TEMPLE BETH DAVID of the SAN GABRIEL VALLEY

Alan R. Lachtman
Rabbi
Phone 287-9994

9677 LONGDEN AVENUE
TEMPLE CITY, CALIFORNIA
91780

CAMILLUS ANGEL, D.D.
RABBI EMERITUS

January 14, 1977

Secretary of State Henry Kissinger
Department of State
2201 "C" Street, N.W.
Washington, D. C. 20520

Dear Mr. Kissinger:

I fully support our state department's firm stand against France's policy that allows international terrorists and murderer to make a mockery of international laws. Such actions must be strenuously protested by the United States if we are to remain a spokesman for morality and dignity in world affairs.

I also applaud your efforts during your entire term as Secretary of State to bring peace and concord to Southeast Asia and the Middle East. Though at times I disagreed with methodology and priorities, you undoubtedly deserve the thanks of our country.

I extend to you my best wishes for continued success in your endeavors and health to enjoy your new position.

ARL:hwf

AFFILIATED WITH THE UNION OF AMERICAN HEBREW CONGREGATIONS

618 D Street, S.E.
Washington, D. C. 20003

December 1, 1976

The Honorable Henry A. Kissinger
Secretary of State
Department of State
Washington, D. C. 20520

Dear Dr. Kissinger:

For quite some time, I have been a fan and admirer of yours and the
fine work you have done as our Secretary of State. I have appreciated
your brilliance, your diplomacy, not to mention your wit and sense of
humor. Besides, you had the wisdom to marry a "Nancy."

Often I have been frustrated to see and hear the criticisms leveled
at you from various sources insisting that you have "sold us out"
to the "other side," whoever they are. Of course, you are not perfect,
even if your ability is unique.

In the course of my work as a legislative assistant, I ran across the
enclosed copy of a recent column from the *Manchester Guardian*. I
enjoyed reading it because it expressed some of my own sentiments
and was not what often appears in the American press. I have
enclosed it in the event you have not seen it.

Things will not be the same without you.

Part II -- Main Edition -- 24 November 1976

ELC

MANCHESTER GUARDIAN

14 NOVEMBER 1976, Pg. 7 (24)

# The Kissinger achievement

Jonathan Steele assesses the outgoing Secretary of State

IN THE END Henry Kissinger's long stewardship of American foreign policy has been terminated by events beyond his control. There was no other way. Although he talked of resignation once or twice under Present Nixon and suggested earlier this year that he would rather not continue if Mr Ford was elected, his enjoyment of the job and his sense of his own indispensability would surely have kept him going. He felt he was the most creative and original Secretary of State that the United States has had for a long time and he was probably right.

Historians will long argue over Dr Kissinger's contribution and he himself is certain to add to the already huge corpus of Kissingeriana with his memoirs. He had a super-star dimension with all the virtues and vices which that entails — wit, imagination, brilliance but at the same time arrogance and inability to delegate and a paranoia about criticism.

The first professional historian to become Secretary of State for some time, Dr Kissinger always hoped to give the country's foreign policy a sense of permanence and bipartisan continuity and find a new system of balancing Soviet-American rivalries. But at this stage it seems likely that Dr Kissinger will be remembered as a brilliant negotiator and astonishingly resourceful tactician rather than as an architect of a new world order.

He came to Washington originally with three main perceptions. One was, to borrow from a phrase in his most recent speech, that "our policy is enormous, but it is still finite." He wanted to take out of American foreign policy its naive impatience, the feeling that the world's 1st Nation ought to be able to get its way anywhere. His second related perception was that Soviet power was inevitably on the rise. The country was developing a global reach that was gradually gaining the potential to challenge America's monopoly, not just in Europe and the Mediterranean but around the world. The consequence was that new means would have to be found to maintain the old Western goal of containment.

With his strategy of detente, Dr Kissinger devised a programme for making the Russians adopt restraint (one of his favourite words) or, if you like "self-containment." Russia would not go away nor could it be bullied into backing down on every issue, a la John Foster Dulles. Instead, Kissinger believed the United States could exploit Moscow's interest in trade and technology and its rather pathetic wish for international prestige as the full equal of the United States.

