became dispensable. First at Reykjavik and later in the
implementing negotiations.

Now, we have the situation where people like Kohl and
Woerner, to take the Federal Republic, who paid a heavy
price, not only had to give up those weapons but also
weapons, namely the Pershing Is that had always been in the
~~Federals~~ nationed
have been in the Federal Republic. Until recently
they had been there uncontested for 15 years. And they had
agreed to both of these decisions.

Now, if we suddenly reverse ourselves once again and say
the first position was the right one, I think we are putting
them into a nearly impossible situation.

Senator Helms: well, forgive me, though. There is one
element in the equation that you have not referred to, and
that is the people of Germany and the people of France.

They would have to know that they would have to do
without the support of the United States.

Dr. Kissinger: I would say this, Senator Helms. If the
German government had asked us to remove these weapons
without provocation, then your response would be absolutely
the one we should take.

When, however, they first put these weapons in, then
reluctantly with great American persuasion, let us take them
out and added their own weapons to it. And then less than
half of the Senate but more than a third votes against

ALDERSON REPORTING COMPANY, INC.

20 F ST., N.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20001 (202) 628-9300

ratification, they are left in a very difficult position.

I do not think we would be morally justified to say, now,
if you do not accept the latest version of American
Constitutional ~~procedure~~, we are going to take our ground
forces out too.

I think this would create an impossible situation. If,
unprovoked, they were to ask us this, then I think your
response would be absolutely correct.

Senator Helms: well, I think the mothers and fathers of
this country would welcome an indication from all of us that
we are not going to leave our troops over there in an
untenable position where they can get shot and killed. That
is the point I am making.

Dr. Kissinger: I would welcome an expression of the
Senate that the denuclearization of the Federal Republic
would carry those consequences. The third zero option, I
think that would be a very appropriate thing to do.

Senator Helms: I would just say in conclusion that I am
struck by the identical nature of the exhortations that we
have got to ratify this Treaty when we heard the same thing
in 1979 and NATO did not collapse.

Now, here we are hearing the same thing in 1988. Thank
you, Mr. Chairman.

The Chairman: I will waive my time, and we will go to
Senator Sarbanes.

Dr. Kissinger: I believe, and here we are in the area of pure conjecture, that this agreement and this sequence of events that has led to it, has brought about a sea change in the German domestic political situation, and that therefore we will see over a period of five years some very significant evolutions in German domestic politics, and it is in terms of that I think there will be a greater emphasis on national concerns, greater emphasis on dealing with the East on a national basis, and in the context of this, I think it will be very difficult to reintroduce them in the Federal Republic. And absent that, it will be very difficult to reintroduce them anywhere else except perhaps Great Britain.

But I could be wrong. We are in the area of total conjecture and analysis of political trends.

Senator Sarbanes: Let me ask you this question.

Do you worry that agreements, arms agreements in particular, with the Soviets contribute to some illusory notion of detente which impedes the West from taking realistic policies in other areas of the relationship?

Dr. Kissinger: No, I worry that arms agreements become a substitute for political thinking. If arms agreements were linked to a process of political accommodation, or related or part of a process, unlinked, of political accommodation, I would have no problem with them.

Secondly, I believe, as I have said, that much of arms

some conference about the Nixon presidency, and I had read so much about the illusions of detente that I had begun to believe it myself. So I started reading what we all said in that period, and I think if you review what we said, those were really pretty, I think they were pretty sober statements.

But at any rate, leaving aside the merit of the policies in which I was engaged, in this period we have, any administration of whatever party has an obligation to demonstrate to its public that it is sincerely concerned with easing tensions. It has an equal obligation to demonstrate to its public that the easing of tensions must be related to concrete conditions that in fact improve the situation and are not simply an aspect of a psychiatric treatment of Soviet leaders.

And how to walk this path is the real task of statesmanship, whatever previous or current administrations are doing.

Senator Sarbanes: Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary.

The Chairman: Thank you.

Senator Kassebaum.

Senator Kassebaum: Dr. Kissinger, you mentioned at the end of your statement that the strengthening of the Atlantic unity must be of highest priority, and that you felt that common diplomacy towards arms control was the most important component of this policy, and I certainly agree very much

with that.

