DER SPIEGEL

1015 National Press Building
Washington, D. C. 20045

INTERVIEW OF

HONORABLE HENRY A. KISSINGER

3:53 p.m.
Monday, July 3, 1978
Suite 1021
International Building
1800 K Street, N, W.
Washington, D. C.

INDEPENDENCE REPORTING, INC.

OFFICIAL REPORTERS
304 Independence Avenue, S.E.
Washington, D.C. 20003
(202) 547-1005

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SPIEGEL:

DR. KISSINGER: I think I am out of office now for 18 months.

SPIEGEL: We delete the 15.

DR. KISSINGER: [But obviously] in fairness one has to say that the new administration was not elected necessarily to carry out policies, to carry out the policies that I would have carried out, and they campaigned that they would do it tactically differently and organizationally differently, and that has been done. [So] I think it is correct to say that certain matters would have been handled differently in terms of style and maybe in terms of substance.

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SPIEGEL:

DR. KISSINGER: First, let me explain the basic position that I have adopted. I had to conduct foreign policy for eight years, or contribute to the conduct of foreign policy for eight years, under conditions of near civil war. When I am now going through the documents for my book, I realize how anesthetized we were at that time and how we almost took this constant result for granted.

I formed the very strong opinion at that time that what the top leadership of the country needs is an atmosphere in which its motives are not constantly challenged and in

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[L.C.]

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which it knows that those who have an
influence on public opinion are not just
waiting for an excuse to create a credi-
bility gap.

Therefore, I have been very careful
not to make criticisms on essentially
tactical issues and to give the administration
the sense that on those items on which I
agree, I will even give public support.

When I do criticize or when I do state
a different opinion, I want it clearly
understood by our public that this is not
an attempt to regain lost power or to under-
mine the confidence of the public in our
Government, which I really think is one of
the biggest problems of our period.

And this I think has to be understood
both for this conversation and for my general
attitude publicly.

Now, to answer your question, what
would I recommend be done differently, of
course on specific issues I think you should
ask me the basic questions.

I think what is essential to be done is
that there is a clearly articulated concept

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[cc]

of American foreign policy that everybody
can understand and towards which other nations
and our own public can orient itself.

I think it is not possible to go on
indefinitely with these fluctuations which
are identified with this, or with a contest
between this or that personality within the
administration, so that in the period of
two months you can get very tough talk about
the Soviet role in Africa and the Cuban role
in Angola, and then sending of a political
envoy to Angola and that these are then
identified with leading personalities.

This I would say is the fundamental
requirement of our foreign policy. Within
that, whether I would then agree with the
result of that is a different issue.

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SPIEGEL:

DR. KISSINGER: Where did I say that?

SPIEGEL: Public opinion -- [German]

DR. KISSINGER: [Oh, well,] I do not say that the President does not lead. I do not contest his proposition that he makes the final decision. But foreign policy is not simply making final decisions on individual cases. Foreign policy is also establishing the relationship between individual cases and to develop a sense of nuance between these cases.

[I have seen that in TIME magazine this week] the President has said that he deliberately permits each of his chief advisors

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to articulate different policies so that
the public understands what the various
issues are.

That is what I question. I think he
has an obligation to explain what his posi-
tion is; he can also explain what the different
points of view may be, but in a democracy,
the different points of view emerge anyway.
There would be enough Republicans who would
give a different point of view, and for
that matter enough Democrats who would give
a different point of view. The President
does not himself have to generate a debate
within his administration in order to teach
the public that there are many different
points of view.

What is expected of a President is to
define clearly what the national purpose is,
what the policies are, and to defend this
against the inevitable criticisms that a
pluralistic society tends to generate.

It is really one other question, I am
assuming that this will be printed only
in Germany.

SPIEGEL: Only in Germany.

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DR. KISSINGER: Is this correct?

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SPIEGEL: This is correct.

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DR. KISSINGER: So that this will not be sold then to other places, England, and elsewhere? The public are always climbing walls. Can we agree on that?

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SPIEGEL: Just now, yes.

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DR. KISSINGER: You will do it only for DER SPIEGEL.

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Go ahead.

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DR. KISSINGER: Well, again let me say two things. I did not work on this document. I have established the firm principle that I will not work on joint documents. If I have something to say, I will say it in my own name, but not together with a group of others.

I would say it is in the logic of the democratic political process and especially in the logic of pluralistic society, as ours, that points of view contrary to that of whatever administration is in office will emerge, and what you have read is a fair statement of what many Republicans believe.

