FROM LA TIMES SYNDICATE INTL
AVAILABLE BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT ONLY
WORLD RIGHTS. (2000 WORDS)

FOR RELEASE: SUNDAY, MAY 19, 1985

PLEASE CONTACT JESSE E. LEVINE, DIRECTOR, LA TIMES INTL

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INTERVIEW WITH HENRY A. KISSINGER

Q: What is next for U.S. policy toward Nicaragua?

A: We have to make a fundamental decision with respect to
Nicaragua. First, what is it we actually want to achieve? Do
we want a reduction of their military and intelligence
capability and elimination of the Cuban forces? Or do we want
more? Do we want a transformation of the government? If we
want a transformation of the government, is it enough for us
that the Sandinistas maintaining power permit some democratic
or some formal opposition, or do we actually want the
Sandinistas to be overthrown? We have to make sure that we
know what our objective is and that we then select the means
that are appropriate to that objective.

Q: Do you feel at this point the Administration hasn't
made up its mind which it wants?

A: I believe the Administration has not made up its mind.

Q: What does that tell us?

A: It tells us that it has to make up its mind because if
it does not, it may wind up with the worst of all worlds, with
sanctions, pressures and neither resolution of the military
nor resolution of the political issues.

I'm very concerned that if by, say, this time next year
or fifteen months from now there has not been a change in
either the military circumstances or the political
circumstances of Nicaragua, that then the politics in our
country, which are already difficult enough, will inhibit the
assembling of pressures and incentives adequate to achieve the
objectives.

Q: What would you actually do about Nicaragua? What would
your choice be? Would it include breaking off diplomatic
relationships and attempting to overthrow the regime?

A: At this moment, I would advise doing absolutely nothing
for about four weeks and then design a strategy and explain it
to the American public, and then take a comprehensive series
of steps, not stopping until we have achieved them. And it's

hard to know which individual step will work, but if you go
and make one step and then you get yourself a little money
(muddy?) and then you take another step, you are on the road
to the incremental approach which doomed us in Vietnam and
nearly doomed us in Korea.<

Q: Well, that's the path we're on today.<

A: We are on a path on which I think there is no precise
relationship between the rhetoric we put forward and the
measures we are taking. I have considerable sympathy for the
rhetoric; I am not attacking the rhetoric.<

I have two problems. One, I do not fully understand which
of the many possible objectives I've laid out the rhetoric is
supposed to accomplish. Secondly, it is not clear to me how
the measures that have been put forward will achieve those
objectives.<

On the one hand, the Administration says Nicaragua is of
vital interest. On the other hand, there is a covert project
of $14 million. It is absolutely unclear to me how a vital
interest can be served by a $14 million project. If that were
it, you could go to a foundation and get the money.<

If we are serious about the guerilla war, we have to be
serious about the message it is conveying. If we are not
serious about the guerilla war, then we may keep it going, but
it is hard to know what negotiated outcome that sort of
pressure can achieve. So, the Congress is partly responsible.

But I think the Administration is also partly to blame in its
inability to make up its mind on its objectives and on its
views and to put its objectives to the American public in a
manner that the American public can grasp.<

Q: You suggest a feebleness of will?<

A: I don't think there's a feebleness of will, but there
is a concern with the consequences of a huge public debate.<

Q. If it's as serious as the Administration has suggested,
was it wise to rule out the use of U.S. troops in all
circumstances and to announce the fact in advance?<

A: That's a problem: should we use American troops? And
certainly should we announce that we are not using American
troops? Nobody can be enthusiastic about using American
troops. I would not have thought it was wise to announce the
refusal to use American troops when you have also declared the
area as vital.<

Q: It almost suggests to me that there is a sort of
flaccid approach in foreign affairs as far as the United
States is concerned at the moment. Are Secretary of State
George P. Shultz and National Security Adviser Robert C.
McFarlane responsible for this?<

A: I wouldn't call them flaccid. I would say their basic
approach is certainly non-confrontational and that they are
very conscious of the fact that they are marathon runners and

not sprinting so that they don't want to use up all of their
energies on any one stretch of the road. Of course, the risk
is that you may have to lose the marathon race that way, and
at some point you have to get ahead. That's a tough decision
to make from case to case. As a general proposition, I would
say that this Administration is better geared to making a
series of individual decisions than to make long-range
strategic decisions that relate various aspects to each other.
But that is also partly a result of the approach of the
President who feels, as I understand, more comfortable with
being asked to judge on individual cases rather than a
coherent, long-range pattern.<

Q: How do you view the ANZUS Alliance in relation to strategic interests? Is ANZUS as valuable as it's being made out to be?<

A: Well, I think ANZUS is above all valuable for the countries being protected. If you look at it in terms of historical perspective, not at the next five years, these areas cannot be defended against some foreseeable attack without American assistance.<

It also has major usefulness for the United States. It's a
naval base for some of the electronic installations that have
been a subject of controversy.<

Now you cannot have an alliance a la carte. You cannot
permit allies to select the weapons by which they're going to
be defended and take a free pass on the other days. <

But I think it is, from a historical perspective, an
important alliance which I believe will grow in importance and
the understanding of its importance will grow in the minds at
least of Australians.<

