are more important than the per-
sonal convictions of statesmen. Belief in the predominance of objec-
tive factors explains the Soviet approach to the problem of security.
If personal convictions are “subjective,” Soviet security cannot be
allowed to rest on the good will of other statesmen, especially those
of a different social system. This produces a quest for what may be
described as absolute security—the attempt to be so strong as to be
independent of the decisions of other countries. But absolute se-
curity for one country means absolute insecurity for all others; it
can be achieved only by reducing other states to impotence. Thus
an essentially defensive foreign policy can grow indistinguishable
from traditional aggression.

The belief in the predominance of objective factors explains
why, in the past, periods of détente have proved so precarious.
When there is a choice between Western good will or a physical
gain, the pressures to choose the latter have been overwhelming. The
wartime friendship with the West was sacrificed to the possibility
of establishing Communist-controlled governments in Eastern
Europe. The spirit of Geneva did not survive the temptations
offered by the prospect of undermining the Western position in the
Middle East. The many overtures of the Kennedy administration
were rebuffed until the Cuban missile crisis demonstrated that the
balance of forces was not in fact favorable for a test of strength.

The reliance on objective factors has complicated negotiations
between the West and the Communist countries. Communist nego-
tiators find it difficult to admit that they could be swayed by the

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HENRY A. KISSINGER

arguments of men who have, by definition, an inferior grasp of the
laws of historical development. No matter what is said, they think
that they understand their Western counterpart better than he
understands himself. Concessions are possible, but they are made to
“reality,” not to individuals or to a bargaining process. Diplomacy
becomes difficult when one of the parties considers the key element
to negotiation—the give-and-take of the process of bargaining—as
but a superstructure for factors not part of the negotiation itself.

Finally, whatever the decline in ideological fervor, orthodoxy
requires the maintenance of a posture of ideological hostility to the
non-Communist world even during a period of coexistence. Thus, in
a reply to a Chinese challenge, the Communist Party of the
U.S.S.R. declared: “We fully support the destruction of capitalism.
We not only believe in the inevitable death of capitalism but we
are doing everything possible for it to be accomplished through
class struggle as quickly as possible.”²

The wariness toward the outside world is reinforced by the
personal experiences which Communist leaders have had on the
road to eminence. In a system where there is no legitimate succes-
sion, a great deal of energy is absorbed in internal maneuvering.
Leaders rise to the top by eliminating—sometimes physically, al-
ways bureaucratically—all possible opponents. Stalin had all indi-
viduals who helped him into power executed. Khrushchev disgraced
Kaganovich, whose protegé he had been, and turned on Marshal
Zhukov six months after being saved by him from a conspiracy of
his other colleagues. Brezhnev and Kosygin owed their careers to
Khrushchev; they nevertheless overthrew him and started a cam-
paign of calumny against him within twenty-four hours of his
dismissal.

Anyone succeeding in Communist leadership struggles must be
single-minded, unemotional, dedicated, and, above all, motivated by
an enormous desire for power. Nothing in the personal experience
of Soviet leaders would lead them to accept protestations of good
will at face value. Suspiciousness is inherent in their domestic posi-
tion. It is unlikely that their attitude toward the outside world is
more benign than toward their own colleagues or that they would
expect more consideration from it.

The combination of personal qualities and ideological structure
also affects relations among Communist states. Since national rival-
ries are thought to be the result of class conflict, they are expected
to disappear wherever Socialism has triumphed. When disagree-

520

ments occur they are dealt with by analogy to internal Communist
disputes: by attempting to ostracize and then to destroy the oppo-
nent. The tendency to treat different opinions as manifestations of
heresy causes disagreements to harden into bitter schisms. The
debate between Communist China and the U.S.S.R. is in many re-
spects more acrimonious than that between the U.S.S.R. and the
non-Communist world.

Even though the basic conceptual categories of Communist leadership groups are similar, the impact of the domestic structure of the individual Communist states on international relations varies greatly. It makes a considerable difference whether an ideology has become institutionalized, as in the Soviet Union, or whether it is still impelled by its early revolutionary fervor, as in Communist China. Where ideology has become institutionalized a special form of pragmatism may develop. It may be just as empirical as that of the United States but it will operate in a different realm of "reality." A different philosophical basis leads to the emergence of another set of categories for the settlement of disputes, and these in turn generate another range of problems.

A Communist bureaucratic structure, however pragmatic, will have different priorities from ours; it will give greater weight to doctrinal considerations and conceptual problems. It is more than ritual when speeches of senior Soviet leaders begin with hour-long recitals of Communist ideology. Even if it were ritual, it must affect the definition of what is considered reasonable in internal arguments. Bureaucratization and pragmatism may lead to a loss of élan; they do not guarantee convergence of Western and Soviet thinking.

The more revolutionary manifestations of Communism, such as
Communist China, still possess more ideological fervor, but, para-
doxically, their structure may permit a wider latitude for new
departures. Tactical intransigence and ideological vitality should
not be confused with structural rigidity. Because the leadership
bases its rule on a prestige which transcends bureaucratic authority,
it has not yet given so many hostages to the administrative struc-
ture. If the leadership should change—or if its attitudes are modi-
fied—policy could probably be altered much more dramatically in
Communist China than in the more institutionalized Communist
countries.

*The charismatic-revolutionary type of leadership.* The contemporary international order is heavily influenced by yet another leader-

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HENRY A. KISSINGER

ship type: the charismatic-revolutionary leader. For many of the leaders of the new nations the bureaucratic-pragmatic approach of the West is irrelevant because they are more interested in the future which they wish to construct than in the manipulation of the environment which dominates the thinking of the pragmatists. And ideology is not satisfactory because doctrine supplies rigid categories which overshadow the personal experiences which have provided the impetus for so many of the leaders of the new nations.

The type of individual who leads a struggle for independence has been sustained in the risks and suffering of such a course primarily by a commitment to a vision which enabled him to override conditions which had seemed overwhelmingly hostile. Revolutionaries are rarely motivated primarily by material considerations—though the illusion that they are persists in the West. Material incentives do not cause a man to risk his existence and to launch himself into the uncertainties of a revolutionary struggle. If Castro or Sukarno had been principally interested in economics, their talents would have guaranteed them a brilliant career in the societies they overthrew. What made their sacrifices worthwhile to them was a vision of the future—or a quest for political power. To revolutionaries the significant reality is the world which they are striving to bring about, not the world they are fighting to overcome.

This difference in perspective accounts for the inconclusiveness of much of the dialogue between the West and many of the leaders of the new countries. The West has a tendency to believe that the tensions in the emerging nations are caused by a low level of economic activity. To the apostles of economic development, raising the gross national product seems the key to political stability. They believe that it should receive the highest priority from the political leaders of new countries and supply their chief motivation.

But to the charismatic heads of many of the new nations, economic progress, while not unwelcome, offers too limited a scope for their ambitions. It can be achieved only by slow, painful, highly technical measures which contrast with the heroic exertions of the struggle for independence. Results are long-delayed; credit for them cannot be clearly established. If Castro were to act on the advice of theorists of economic development, the best he could hope for would be that after some decades he would lead a small progressive country—perhaps a Switzerland of the Caribbean. Compared to the prospect of leading a revolution throughout Latin America, this goal would appear trivial, boring, perhaps even unreal to him.