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SPIEGEL:

DR. KISSINGER: It is correct. I am not --
I have not agreed with all the elements of
our African policy. I think, for one thing,
I think there is a certain confusion when one
first criticizes Cuba for having engineered
the invasion from Angola and, whatever dispute
there can be about the invasion about the role
of the Cubans, there can be no doubt that
it came from Angola twice within fifteen
months.

I would not myself have recommended
sending a diplomat to Luanda within three
weeks of making these accusations. And I
have my doubts about whether the apparent

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impartiality between the internal solution
and the Patriotic Front does not, in fact,
encourage the Patriotic Front in precisely
the guerrilla actions they are now engaged
in and will not have the practical conse-
quence of destroying the internal solution
and thereby again polarizing the situation
between the whites and the Soviet and Cuban
supported guerrilla forces on the outside.

So it is true that on African policy
I have expressed my doubts.

On human rights, I agree with the objec-
tive, but I would like to see it -- the
problem in foreign policy is not simply to
state an objective but to be able to carry
it out over an extended period of time in
such a manner that it enhances the impression
of other countries that one knows how to
achieve one's objective.

I made a rather lengthy speech last
year in which I summed up my views on the
human rights question, which I am sure you
have had access to.

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[c]

SPIEGEL:

DR. KISSINGER: Oh, I think one has to keep in mind a number of aspects here. As a general proposition the Republican Party has perhaps had fewer experts on foreign policy, but, therefore, when it has been in office has been able to concentrate power in fewer hands and therefore has been able to conduct a less diffused concept.

The Democratic Party has many centers of power, many different views on the nature of foreign policy, and the difference between McGovern and Brzezinski, for example, or between young and the more conservative Democrats in the Senate are very substantial.

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So that a Democratic President almost invariably is faced with various claims to a role in foreign policy, and in attempting to meet them all or to reconcile them, there is the possibility that the impression is created of a more diffused foreign policy.

If you look at the early Kennedy period, I think you will find the same strains that you now find in the early Carter period.

I think there is a concept, I think the President has some rather clear ideas of what he wants. The problem is, in foreign policy, how you get from here to there, and this is where most of the disagreements are.

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SPIEGEL:

DR. KISSINGER: This is with all respect;
it is the wrong question. Basically I think
the neutron bomb is not a wonder weapon and
fundamentally its objectives can be achieved
with many other weapons.

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LWJ

SPIEGEL:

DR. KISSINGER: Therefore, I think
the neutron bomb should have been handled
as a technical issue to be decided essen-
tially by technicians. I do not understand
the moral issue that is raised by a bomb
whose radiation damage is less than that
of any Soviet weapon now in the Soviet arsenal,
and the only quote advantage unquote that
the Soviet weapons have is that, in addition
to having more radiation, they also have
enormously more explosive power. And, why,
to be incinerated in addition to being
radiated is a moral advantage eludes me.
But this may be a kind of moral blind spot.

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Therefore, I do not understand the moral issue involved in the neutron bomb at all.

Secondly, I do not think the neutron bomb is all that important a weapon.

Thirdly, I think that being -- if we are custodians or if we think we are custodians of the nuclear future of the Alliance -- then we have to be willing to make the final decisions and not ask our allies to make them for us.

SPIEGEL: For you.

DR. KISSINGER: And, fourth, I cannot accept the proposition that the Soviet Union intervenes in what warheads we build when any attempt by us to make the slightest proposal with respect to the warheads they put on their weapons would be mockingly rejected.

So, for all these reasons, I do not think the neutron bomb was worth making that big an issue about on either side of the Atlantic.

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SPIEGEL:

DR. KISSINGER: Well, I did not so much ask for an interpretation, I tried to stop them. Of course one will never be able to prove these things, and I eventually will write about them in some detail. But fundamentally the dividing line began to be crossed in 1975 in two ways.

When the civil war in Angola started between the three factions of NADO, Roberto, Savimbi, and Suphima, it was like many other African civil wars, and the outcome of which one could have a preference, but one did not need to make it a matter of superpower policies.

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For example, we accepted the victory
of the Frilimo in Mozambique because we
concluded that it had been achieved essen-
tially by indigenous efforts with some
reasonable outside support.

But in 1975 we found that between April
and June something like $200 million worth
of Soviet equipment was introduced on the
side of NADO, which was more military equipment
than all the rest of the world gave to all
the rest of Africa put together.

This is about right, isn't it?

MR. HYLAND: Right.