You also in answer to some other questions earlier said
that it was important for us to understand how the Soviets
conceived the whole strategy of arms control, I suppose, or
particularly in the light of conventional force reduction.

But I would like to ask you if you could elaborate on
what you believe the goal should be for conventional arms
control policy, and if you believe that the Alliance, the
Western Alliance itself has an approach to an arms control,
conventional arms control initiative?

Dr. Kissinger: Insofar as my own thinking is concerneo,
I have just begun thinking about it really in a serious way,
and I have gone out to the Rand Corporation, and I have gone
to various places where studies have been made to see what
studies exist so that I can begin engaging my own thinking
and reaching my own conclusions on the subject, and
therefore, I am not really in a great position to make a very
~~clear statement or make any clear proposals.~~

Now, with respect, however, to our European Allies, I
have a very uneasy feeling with that third zero option. On
the one hand, you have Europeans who are really looking for
an excuse to get rid of the short-range weapons, or at least
reduce them, and we only have 80, so we are not talking about
a very large number.

Now, in order to stop this, people say, well, it has got

to be part of conventional arms reduction and part of an overall scheme. The next thing you know, Gorbachev will make some symbolic move, like taking out the two divisions from Czechoslovakia that were never there to begin with, and then people will say, okay, now, you have got your proposal. So we are no longer justifying modernization in terms of security; we are justifying it in terms of its contribution to arms control.

There was one witness before the Armed Services Committee who wants to take out 4,000 tactical nuclear weapons in order to modernize the 80 Lances, and then make these 80 Lances dependent on some conventional arms reduction. well, if we do that, we are well on the way to the denuclearization of Germany with all the consequences that this implies.

Now, I am not saying that every one of those 4,000 tactical nuclear weapons is sacrosanct, and if the NATO commander told me that he can do with 500 -- in our period we took out 2,000 as a unilateral American decision because we could not see any conceivable use for them. So I am not saying that they cannot be modified, but we have to be careful that in the name of arms control, we do not gradually approach zero in all nuclear categories without knowing that the conventional adjustments that are being made are of any real significance.

The only systematic study I have seen is one of the Rand

1 understandably has negotiated and always wanted to negotiate
2 from strength. And in fact, when we have had a sense of
3 military insecurity, we have been far less inclined to enter
4 into arms control agreements. We have only done so when we
5 have at least had the sense of being secure, the confidence
6 of being secure, that we were willing to move into that arena.

7 And as a consequence of this flaw that you have
8 identified, has it put us in a position where it jeopardizes
9 future arms control agreements, including the START talks?

10 Dr. Kissinger: Well, with respect to the first question,
11 let me tell you may or may not know that in my memoirs, at a
time when George Shultz was at Bechtel, so I had no
12 conceivable ulterior motive, I wrote that if I could appoint
13 one man to any position in this country, it would be George
14 Shultz, and he is a man for whom I have had and still have
15 the highest regard, and anything I say should be taken in
16 that context, that this is something on which serious people
17 can disagree, can have honorable differences of opinion.
18

19 My assessment is different from his. So it should be in
20 that context.

21 Senator Dodd: I understand that.

22 Dr. Kissinger: Now, where I think we got off the track
23 as an administration is that it started with a very
24 absolutist rhetoric vis-a-vis the Soviet Union, and then
25 under the impact of a variety of causes has changed to a

1 rhetoric that is sometimes indistinguishable from what the
2 various committees for nuclear disarmament around the world
3 are advocating, so that the antinuclear rhetoric of the
4 administration, the attempt to prove that they were really
5 peacefully inclined has led to an extreme oscillation of
6 position.

7 I think it got off the track at Reykjavik when we
8 negotiated from a Soviet paper without adequate preparation.

9 What would I have done? You never can tell what you
10 would have done if you had had responsibility. I would like
11 to think that I would have proposed something along the lines
12 of the Walk in the Woods formula with a difference from the
13 Walk in the Woods that, as I understood it, that formula
14 required the elimination of all Pershings. I might, I
15 probably would have proposed cutting them in half, cutting
16 everything in half, the Soviet deployment, the American
17 deployment, and make the next 50 percent dependent upon a
18 substantial reduction of conventional disarmament, a
19 substantial achievement of conventional disarmament.