522

Moreover, to the extent that economic progress is achieved, it
may magnify domestic political instability, at least in its early
phases. Economic advance disrupts the traditional political struc-
ture. It thus places constant pressures on the incumbent leaders to
re-establish the legitimacy of their rule. For this purpose a dramatic
foreign policy is particularly apt. Many leaders of the new countries
seem convinced that an adventurous foreign policy will not harm
prospects for economic development and may even foster it. The
competition of the superpowers makes it likely that economic
assistance will be forthcoming regardless of the actions of the re-
cipient. Indeed the more obstrusive their foreign policy the greater
is their prospect of being wooed by the chief contenders.

The tendency toward a reckless policy is magnified by the un-
certain sense of identity of many of the new nations. National
boundaries often correspond to the administrative subdivisions
established by the former colonial rulers. States thus have few of
the attributes of nineteenth-century European nationalism: common
language, common culture, or even common history. In many cases,
the only common experience is a century or so of imperial rule. As
a result, there is a great pressure toward authoritarian rule, and a
high incentive to use foreign policy as a means of bringing about
domestic cohesion.

Western-style democracy presupposes that society transcends
the political realm; in that case opposition challenges a particular
method of achieving common aims but not the existence of the
state itself. In many of the new countries, by contrast, the state
represents the primary, sometimes the sole, manifestation of social
cohesion. Opposition can therefore easily appear as treason—apart
from the fact that leaders who have spent several decades running
the risks of revolutionary struggle or who have achieved power by a
coup d'état are not likely to favor a system of government which
makes them dispensable. Indeed the attraction of Communism for
many of these leaders is not Marxist-Leninist economic theory but
the legitimacy for authoritarian rule which it provides.

No matter what the system of government, many of the leaders
of the new nations use foreign policy as a means to escape intract-
able internal difficulties and as a device to achieve domestic cohe-
sion. The international arena provides an opportunity for the dra-
matic measures which are impossible at home. These are often cast
in an anti-Western mold because this is the easiest way to recreate
the struggle against imperial rule which is the principal unifying

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HENRY A. KISSINGER

element for many new nations. The incentive is particularly strong because the rivalry of the nuclear powers eliminates many of the risks which previously were associated with an adventurous foreign policy—especially if that foreign policy is directed against the West which lacks any effective sanctions.

Traditional military pressure is largely precluded by the nuclear stalemate and respect for world opinion. But the West is neither prepared nor able to use the sanction which weighs most heavily on the new countries: the deliberate exploitation of their weak domestic structure. In many areas the ability to foment domestic unrest is a more potent weapon than traditional arms. Many of the leaders of the new countries will be prepared to ignore the classical panoply of power; but they will be very sensitive to the threat of domestic upheaval. States with a high capacity for exploiting domestic instability can use it as a tool of foreign policy. China, though lacking almost all forms of classical long-range military strength, is a growing factor in Africa. Weak states may be more concerned with a country's capacity to organize domestic unrest in their territory than with its capacity for physical destruction.

*Conclusion.* Contemporary domestic structures thus present an unprecedented challenge to the emergence of a stable international order. The bureaucratic-pragmatic societies concentrate on the manipulation of an empirical reality which they treat as given; the ideological societies are split between an essentially bureaucratic approach (though in a different realm of reality than the bureaucratic-pragmatic structures) and a group using ideology mainly for revolutionary ends. The new nations, in so far as they are active in international affairs, have a high incentive to seek in foreign policy the perpetuation of charismatic leadership.

These differences are a major obstacle to a consensus on what constitutes a "reasonable" proposal. A common diagnosis of the existing situation is hard to achieve, and it is even more difficult to concert measures for a solution. The situation is complicated by the one feature all types of leadership have in common: the premium put on short-term goals and the domestic need to succeed at all times. In the bureaucratic societies policy emerges from a compromise which often produces the least common denominator, and it is implemented by individuals whose reputation is made by administering the *status quo*. The leadership of the institutionalized ideological state may be even more the prisoner of essentially corporate bodies. Neither leadership can afford radical changes of

524

course for they result in profound repercussions in its administrative
structure. And the charismatic leaders of the new nations are like
tightrope artists—one false step and they will plunge from their
perch.

IV. *Domestic Structure and Foreign Policy:*
*The Prospects for World Order*

Many contemporary divisions are thus traceable to differences
in domestic structure. But are there not countervailing factors?
What about the spread of technology and its associated rationality,
or the adoption on a global scale of many Western political forms?
Unfortunately the process of "Westernization" does not inevitably
produce a similar concept of reality. For what matters is not the
institutions or the technology, but the significance which is attached
to them. And this differs according to the evolution of the society
concerned.

The term "nation" does not mean the same thing when applied
to such various phenomena as India, France, and Nigeria. Similarly,
technology is likely to have a different significance for different
peoples, depending on how and when it was acquired.

Any society is part of an evolutionary process which proceeds
by means of two seemingly contradictory mechanisms. On the one
hand, the span of possible adaptations is delimited by the physical
environment, the internal structure, and, above all, by previous
choices. On the other hand, evolution proceeds not in a straight
line but through a series of complicated variations which appear
anything but obvious to the chief actors. In retrospect a choice may
seem to have been nearly random or else to have represented the
only available alternative. In either case, the choice is not an isolated
act but an accumulation of previous decisions reflecting history or
tradition and values as well as the immediate pressures of the
need for survival. And each decision delimits the range of possible
future adaptations.

Young societies are in a position to make radical changes of
course which are highly impractical at a later stage. As a society
becomes more elaborate and as its tradition is firmly established, its
choices with respect to its internal organization grow more restricted.
If a highly articulated social unit attempts basic shifts, it runs the
risk of doing violence to its internal organization, to its history and
values as embodied in its structure. When it accepts institutions or

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HENRY A. KISSINGER

values developed elsewhere it must adapt them to what its struc-
ture can absorb. The institutions of any political unit must therefore
be viewed in historical context for that alone can give an indica-
tion of their future. Societies—even when their institutions are
similar—may be like ships passing in the night which find them-
selves but temporarily in the same place.

Is there then no hope for cooperation and stability? Is our in-
ternational system doomed to incomprehension and its members to
mounting frustration?

It must be admitted that if the domestic structures were con-
sidered in isolation, the prognosis would not be too hopeful. But
domestic structures do not exist in a vacuum. They must respond
to the requirements of the environment. And here all states find
themselves face to face with the necessity of avoiding a nuclear
holocaust. While this condition does not restrain all nations equally,
it nevertheless defines a common task which technology will im-
pose on even more countries as a direct responsibility.

Then, too, a certain similarity in the forms of administration may
bring about common criteria of rationality as Professor Jaguaribe
has pointed out in his contribution to this volume.³ Science and
technology will spread. Improved communications may lead to the
emergence of a common culture. The fissures between domestic
structures and the different stages of evolution are important, but
they may be outweighed by the increasing interdependence of
humanity.

It would be tempting to end on this note and to base the hope
for peace on the self-evidence of the need for it. But this would be
too pat. The deepest problem of the contemporary international
order may be that most of the debates which form the headlines of
the day are peripheral to the basic division described in this article.
The cleavage is not over particular political arrangements—except
as symptoms—but between two styles of policy and two phil-
osophical perspectives.

The two styles can be defined as the political as against the
revolutionary approach to order or, reduced to personalities, as the
distinction between the statesman and the prophet.

The statesman manipulates reality; his first goal is survival; he
feels responsible not only for the best but also for the worst con-
ceivable outcome. His view of human nature is wary; he is con-
scious of many great hopes which have failed, of many good in-
tentions that could not be realized, of selfishness and ambition and

526

violence. He is, therefore, inclined to erect hedges against the pos-
sibility that even the most brilliant idea might prove abortive and
that the most eloquent formulation might hide ulterior motives.
He will try to avoid certain experiments, not because he would ob-
ject to the results if they succeeded, but because he would feel him-
self responsible for the consequences if they failed. He is suspicious
of those who personalize foreign policy, for history teaches him the
fragility of structures dependent on individuals. To the statesman,
gradualism is the essence of stability; he represents an era of
average performance, of gradual change and slow construction.