DR. KISSINGER: So, therefore, what
the Soviet Union was doing is for the first
time massively introducing military equipment
and started a cycle of upheavals similar
to the impact of their first introduction of
military equipment into the Middle East into
Egypt in 1954, which led to over 20 years of
constantly growing tension.

At this point, we sought to stop this
by assisting the black forces that were
resisting the takeover. When we did this,
the Soviets escalated yet another level by

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introducing Cubans.

SPIEGEL:

DR. KISSINGER: Both of these developments, we did not expect either of these developments. At that point, by a variety of means, we were in my view on the verge of stopping even that second excalation when the Congress cut off any means of support.

Had we succeeded in Angola, there would have been no Ethiopia. The situation in southern Africa would today be entirely different, and I think this was one of the fundamental watersheds.

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DR. KISSINGER: I think there were a variety of reasons for these actions. One was that you pay for your actions in politics sooner or later. The trouble is you don't usually pay immediately and, therefore, when it happens, people don't know any more what the cause was.

We went through Viet Nam near civil war conditions and Watergate, and everybody was saying, "Look, it doesn't affect the conduct of foreign policy at all." But, sooner or later, however, the erosion of executive authority reaches a point where somebody tries to test you. You cannot prove what

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the exact reason was, but this is certainly
in my view a contributing cause.

Secondly. is that precisely because
of the erosion of executive authority a
number of the agreements we have made with
the Soviet Union, such as the trade agree-
ment, could not be implemented.

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SPIEGEL:

DR. KISSINGER: That is right, and the Vladivostok Agreement could not be realized as rapidly as possible. So, therefore, one of the thoughts we had, which was that we could create inhibitions to Soviet maneuvers of this kind, had been removed. So we lost both the capacity to create incentives for responsible behavior and the capacity to create penalties for irresponsible behavior as a result of the decline of executive authority, and I think this was the reason why Angola -- why the Soviets attempted things in Angola in 1975.

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[LC]

SPIEGEL:

DR. KISSINGER: No, I don't think
when it started it was intended this way.

SPIEGEL: It was not or was?

DR. KISSINGER: It was not. I think
when the Soviets started in Angola, they went
further than they normally had but still within
limits that would have been containable.

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DR. KISSINGER: Well, of course, it is understandable, but there was no chance whatever of there being a new Viet Nam. In fact, it is very important to understand the essence of a problem. There was no possibility of sending American troops to Angola. There was no possibility of anybody introducing 500,000 troops in Angola. In fact, it was the Russians through the Cubans who were in our position, in the position we were in in Viet Nam. We were backing the local population against foreign invaders or against foreigners.

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[2C]

SPIEGEL:

DR. KISSINGER: Well, at that point,
I don't think the Congress was eager to --

SPIEGEL: To listen to this?

DR. KISSINGER: To listen to this sort
of argument. But again I would have to
say you cannot understand this entirely in
terms of 1975. You have to go back to the
systematic undermining of executive authority
that started in 1967 in which there was
the constant creation of credibility gaps
or emergence of credibility gaps and the constant
crises that led to this situation.

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[LC]

SPIEGEL:

DR. KISSINGER: I am saying -- first of all, I think it is important to keep in mind that when I came into office --

SPIEGEL:

DR. KISSINGER: I found 550,000 troops.

SPIEGEL: Of course.

DR. KISSINGER: 10,000 miles away.

SPIEGEL: Yes.

DR. KISSINGER: And when an administration faces the problem of over half a million American troops in combat, troops of the country on which the security of so many other countries depends, you cannot simply end this enterprise the way you

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1 switch to another television channel.

2
3 You are then engaged in a serious
effort.

4 SPIEGEL: Of course.

5 DR. KISSINGER: Whether it would have
6 been possible to achieve other results, I
7 will leave to an examination where I can
8 really deal with it more carefully.

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But what is clear, however, is that
the domestic debate that started as a
result of the Viet Nam War or that resulted
from the Viet Nam War, created such pro-
found divisions -- whosever fault it was --
that over a period of time weakened the
executive authority of the President.

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DR. KISSINGER: If you don't believe it is of geopolitical significance, then you have no need to stop it.

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So, it is not a problem of means; it is a problem of thought, and I happen to believe that the appearance, the fact that one is told that we must do certain things, otherwise the Cubans will intervene, could be interpreted by other nations as a sign of American impotence.

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SPIEGEL:

DR. KISSINGER: No, that I have not said.

What I have done is to say any nation has to make a decision between psychological certainty -- make a choice between being psychologically certain and paying a heavy price for being psychologically uncertain and paying a low price.

