6

talking about esoteric war games. In fact, the margin
of superiority of the United States over the Soviet Union
is five times as large today as it was at the time of the
Cuban missile crisis -- if you just count the number of
weapons that each side can deliver on the other. The
relevance of this margin has changed -- because, as I
said, there is no scenario that anyone can imagine
that could reduce a counter-blow to the United States to
even 200 weapons, much less to ten.

This being the case, we are in the realm of
esoteric, intellectual exercises that intellectuals
can work out in think tanks, but that no President that I
have ever known, or no presidential candidate that I have
known or is foreseeable is ever likely to implement. I
don't say this as a criticism; I don't say this as
anything other than to state a root fact. And the same
is true of the other side.

If you visualize the difficulty of calculation
for the Soviet Union of destroying 1,054 land-based
missiles, some 100 air bases around the world, and some
41 submarines, and to do it all sufficiently simultaneously
so that none of them can retaliate, you have an insoluble
or nearly insoluble problem.

7

Now, this does not mean that war is impossible. It means that strategic war has become less and less plausible. And to understand this, you can understand our attitude towards the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks. We consider it important to limit that category of arms which at one and the same time has the greatest potential to destroy humanity and the least potential to be used for foreign policy purposes. In none of the major crises with which I have been associated have we ever come anywhere close to using strategic nuclear power. And yet in all of the crises with which I am familiar, we have been very dependent on our capacity to deploy local power. And therefore over the years ahead you will see us continuing to press for limitations of strategic forces. It is the category of forces that is most suitable for limitation. And it does not mean that we have gone soft, or that we no longer perceive the fundamental problems that divide us from the Soviet Union. And it is totally irrelevant to Soviet intentions. One doesn't have to assume favorable Soviet intentions.

Now, in the meantime, there have also been fundamental changes in many other respects.

Europe has become economically a powerful entity, in

8

many respects a competitor of the United States and politically much more assertive. The same has been true of Japan. Much has been made of the difficulties that we have encountered with the Europeans and the Japanese. I don't say that mistakes may not have been made -- though I can't immediately think of one. (Laughter) But that is not the point. The major point is that a period of adjustment in our relations to Europe and Japan was inevitable. And that this adjustment should go through some strains. In fact, I think our relations with Japan are improving rapidly and are getting into a new and more mature phase. And our relations with Europe have to be seen more in terms of the domestic politics of the various European countries than of an abstract entity called Europe.

Now, together with these adjustments which I have described -- and I have not even mentioned the trauma which this country went through in two big episodes; the end of the Viet-Nam war and the Watergate crisis, the first in which we were trying to end a war under conditions in which there was a systematic attack on the ability of the central authority to conduct what it considered to be in the national interest, and the second in which there was a general weakening of the central

9

authority to a degree that in time would have been extremely
dangerous.

But there have been systemic changes around the
world, of which the crisis in the oil prices and the
consequent balance of payments difficulties for all
advanced industrial nations and the economic dislocations
is one of the major factors.

Finally -- rather than have me go on -- the most
difficult problem or the biggest change we have tried
to bring about here is this.

I have talked about the institutionalization
of foreign policy, which is interpreted in this building
to mean that we cannot act without the approval of the
lowest ranking foreign service officer. But that is not
exactly what we have in mind. (Laughter) What we have
in mind is something quite different.

The United States has traditionally conducted
foreign policy on the basis of a projection outward of
its domestic experiences. It has gone in cycles.
In the 1920s we were isolationist because we thought we
were too good for this world. In the 1970s the isolation
took the form that we were not good enough for this world
yet, and until we had achieved domestic perfection, we had

10

no right to conduct foreign policy. For a long period,
we thought that in the relations among states, peace
is the normal condition, and that therefore if there
is conflict it must be due either to wickedness or to some
misunderstanding to be removed by the strenuous exercise
of good will.

Few of these propositions are supported by history.

Most relations among states, maybe as an attribute
of their sovereignty, have involved tensions. And all
negotiations -- almost all negotiations -- have required
pressures.

The legal form has given expression to agreements,
but it would be hard to prove that international law
has automatically solved most international disputes,
except those that the parties had already decided to solve.

So the hardest thing to get across to the American
public, and, I may say, to many of those conducting American
foreign policy, is that the primary requirement of the
conduct of American foreign policy is to defend the
American interests.