20 I think it would have been a better course. I do not
21 believe that the very quality on which the administration
22 most prides itself, that they are the first to have reduced
23 two categories to zero, I think this is an undesirable
24 objective because it implies that zero in all categories is
25 attainable, and it is not attainable.

1

Senator Dodd: The second question is --

2

3

Dr. Kissinger: Oh, the second question is it so seriously flawed that we are now weaker?

4

5

6

Senator Dodd: Weaker politically and militarily, and what does that mean in terms of future arms control agreements?

7

8

9

10

11

12

Dr. Kissinger: For me, it has been a painful process to attack people who have been friends and with whom I have been closely associated. I do this because I want there to be a record that some people in this country pointed out the dangers at a moment when there is really a large consensus that this ought to be done.

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

I believe that militarily we are somewhat weaker; that politically we have paid a big price in elaborating a differential between the non-nuclear and the nuclear members of NATO, and between the United States and Europe, a flaw that determined diplomacy can hopefully repair, but it will require a lot of effort to get us back to where we were, and it is a fact that we have to face.

20

21

22

23

24

25

Senator Dodd: You said something earlier that I agree with, nor do I, and you quickly said in the next round of questions you did not have any quick answers or any answers necessarily, but that we should rethink how we approach arms control, and that we are using formulas and approaches that we have been using for the last 20 or 30 years.

105

Dr. Kissinger: well, i would like to refer to the colloquy with Senator Kerry. You take the 50 percent reduction, and there is no argument against proceeding with it, but I asked myself, we are putting this tremendous effort, years of negotiation, and at the end of which, if a man from Mars came and said now, tell me in what way is the situation better now, what would you really say other than that you have made an agreement?

It is not better in the relationship of the two forces to each other. It makes it probably even harder to threaten general nuclear war as a retaliation to an attack on NATO, and since we are the ones that are more dependent on nuclear weapons than the other, that is an unequal distribution and you come to agreement after agreement. The best that is being said for the INF agreement is that the existing weapons in Europe can do everything INF was going to do.

I do not happen to agree with that, I think it leaves us somewhat worse off. But if it were true, then what have you achieved? Why is making an agreement that is defended as irrelevant symbolically so important?

Now, I have not come up with a better idea, but I think all the people that worked with such dedication 30 years ago to come up with important theories, that equivalence ought to do it now again. But what it is, I do not know.

Senator Dodd: Well, I think it is an excellent question,

shies away from that discussion because they cannot come up
with a -- they do not really know how to conceive it, and
partly because it runs against the American historical
tradition which is hostile to equilibrium.

And in a world of five or six powers, that is what you
have to do.

Senator Dodd: Your suggestion I think you made in one
article I read where you look at the world in the year 2010
and say what do you want it to look like and work backward.

Dr. Kissinger: Let's work backward from there, correct.

Senator Dodd: My time is up. I will come back with just
a couple more questions, but Senator Boschwitz.

Senator Boschwitz: I did not read that article about
2010. I would very much like to have it.

Dr. Kissinger: I think it was 2000 is what I used.

Senator Boschwitz: Pardon me?

Dr. Kissinger: I said 2000, but it was -- he quoted it
correctly. I think he gave me ten more years.

Senator Dodd: Rudy, would you mind just doing this?

Senator Boschwitz: I will yield back to you.

Senator Dodd: I have just a couple of questions. Why do
we not each finish up and then let the good Doctor who has
spent four or five hours go on. And that way we will not tie
everyone down.

I think Senator Kerry has a line of questions that is apt

1. pull back in Afghanistan?

2. Dr. Kissinger: First of all, I want to know how Garthoff

3. can possibly know to what conclusion the Soviets are coming

4. because that would be, assuming that were not the

5. conclusion, it is certainly their necessity to have a period

6. of peace and quiet, and if possible, reduced expenditures.

7. That I do not question.

8. From our point of view, the issue is whether, on what

9. terms that is to be achieved.