Q: At the time of the crisis between the United States and
New Zealand over nuclear weapons on U.S. ships there were
suggestions that perhaps sanctions should be imposed against
New Zealand, and more recently we've had sanctions imposed
against Nicaragua. Are sanctions in any situation effective?.<

A. There's a huge difference between Nicaragua and New
Zealand. New Zealand is a friend in whom we are disappointed.
Nicaragua is a country which has conducted an adversary
foreign policy and a foreign policy seeking to undermine
interests that many Americans consider vital. Our relation
with New Zealand has never reached anything like that, so I
would think sanctions are much more appropriate against
Nicaragua than they are against New Zealand.<

The appropriate response to New Zealand is to cut off or
limit military relationships that have their base in the ANZUS
agreement and perhaps to fail to give New Zealand the
preferential treatment in the day-to-day administrative
decisions that one normally accords in an ally or a very
friendly country.<

Now do sanctions ever work? They don't work unless one
country is the critical supplier of a scarce commodity, unless
other countries also join the sanction. <

In the case of Nicaragua, the amount is so negligible that it would be hard to enforce -- my basis idea would be that if we embargo a country and are serious about it, we should then accept a penalty from countries that circumvent the embargo. That is, if another country raises its trade by the amount we cut out, that we should find some way of denying access to the United States markets for the amount that they increase their trade with the embargoed country. We can't ask it to join our embargo, but we can ask it not to benefit from our embargo.<

Now in this case, if I understood the President correctly, he wanted to convey to the Nicaraguans and other countries that we were not giving up just because the Congress had voted -- we're not giving up our basic policy line just because the Congress had not voted the $14 million of aid to the Contras, and so one has to look at the sanctions as partly symbolic and partly substantive.<

Q: What is Fidel Castro up to? <

A: It depends in part on how Castro judges our intention and in part on what he assesses the Soviets are likely to do. He certainly doesn't want to risk his existence in a conflict over Nicaragua. So, whether he is willing to play an even larger role depends in part on the threat he perceives to Nicaragua and to himself. I would guess that he's willing to make some concessions for Nicaragua because he would like to preserve the potential for revolution in the area and that he sees his role in that sense.<

Q: Stepping back and looking at President Nixon, how would you judge his place in history? <

A: I think he will go down as a very considerable President. He had a great ability to go to the heart of the problem. He made great mistakes that led to his ouster, but I think that the punishment was out of proportion to the sin.<

Q: Are you prepared to hazard a guess on the place of the present President in history? <

A: Actually, this President could go down as a great President if he can get through his second term without crises. He will have brought down a significant domestic almost-revolution, and I judge that he's doing quite well in foreign policy if he brings the Soviets back to the conference table.<

He is, after all, with all the criticisms you now read, still the dominant factor in foreign policy, and of course, he has already turned around domestic policy. If he maintains that position for four years, he will have a transforming effect on world politics and he will go down as a great President. At this point, it's still open. He's not a President the likes of which we've seen before. He's not a conceptualizer. He's not somebody who develops great theories. He doesn't have the intellectual approach of, say, Nixon.<

On the other hand, you have to say that he dominated every
political situation in which he found himself -- eight years
in California, four and a half years as President. You can't
say that that cannot be done by a minor figure, and he kept
himself alive out of office for six years -- very hard to do.
Look at how politicians drop like a stone in this country
after they leave office.<

Q: Do you think the events in Bitburg will have a lasting impact on the administration?<

A: I don't believe so. I think it was an unfortunate choice of symbolism. It's obvious that the President did not participate in the selection of the site and that as the thing developed, there was no point at which he could disengage without doing more damage to our foreign policy. Having been born in Germany and having lived under the Nazis, I would much preferred a different site. But by the end of the day, I supported the President's going ahead with the trip.<

Q: Reflecting on 10 years after Vietnam, what would you have done differently?

A: Well, it depends at what stage. I think we should have thought through before we put the first 20,000 men in the Kennedy Administration what the lasting consequences would be and not simply counted on the fact that advisers had suggested it, and we should have analyzed how it was in Vietnam for us, debate how crucial to the national interest of the United States. Secondly, when we put 500,000 troops in in the Johnson Administration, we should have prevailed. We should have had a strategy for victory rather than a strategy for stalemate. But victory became a dirty word in our domestic debate and to say you wanted victory was tantamount to being a warmonger.<

I thought then that Nixon should in 1969 have tried to force a military showdown, and I recommended it on three occasions. But I didn't have my heart in it because all the people with whom I had intellectually grown up were so violently opposed. So my head told me but my heart kept me from pushing it with the intensity with which I pushed other views, and I think Nixon was more or less in the same position. But I think it was a grave mistake. I regret that we did not do in 1969 what we did in 1972.<

Q: In terms of the military showdown?

A: If we had done in '69 when we still had 500,000 troops there what we did in '72, (here HK must explain what we did in 72; he means we applied force we would have had a decision one way or the other within a year). If we had then not prevailed, we probably should have gotten out.<

This is what intellectually we should have done. But we
would have had hundreds of thousands in the streets,
resignations from the Cabinet and we would have been
slaughtered by the media.<

We did what we did because we wanted to gain time, but the