Now, a wise conception of the American interests
will take into account that world peace is essential for

11

the United States. It will take into account the fact
that a structure of peace cannot be created unless other
nations feel they have a part in it. To say that one
must defend the national interest does not mean that one
must impose one's will by force on others. But it does
mean that there is a difference between a declaration of
abstract preferences and the conduct of American foreign
policy. And it also means that policy-makers are
responsible, not just for the best that can be imagined
at any moment, but for the worst that could happen.

My predecessor, Dean Rusk, used to say -- I hope
not about me -- that academicians had an enormous difficulty
in learning the difference between a conclusion and a
decision. And this is one of the problems that we have
as a country.

I understand that Joe Sisco has talked to you
about the Cyprus crisis. And I am not here to defend
every last thing that was done during the Cyprus crisis.
But if we had followed the swings of public opinion on
the Cyprus crisis we would have turned against Greece
in the first week, turned against Turkey at the end of
the second week, kicked Greece out of NATO in the first

12

week because it had a government which we did not like, kicked Turkey out of NATO in the second week because it was carrying to its logical conclusions the very policies we were supposed to support in the first week -- and no one would have asked what was the American interest in this, where are we going to be six months from now, in the Middle East, in Europe, in our relations to all of the participants.

This is what I mean by the institutionalization of foreign policy. And this is what we are attempting to do.

Now, I have described what was done after '69, and I believe that it enables President Ford to build on a very firm foundation. And actually, since he now is no longer a lame duck President with only two years to go, but somebody whom foreign governments, whatever will happen in '76, have to consider as somebody who might continue, we have a possibility to build on the foundations that have been achieved. And if we can see through some of the crises to which I have alluded, have one of the more creative periods in American foreign policy.

But why don't I stop at this point and let me ask you specific questions.

(Page B-1 follows)

B-1

Q Don Marin, Michel-Hudson.

Henry, in your opening remarks you talked about how there was a change when Mr. Nixon came into office. You talked about the impact of nuclear strategy. I think there were some of us who think that more recently there has been a basic change, and that's economics. We're thinking about the oil crisis and about the Russian wheat deal. And essentially my question is, "Do you feel that these major new economic forces are going to change fundamentally the way American foreign policy is conducted, or are they simply going to be considered as extensions of old problems but now larger?"

A First, let's talk about the Russian wheat deal. The Russian wheat deal had nothing to do fundamentally with systemic changes in the conduct of foreign policy. The Russian wheat deal was -- if I can be inelegant -- a bureaucratic screw-up. (Laughter and applause)

It is not true that as a part of a profound
design the United States decided to sell a billion dollars
worth of wheat to the Soviet Union. It is a good example,
however, how one's preconceptions affect the conduct of
policy.

B=2

First, when President Nixon was in Moxcow we did discuss an agricultural deal with the Soviet Union, but the figures mentioned by the Soviet Union were so small that it was decided that it was not worthy of top-level attention, and it was scratched from the agenda at the Summit, and it was decided that for this amount the Soviet Union should send a technical mission to the United States at the end of June to discuss whatever purchases they wanted to make.

Second, it had been considered axiomatic in the United States, in every administration I may say, that to get rid of our surpluses was both in our foreign policy and in our domestic interest. So through the whole year that an agricultural deal was considered in Washington it was considered by both parties to be something that would be a master stroke for the Administration when they did it. And the criticism that was made when the deal was consummated was not that the United States had sold out to the Russians but that we had held up the deal in order to give a maximum benefit to the Administration in the election campaign, which also wasn't true.

So, thirdly, we were not aware of the fact until the deal was already completed that this was a year in which there had been crop failures in the Soviet Union. Now, of

B-4

Fourthly, it was not considered possible that we could exhaust our surpluses.

Fifthly, if I may say so to this distinguished group of businessmen, the companies were not exactly focusing on the overall picture and on the overall national interest. Each of them thought they were getting a tremendous deal of their own, and nobody exchanged information with each other or with the Government. So, as a result, we had no idea of how much grain was actually being purchased around the country. So the total picture was not a deliberate design by the Government to sell a billion dollars of wheat to the Russians. I remember when I talked to one of the senior officials at the time when we thought it was a $700 million deal he said to me, "If we are lucky," which shows you the cast of mind of everybody at the time, he says, "If we are lucky, we are going to sell $350 million of that in the first year." Well, we sold a billion dollars of the $750 million in the first year. (Laughter)

So, while I if I ever write my memoirs, will not devote an extensive amount of time to that episode, (Laughter) I don't think it shows anything other than in a big bureaucracy and in a government and in a country which has certain perceptions the combination of bureaucrats, the preconceptions

B-6

So we do face a problem, first, of whether the modern government is capable of looking ahead far enough to protect itself against the foreseeable dangers. Or even if it is capable of looking far enough ahead, whether it is not so overwhelmed with day-to-day problems that it never gets around to the long term thing.