By contrast, the prophet is less concerned with manipulating
than with creating reality. What is possible interests him less than
what is "right." He offers his vision as the test and his good faith as
a guarantee. He believes in total solutions; he is less absorbed in
methodology than in purpose. He believes in the perfectibility of
man. His approach is timeless and not dependent on circumstances.
He objects to gradualism as an unnecessary concession to circum-
stance. He will risk everything because his vision is the primary
significant reality to him. Paradoxically, his more optimistic view
of human nature makes him more intolerant than the statesman.
If truth is both knowable and attainable, only immorality or stu-
pidity can keep man from realizing it. The prophet represents an
era of exaltation, of great upheavals, of vast accomplishments, but
also of enormous disasters.

The encounter between the political and the prophetic approach
to policy is always somewhat inconclusive and frustrating. The test
of the statesman is the permanence of the international structure
under stress. The test of the prophet is inherent in his vision. The
statesman will seek to reduce the prophet's intuition to precise
measures; he judges ideas on their utility and not on their "truth."
To the prophet this approach is almost sacrilegious because it
represents the triumph of expediency over universal principles. To
the statesman negotiation is the mechanism of stability because it
presupposes that maintenance of the existing order is more important
than any dispute within it. To the prophet negotiations can have
only symbolic value—as a means of converting or demoralizing the
opponent; truth, by definition, cannot be compromised.

Both approaches have prevailed at different periods in history.
The political approach dominated European foreign policy be-
tween the end of the religious wars and the French Revolution and
then again between the Congress of Vienna and the outbreak of

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HENRY A. KISSINGER

World War I. The prophetic mode was in the ascendant during the great upheavals of the religious struggles and the period of the French Revolution, and in the contemporary uprisings in major parts of the world.

Both modes have produced considerable accomplishments, though the prophetic style is likely to involve the greater dislocations and more suffering. Each has its nemesis. The nemesis of the statesman is that equilibrium, though it may be the condition of stability, does not supply its own motivation; that of the prophet is the impossibility of sustaining a mood of exaltation without the risk of submerging man in the vastness of a vision and reducing him to a mere figure to be manipulated.

As for the difference in philosophical perspective, it may reflect the divergence of the two lines of thought which since the Renaissance have distinguished the West from the part of the world now called underdeveloped (with Russia occupying an intermediary position). The West is deeply committed to the notion that the real world is external to the observer, that knowledge consists of recording and classifying data—the more accurately the better. Cultures which escaped the early impact of Newtonian thinking have retained the essentially pre-Newtonian view that the real world is almost completely *internal* to the observer.

Although this attitude was a liability for centuries—because it prevented the development of the technology and consumer goods which the West enjoyed—it offers great flexibility with respect to the contemporary revolutionary turmoil. It enables the societies which do not share our cultural mode to alter reality by influencing the perspective of the observer—a process which we are largely unprepared to handle or even to perceive. And this can be accomplished under contemporary conditions without sacrificing technological progress. Technology comes as a gift; acquiring it in its advanced form does not presuppose the philosophical commitment that discovering it imposed on the West. Empirical reality has a much different significance for many of the new countries than for the West because in a certain sense they never went through the process of discovering it (with Russia again occupying an intermediary position). At the same time, the difference in philosophical perspective may cause us to seem cold, supercilious, lacking in compassion. The instability of the contemporary world order may thus have at its core a philosophical schism which makes the issues producing most political debates seem largely tangential.

528

Such differences in style and philosophical perspective are not unprecedented. What is novel is the global scale on which they occur and the risks which the failure to overcome them would entail. Historically, cleavages of lesser magnitude have been worked out dialectically, with one style of policy or one philosophical approach dominant in one era only to give way later to another conception of reality. And the transition was rarely free of violence. The challenge of our time is whether we can deal consciously and creatively with what in previous centuries was adjusted through a series of more or less violent and frequently catastrophic upheavals. We must construct an international order *before* a crisis imposes it as a necessity.

This is a question not of blueprints, but of attitudes. In fact the overconcern with technical blueprints is itself a symptom of our difficulties. Before the problem of order can be "dealt" with—even philosophically—we must be certain that the right questions are being asked.

We can point to some hopeful signs. The most sensitive thinkers of the West have recognized that excessive empiricism may lead to stagnation. In many of the new countries—and in some Communist ones as well—the second or third generation of leaders is in the process of freeing itself from the fervor and dogmatism of the early revolutionary period and of relating their actions to an environment which they helped to create. But these are as yet only the first tentative signs of progress on a course whose significance is not always understood. Indeed it is characteristic of an age of turmoil that it produces so many immediate issues that little time is left to penetrate their deeper meaning. The most serious problem therefore becomes the need to acquire a sufficiently wide perspective so that the present does not overwhelm the future.

REFERENCES

1. Edmund Burke, *Works* (London, 1826), Vol. VIII, pp. 214-215.

2. "The Soviet Reply to the Chinese Letter," open letter of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union as it appeared in *Pravda*, July 14, 1963, pp. 1-4; *The Current Digest of the Soviet Press*, Vol. XV, No. 28 (August 7, 1963), p. 23.

3. "World Order, Rationality, and Socioeconomic Development," pp. 607-626.

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COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS, INC.

THE HAROLD PRATT HOUSE

NEW YORK, N. Y. 10021

58 EAST 68TH STREET

CABLE ADDRESS: FORAFFAIRS, NEW YORK

AREA CODE: 212 LEhigh 5-3300

'DEC 2 7 1968'

December 23, 1968

Dear Henry,

I thought your Vietnam article in *Foreign Affairs* was extraordinarily interesting, thoughtful, and obviously important.

The only other thing on Vietnam from which I got a lot recently was the enclosed by Richard Falk. You've probably seen it or talked to him, but if you haven't, I really think you should look at it. It's hard for me to evaluate a good deal of what he says, but it certainly is very thought provoking, and possibly of immense importance.

We'll be thinking of you as we watch this new year come in and wishing you all good things.

Dr. Henry A. Kissinger
Office of the President-Elect
450 Park Avenue
New York, New York 10022

Acknowledgments


I would like to thank Cyril E. Black, Harry Eckstein, John T. McAlister, and Lawrence C. Petrowski for their reactions to an earlier draft of this memorandum. Obviously, in a document of this sort that emphasizes my personal experience in North Vietnam, the responsibility for what is said is even more my own than is normally the case.

I wish also to thank Mrs. Jane McDowall for her sensitive editorial advice and for typing successive drafts of this memorandum in such short order.

Richard A. Falk

There are several reasons why I think it useful to circulate this
memorandum concerning my visit to North Vietnam in June of 1968:

(1) To describe conversations with leaders of the North Vietnamese government and the National Liberation Front that shed some light on the distinction between "hard" and "soft" negotiating issues;

(2) To convey my central impression that the cumulative attitude of the North Vietnamese government toward the outcome of negotiations accords more closely with official American conditions for peace in Vietnam than has been generally understood in this country;

(3) To call attention to the fact that the North Vietnamese government thinks that it has already backed down from earlier negotiating demands, and seems prepared to take an especially conciliatory position on the central question of the reunification of Vietnam;

(4) To convey a sense of why I think the formation of the Alliance of National, Democratic, and Peace Forces is an important political development whether or not it is a front of the Front;

(5) To convey some impression of the human quality of the political leadership in Hanoi and of the destructive impact that American war policies have had upon North Vietnam;

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(6) To report upon the degree to which there remains in North Vietnam an awareness and appreciation of America's own revolutionary tradition and an eventual hope for the establishment of normal diplomatic, economic, and cultural relations;

(7) To give some report on why the leaders of North Vietnam now feel that they were deceived by President Johnson's offer of peace negotiations on March 31, 1968.