The Americans should tie Moscow in with a series of medium-range formal relationships (SALT talks, multibillion dollar credits, a grain agreement, annual summit meetings). This would not only avoid the short-term crisis-prone volatility of previous Soviet-American relations but provide a chance for building a long-term framework of rewards and penalties that would make it hard for Moscow to

exploit temporary opportunities or in-dulce in "adventurian"............

The first fruits of the new strategy were to be seen in Vietnam where Kissinger persuaded Moscow to exercise enough restraint to allow the Americans to withdraw relatively gracefully at least in 1973 with the Paris Peace Accords. But the strategy had its snags. It was perceived as overemphasising the Washington-Moscow axis and raised suspicions in the developing world and in Western Europe of a Soviet-American condominium. It seemed to have a vested interest in stability in Moscow's Eastern European empire (the so-called "Sonnenfeld doctrine.").

Dr Kissinger is sometimes accused of "over-selling" detente and therefore being to blame when progress was slow. It would be more accurate to say that the American public, with its traditionally superficial though understandable attitude to foreign affairs and its delight in novelties, "over bought" it. It is as unrealistic to expect the Russians to call off their historical rise to world status as it is to expect the Americans to go into voluntary retreat.

As long as the United States is No. 1 and the Russians are challengers, they are the ones who will appear to be thrusting, pushing, and aggressive. Yet in the age of detente, every Soviet probe was interpreted as a betrayal of an undertaking. Dr Kissinger's detente was branded as a "one-way street." In fact, surely whatever minor pushes Moscow has made, the major shift in the balance of power since detente began has been Dr Kissinger's success in excluding the Soviet Union almost totally from the Middle East.

The accusation of "appeasement" particularly hurt him. A year or so ago he was privately saying "a man who stops Allende would hardly not want to stop Brezhnev." The trouble was that the need for diplomatic finesse prevented him from telling the American public bluntly that detente was a more sophisticated form of stopping the Russians.

Diplomatic analysts are still divided over the relative influence of Richard Nixon on Kissinger and vice versa. Under Gerald Ford, Dr Kissinger was obviously, in Jimmy Carter's phrase, "president for foreign affairs." Under Nixon it was more complex. The policy of Vietnamisation and creating regional centres of western influence in the developing world, such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Zaire, and Kenya was implicit in Mr Nixon's long article in "Foreign Affairs" in 1967. If it is seen in the context of containing the Soviet Union, there was irony but no illogicism in Mr Nixon's startling American overture to China.

The success of the new policies is not yet assured and in the short term Dr Kissinger will be remembered for his negotiating skills, particularly in the Middle East. Although it has not worked so well in Southern Africa he had an extraordinary ability to gain

## MARINES -- CONTINUED

* IT IS only two years since the Marine Corps was unable to get 55 per cent of its recruits from the ranks of high school graduates. Now, 69 per cent have sheepkins and Gen. Wilson looks forward to 75 per cent as his goal before long.

* WITHOUT really softening the ordeal, Marine recruit training has slightly eased. By intention, the average recruit will be unaware that any such thing has happened. But his drill instructor does know it. And pressure has been lifted off the DI by lengthening training to 12 weeks. There is more officer supervision, but it's being kept unobtrusive so recruits won't notice.

* THE bottom line of all the foregoing, as for any fighting outfit (and especially for the Marine Corps) is overall combat readiness.

In a notable across-the-board increase since last year, of 298 active-duty Marine units which comprise the Fleet Marine Force (the expeditionary, combat portation of the corps, ground and aviation), all but 22 are completely combat-ready. This is not a subjective judgment but is based on standards set for all services by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Within a few months, Gen. Wilson says he expects to have all but 11 units in top readiness.

"We are ready to do our job," says Wilson. It is that simple.

the trust of opposing sides, and act as a creative mediator. His invention of "shuttle diplomacy" will certainly go down in history as a way of putting a sense of urgency into deadlocked positions.

His most conspicuous failures were as bureaucrat and administrator, distrustful of colleagues and unwilling to put his ideas on to paper within the Department for fear of leaks. His relations with Congress reached a low point. But this may well have been a product of his success. Democratic Congresses cannot be expected to approve of a Republican administration's foreign policies for ever. Dr Kissinger's honeymoon had to run out.