Secondly, it raises the question of how one deals with cartels of producers.

Thirdly, it has raised fundamental questions of how to handle the balance of payments issues and the consequent inflationary spiral that occurs.

Now, on some levels the balance of payments problem would be more easily handled if we were not ourselves imprisoned in certain economic preconceptions. For example, the curious aspect about this balance of payments issue is all of the money has to come back to the countries that pay out. There's no other place where the Arabs can invest it. But it doesn't come back to the same countries in the same proportions as it is being paid out, so that an enormous imbalance is created. If all of the money were invested in the United States, for example, we would face the problem of how we could get some of it back, for example, to Italy or to other countries that are interested.

B-7

So we have a dual problem of, first, how to deal with the cartels of producers; and secondly, how to deal within the industrialized world in such a way that we mitigate or remove the effects that are produced by these economic changes.

Now, I think this is a soluble problem, but it requires enormous discipline, and it also requires among the industrialized nations that they give up the beggar-your-neighbor policy and the sort of scavanging policy where if one country tries to make a move in the common interest the others instead of joining it try to pick up the pieces.

Now, we are trying to work on a strategy that, hopefully, will achieve these objectives. But we won't achieve it by grandstand plays. We have to get a strategy, and we have to be tough enough to see it through once we start on it, because it isn't going to be a tea party once we start tackling the oil crisis.

Sir.

B-8

Q John Babbitt, with Agreco Chemicals.

You have helped -- and I believe we're
on the record -- of promoting this food conference that
will take place in Rome in November. At the time of it,
we were looking forward to rather substantial surpluses
of wheat, corn and other food and feed grain. Now we're
coming up a little bit short this year. Within your
definition of institutionalization of the State
Department in our best interest, what policy or posture
do you think we should be taking when we think in terms of
shortages in the U. S., licensing exports or what to do
about the Subcontinent where they possibly have people
starving?

A Well, the World Food Conference should not
be geared to any one year's situation in the United States.
The biggest contribution that the United States can make,
and will try to make at this Conference, is, first, to
make an analysis of the problem that the world faces.

Now, I believe that over a five-year period, food
is one of the assets we have, just as oil is one of the
assets the OPEC countries have. And we should take a look
at it in the long term and not simply deal with it on a
year-by-year basis.

B-9

So if you look at it in a five-year period, one ought to look at the world's needs, and, secondly -- and I'm not embarrassed to say this, at the way we can use food in the most strategic way to serve the general interests that I have described -- which include the prevention of starvation but which are not confined to the prevention of starvation in the world.

Now, so what we will try to do is, first, to make an analysis of what is needed -- secondly, to try to get the world to accept the concept of food reserves to see what is needed to promote food production -- what can be done, first, by cooperation among the countries producing surpluses; and, secondly, where the United States can place its weight most effectively. And we will make specific proposals.

Now, as far as this year is concerned, I believe it would be a mistake for the United States to engage in a retrenchment -- a retrenchment of its agricultural exports. In fact, we should, if we want to pursue this policy over a long term, increase our agricultural exports to some extent because, even though the wheat crop is quite good the corn crop is much less than we expected but not much less than it was last year, so we have to see it in

B-10

perspective. And we still have to see the report
that comes out -- I think about September 10th.

So we will try to increase, in the short term,
the food aid, but, in the long term, to try to develop
a food policy that most contributes to these long-term
objectives that I've described.

I am not in favor of export controls on
agricultural products, or of licensing.

Yes, sir?

Q. My name is Rano from the LTV Aerospace Corporation.

I wonder if you'd say a word or two about
Pakistan and the arms embargo, particularly in light of
the fact that they seem to have the money to buy
some airplanes from us as only one company involved
in the possible sale and the fact that if we don't sell
them some other country might well sell them airplanes.

A. One of the astonishing events in this world
is how -- and I say this with some admiration -- how it is
possible for the French, for example, to sell arms to
South Africa, to every side of every war, without incurring
any political penalty, while when we do anything in this
field we seem to get into massive difficulty.