This memorandum summarizes my impressions bearing on settling the Vietnam war. Although I have been convinced for some years that the American role in the Vietnam war has been misconceived and improper, I have tried to keep my opinions from shading my report of attitudes and conditions in North Vietnam. One can never be sure that preconceptions have not shaped perceptions, but I have certainly tried to adhere to the canons of objective reportage. The fact that what I report is at variance with what many Americans believe merely confirms my strong sense that it is important for as many of our citizens as possible to go to North Vietnam and see for themselves.

During the latter part of June I spent a week in North Vietnam, mostly in Hanoi, as the guest of the Vietnamese Association of Lawyers, the President of which is the Minister of Foreign Trade, Mr. Phan Ahn. On the visit I was accompanied by Malcolm Bernstein, a lawyer in Oakland and a professor at San Francisco State College. In Hanoi we met with several leaders of the

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North Vietnamese government, including the Prime Minister, Mr. Pham Van Dong. In addition we had extended discussions with several prominent members of the National Liberation Front. The visit also provided an occasion to tour the bombed area around Phat Diem, a large village 100 miles or so south of Hanoi, and to meet with intellectuals, jurists, journalists, and other representative figures in North Vietnam. After leaving North Vietnam we came to Paris, where we had contact with the North Vietnamese delegation at the peace talks, including Xuan Thuy, and the D. R. V. Ambassador to France, Mai Van Bo.

As an American in the "enemy" capital in time of war, many contradictory feelings of empathy and loyalty emerge. It is, perhaps, a unique feature of this war that American citizens can feel that they promote the national interest by better understanding the position and thinking of the North Vietnamese "adversary." I conceived of my visit in these terms, finding such a conception reciprocated in North Vietnam where we were both welcomed as guests and respected as Americans. Such a reception was a profoundly moving personal experience. It was moving partly because the suffering and devastation caused in North Vietnam by the United States is so pervasive and appalling. Almost every Vietnamese whom we met had sustained some very immediate family loss owing to the war, if not a death or maiming, then at least a prolonged separation from loved ones. A basic human reality in North Vietnam is separation, families torn asunder; at minimum, wives and children distributed over the countryside, quite often some part of a family living

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in complete isolation on the other side of the Seventeenth Parallel. The initial impression a visitor receives in North Vietnam is the human concrete-ness of the war's significance; even for the politically eminent in Hanoi, the war is not conceived primarily in abstract terms of ideology or geopolitics. A visitor to Hanoi finds no images of falling dominos.

Another impression--one that cannot be easily sensed at this distance--is the character and impact of warfare that follow from the awesome technological gap between the United States and North Vietnam. American air power is virtually unchallenged in North Vietnam except around the major cities. We spent a day in the town of Phat Diem, reported to us as having been bombed 406 times, and defended only by defense militia armed with single-bolt rifles. It is a difficult experience for an American to walk through the rubble of churches and convents at Phat Diem. To find a comparable example of a modern technological state waging war against a predominantly agricultural, virtually defenseless society, it is necessary to go back to the war of Italy against Ethiopia in the 1930's. The Vietnam war, of course, is on a far vaster scale. One must go through the village countryside to experience the brutal impact of the war on North Vietnam, and of course the devastation of South Vietnam is far worse. How does one explain bombing patterns directed against village communities? How are we to comprehend the use of anti-personnel bombs, napalm, and delayed-action bombs against rural areas that are far from supply lines and remote from battlefields? Who gave the orders to bomb Phat Diem? And what was the rationale? Americans will

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need to confront these questions sooner or later. It will not long assuage our
moral conscience to purport ignorance or impotence. For the documentary
record is building toward an overwhelming case. Let the skeptical consult
John Gerassi's carefully evidenced book _North Vietnam: A Documentary._¹

A conversation in Hanoi hardly ever begins in the twentieth century.
The Vietnamese are extraordinarily conscious of their history, especially of
their many struggles through the centuries to beat off foreign invaders,
beginning with the heroic exploits of the thirteenth century against three
waves of Mongol invaders. The current war with the United States is placed
in a historical setting created by the long dark night of French colonialism
that lasted from the 1860's to the 1950's, and included the interim experience
of Japanese occupation during World War II and Chinese Nationalist and
British postwar reoccupation. The Vietnamese date their current struggle
from the August Revolution of 1945, when Ho Chi Minh issued the Vietnamese
Declaration of Independence, modeled in tone and language upon our earlier
American document of the same name which is explicitly invoked as a
precedent.² The French restoration of colonial dominion was looked upon

1. New York, Bobbs-Merrill, 1968; for an anthology of newspaper accounts of "war crimes" committed in South Vietnam, see _In the Name of America_. (study commissioned by Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam), Annandale, Virginia, Turnpike Press, 1968.

2. For text of the Vietnamese Declaration of Independence of September 2, 1945, see George McT. Kahin and John W. Lewis, _The United States in Vietnam_, New York, Delta, 1967, Appendix I, pp. 345-47.

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by Vietnamese nationalists as a deceitful repudiation of the Fontainebleau
Agreements of 1946 that had gone a long way toward confirming Vietnam's
right to be an independent nation. The war of independence against the French
was an immediate, inevitable sequel. The North Vietnamese defeated the
French finally and dramatically at Dien Bien Phu after eight long years of
hardship and warfare against overwhelming military odds. By that time,
in 1954, the United States was heavily involved on the French side of the
war, paying 80% of the bills and exerting an increasing influence on the politics
of the struggle. American presidential leadership never accepted the defeat
of French colonialism. As the peace talks in Geneva were proceeding (the
conference itself being held in opposition to American wishes), United States
diplomacy was seeking support from the British for Operation Vulture, a
proposed heavy air strike against the Vietminh. The United States government
refused the political ratification of the French military defeat that occurred
at Geneva in 1954. By placing Ngo Dinh Diem in control of the Saigon regime,
by rushing in funds and advice, and by organizing SEATO, the United States
evolved "its commitment, " and gave evidence of its intention to deny the
Vietminh the fruits of their victory against the French (just as the Seventh
Fleet has denied the Peking regime the natural outcome of victory in the Chinese
civil war). The point is that the leadership in Hanoi is very conscious of the

3. On this period up until 1954, see Ellen Hammer, *The Struggle for Indochina, 1940-1955*, Stanford, Stanford University Press, rev. ed., 1966; Jean Lacouture and Philippe Devillers, *La fin d'une guerre, Indochine 1954*, Paris, Editions du Seuil, 1960; and Joseph Buttinger, *Vietnam: A Dragon Embattled*, New York, Praeger, 1967, vol. I.

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fact that their struggle for national independence has been a continuous one
since the end of World War II. They believe that Americans have assumed
the colonial role of the French, and that the Vietnamese on the American
side are mainly the same people and interest groups that were on the French
side before 1954.

Perhaps the strongest feeling that I had on boarding the International
Control Commission plane to leave Hanoi on June 28 was that peace in Vietnam
could be (and could have been) rapidly and "honorably" attained if the United
States government could be (or could have been) induced to make a reasonable
effort. The question that follows from such a feeling is how to induce that
reasonable effort. This piece tries to make clear, on the basis of my trip,
some of the grounds of this belief in the attainability of peace. Each day
Vietnamese and Americans die; each day the political passions loosed by
this war in both societies are further inflamed; and daily countless more
wounds are inflicted.

