TV GUIDE

1290 AVENUE OF THE AMERICAS, NEW YORK, N.Y. 10104/212-484-9900

February 10, 1983

Dr. Henry A. Kissinger
55 E. 52nd Street
Suite 1100
New York, N.Y.

Dear Dr. Kissinger:

As agreed, I am herewith sending you the direct quotations extracted from the article that TV Guide will publish, based on our interview of January 11. I would like to say that the other editors here at the magazine are enthusiastic about the article as it stands, and we expect to publish it as the lead article in an early April issue. Therefore, we are hoping that your corrections and amendments will be minimal in order to preserve the article's inherent value and interest.

In talking about President Nixon's trip to China:

"President Nixon was very conscious of the impact of television. He always thought that print journalism was not very important but that television journalism was."

You mentioned that the arrival in Peking was timed so that the television pictures could appear live in the U.S. on Sunday night, and that:

"We stayed a night in Guam en route to make sure it would happen that way."

TRIANGLE PUBLICATIONS, INC.

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The time zone difference:

"allowed every banquet to be seen live on the
morning news,"

And you added:

"Remember that both Nixon and the Chinese had
a common interest here. The Chinese wanted to establish themselves in the American public mind as a major civilization, and re-establish themselves as an impressive political entity. Nixon wanted to be seen as the originator of a major foreign policy initiative. And so the Chinese cooperated enthusiastically with the White House efforts."

I said, "You mean the Chinese were, in a sense, 'using'
American television."

"Absolutely. And they were very sophisticated
about it."

I asked about that expression, 'using' the media:

"There is absolutely no doubt that when an official
deals with the press he is trying to 'use' the press.
And there is no doubt that when a reporter deals with
an official, he is trying to 'use' the official. That
has to be faced from the beginning. An official is
very unwise---in addition to being morally wrong---

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if he deliberately misleads the press. But the
press _must_ understand that the official is there
not to please _them_, but to achieve his objective.
Did I sometimes use the press? Yes."

By that, you meant that your statements to the press
during a delicate negotiation were sometimes: "consciously
designed to evoke a reaction" in the opposing party.

I mentioned that, as you say in your book, your success
with the press was sometimes envied by Nixon's inner circle
of advisers:

"What they envied is something that was as
available to them as it was to me. I had never had
any dealings with the press before I came to Washing-
ton. I had no idea of the incestuous relationship
that develops between men of power in Washington and
the press—between officials and journalists whom
they meet socially, and yet with whom they are in a
partly cooperative and partly antagonistic relationship."

You gave background briefings to the press every now
and again:

"My strategy was to hold seminars on foreign
policy. I explained what we were trying to do. I
think it's a mistake to try to give hot, current,
secret news to the press. Most of what is considered
secret is very evanescent. What the press really
needs is an understanding of what an Administration

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is trying to do. So I did that."

And you added:

"But I had no conscious strategy of how to handle the press. I liked most of the journalists I met. I liked them as people, and they probably felt that. I respected their efforts. Much of the Nixon White House, however, was antagonistic toward the press. Unavailable to them. Dealt with them from a posture of hostility. But they all could have done what I did. I had no special secret."

We talked about the several kinds of leaks to the press by public officials, and you said there is no doubt:

"that when you are in office you exaggerate the significance of these internal maneuverings. They outrage you beyond what the normal person can grasp. Today, a lot of that looks ridiculous to me, because one was reacting to the bad intentions of the person doing the leaking."

Still, in connection with leaks:

"In the Nixon Administration, we had near civil war conditions on Vietnam. We had 550,000 men in that country, and it was a very painful process for us to try to extricate them under conditions that did not lead to a total collapse."

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Leaks:

"undermined our negotiating flexibility."

With regard to the leak to Dan Rather on your appoint-
ment as Secretary of State: It was

"a political maneuver" and "a rather interesting
example of how these things work in Washington."

"I asked him whether the thing had come from a
friend or from a critic, and he very decently
told me it was not from a friendly source. He
didn't tell me, obviously, who the source was."

You mentioned that Dan Rather "was not considered a
great friend of the Nixon White House", but "that never
affected me. You had "no complaint" in those years about
his coverage of matters relating to foreign affairs, but a
60 Minutes segment on the price of oil was "extremely unfair."
You added: "I think every reporter is entitled to a mistake."

You said you weren't in the habit of complaining to net-
work executives about TV coverage:

"I don't think I ever called the head of a network
or any official at a network to complain about tele-
vision coverage. But that's partly because I didn't
always have time to watch the news."

You read transcripts of news broadcasts, which you found:

"rarely objectionable enough to tempt me to
call anybody."

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With regard to TV fairness:

"the negative on Vietnam was covered more than the positive. Still, I did not believe that those programs were deliberate hatchet jobs."

About the newsmen who travelled on your plane:

"Obviously, I didn't like every television report that was made. I had an unusually distinguished group of reporters with me---Marvin Kalb, Ted Kopple, Richard Valeriani, Barry Dunsmore. These were people who were not just covering with pictures. They really knew something about the substance. I met with them on a thinly-disguised background basis after every meeting I had, and I gave them a sort of philosophical appreciation of what I was trying to do."