My point is that it would have been relatively easy to stop Hitler in 1936 ---

SPIEGEL:

DR. KISSINGER: After Rhineland,

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1 but people would still debate today

2 whether he was a misunderstood

3 nationalist or ---

4 [Laughter.]

5 DR. KISSINGER: -- or a maniac

6 bent on world domination.

7 By 1941, everybody knew who

8 Hitler was, and it was a knowledge

9 for which one had to pay 20 million
lives.

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Similarly, in Africa, it was
relatively easy to stop the Cubans
and the Soviets in Angola. Each
successive event will cost more;
only in this sense I compare the
problem. I do not think the Soviet
strategy is comparable to the Nazi
strategy. The Soviets are much
more patient, they are much less
geared to one individual, and I don't
even believe that the Soviets have a
clear-cut overall strategy.

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SPIEGEL:

DR. KISSINGER: I think they have
a strategy designed to accumulate strength
and a conviction that this strength will
sooner or later be translatable into some
geopolitical position, but they do not have
a fixed plan.

On the other hand, one cannot look
at what has happened in Afghanistan, Aden,
Ethiopia, and Angola and draw a line between
these various countries without coming to
certain geopolitical conclusions.

Whether this was the result of a plan
they always had ---

SPIEGEL: Or they jumped upon a plan?

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SPIEGEL:

DR. KISSINGER: I would say that this appears to be the result of policy. I am not saying this is the design.

I have no information whatever whether the Cubans actually marched into Shaba, but I will say two things, which I keep repeating.

In foreign policy it is important to understand the essence of the problem.

The invasion of the Shaba Province occurred by means of the Katanga gendarmes. The Katanga gendarmes have lived where they are now in the northern part of Angola for 12 years. In that whole time they never invaded Zaire.

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After the Cubans appeared, there
have been two invasions in a period of
13 months. It would be the strangest
kind of coincidence if there were not
some connection between these events.

Secondly, what would people say
if an American President would say
about a country where we have 20,000
troops either that we didn't know that
they were planning an invasion of a
neighboring country -- which he
sometimes says -- or that he did not
but he was unable to dissuade these
people from the invasion?

I think if this happened in a
country where we have 20,000 troops,
the assault by our media on the
President ---

SPIEGEL: It would be a
credibility gap, again.

DR. KISSINGER: -- and an attack
on the grounds of credibility would be
unbelievable.

So, I have not even asked our
government to let me see the intelligence

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1 on which they based their judgment
2 because it is inherent in the
3 situation that there must be a
4 connection between the Cuban and
5 that invasion, and if there is no
6 presence, if there is no connection,
7 if you put a loose cannon on the
deck, you cannot then say you are
9 not responsible when it starts
10 rolling because you didn't hit the
11 particular wave which caused it to
12 roll.

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SPIEGEL:

DR. KISSINGER: The essence of these -- again, the nature of these problems is that you cannot prove it when it is still problematical.

From my conversations with people in the Middle East, they are judging our reaction in a rather gloomy way. Now, at what point the impression is created that this represents an inexorable wave and thereby starts a series of events that nobody has planned and that nobody can then control, that I cannot judge, but I find it hard to believe that the

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1 Soviet Union would put $1 billion

2 worth of arms and another 20,000

3 troops into a country as they did

4 in Africa right across the Straits

5 from Saudi Arabia without promising

6 itself something more than maintaining

7 the borders ---

8 SPIEGEL: Even risking ---

9 DR. KISSINGER: -- of Ethiopia.

10 After all, we have to look at what

11 happened in Afghanistan, contested

12 for over a century. The British

13 considered it important enough to

14 fight innumerable wars on that frontier

15 because they thought that the possession

16 of Afghanistan had some influence on

17 the security of the Indian Subcontinent.

18 Afghanistan was 80 percent in the Soviet

19 sphere of influence to begin with. We

20 were not engaged in a very active foreign

21 policy there and, yet, we have seen that

22 a government has been established there

23 entirely composed of communists and even

24 that limited balance that existed there

25 has now been overthrown. That cannot be an accident.

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SPIEGEL:

DR. KISSINGER: Well, I think
it makes a difference whether you
give some modest support to the
Frilimos, which they did in
Mozambique, or whether you send
$1 billion worth of arms by a
forced-draft airlift into
Ethiopia. It makes a difference
whether you give some philosophical
encouragement to so-called
liberation movements, as we give
philosophical encouragement to
other groups, or, whether you send
20,000 Cuban troops. All of these
make an enormous difference.