B-11

Now, there's no question that the arms
embargo to the Subcontinent weighs unfairly heavily on
Pakiston because India has its own armaments production.
Indeed, India produces more arms than Pakistan imports.
And, in addition, India gets arms from the Soviet Union.

On the other hand, we have maintained that up
to now because, quite frankly, our judgment was that the
political price to be paid for lifting the arms embargo
was not worth what could in fact be done because to
redress the balance would require such a massive infusion
of arms that it would shift our political allegiances in
the Subcontinent completely.

Now, on the question of cash sales to Pakistan,
that is an issue that has only recently arisen. Up to
now the issue was always whether we could give arms on
credit. And that is an issue that is now under considera-
tion -- on which we, frankly, haven't made a final decision.

D-1

Q Mr. Secretary, I wonder if you would be good enough to give us your opinion with regard to the rather severe criticism being directed around the world, and within our own country toward the so-called multinational corporations?

A First of all, I don't share this general criticism. I have one particular complaint which I will voice in one minute.

I think there are certain slogans -- there is this problem with the multinational corporations, that it is divorced, or so it seems, from the political processes of many of the countries in which it operates and therefore it is less amenable to political direction, so I don't take that all that seriously, because in fact it isn't true. I mean, this is what the textbook says. But, in fact, any management of a multinational corporation that knows what is good for it will try to operate very closely within the political structure of the country in which it finds itself, because it needs that for its own survival.

In fact, my criticism of the multinational corporation is exactly the opposite. My criticism of the multinational corporation is that those specimens that I have

D-2

were so eager to get along with their host countries
that they stopped taking into account the interests of
the United States and became spokesmen of their host
countries, much more than that of the United States. But
I will save that for a more tactful occasion. [Laughter.]

So, my view is that there are certain political
symbols around the world around which political opposition
is being organized in Latin America, and in other parts of
the world, and the control of multinational corporations
has become one of the shibboleths which, with good will
on both sides, is soluble, but if it is erected into a
political slogan, it becomes fairly difficult to deal with.
So that really should be seen more in terms of the domestic
politics of many of the countries. It doesn't mean that
there are not some -- that some of the practices of multi-
national corporations in previous times do not deserve
correction. But it seems to me that the multinational
corporations ought to be extremely sensitive to the
political climate in which it operates, and that many of
those can, with good will, and in fact can with good judg-
ment, be dealt with.

Q Seculo, from RCA. Mr. Secretary, you just a

(ic)

D-3

minute ago said that one of the criticisms you might
make of the multinationals is that they have been too close
to the governments of the host countries. Mightn't it be
because it has been difficult for them to be close to the
government of their own country?

A Well, I don't know to what extent it has
been true that it has been difficult for them to be close
to the government of their own country. In our case here,
we are making a serious effort to deal with the multi-
nationals, and to understand the point of view of the multi-
nationals that significantly affect foreign policy. I have
been meeting personally with the oil companies at periodic
intervals.

I personally, if I can be frank, have been struck
by the fact the disproportionate amount of money that is
being spent on economic analysis as compared to political
analysis where most multinational corporations will under
present conditions be more affected by political conditions
than they will be by purely economic conditions. And
secondly, I can only speak of those areas with which I
am familiar.

I have sometimes been appalled by what some of the

D-4

local officers of the multinational corporations said to
their host, in their attempt to curry favor with their
host.

I will say, in defense of the multinationals,
that once I understood this problem and explained it to
their home offices, that that practice was substantially
stopped.

Q Mr. Secretary, my name is Fred Hartley
of , California. You stated that at some point
in the future, you will be tackling oil prices and it will
not be a tea party. I certainly would agree with the
tea party part of it.

Could you elaborate on that? Are you optimistic
that there will be a retrenchment on the current never-ending
increase in oil prices, which certainly has been going on?

A I am fairly optimistic. And with some discipline, we can arrest the rise in the oil prices. And then after that we can attempt to move on reducing the oil prices.

There isn't any one-shot solution to ending -- to
reducing the oil prices. And if we make a determined
effort -- I think we have to be realists -- if we make a

D-5

determined effort to reduce prices, we have to be prepared,
if necessary, to endure some confrontation, which can
become very unpleasant.

Until we are ready to do this, both in terms of
the domestic organization of our energy program, and in
terms of the international situation with respect to what
support we can get, we are just engaging in grandstand play.