Rather than tell them precisely what was said in negotiating session, you gave them "a sense of where I was trying to head" and once they understood that "I was telling the truth about my purposes"....etc.

About the brevity of the evening newscasts:

"I think those programs are anchored by serious, responsible people who would not deliberately distort the news. But they have a maximum of two minutes for each item. And the impact of

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what they say is importantly affected by the
picture that goes with it. The combination of
picture and text can have a very major impact."

About television and Vietnam:

"War is a very unpleasant business. The daily
pictures on television were bound to create a
feeling of revulsion against the war, and to
create the impression that this was something
very dirty and nasty. Television obviously couldn't
go behind the other side's lines. So the casualties
that were being photographed were always on our
side of the lines. I guess that's inherent.

I wouldn't ask television reporters not to cover
the war. But I think any policymaker will have
to face this problem in any future conflict.

The British were fortunate, in that sense, in the
Falkland Islands crisis in that it didn't lend
itself to television coverage."

About the last days of Saigon and the TV pictures showing
Americans evacuating from the rooftops:

"No, I actually think that was a fair image,
That is what happened. The tragedy is that, for
five years, before that, there was a systematic

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denigration of the effort, and almost all jour-
nalists had turned against the war. But so had
we. I didn't disagree with the need to end it.
WAS DESPERATE [ WAS]
I wanted to end it, as did President Nixon,
under conditions that were not humiliating for
our country, and did not create more troubles
elsewhere and more suffering for the people of
Indochina."

and

"When the final collapse came, I think the television pictures reflected it accurately. It was an evacuation from rooftops---maybe the saddest moment in the conduct of foreign policy while I was in office."

About public opinion polls:

"You have to ask yourself: what does the public want from its leaders? I think the public expects its leaders to take it to a better future that they themselves cannot necessarily define.
The public will judge its leaders by the results they achieve. Of course, as a leader, one has to take public opinion seriously. But one also has to take seriously one's own judgment of the

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consequences of an action, because ultimately
the public will not forgive leaders who bring
about disaster, even if the disaster resulted
from a study of the public's wishes. You can-
not turn for policy, certainly not for foreign-
policy, to public opinion."

About television and Watergate:

"I learned most of what I know about Watergate from the media. In the White House, there was almost never any discussion in which I participated on the substance of Watergate. And I sometimes wonder if there was any discussion. Because everybody kept whatever he knew apparently to himself."

About the live televising of the Watergate hearings,
and the fact that accused cannot confront their accusers, nor
cross-examine:

"I knew the people involved, and while many of
them had done things that were very wrong---
when you know them and know their families, you
hate to see them in that position."

About improving the evening news shows:

"The first thing is that the evening news programs
ought to be an hour. When they report an Andropov

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speech, for example, or a Reagan speech, there
ought to be more time given to analysis, maybe
over a series of evenings so that the average
citizen knows what it is that's being proposed
here, and what its weak points and strong points
are."

About the small audiences for TV documentaries:

"You're still talking about, perhaps, five
million people and that's more than you can reach
any other way, and more than anybody could have
reached thirty years ago."

With regard to the Sunday morning interview programs.
The one you much prefer is This Week with David Brinkley:

"I think that is in a class by itself. It's
very flexible and got a looser structure. He can adjust it better
to fast-breaking news."

Still, those Sunday morning programs

"are not designed for people like me. In my
field, presumably I will know the person and I
will know more or less what he's going to say."

The interviewee's manner of handling himself "is
most of the time more interesting to me than what he actually says."

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About your own television-watching habits:

"Actually, I hate to tell you. I watch sports, old movies, news and news specials. I watch almost none of the serials. *Dallas* was on for two years before I saw it. Now I've seen it a few times. I watch football and baseball."

You sometimes tune in the 24-hour-a-day Cable News Network "because you don't have to wait until seven o'clock to find out what's happening in the world."

Your contract with ABC is "a very loose arrangement, FIRST CALL WITH RESPECT TO FAST BREAKING NEWS."

"For example, if somebody wanted my views on China, or the general condition of our foreign policy, I would be free to do that for anybody."

The projected PBS series will try to put foreign policy in a "historical perspective" and examine the "philosophy and practice" of diplomacy. You expect that you'll "have to free about a year of my time to do that as my principal activity."

About the fact that you have become the object of great press attention:

"If you asked people who were my colleagues at Harvard before I came to Washington, they would not have predicted---and I would not have predicted---that I would become a subject of great publicity. It may sound unbelievable. I did not seek it."

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But President Nixon was somewhat upset when You did be-
come the object of great media attention:

"Absolutely. Any President would. No President
likes to share the spotlight."

That ends the direct quotation.

As I mentioned, we like the story pretty much the way
it stands, and we hope you do too.

On behalf of the other editors and myself, I'd like to
offer our sincere thanks for your cooperation in producing
the article. We intend to give it the display it deserves.
We know that our readers will be fascinated by your comments
and insights.

Very respectfully,