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I think that, unfortunately,

detente became a political issue

in the United States partly as a

result of the facts that I described

earlier, paradoxically enough by the

very people who used to accuse our

administration of being too tough.

I think the fact of detente

policy shouldn't be disputed. Its

content should be disputed.

I think every Western government

has an obligation to demonstrate to its

people that it is making a serious

effort to avoid the dangers of war.

If it does not do this, it will wind

up with all the domestic divisions of

the Vietnam War.

On the other hand, one must

also be sure that peace does not

become the only objective because,

if it becomes the only objective,

it will lead to blackmail and to

navigate between these extremes

is the art of statesmanship, not

to say you are against detente or

you are for the cold war ---

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SPIEGEL:

DR. KISSINGER: Well, that is not -- first of all, that is not exactly true.

We signed and published a declaration of principles and a treaty for the prevention of nuclear war, both of which required prior consultation in matters that might lead to the achievement of unilateral advantage which, with good will, could have been interpreted in the right way.

For a number of years while, ... of course, the ideological opposition

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continued, there was a certain

amount of restraint. So, I don't

think it is impossible, through a

combination of firmness and

flexibility, to re-establish a

code of conduct, but it requires

both. It cannot be done with

rhetoric.

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SPIEGEL:

DR. KISSINGER: Well, first of all, I don't want to contrast what I did with what Secretary Vance is doing.

Secondly, it is true that the control of nuclear weapons has a special importance so that it should not be lightly sacrificed to foreign policy irritations or even ordinary tensions.

Thirdly, I would not say that we got nothing for SALT I. I would think that going to Moscow after having mined Haiphong and

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1 Hanoi, was not a minor matter.

2 Fourth, as far as the

3 Middle East was concerned, it

4 was our judgment that we were

5 in the stronger position in the

6 Middle East than the Soviet

7 Union was. Of course, the

8 Soviet Union was not doing

9 everything we would have

10 wanted. We were usually quite

11 confident about being able to

12 manage the crises in the

13 Middle East. So, ---

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SPIEGEL:

DR. KISSINGER: But the opposite would not be true that, therefore, in the absence of detent you would have less armaments.

[Laughter]

DR. KISSINGER: In the absence of detent, you would have even more armaments. The advantage of detente has been that it makes the environment somewhat more predictable.

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SPIEGEL:

DR. KISSINGER: Well, the
Soviet Union, as the inheritor of
Russian history, probably has a
very highly developed sense of
insecurity.

Therefore, this produces a
normal tendency -- this produces
a tendency to arms.

Another factor is the
paradox that the communist states
have really no normal method for
arriving at decisions except by
the contest of bureaucratic forces,
and within that contest the military

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1 establishment always has a very

2 great voice. Therefore, inevitably

3 it has a claim on resources.

4 Thirdly, if you look at

5 communist industries, communist

6 economic development, it is

7 generally not the most spectacular

8 success of the communist system.

9 In fact, you could say that the

10 one thing that the communist systems

11 do better than any other one thing

12 is the accumulation of arms, and

13 there is an almost inevitable

14 tendency to do those things which

15 a nation does well -- to continue

16 doing them.

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SPIEGEL:

DR. KISSINGER: I beg your pardon?

SPIEGEL:

DR. KISSINGER: But I don't believe that there is a fixed plan for world domination, but I do believe that it is possible -- I don't believe, for example, that the Romans had a scheme to achieve a Roman Empire; in fact, all one's study of Roman history would tend to indicate that they sort of fell into one situation after another.

Nevertheless, in time they achieved such a predominance that they nevertheless created an empire.

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SPIEGEL:

DR. KISSINGER: I would say
that the long-term geopolitical
position of the Soviet Union is
not brilliant. The long-term
domestic situation is not brilliant.
Domestic pressure, therefore, to
substitute foreign policy successes
for the domestic evolution must
be very great, and very soon
they will have the means -- and they
have already growing means -- to do
it.

Five years ago, certainly ten
years ago, they could not have transported

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1 $1 billion worth of arms to

2 Ethiopia in the space of two

3 or three months or whatever
4 period they did it in.

5 At any rate, it was a
6 very short period of time.

7 So, when I say they
8 don't have a fixed plan, it
9 doesn't mean that they will
10 not acquire the power to take
11 advantage of those opportunities
12 that a revolutionary world
13 inevitably generates.