10. I would not be surprised if the Soviet Union did not have

11. a clearcut idea of what they had in mind, and after all, I

12. talked this week to an eminent Soviet visitor who is one of

13. their leaders in their economic reform, and he described

14. their reform program to me, and this is a stupendous

15. undertaking, and I would not be at all surprised if their top

16. leadership did not simultaneously want to be reluctant

17. simultaneously to conduct great crises now.

18. That does not mean, however, that five or ten years from

19. now, if we in the meantime have produced neutralism in

20. Europe, impotence in Asia, a vacuum in the Middle East, that

21. they will not exploit it.

22.

23.

24.

25.

Therefore, I think it would be safer if we gave them
difficult problems that were not incompatible with their
self-respect. For example, I do not think that the zero
option was a law of nature.

Supposing we had said to them from the beginning we are
deeply concerned about this conventional problem. We are
willing to make realistic agreements with you, but you have
to give -- we have to settle the conventional and nuclear
thing simultaneously. We will pay the first 50 percent up
front in the nuclear field.

Why would we assume that that would necessarily have been
rejected? Why is it impossible to start a dialogue that says
that along the analysis that I made previously of what the
world will look like in the next century and what we have to
do now to determine who can do what to whom, where? And
sooner or later we will have to come to some such
accommodation either by confrontation or by negotiation. And
that is what I have in mind.

Has the sea change occurred? The problem is, assuming
Gorbachev intends to be conciliatory, whatever that means, he
already has to brutalize the central planning mechanism to
introduce prices. He is de facto reducing the importance of
the Communist Party by reducing the importance of the central
planning mechanism because that is where their strength lies.

Why should he tackle the KGB and the military when he is

[v]

112

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
Senator Dodd: But are they going to give up the one thing that maintains them in that status, and that is their military strength? Are they really going to be willing to sacrifice and so reduce their military capacity that they run the risk of both economically and militarily ending up in that situation?

Dr. Kissinger: It would be unlikely. I do not think the
Soviets have a category for dealing with people who are
trying to understand the hell out of them. I think they have
a category for understanding balance of forces, objective
factors, realistic, fair propositions. But when I see that,
when I keep reading - and this has happened over and over
decades, that we want to show them farms in the Middle West
and swimming pools. What do we expect them to do? I mean,
what is he supposed to do, come home to the Soviet Union and
say I saw a swimming pool in back yards, and now we are going
to do what?

I think it is not a good basis for solving relations
between societies that have such a hugely different
historical experience. Even assuming the best intentions.

Senator Dodd: I agree.

Well, I have taken a great deal of your time. You have
been very informative and helpful.

Dr. Kissinger: Well, thank you.

Senator Dodd: I appreciate it immensely.

countries, and for us it is going to be a major experience
when Mexico emerges on our border with 100 million population
as a country that conducts foreign policy not from the
position of a very inferior country but with aspirations to
some equality. And the same with Brazil.

So we will be living in quite a different world in the
21st Century, even though neither of those two countries will
have quite the status of Japan and the others.

Senator Boschwitz: Let me return for a moment to the
tactical difference between the ICAMs and the INF weapons.
As you pointed out, that one is, the Russians would have to
have a different perception of when they would be used and
how easily they would be used, particularly if the INF
weapons are in their path and would be overrun.

How do the shorter-range -- and there are only a few of
them, as you say -- or the battlefield nuclear weapons, how
do they factor into that kind of thinking?

Dr. Kissinger: Well, the trouble with the shorter-range
weapons, and I think it is an illustration of the difficulty
we have as a nation, and the Alliance has to keep its various
policies in gear. In the same year in which we are
withdrawing the weapons that can reach the Soviet Union and
the Pershing IIs and the GLCMs and that can reach Eastern
Europe through the Pershing Is, a big debate has started
about modernizing the Lances.

Now, obviously, to Germans, rightly or wrongly, this
looks as if we want to improve the weapons that can kill only
Germans and remove the weapons that are targeted at East
Europeans and the Soviet Union. And that has given rise,
perhaps unfairly, to the impression that Germany is being
singularized, as their phrase goes, singled out for nuclear
risk.