In thinking about peace in Vietnam, it is necessary to begin by reporting
on the reaction in Hanoi to President Johnson's speech of March 31, 1968.
The good faith of the United States government is held in serious doubt.
North Vietnamese point out that as soon as Hanoi indicated its willingness to
negotiate, the United States backed away from its oft-repeated pledge to
meet "at any forum, at any time." They mention that early in April, a widely
proclaimed military sweep was organized in South Vietnam under the peace-
defying rubric, Operation Certain Victory. Far more serious to the leadership

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in Hanoi, however, has been the contrast between the bombing patterns
against North Vietnam and President Johnson's continuing claim that the
geographical limitation of bombing to the area below the Twentieth Parallel
constituted a major act of unilateral restraint on the part of the United States.
They stress the fact that the number of missions flown against North Vietnamese
territory, and the per month tonnage of delivered bombs, have actually
increased since March 31. This circumstance is acutely aggravated by the
fact that the panhandle region north of the DMZ is a heavily populated area
that has been subjected to saturation bombing, some villages having been
bombed by now between 2,000 and 3,000 times. Reports and films of the
bombed zone reveal the enormity of the suffering caused to civilian village
communities by these air attacks.

Miss Ta Anh Hoa, a pediatrician who had just returned from a visit
to the bombed area south of the Twentieth Parallel, told of the conditions
that she found. Her account left a deep impression upon us; she is a non-
political young woman of warmth and simplicity. To give some suggestion,
I include a short excerpt from my transcription of her words: "We
conducted a medical examination of children living there. We reached
conclusions that if published would increase the hatred of mothers all over
the world against the United States government. If there is anything in the
world that strikes against our humanity, it is to commit crimes against
children. . . . Through our investigation we found injuries so horrible that
one can't believe it--children living year after year in darkness beneath the

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ground in tunnels, some near-sighted, others with twisted spines. ... children who have never seen the sun although we have much sun in Vietnam."

The special military justification for heavy bombing north of the DMZ was mainly removed, certainly by the end of June, as a result of the U.S. withdrawal from Khe Sanh. It is not a convincing response to say, as the American military has said, that the bombing weather has improved since March 31; certainly the avowed intention to deescalate is feeble if it yields to favorable flying conditions. North Vietnamese officials say with vehemence that the United States is trying to fool public opinion by pretending a peace initiative without taking any of the steps that would bring the war to a negotiated end.

When one moves beyond this attitude of skepticism about United States good faith, several points that bear on settlement emerge rather clearly. As has been said so often, the first step to peace in Vietnam entails the halt of all bombing of North Vietnam. The Prime Minister of North Vietnam, Mr. Pham Van Dong, amply confirmed this precondition to substantive negotiations in the course of our long discussion: "It is for us a test of whether the United States wants to deescalate. It is not possible to give reciprocity. There is nothing for us to give." More significantly, the Prime Minister went on to say that "the United States government must recognize the principle of stopping the war. From this all problems can be solved in the wisest and most intelligent way. ... If the United States wants to make war we are resolved to fight for as much time as required. But we also know how to talk if that is desired."

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The demand that bombing stop before peace talks begin is closely connected, I think, with the Prime Minister's emphasis on "the principle of stopping the war." A halt to the bombing of North Vietnam would be taken as evidence of a real intention by the United States to bring the war to an end; without that intention the North Vietnamese look upon negotiations as concerned primarily with dampening public opposition to the war without abandoning the pursuit of a military solution. Once the United States makes evident its intention to end the war, then the North Vietnamese appear disposed to be very flexible about working out a plan, and granting concessions in return. Both Hanoi and Front officials emphasized to underscore their own flexibility that they were prepared to be "realistic" and "reasonable" about the outcome of peace talks, and I think they have already conceded to the United States certain central aspects of a viable settlement. Part of my purpose here is to call attention to these concessions that have so far been glossed over even by critics of the war.

How is reasonableness to be measured? What is the United States entitled to expect from the peace settlement? North Vietnam imposes some hard negotiating conditions in exchange for giving ground on other principal objectives. The most important condition that will not be waived by North Vietnam is an insistence on the removal from South Vietnam of the present Saigon rulers; there was no hint of a willingness to consider a coalition that includes the Thieu-Ky group, nor was there evident any willingness to allow these leaders to remain at large in Vietnam after peace does come. The leaders in Saigon

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are looked upon as either residues of the old colonial-feudal social order of
reactionary Vietnam or merely as "agents" of United States control. Such an
image is reinforced by the recollection that many prominent members of the
military junta fought for the French and against the Vietminh in the war of
national independence between 1946 and 1954. Only the top echelon of
Saigonese leadership must leave South Vietnam after peace to avoid punishment.

Beyond this group, said to number under 100, both the Program and leaders
of the Front and those of North Vietnam emphasize a broad willingness to
work with the diverse elements of Vietnamese society, including people who
have fought or worked for the various regimes in the South. As Pham Van
Dong emphasized, "the Front is trying its best to win over its opponents and
it shows great concern because these men are also Vietnamese." On no
issue did the Prime Minister appear more insistent than on the prospect of
reprisals: "It is unthinkable to use reprisals against those who remain.

Why? Such a policy is unwise and inhuman. I assure you of this. You may
tell this to the American people." Mr. Pham Van Dong is a strong and
convincing presence; his words had a ring of authenticity. He also pointed
out that when the victorious Vietminh assumed control of North Vietnam, no
reprisals were taken against those who sided with the French, despite the
bitterness of that long war.

If we assume that an anti-Thieu-Ky coalition government emerges in
postwar South Vietnam, then it would be unrealistic to expect that no
reprisals would be carried out, especially at the district and local level.

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There has been too much bitterness and hostility on all sides to expect a
pacific transition from present circumstances of strife to a condition of
stable government without some accompanying bloodshed. A postwar
atmosphere of continuing struggle is almost inevitable for South Vietnam,
and should enter into realistic calculations for ending the war. Such a
prospect of limited reprisal has to be compared with the burdens of an
indefinite continuation of warfare at high levels of intensity. Also, it
should be appreciated that this sequel to the war would happen whenever
a settlement was reached and regardless of which side prevailed. The
assurances of Pham Van Dong on the issue of reprisals, especially if such
a commitment could be embodied in the final instrument of settlement,
might help ensure that whatever reprisals did take place were a result of
local conditions rather than an official expression of revenge and retaliation.
Although accounts differ, it is apparently true that most of the bloodshed in
North Vietnam after 1954 was a by-product of forced collectivation of agri-
culture rather than part of a program of reprisal directed against those
Vietnamese who had collaborated with the French.⁴ Some political purges
did take place, however, and were directed especially at the leadership of
strongly anti-Communist nationalist groups, the main rivals of the Vietminh
in the competition for political dominance in North Vietnam.

4. For a short account of this period, see Kahin and Lewis, note 2, at pp. 87-92.

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An attitude of reconciliation was also expressed by Nguyen Van Hieu, head of the N. L. F. Mission on Cambodia, a former professor of mathematics and a keen, articulate spokesman. As evidence that the climate for reconciliation was improving, Professor Hieu cited the fact that people siding with the Saigon regime have been muting their criticism of the Front. He observed that since the Tet offensive in February of 1968, "not one general [in the South Vietnam army] has publicly taken a position against the N. L. F.; not even one divisional commander has said a word against the Front." Hieu felt that there was now a "great possibility to enlarge the Front" by including elements representing additional forces in South Vietnam. Finally, Hieu, portrayed as the leading Front spokesman in the French film on the N. L. F. by Roger Pic, said, "Anyone who opposes the presence of United States troops can participate in government."