There isn't going to be any one gimmick that is
going to bring these prices down, because there are too
many vested interests. It is going to be very tough for
any one oil-producing country to put itself out front in
reducing oil prices with the pressures that can be gener-
ated against it from all the other oil-producing countries.

So, we are dealing with a very complex, difficult
thing that has to be done. I think I am more optimistic
about arresting the increase in oil prices than I am in
reducing them in the short term.

Q Mr. Secretary, my name is Ted Letter of
Abbott Laboratories.

Could you comment on where you see the future of
India ten or fifteen years from now?

A Well, India, right now, is in a very difficult

D-7

A I don't believe you can convince the Arabs that the conflict with Israel is provincial, unless there is some sort of a settlement. I don't think it is true that people are more interested in material possessions than they are in some of the intangibles, like national honor and their historical image of themselves.

Again, if you look at history, you have to conclude that throughout most of history, most nations have prized these intangibles more than the tangibles, because very few wars in history have paid for themselves. And in terms, therefore, of tangible gain in Palestine, there is very little for the Arabs there.

Now, I believe that the great danger for Israel and the grant danger for the world is a coalescence of all Arab frustrations which will then be directed against the United States, indirectly against Western Europe, and which will lead to a gradual attrition of Israel, of the Western position in the Arab world, and will create a very difficult situation. And, for all these reasons, the United States feels very strongly that we must continue to make progress towards a settlement of the Arab Israeli conflict. If that settlement is achieved, then I believe that the

D-8

normal compatibility of interests between the United
States and the Arab World will continue to operate, and
then, under those conditions, I think that turns towards
a greater interest in the material fulfillment -- in the
fulfillment of their material aspirations can take effect.
If that is not achieved, then it is certain that there will
be another war within two to three years. And rather at
the short than at the long end of this period. And another
war is going to have the same consequences for the rest
of the world that the last one did, no matter what the
local outcome is. It will again lead to a confrontation
between the Soviet Union and the United States. It will
again lead to a confrontation between Europe and the
United States, and will accelerate the economic difficulties
that we have described earlier, and therefore our effort
is to prevent such a situation from arising.

I will take two more questions. Yes.

Q [Identification not clearly spoken].

Could you comment on the implications of the
Iranian arms build-up? What do you think they are going
to do with all that?

A Well, for one thing, when you have so much

D-9

money, what else are you going to spend it for?

And, secondly, I think that the Shah is trying to build himself, and will probably succeed, into the dominant country in the Middle East. He will try to make it as difficult as possible for the Soviet Union to bring pressure on him. And he would like to have an effect on the surrounding countries; that is to say, will try to make it as difficult as possible for India to bring pressure on Pakistan, and for Iraq to be used as an effective base for the Soviet Union against him. And, on the whole, his strength has been an asset to the United States in that area.

I will take one more question.

Q Mr. Secretary, I am Carl of the Greyhound Corporation.

What resolution or evoltuion do you see in the sleeping prices that exist -- maybe it is not really sleeping -- between the Soviet Union and China in the next ten or fifteen years?

A Well, I used to say that there was no crisis, that is before I came to Washington. It took me a long time to believe that the two could really break, and I was wrong

D-10

in that assumption.

Now it seems hard for me to imagine that they
will ever really get together. The particular form of
antagonism that exists, as long as Mao and Chou En-lai
are in office, may attenuate over a period of time. But
the Soviet Union will never be able to forget that a Mao
was possible once and hence could be possible again.

The eight hundred million Chinese at a border
confronting only thirty million Russians, and that in
Russian history texts, major areas of the Soviet Union
are shown as belonging to Communist China. And to get
some feeling of comparison, one would have to see how we
would feel if Mexico had a population of 800 million, was
developing nuclear weapons, and in its history books showed
all the acquisitions of the United States in the 19th
century from Mexico as really belonging to Mexico. That
creates a somewhat erie feeling. [Laughter.] And even
though I think it quite possible that the tensions that
now exist can be eased, I don't believe that either side
will ever trust the other so completely that they would
concert their policy so much that they would eliminate us
as a factor in the balance. Because doing that would

D-11

really put them at the mercy of the other. This is par-
ticularly true of China for the next phase, while it is still
weak.

So I would foresee that some determined effort
will be made, after the death of Mao, to improve relations,
that this effort will succeed to some extent, and that we
should be relaxed about it.