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SPIEGEL:

DR. KISSINGER: This, I don't happen to believe, incidentally. I believe that if you look at the potential strength of the West, that if the Soviets every triggered us into a real mobilization of our resources, we could still outdo them enough and, therefore, there is a limit beyond which the Soviet Union will be very reluctant to push us even if their forces in being are larger than ours, unless they could knock us out completely, which I do not believe they can do and which is,

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in any event, against the communist
philosophy of having history on their
side.

I still believe that our
potential strength and even our actual
strength is not that precarious.

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SPIEGEL:

DR. KISSINGER: Well, I have,
from my first book on, my first
interview with Der Spiegel on, held
that it is important -- that the
time when Europe could rely entirely
on forces stationed far away was
drawing to an end, and I have
always believed that the regional
balance in Europe requires increasingly
greater emphasis.

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SPIEGEL:

DR. KISSINGER: Yes. You
know there is a limit beyond which
withdrawals really don't do you much
good because when they go back 400
miles, their capacity to reinforce
is -- I don't know what the studies
show, how long it would take them
to bring those tanks back. You cannot,
in other words, establish the balance
only by Soviet withdrawals. There has
to be a buildup of western forces to
achieve the balance.

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SPIEGEL:

DR. KISSINGER: I have never believed in any one wonder weapon. The fact is, I have saved the missile, when the Pentagon wanted to drop it out of the budget in 1973. So, I am in favor of it, but I don't think that it is only the cruise missile that can be a counter to the SS-20, as long as the position is made there will be some counterweight to the SS-20.

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SPIEGEL:

DR. KISSINGER: Sure, it can
be a missile. It can be a cruise
missile. It can be a ballistic
missile. The first decision -- I
am a great believer in first making
a decision in principle of what it is
you are trying to do. Then how you
implement that technically is the
second question. I am not at all
against cruise missiles. I think
the cruise missile is one device;
other missiles could also be thought
of.

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SPIEGEL:

DR. KISSINGER: Well, first of all, to most areas in controversy their distances are much shorter than ours. So I would think probably our airlift capability is still superior if you simply count the number of airplanes and the capacity of the airplanes. But if you relate them to the distances that are likely to -- in areas that are likely to be in dispute, they have made very great progress in approaching our capability.

Would you say that --

MR. HYLAND: I think ours is still

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SPIEGEL:

DR. KISSINGER: After all, one should never give the Soviete excessive credits. It is, after all, not impossible that when the Soviets establish their military budget that they divide it up among their services the way this has been known to happen in other States on the basis of the bureaucratic weight of the various contestants and that they may be building things for which there is no overwhelming geopolitical need.

Why should they be immune from these bureaucratic matters?

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SPIEGEL:

DR. KISSINGER: Yes, certainly. I think it gives them a capacity for intervention that they would not have otherwise had. It gives them a capacity for harassment that they would not otherwise have had.

All I am saying is that of all the Soviet military buildup, the one that worries me relatively less than the others is the Soviet surface fleet. The Soviet submarine fleet is another matter.

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1 would deduce from simply counting their numbers.

2
3 It is also true that in almost --
4 certainly in airplanes, and probably in
5 many other weapons, the West is probably
6 technologically superior. And this helps
7 to establish a certain amount of balance.

8 There must be some reason why the
9 Soviet Union at no time since the end
10 of the war has ever run the risk of a
11 direct confrontation with the United States
12 once they understood that a certain action
13 would produce a direct confrontation with
14 the United States.

15 They have usually acted only in areas
16 where there was some doubt about whether
17 it would lead to a confrontation.

18 Having said all of this, I believe
19 nevertheless that the growth of Soviet
20 military strength in the last ten years,
21 if you project it over another ten years,
22 would create military realities that must
23 have political consequences.

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SPIEGEL:

DR. KISSINGER: Well, it is always a mistake to speak of any one card you have as if it were the trump.

The hardest thing to understand about foreign policy is that it has to be extended over time and that there are no decisive individual moves. Within this context, however, I have always believed that there has to be some relationship between the economic assistance that is being given to the Soviet Union directly or indirectly, and its political comeback, especially its comeback.

Whether that in itself is decisive or not, I don't know. But there is something

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1 to say that the use of Cubans is
2 something that I would not have
3 predicted. On the other hand,
4 it has become a sign of strength,
5 it is also a sign of weakness,
6 because -- I repeat -- it cannot
7 be beyond the wit of man to defeat
8 the Cubans. And it could have
9 worked in Angola, and it may yet
10 give them enormous difficulties
11 as time goes on.