The minimum role of the Front in the settlement process is difficult to specify precisely. Pham Van Dong said that Hanoi "can discuss the general principles of peace, but on concrete questions the Front must have its say. The Front is doing the fighting and it will have a decisive voice as to the future of South Vietnam." A similar position was taken by Nguyen Van Tien, head of the N. L. F. Mission in Hanoi, a prematurely white-haired man of subtle mind and impressive knowledge. Mr. Tien described the military situation in South Vietnam as one in which the Front substantially controls the countryside and also claims large portions of the cities as "liberated areas." These areas cannot yet be specifically claimed, Tien

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says, because they would in that event be quickly destroyed by U.S. firepower. Independent French correspondents with whom I talked in Paris tended to accept these N. L. F. claims as accurate.

Both Mr. Tien and Professor Hieu argued that the Saigon regime is presently very isolated, lacking any social or political base in Vietnamese society. It is in this context that they regard the formation of the Alliance of National, Democratic, and Peace Forces as an important new political development. The importance of the Alliance for these Front officials lay in the fact that leading personalities drawn from professional, religious, business, intellectual, and student sectors of urban society made a political commitment that reflected their judgment as to the domestic balance of forces in South Vietnam. Unlike North Vietnamese government officials, the representatives of the Front did not seem to look upon the Alliance with unmixed enthusiasm, nor did they mention its possible participation in a coalition government. It seemed clear that Mr. Tien, for instance, partly regarded the leaders of the Alliance as latecomers leaping aboard a bandwagon when compared to the leaders of the Front who had been in the jungle fighting and dying for almost a decade. I felt, also, that there may be some difference in socioeconomic outlook that would make the Front wary of working too closely with the Alliance. The Chairman of the Alliance, a lawyer named Trinh Dinh Thao, is from one of the richest landowning families in South Vietnam, as is one of its two Vice Chairmen, Iam Van Tot.

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In the aftermath of the Second Honolulu Conference it is more important
than ever that Americans gain a proper appreciation of the importance of the
Alliance of National, Democratic, and Peace Forces.⁵ The formation of the
Alliance was officially announced in April of 1968 as a direct consequence of
the Tet offensive. Its leadership is drawn mainly from Saigon and Hué, and
consists of respected and widely known non-Communist personalities; the
Alliance is led by individuals who must be regarded as members of the South
Vietnamese "establishment." The Thieu-Ky government has itself hinted
at the importance of the Alliance by taking the extraordinary step of condemning
ten of its leaders to death in absentia in a summary trial conducted before a
military tribunal in Saigon on July 12, 1968.

Official American reactions have discounted the Alliance as a front of
the Front, as a trick and delusion. Washington's reaction has been given some
support by such influential journalists as Gene Roberts and Hedrick Smith
(New York Times, July 9, 12, and 14, 1968), and Robert Shaplen (the New
___
___
___

5. It is important because Presidents Johnson and Thieu issued a joint communiqué at Honolulu on July 20, 1968, in which it was said that "the United States will not support the imposition of a 'Coalition Government' or any other form of Government on the people of South Vietnam." For text of the Honolulu Communiqué, see the *New York Times*, July 21, 1968, p. 2. Such a statement, if it only refers to the "imposition" of a coalition government, is certainly not objectionable. It is objectionable, however, if the criterion for what is imposition is to be determined by the Saigon regime. Given the criminal prosecution of political moderates in South Vietnam shortly after the Honolulu meeting (see p. 16 for reference to conviction of Truong Dinh Dzu), it appears evident that the Thieu regime is seeking to eliminate from view any major candidates for participation in a coalition. In fact, in South Vietnam, as of July 1968, it is a crime to advocate a coalition government that includes N. L. F. participation.

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Yoker, June 29, 1968). Their reports have discounted the Alliance because it adopts a political line that resembles the Program of the N. L. F., and because the radio and press transmissions of the Alliance have been carried and endorsed by the official media of the Front and of North Vietnam. It would be a serious mistake to undervalue the Alliance because the evidence suggests that it might provide the leadership for a substantial third force in South Vietnam. It would also be a mistake because the North Vietnamese endorsement of the program of the Alliance may itself be an important political signal.

The first question that needs to be asked is why the admittedly non-
Communist leadership of the Alliance, drawn from the urban upper classes,
would put in jeopardy their lives, families, reputations, and properties
by forming an underground political group that takes a position similar to that
of the National Liberation Front? There are really only two plausible responses.
First, that the domestic balance of forces in South Vietnam is so unfavorable
to the Saigon-United States alignment that it has become expedient for non-
Communist elements to identify themselves with the prevailing side in the
latter stages of the struggle. This was the explanation that seemed to appeal
to Mr. Tien. The second explanation is that the Tet offensive of February 1968
demonstrated clearly that urban groups could not safely remain aloof from the
war any longer. The destructive impact of Tet on the cities provided urban
leaders with a dramatic occasion on which to take sides in the struggle
raging for the control of Vietnam.

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The persuasiveness of this explanation of the Alliance rests on the
assumption that the war in Vietnam has so polarized the domestic politics
of South Vietnam that the only political choices are either to side with the
U.S. -Saigon position or with the D. R. V. -N. L. F. position. By spring 1968,
all middle positions had been rendered irrelevant. It has long been evident
that moderate anti-war leaders who, like Truong Dinh Dzu, participate
openly in politics, will be put into jail sooner or later. ⁶ Mr. Dzu, the
opposition candidate who was the runner-up in the 1967 elections, has been
sentenced to five years of hard labor in prison. His crime? Advocating direct
peace talks with the N. L. F., and favoring a coalition government as part of
a peace settlement.

Given this domestic setting, the formation of the Alliance was necessarily both
clandestine and anti-regime. Pham Van Dong emphasized in our discussions
that "it is a great victory for us that the leaders of the Alliance chose our side."
He went on to say that "the Alliance is just the sort of civilian grouping of
influential citizens that the United States has been trying to form for years."
The Prime Minister felt that the emergence of the Alliance was an important
political indicator of the domestic balance of forces in South Vietnam. It
misses most of this point to worry about how distinct the Alliance is from the

6. For an account of the three-hour military trial of Mr. Dzu, see the *New York Times*, July 27, 1968, p. 6. See also the report of the trial and conviction of a student editor, Nguyen Truong Con who, like Mr. Dzu, was "charged" with urging a coalition government (*New York Times*, July 26, 1968, p. 6).

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Front. Given the severity of war conditions in South Vietnam, it is to be expected that active entry into the arena would be in terms of an affiliation rather than as a completely distinct entity. As such, there would be no reason to stress--except for the benefit of American sensitivities--differences between the orientation and purpose of the Front and the Alliance. Both groups are united by the common objective of ending the war in a manner that assures the withdrawal of United States military forces and the collapse of the Thieu-Ky government.