We don't have a frontier of six thousand miles
on which a million Soviet troops are located. And we don't
have a frontier of six thousand miles across which eight
hundred million enemies want to move. And I think reality
will take care of itself in that area.

AMBASSADOR LAISE: Thank you, Mr. Secretary.

[Applause.]

[The meeting closed at 6:10 p.m.]

[LC]

PRESS

DEPARTMENT OF STATE

September 18, 1974

No. 365

REMARKS BY
THE HONORABLE HENRY A. KISSINGER
SECRETARY OF STATE
AT THE ACHESON PORTRAIT PRESENTATION
NATIONAL GALLERY
SEPTEMBER 17, 1974

Mrs. Acheson, Mr. Sadik, Ladies and Gentlemen:

We come here this evening to do honor to one of the greatest of my
predecessors. We do so for many reasons — out of affection, for reasons
of friendship, and because of our admiration for his genius.

As an historian I have long respected the heritage left by Dean
Acheson the public servant. He brought unity from the chaos that was
the legacy of war; he built a mighty alliance that gave hope and security
to millions; he fashioned an international structure that lasted far past
his own departure from the public scene. The magnitude of his accom-
plishments has assured that ever afterward he will serve as the standard
against which his successors will inevitably be judged.

But for me this ceremony tonight is far more than mere history.

It is, first of all, an opportunity to give thanks for the gallantry
he displayed toward me when I first came to Washington almost six years
ago. I shall be forever grateful for his wise counsel during those
difficult times, and I shall never forget his concern — free of partisan-
ship — for the proper governance of this nation.

But most important, this ceremony provides an opportunity to remind
ourselves that what Dean Acheson was, what he stood for as a man, remains
vital and alive today, and that he set a standard against which all of
us — in government or out — must judge ourselves.

He was a man of dignity — in his person and in his view of the
public process. He revered the greatness and majesty of the nation he
served, and never demeaned it. He felt deeply the duty his country
demanded, and never shirked it.

He was, as well, a man of wit and humor; life was fun and it was
fun to be around him. I shall, for example, never forget his description
to me of a then senior statesman: "He reminds me of an amateur boomerang
thrower practicing his art in a crowded room." On another occasion,
though as a Harvard man I personally could not find it particularly
amusing, he described President Truman as "a Yale man in the finest sense
of the word." Finally — and much closer to home, given my former pro-
fession — he said in one of his remarkably articulate speeches, "When
public men cannot escape historians they would do well to forget them
while they get on with their job. One cannot even be sure of fixing the

For further information contact:

PR #365

-2-

jury by employing its members — though it may help temporarily — or by becoming a member and writing its verdict . . ."

So much, then, for historians. And so much for any thoughts I may have had about future employment once I depart my current position.

The Acheson legacy is nowhere more pervasive — nowhere more deeply felt — than in the institution I now head. He will not pass from the hearts and minds of those who worked with and for him, for he gave them an understanding of the great adventure they were embarked upon. And he inspired hundreds who knew him only as a legend. He took them beyond themselves, beyond the petty concerns that can stultify and smother a bureaucracy, and showed them the breadth and scope of the business they were really about — the peace, the security, and the wellbeing of their own nation and of all mankind. In charting his great enterprise, he engendered a sense of pride, of purpose and dedication, that put the Department of State at the center of the policy-making process — not because an organization chart indicated that it should be, but because its quality demonstrated that it must be.

It is, perhaps, the ultimate compliment that any man can receive that more than twenty years after his departure from office his way of thought and action remain the test of quality, and his example the goal for which those who have followed after him still strive.

As he was an inspiration to his subordinates, so was he devoted to his chief. As he said in describing himself: "Like General Marshall, his successor never forgot who was President, and the President most punctiliously remembered who was Secretary of State. This mutual restraint is basic to a sound working relation between the two." And a sound relationship they did indeed possess. Nothing so briefly yet so eloquently sums up the depth of that remarkable relationship as does the simple dedication of Present at the Creation — "To Harry S. Truman 'The Captain with the mighty heart'."

Finally, Dean Acheson was a man of rare honor and integrity — a man who saw the human condition, and the awful influences of power, more clearly than most. In an eloquent statement before a Senate Committee in 1951 he said: "In long days and years which stretch beyond that moment of decision, one must live with one's self; and the consequences of living with a decision which one knows has sprung from timidity and cowardice go to the roots of one's life. It is not merely a question of peace of mind, although that is vital; it is a matter of integrity of character."