Where Dr Kissinger has failed in the broader outlines of his record, it was because of his sense of timing. Many Democratic critics, including some of Mr Carter's advisers, would agree that the Soviet Union is rising as a world power. They would query its speed. As a developing country with plenty of internal problems, the Soviet Union may not be advancing as fast as Dr Kissinger thinks. In the meantime critics would say, the US should not react to every problem in terms of the Soviet-American struggle.

8-F

2406 46th
Longview, Wa.

98632

January 12, 1977

Dear Dr. Kissinger:

Thank you very much for your contributions
to this country over the past years. Your
skills, while sometimes controversial, usually
got the job done. I think you contributed
significantly to peace in this country and the
world.

May you and Nancy enjoy the coming years
when the spotlight will be not quite so bright.

JOHN H. LATHE, JR.

900 UNION COMMERCE BUILDING
CLEVELAND, OHIO 44115

January 18, 1977

The Honorable Henry A. Kissinger
Secretary of State
Department of State
2201 C Street, N.W.
Washington, D. C. 20520

My dear Mr. Secretary:

My family and I were privileged to view the WETA Tele-
vision Special, "Kissinger," on Channel 25, Sunday,
January 16. It was a stimulating and educational
experience for us.

I have admired you and the magnificent contribution
that you have made in the glorious history of our
beloved country during your long and arduous tenure
as Secretary of State. You are a legend in your own
time. I am one American of your age who is eternally
grateful for your extraordinary effort and accomplish-
ment on behalf of the world of free men.

My wife, Lucy, a graduate of Denison University and a
first generation American of German descent, and I, a
graduate of Case Western Reserve University and an
American of Welsh-English descent, have three sons and
a daughter. My youngest son, Jeffrey, age 22, was
tremendously impressed with the television film of your
life. Jeff is a senior at Reed College, Portland,
Oregon, currently applying for Law School at several
universities. Harvard is his first choice. Your
unique performance has been a particularly motivating
force in his young life.

Lucy and I have represented my company, the SCM
Corporation, at the anniversaries of the United Nations
in Washington, D. C. the past three years. We shall
never forget your remarks at the 16th Annual United
Nations Concert and Dinner on October 23, 1976. You
stated, with your superb sense of humor, that your
writers at the Department of State would not forgive

-2-

you for failing to present the prepared script. However, it was your belief that you had four more years to do so. Needless to say, we thought so too.

Consequently, we were delighted with your Valedictory address to the National Press Club in Washington a few days ago. Succinctly, and out of context -- "What makes you think I am retiring from public life? -- The problems of the world structure cannot be concluded in one administration -- The challenges facing the new administration are complex, difficult and painful -- I will always think of you with affection tinged with exasperation!"

I am a Disabled American Veteran of World War II. A replacement infantryman of the Twenty-Ninth Division, I went ashore at Omaha Beach. Subsequently, seriously wounded in action November 1944 on the drive for the Rhine, I was honorably discharged in November 1945, following hospitalization and rehabilitation. In the tradition of the Infantry, United States Army -- we never retreated. However, there were times when we simply dropped back to regroup! Then we charged again. I submit, Sir, that you have simply dropped back to regroup. God willing, you will charge again!

Hopefully, you and your lovely wife, Nancy, will now enjoy well deserved rest and contentment, before your next major engagement. The future is unpredictable, but challenging. At the very least, we can take heart from the fact that tomorrow will be better because you have contributed so much to make it so. God bless you!

JHL:rk

PO Box 3569
Montgomery, Al. 36109

January 6, 1977

The Hon. Henry Kissinger
The Secretary of State
Washington, D. C. 20000

Dear Dr. Kissinger:

I want to take this opportunity
to express my deep appreciation to you
for the fine service you have given to
our country.

You have always represented our
country in the best possible manner and
the results of your efforts will go down
in history.

Would you please send me a inscribed
authentically signed photo of yourself and
a signed Secretary of State card? I would
appreciate this very much. I have always
admired you so much and would like to have
these items as momentoes.

With warm wishes for the New Year,
I am