Despite this overriding present incentive to subordinate whatever differences do exist between the Front and the Alliance, there is embodied in the April Manifesto of the Alliance two substantive points that seem to be important for either the process of negotiations or the shape of settlement. Unlike either the N. L. F. Program of 1967 or the Geneva Accords of 1954, the April Manifesto describes South Vietnam as "a sovereign state." The Manifesto says that the second objective of the Alliance is "to build in South Vietnam an independent, free, peaceful, neutral and prosperous state." Later in the paragraph the following language is used: "South Vietnam will be a state, independent, fully sovereign, following a foreign policy of non-alignment, entering into good relations with all foreign countries without distinction as to their political regime." Recalling that South Vietnam was only a temporary regroupment zone in the Geneva Accords of 1954,⁷ the

7. See especially the language used in Articles 1, 2, 3, and 4 of the Agreement on the Cessation of Hostilities in Viet Nam, July 20, 1954; and [footnote cont.]

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language of the Alliance more closely parallels the hopes of Washington, not Hanoi, on this central matter of the future of South Vietnam. A North Vietnamese official told me that it was significant, given the reference to the sovereignty of South Vietnam, that both the D. R. V. and the N. L. F. had transmitted the Alliance Manifesto on their official broadcast facilities; he conveyed the impression that such media transmission was tantamount to an official endorsement. Given the almost obsessional concern of Vietnamese officials with precise political language, it seems that whatever the Alliance is as a political grouping, its Manifesto is worthy of attention. It is ironic that the ascription of sovereignty to South Vietnam would be more significant as a political signal if the Alliance were a front of the Front than if it were not.

The second point involves the availability of the Alliance for participation in negotiations. The Manifesto, in the section devoted to bringing the war to an end, affirms the readiness of the Alliance to enter into substantive discussions with the government of the United States. Would not the existence of the Alliance give the United States a means of negotiating with an anti-regime political grouping in South Vietnam without abandoning its long-standing refusal to negotiate peace with the N. L. F? The Alliance constitutes a political

[footnote 7 cont.]

Articles 6 and 12 of the Final Declaration of the Geneva Conference. Article 6 affirms that "the military demarcation line is provisional and should not in any way be interpreted as constituting a political or territorial boundary."
Article 12 pledges members of the Geneva Conference in their relations with Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam "to respect the sovereignty, the independence, the unity, and the territorial independence of the above-mentioned States." For convenient text of the Geneva Accords, see Falk, ed., *The Vietnam War and International Law*, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1968, pp. 543-60.

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actor that is neither the Saigon regime nor the N. L. F., and very likely an actor with clear differences in social, political, and economic position from that of either Hanoi or the N. L. F. Is it not, at least, worth exploring this possibility of widening the negotiations without taking in either the N. L. F. or the Saigon regime? Just as the United States has steadfastly refused to negotiate with the N. L. F., so the North Vietnamese have refused to negotiate with the Saigon regime. The Alliance, perhaps more broadly constituted, might offer some way out of this procedural impasse.

This appraisal of the Alliance adds to a single conclusion: Whether or not the Alliance is regarded as a fully autonomous political grouping, its existence and Manifesto deserve serious attention.

The Front appears presently to be seeking to unite all opposition to the American presence, thereby further isolating the Thieu-Ky regime. To the extent that such isolation is successfully taking place, it facilitates the necessary process of American disassociation from the Saigon government.

The North Vietnamese and the Front officials make a very convincing case that the preeminent issue of the war is the application of the principle of national self-determination.

The present war against the United States is portrayed as the most recent and harrowing chapter in the continuing Vietnamese struggle to achieve and sustain the reality of national independence.⁸ The gravest charge brought

8. For an account of Vietnamese history, see Joseph Buttinger, *The Smaller Dragon: A Political History of Vietnam*, New York, Praeger, 1956.

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against the various Saigon regimes is that they have relied upon foreign
military power to sustain themselves in power. By so doing, these "puppet"
leaders have surrendered real political authority to a foreign power,
thereby sacrificing any claim to political legitimacy in Vietnam. In this
light, one appreciates better the determination of the Hanoi government
to persevere in the war, despite the great military pressure that North
Vietnam is under, without calling in the Soviet Union or China. Ideological
affinity seems to be a secondary consideration in the thinking of North
Vietnamese national autonomy. I found present a passionate pride in all
that was distinctively Vietnamese, whether pertaining to politics or music
or cuisine. This emphasis lends support to the intimations of North
Vietnamese leaders that they are willing to compromise with regard to
the political orientation of a future government for South Vietnam in
exchange for real assurance as to its national autonomy.

Professor Hieu emphasized the degree to which the Program of the
Front is reasonable, even if it is compared to the Geneva settlement of
1954. At Geneva, Vietnam was temporarily divided into two regroupment
zones that were to be united by elections two years later, in July 1956.
The language of the Geneva Accords was emphatic in its rejection of the
idea that "two Vietnams" were being created. In the N. L. F. Program
of 1967 there is no timetable for reunification, but merely the recognition
of the goal as "the sacred aspiration of our entire people," and the
promise to work for an eventual reunification on a "step-by-step" basis.

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Reunification will be pursued by "peaceful means on the principle of negotiation between the two zones without either side using pressure against the other and without foreign interference." Such an approach was fully confirmed by Pham Van Dong: "I tell you frankly we will talk together--and starting from the interests of the South. We have no haste. We will not act in a negligent way. We will not disrupt things." At this point Pham Van Dong paused, then resumed his statement with dramatic emphasis: "I would add one point--we respect our compatriots in the South. We will comply with the wishes of our Southern countrymen." The implication was evident that reunification would not be imposed on the South by the North, and that even if favorable circumstances were present, it would be deferred for a considerable number of years. Other officials in North Vietnam indicated their opinion that the differing social, economic, and political experiences of the two parts of Vietnam over the last fourteen years made it desirable, quite independent of the terms of a peace settlement, to proceed slowly toward reunification.

At the same time, I heard often of the desire for a renewal of normal contact between all parts of Vietnam. Hardly anyone whom I met in North Vietnam did not have some relative in the South, but unless a relative was actually fighting in the Front all contact had been lost since 1954 when the Saigon government sealed the border, even against exchanges of mail.

Vietnamese families normally unite over the Tet holidays at the home of the eldest living member, but many have been out of touch with relatives

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now since before World War II. The identity and importance of the family seemed so clear, even for leading political figures in Hanoi, that I think it correct to take seriously these reports of anguish. It is part of the incalculable atmosphere in Hanoi that seems to be inclining the political leadership to search for some sort of peace. But one needs to be guarded in this assertion, at least to the extent of understanding that after all the sacrifices imposed on Vietnamese people by the long duration and ravaging impact of the war, it is essential that negotiations achieve an "honorable peace" from Hanoi's point of view.

The 1967 Program of the N. L. F. conceives of a foreign policy for South Vietnam based on neutrality and non-alignment. It also pledges "to establish diplomatic relations with all countries regardless of their social and political system." Front officials emphasize that their Program is a very careful document that is meant to reflect major policy positions.

After the inflammatory language is removed from the document, the Program of the Front appears to be a rather moderate and reasonable proposal for the future of South Vietnam.⁹

9. For text of the 1967 N. L. F. Program, see "Political Programme of the South Viet Nam National Front for Liberation," South Vietnam, Giai Phong Publishing House, 1967, pp. 5-39; for the 1961 N. L. F. Program, see "Background Information Relating to Southeast Asia and Vietnam," Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 3rd rev. ed., 1967, pp. 269-74.

-24-

Why, then, does the N. L. F. Program rely on so much inflammatory
language to castigate the United States repeatedly as an "aggressor" and
"imperialist?" Why does it insist on describing the leaders of the Saigon
regime as "die-hard thugs" and "lackeys?" There are, I think, two main
explanations for this immoderateness of language that contrasts so sharply
with the moderateness of position. First, the Vietnamese feel that they have
been victims of a cruel and brutal foreign intervention, disguised by reliance
on puppet groups drawn from their own population. Their emotional need
to castigate that experience is certainly very strong.