Now, the traditional neutralist, seminationalist,
dubious-about-NATO people are picking this up with a
vengeance, and I find it interesting that Chancellor Kohl,
when he was here, really asked for a delay in this policy,
and that some members of his party were reported in the New
York Times to have said we will not even touch this issue
until there is a new President because we do not want the new
President to change his mind again.

Now, the difference is that these weapons do not threaten
Soviet territory directly, and therefore, while they are
still an obstacle, they are a lesser and of a different
category than the INF weapons would have been.

Senator Boschwitz: Clearly they are a lesser obstacle
than the INF weapon, but would the Russians not have to
factor into their thinking that once these type of weapons
are used, short range, intermediate range, whatever, that the
escalation from that point could almost not be prevented, and
so would it not be?

Dr. Kissinger: Well, you know, this is a question of judgment. They might figure that, or they might figure that once they are used, there will be such a rush to surrender that there escalation becomes impossible.

It depends whether they believe Schmidt or whether they believe the theorists of escalation.

But I do not really think that the real danger is a Soviet all-out attack heading for the Rhine. The real danger is a perceived unbalance of forces which will tempt the Soviets to take the Berlin issue up again, for example, or to use a Middle East crisis to impose on Europe measures that amount to de facto neutralization.

I noticed that when Shevaronadze was in Bonn, he refused absolutely to consider any attempt to make Berlin a part of the Federal Republic or to let the Federal Republic speak for Berlin, even though this would be an easy way to confirm the status quo in Germany. But obviously they want to keep that lever open.

Senator Boschwitz: You have pointed out many, many problems with this arms treaty, and you said you wish that it had never been negotiated, I believe at one point. You note that the Russians have given away far less than we, even though perhaps --

Dr. Kissinger: More.

Senator Boschwitz: Even though perhaps more in numbers,

118

warhead, mobile missiles, I would think a first strike capability is almost out of the question.

So I would rather spend a little more time and come to some radical conclusions. Also, with single warhead mobile weapons, it would be easier to conceive a discriminating use of these weapons in response to local aggression because the beginning would not necessarily mean that the next step will be and assault on the retaliatory forces.

Senator Boschwitz: What about the verifiability of the multiple, of the MIRV, lack of MIRVs?

Dr. Kissinger: Well I have not studied that, and one would have to -- of course, to some extent we face this problem now because we are putting limits on the START agreement, as I understand it, is putting limits on the total number of MIRVed vehicles. So we must have some capacity of checking those vehicles like the SS-25s that are supposed to be single warhead, to make sure they remain single warhead, because otherwise they might put the SS-20 warheads on them and they have three warheads, since the weapon is more or less the same.

Senator Boschwitz: So that the difficulties that we have with all of these types of treaties at least least you to suggest that perhaps an elimination of the MIRVs, of the multiple warheads, would be a more stabilizing type of approach.

Dr. Kissinger: That would be a radical change.

Senator Boschwitz: What other -- have you thought through what other kind of approaches we might pursue?

Dr. Kissinger: I really have not, no.

Senator Boschwitz: May I ask a final question?

Dr. Kissinger: I do not know that anybody else has. I am not familiar with any alternative views on the subject.

Senator Boschwitz: It is very difficult. It is very appealing, the idea of reducing the weapons, and yet the vulnerabilities of it all, how does --

Dr. Kissinger: I just want to keep emphasizing, we ought to ask the question at the end of an agreement, in what way we are better off than we were before, not by abstruse criteria as to number of warheads that have been destroyed, but in what way -- are fewer people under threat, are fewer weapons under threat, are fewer allies under threat? And if none of this changes, then we have spent a lot of years on esoteric exercises.

Senator Boschwitz: Well, now does the SDI play into the alternatives? Is this --

Dr. Kissinger: Well, SDI, there is no doubt that it complicates the issue. On the other hand, I think the absence of SDI will in time lead to nuclear pacifism, and I just do not see how a President can keep telling his people that they are totally exposed to any third country accidental

war, blackmail attack, and that their total vulnerability is
their security.

Senator Boschwitz: Is their security.

Dr. Kissinger: This is my hang-up, in addition to the
fact that if one could get some defense for the strategic
forces that are not mobile, it would certainly discourage
that sort of blackmail.