SPIEGEL:

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DR. KISSINGER: Well, there
are many things attributed to me.
I say that about my associates,
too. It is a symptom of my mega-
lomania.

[Laughter.]

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risk-taking than younger men, although
you can't generalize this. One
of the problems is that statis-
tically it is probably that a large
number of the present Politburo
believed within a relatively short
timespan -- whenever that is --
but since they are all of roughly
the same age, there could be --
there will come a period at some
point which I don't want to predict ---

SPIEGEL:

DR. KISSINGER: --- at which
several of the top leaders will
be changing within a relatively
short timespan and this may present
certainly the West with new problems
to deal with.

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SPIEGEL:

DR. KISSINGER: No. First
of all, I don't think we know who
are the doves and who are the hawks,
and I think if you look at the
history of relations with the Soviet
Union, it is usually the current
Soviet leader who is considered
a dove and it is always the last
Soviet leader who is considered
a hawk, and when Stalin was alive,
he was generally considered a dove
in Western literature.

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1 men will use arguments that relate
to policies that do not succeed
3 to advance themselves, just as
4 they do in other countries.

5 I think we know much too little
6 about the doves and the hawks to
7 know which faction it is. Secondly,
8 I don't know which argument would
9 be most -- would appeal most to
10 the doves. Usually the argument
11 is that you strengthen the doves
12 by making concessions.

13 You can always say that you
14 strengthen the doves by demonstrating
15 that it is much too risky to pursue
16 a certain course because it could
17 be that that is the best argument
18 that the doves have available.

SPIEGEL:

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DR. KISSINGER: No, but I have

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DR. KISSINGER: Really?

SPIEGEL: Really.

DR. KISSINGER: Well, ---

SPIEGEL:

DR. KISSINGER: No, I have
said that -- what I have meant --
first of all, I don't want to confirm
that particular quote, but what
is certainly true is that the generation
of Brezhnev having gone through
the purges, through the Second
World War, and through a whole
series of crises since then. It
is likely to be more cautious and
more aware of the dangers of international
complications than might be the

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And since it was a secret trip,
I could not prepare myself as syste-
matically for it.

I have learned a great deal
about China since then, but I repeat,
I have always respected the intelli-
gence and subtlety of the Chinese
leaders. But I know I would not
consider myself an expert on Chinese
culture. I suppose I know a little
more about Soviet, about Russian
history, but I think I understand
both of them about equally well
for the purposes of the conduct
of American foreign policy.

SPIEGEL:

DR. KISSINGER: No, I think
that China intends to modernize,
to develop its economy, and I
think it will succeed. It is a
very talented people.

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SPIEGEL:

DR. KISSINGER: Well, I don't want to raise any questions about Marshal Tito. According to actuarial tables his life expectancy is more than it was at the time of his rupture with Stalin. I think that will not be excessively insulting to him if I say that. But at that point, whether Yugoslavia will have domestic upheavals or tensions that would tempt outside intervention, I don't think even the leaders of Yugoslavia can tell today, because if they could, they would deal with them.

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It is generally thought that
this could become a problem.

SPIEGEL:

DR. KISSINGER: Well, yes,
I had that concern, especially
in relationship to Eurocommunism.
I would not apply that to countries
like the Federal Republic or France
or Britain.

I think in countries of Euro-
communism, where the Eurocommunists
are gaining significant influence,
it could become true.

SPIEGEL:

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SPIEGEL:

DR. KISSINGER: For the reason which I will now give you, because it is, of course, understandable that the Federal Republic will pursue certain national objectives, but there is also the historic danger that a Germany Conduccting a totally separate or special policy in the center of the continent could so disquiet everybody as to bring on all the dangers that it is seeking to avoid.

Now, I think that it has always been inherent in any Germany policy,

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whether it is the Haus-Diet doctrine
which ran the risk of confrontations,
or the Ostpolitik, which ran the
risk of excessive negotiations.
It is true that I have some doubts
about the transition.

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I think it is always true --

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I think that Brandt and Bob will
agree with this. Once we had agreed
on what they would attempt, that
I gave them a great deal of support.

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DR. KISSINGER: I have not
belonged to those who have been
excessively critical of the economic
policy of the Federal Republic.
Whether it is possible to give
more economic aid or not, I have
really not studied that problem.

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Maybe a little less economic aid
to the East.

[Laughter.]

SPIEGEL:

DR. KISSINGER: I can't judge
this because I have not seen the
two gentlemen in contact with each
other.