Second, and I think more significant, there is an almost incomprehensible
insistence everywhere in North Vietnam upon distinguishing between the war
policies of the United States government and the benevolent character of
the American people. The North Vietnamese leaders appear sincere and
literal when they talk of giving bouquets of flowers to departing American
soldiers. There is an unexpected residual feeling of attraction for the United
States evident everywhere in Hanoi. It is unexpected because it is accompanied
by a sense of outrage directed at the use of cruel weapons and bombing tactics
by American military authorities. Officials in Hanoi talk with conviction
and compassion about the loss of American prestige in the world as a result
of the Vietnam war. For instance, Hoang Quoc Viet, the Attorney General,
and one of the founders of the Lao Dong Party, said that "intellectuals in
Vietnam have a deep love for American culture," and emphasized, as had
happened so often during my discussions in North Vietnam, the similarity

-25-

between the aims of the United States Revolutionary War and the continuing
Vietnamese struggle against colonialism. Vietnam has been engaged since 1945
in a continuous effort to achieve its full rights of national independence and to
secure dignity and happiness for its peoples.

Pham Van Dong made the similar point in fervent fashion: "To us the
American people are the first people to rise up and fight for their national
independence. We know the United States Declaration of Independence almost
by heart. The people of America are freedom-loving for themselves and for
others. How can we make this truth clear to the American people? When
the American people know that this is the truth of our struggle then we will
be good friends. It is better that the time comes soon. More than anyone
else we need it soon. If not soon, then it will be later. We love life, what
is beautiful in the world, we love all people. It is for this reason that we
will fight no matter what sacrifices are involved." Only the most hardened
visitor to North Vietnam cannot be impressed by an openness remarkable
in the midst of war to all things good in the American tradition.

Mr. Le Van Giang, the Minister of Higher Education, also spoke
eloquently about the North Vietnamese effort at all levels of its educational
system to emphasize the good things about the United States. Mr. Giang
pointed out that the same attitude was taken toward the French. One notes
that the present preliminary negotiations are being held in Paris, despite the
long subjugation of the Vietnamese by the French and the bitter war of
independence. There appears to be a very unusual compulsion embedded in

-26-

Vietnamese character to find pathways to reconciliation with former enemies.
After the Vietnam war ends, I predict that Americans will begin to discover
these bonds of friendship and affirmation, at first suspecting them, but finally
coming to learn from them. I think back to World War II and the monolithic
repudiation of Germany and Japan by Americans, although the war situation
then was of far less gravity to American survival interests than the Vietnam
war is to Vietnamese survival interests.

It is in this setting that North Vietnamese emphasis on the peace movement
in the United States needs to be grasped. Top leaders in Hanoi rarely
exaggerated the political influence of the United States peace movement, although
I noted some glimmers of wishful thinking about its eventual rise to predominant
power. The more central role of the peace movement in North Vietnamese
thinking is to sharpen the distinction between what is good and bad in the
United States. To underscore the role of the peace movement provides the
Vietnamese with a patriotic way of affirming the American people in the midst
of a most awful occasion of national suffering and destruction. Outside Hanoi,
virtually every concrete structure that I saw, whether hospital, church, factory,
or bridge, had been bombed, and much destruction was evident all along
the 100 miles of road from Hanoi to Phat Diem. And yet, even when faced
with the prospect of a resumption of attacks on Hanoi, there is no trace of
generalized bitterness against the United States. I think that this non-recriminatory
attitude would be persuasive to most Americans who had an experience of direct

-27-

contact similar to mine. Such attitudes of receptivity and openness are
sharply at variance with the rigid ideological mind set I expected to find in
Hanoi.

My discussions in Hanoi suggest a fairly coherent set of conclusions.
First, the D. R. V. is not prepared to concede much explicitly in exchange
for a complete bombing halt. Second, the Front and, indirectly, the D. R. V.,
have already conceded the outline of a political settlement that should be
acceptable to the U. S. government: sovereign status for South Vietnam,
gradual reunification not tied to a timetable, and a foreign policy based on
neutrality. Third, the Prime Minister of North Vietnam has made strong
reassurances on the issue of reprisals and on the prospects for friendly
relations between the United States and Vietnam. Fourth, the way toward
a coalition government administering South Vietnam from a mixed capitalist-
socialist perspective seems assured by the existence of the Alliance and by
the Front's own program of socioeconomic compromise.<sup>10</sup> Fifth, the

10. I would think that a *negotiated* rather than *elected* coalition government is called for at the outset. The composition of this coalition needs to correspond as closely as possible with the domestic balance of forces prevailing in South Vietnam, and give adequate representation to the various political, religious, and ethnic groups that have substantial following in this much-divided country. The incohesiveness of South Vietnam would bring torment to any effort at centralized government even in the absence of ideological and socioeconomic struggle. A coalition should also be constituted to take account of the urban-rural balance in South Vietnam and of the position of various social classes in the country. Government at the local level, perhaps even at the district and province level, should be based on the *de facto* administrative realities as of the time of cease-fire. Many considerations bearing on political sub-structure below the national level are imaginatively considered in a recent article by Samuel P. [footnote cont.]

-28-

defense of national autonomy against any external encroachment is likely to
remain the first order of business for Vietnamese foreign policy for a long
time both north and south of the Seventeenth Parallel.

To reach a settlement, the United States would have to (1) stop all bombing of North Vietnam; (2) gradually withdraw support from the present Saigon regime and plan for the negotiation of a coalition government; and (3) plan, after a cease-fire, to withdraw U.S. and other foreign military forces rather rapidly. Such actions seem a small price to pay for peace in Vietnam. Of course, many complicated questions of implementation, guaranty, and transition remain, but a minimum of trust and an acceptance of the shape of final settlement could create favorable opportunities for solving other questions such as

[footnote 10 cont.]

Huntington, "Vietnam: The Bases of Accommodation," 46 *Foreign Affairs* 642-56 (July 1968).

In my judgment, given the divisive realities in South Vietnam under present conditions of devastation and dislocation, it would be a dangerous error to select the initial coalition government through an electoral process. There has never been a fair and free election in Vietnam, and the struggle to manipulate the electoral machinery might well imperil other aspects of a negotiated peace settlement. No international force could do much to improve the prospects for meaningful elections unless it was both very large (over 100,000), and familiar with Vietnamese traditions and the language; it is not realistic to envisage such supervision. An insistence on elections as the basis for government at this point in South Vietnam could only be justified by relying on a mode of selection that Americans might regard as consistent with the principle of self-determination. This is not an adequate justification. Given the circumstances of South Vietnam and the delicate base of any peace settlement, the cause of Vietnamese self-determination would be better served, in my judgment, by seeking a coalition government by negotiations rather than by elections.

-29-

the timetable and mode of mutual withdrawal of foreign forces, interim
government for South Vietnam, and supervised elections.

After returning from North Vietnam and Paris, I am convinced
that a diligent search for a reasonable peace settlement of the Vietnam war
would yield results. If I am correct, then it is imperative to begin the
effort to find peace at once. The daily horror of the Vietnam war is too
great to put off this effort until a time of convenience emerges in the
domestic politics of the United States.

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Vol. XXI

October 1968

No. 1

CONTENTS

The Communist Parties of Italy and France: A Study in Comparative Communism

Thomas H. Greene

Castro's Revolution, Cuban Communist Appeals, and the Soviet Response

Edward Gonzalez

From Social Darwinism to Current Theories of Modernization: A Tradition of Analysis

Ali A. Mazrui

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