Senator Boschwitz: I also feel that these treaties do
not really improve the American condition very much, the
human condition very much, and I think that a large part of
coming to these agreements and feeling comfortable with the
agreements is wrapped up in the SDI and the abilities, as I
understand it, of kinetic weapons or others to even now
provide some defense or at least provide a good deal of
deterrence.

Dr. Kissinger: If I may say one thing about SDI that I
feel rather strongly about, if we want to give up SDI as a
nation, let's make that decision and get something for it.
But let's not slide into it by pretending that we are
preserving it while de facto giving it up just to get some
other sort of agreement.

And I cannot believe that a moratorium on deployment,
coupled with a limitation on testing to the criteria of the
narrow interpretation, not that I think we should put it on
that basis, will have any other consequence except ending

123

1

bomb or something surreptitiously delivered.

2

Now, that is not going to be cured by an SDI.

3

Dr. Kissinger: SDI does not cure all problems..

4

Senator Kerry: Well, not even all problems. I am just taking about this notion of blackmail. I mean, it really strikes me as being something of a red herring.

5

6

7

Dr. Kissinger: It seems to me, the fundamental point that I am making is that if we preserve the option of developing SDI, we can then have a rational debate in our country about what dangers we most need to protect ourselves, while if we forgo both the deployment and the testing of SDI, a priori, then we are making ourselves vulnerable to any unforeseen circumstances as well as developing a strategy that becomes increasingly absurd.

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

So if the Secretary of Defense were to ask my view of now rapidly he should deploy SDI, there are all kinds of flexibilities in my view on that. If he were to ask me, however, whether we should negotiate it away in order to get a 50 percent reduction, since I do not see the great benefit of a 50 percent reduction, I have very grave doubts.

16

17

18

19

20

21

Senator Kerry: Well, let me ask you, then, when the ABM treaty was negotiated, you among others talked about the inherent instability that is created when superpowers both possess a partial defense system.

22

23

24

What are the risks if the United States were to proceed

25

1 does it not?

2 Dr. Kissinger: Well, the Soviet Union is doing it around
3 Moscow within the permitted parameters.

4 Senator Kerry: Within the ABM treaty.

5 Dr. Kissinger: Within the ABM treaty, but --

6 Senator Kerry: Certainly not the kinds of exotics that
7 we are talking about.

8 Dr. Kissinger: No, no, no, they do not have the
capability yet for the kind of exotics that we --

10 Senator Kerry: Is that not dangerous? I mean, is that
11 not the very partial defense that you talked about?

12 Dr. Kissinger: Well, but they have a partial defense,
13 not against sophisticated U.S. attack, and to the best of my
14 knowledge, they are doing a lot of development work and they
15 have that radar in Krasnoyarsk, so that in terms of existing
16 ABM systems, they are undoubtedly ahead of us.

17 I do not see any huge unilateral advantage -- I could
18 conceive situations in which both sides have the right to
19 develop ABM systems, and one side chooses not to deploy them,
20 as after all we chose not to deploy an ABM system, and still
21 not get a decisive advantage.

22 Senator Kerry: Well, we both agree on that. In fact, we
23 can do that right now under the ABM treaty.

24 Dr. Kissinger: Incidentally, I have not studied the
25 stage 1 of the current SDI program, and I have not taken a

Well, I would argue, why do we not go directly towards something better? But you know, it is easier said than done.

Senator Kerry: Mr. Secretary, we understand that beggars cannot be choosers, and we have been beggars on this issue for a long time.

Dr. Kissinger: But I do not know why you have to be.

Senator Kerry: We would like to move further also faster, which is why I have said again and again, if we do not go further, I do not think this Treaty is very meaningful either.

The significance is the potentiality of a first step, and I understand why you disagree with that, and also want to be on record as having said that. Because I think the day will come when we will measure this against where we have wound up.

Dr. Kissinger: And of course, I mean, I have made it repeatedly clear that I am for ratification. So we are not talking philosophically.

Senator Kerry: We are getting the best of both worlds, right?

Dr. Kissinger: No, I am reluctant. It is my honest judgment that I may make few friends with that view.

Senator Kerry: I do not mean to make light of it. Mr. Secretary, thank you very, very much. It has been very