I consider Schmidt a good
personal friend, and I know him
to be a good friend of the United
States. I don't think he has had
to deal with the style of a Democratic
administration with the various
centers of power that I have described,
and I would hope that over a period
of time that this relationship

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identical. I studied Bismarck
and I developed great admiration
for him, even though I have to
say that he is partly responsible
for some of Germany's modern trage-
dies. I developed -- I think he
is the first modern statesman in
this sense, that he attempted to
conduct foreign policy on the basis
of an assessment of the balance
of forces unrestrained by the clichés
of a previous period.

What is more important is
that he understood that power
can be used only as an instrument
of policy if you are prepared to
be moderate in the political consequences
you draw from it and if you respect
the right to existence of other
states with whom you over a historic
period have to coexist.

Now this led him into a policy
that was a virtuoso performance
and of extraordinary complexity
and his successors did not have

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1 his genius to conduct such a complex
2 policy and in simplifying it they
3 were left only with the calculus
4 of power, military power, without
5 understanding the political and
6 other aspects and in this sense
7 I think he was responsible for
8 some of the later tragedies.

9 But I think in the conduct
10 of foreign policy, in the under-
11 standing of the necessity for options,
12 he performed masterfully.

SPIEGEL:

DR. KISSINGER: Well, you
21 know, I would have to say that
22 anyone who can maintain a system
23 for 30 years is successful. His
24 greatest weakness was the weakness
25

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of all great men, that he could
not bring along his successor.

Ideally if he could have passed
it on to somebody who understood
what he was trying to do and if
he had had an emperor who was as
willing to let his successor operate
as his emperor was, it might have
gone on considerably longer a time.

His biggest problem -- but
I think it is probably true that
the biggest criticism one could
make of Bismarck is that it required
a genius in every generation, that
his system was so complex it required
a genius in every generation and
that is asking too much.

SPIEGEL:

DR. KISSINGER: I think the
biggest problem anybody has is

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SPIEGEL:

DR. KISSINGER: Well, I would
put it slightly differently.

Do you think we can end this
in about ten minutes?

SPIEGEL: Yes, we can.

DR. KISSINGER: First, I think
Sadat is a great man. I think
one of the few active spiritual
qualities that I have seen is his
trip to Jerusalem. You can give
it 5,000 pragmatic significances,
but for somebody who has seen Arabs
and Israelis deal with each other,
this could not be done by just
anybody, no matter how much they
may have thought it was a great
stroke of genius.

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On the other hand, Israel is in a different position. It is, after all, a population of only 3 million with a very precarious existence. It doesn't know whether Sadat, even from its point of view if he is insincere, how long he will stay in office. So it is harder for Israeli leaders to make the grand chess than it is for a great Arab leader. It is not easy for any of these leaders.

I regret that for a variety of reasons this negotiation has gotten on this legalistic level. I don't think that is the most fruitful way of proceeding with it.

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DR. KISSINGER: This has now been described by Woodward and Bernstein, by Nixon, and I suppose I will eventually describe it, but it really isn't the most significant issue. The significant issue at that period was how to manage the resignation of a President with a maximum dignity for the political process of the United States, and I thought -- that is what I wanted to make a contribution to.

Also, the human problem, whatever you thought of Nixon as

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a person, it was a tragic period, and
you could not have worked with somebody
for five and a half years, whose
achievements were, after all, not
inconsiderable, whatever his failings,
without being moved by the enormity of
that moment -- and I speak of the whole
week, not of any one event that may
have happened during that week.

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SPIEGEL:

DR. KISSINGER: I think I won't --
that is another one of these questions
that ---

SPIEGEL:

DR. KISSINGER: No, no. This is
something that I will never -- there
are certain folklores that will never
end, and I did not say that all of
Western Europe would be Marxist in 10
years. I don't remember precisely what
I said, because this was at an informal
conversation with a group of European

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SPIEGEL:

DR. KISSINGER: One thing, in one of the previous questions on what was the most important thing, I think the most important thing I tried to do was -- with what success, even I really don't know -- is to attempt to base American foreign policy on fundamental principles of national interest and avoid the oscillations between euphoria and panic, which have been so characteristic of us. That we will have to see whether that succeeded. If it didn't, somebody else will have to do it.

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DR. KISSINGER: Certainly, that was one of the risks we took, and that was one of the elements of courage in Nixon's decision.

[At 5:45 p.m., the stenographically recorded portion of the interview was concluded, followed by a 10-minute informal exchange between Der Spiegel and Dr. Kissinger.]

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