The strength, the humanity, and the compassion of Dean Acheson are found in those few words. They are a reaffirmation of his greatness for all who loved or admired him; they are a challenge to all who treasure his memory.

Justice Holmes once said, in a speech that Secretary Acheson was fond of quoting, "Alas, gentlemen, we cannot live our dreams. We are lucky enough if we can give a sample of our best and if we can know in our hearts that it was nobly done."

Dean Acheson more nearly lived his dreams than any man I know of. He gave us his best. And it was, indeed, nobly done.

Thank you.

* * * * *

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# I. The Challenge

Since the dawn of the nuclear age the world's fears of holocaust and its hopes for peace have turned on the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union.

Throughout history men have sought peace but suffered war; all too often deliberate decisions or miscalculations have brought violence and destruction to a world yearning for tranquility. Tragic as the consequences of violence may have been in the past, the issue of peace and war takes on unprecedented urgency when, for the first time in history, two nations have the capacity to destroy mankind. In the nuclear age, as President Eisenhower pointed out two decades ago, "there is no longer any alternative to peace."

The destructiveness of modern weapons defines the necessity of the task; deep differences in philosophy and interests between the United States and the Soviet Union point up its difficulty. These differences do not spring from misunderstanding, or personalities, or transitory factors:

- They are rooted in history, and in the way the two countries have developed.

- They are nourished by conflicting values and opposing ideologies.

- They are expressed in diverging national interests that produce political and military competition.

- They are influenced by allies and friends whose association we value and whose interests we will not sacrifice.

Paradox confuses our perception of the problem of peaceful coexistence: if peace is pursued to the exclusion of any other goal, other values will be compromised and perhaps lost; but if unconstrained rivalry leads to nuclear conflict, these values, along with everything else, will be destroyed in the resulting holocaust. However competitive they may be at some levels of their relationship, both major nuclear powers must base their policies on the premise that neither can expect to impose its will on the other without running an intolerable risk. The challenge of our time is to reconcile the reality of competition with the imperative of coexistence.

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There can be no peaceful international order without a constructive relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union. There will be no international stability unless both the Soviet Union and the United States conduct themselves with restraint and unless they use their enormous power for the benefit of mankind.

Thus we must be clear at the outset on what the term "detente" entails. It is the search for a more constructive relationship with the Soviet Union reflecting the realities I have outlined. It is a continuing process not a final condition that has been or can be realized at any one specific point in time. And it has been pursued by successive American leaders though the means have varied as have world conditions.

Some fundamental principles guide this policy:

The United States cannot base its policy solely on Moscow's good intentions. But neither can we insist that all forward movement must await a convergence of American and Soviet purposes. We seek, regardless of Soviet intentions, to serve peace through a systematic resistance to pressure and conciliatory responses to moderate behavior.

We must oppose aggressive actions and irresponsible behavior. But we must not seek confrontations lightly.

We must maintain a strong national defense while recognizing that in the nuclear age the relationship between military strength and politically usable power is the most complex in all history.

Where the age-old antagonism between freedom and tyranny is concerned we are not neutral. But other imperatives impose limits on our ability to produce internal changes in foreign countries. Consciousness of our limits is recognition of the necessity of peace — not moral callousness. The preservation of human life and human society are moral values too.

We must be mature enough to recognize that to be stable a relationship must provide advantages to both sides and that the most constructive international relationships are those in which both parties perceive an element of gain. Moscow will benefit from certain measures just as we will from others. The balance cannot be struck on each issue every day, but only over the whole range of relations and over a period of time.

## II. The Course of Soviet-American Relations

In the first two decades of the post-war period US-Soviet relations were characterized by many fits and starts. Some encouraging developments followed the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 for example. But at the end of the decade the invasion of Czechoslovakia brought progress to a halt and threw a deepening shadow over East-West relations.

During those difficult days some were tempted to conclude that antagonism was the central feature of the relationship and that US policy — even while the Viet-Nam agony raised questions about the readiness of the American people to sustain a policy of confrontation — had to be geared to this grim reality. Others recommended a basic change of policy: there was a barrage of demands to hold an immediate summit to establish a better atmosphere, to launch the SALT talks, and to end the decades-old trade discrimination against the Soviet Union which was widely criticized as anachronistic, futile, and counterproductive.

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These two approaches reflected the extremes of the debate that had
dominated most of the postwar period; they also revealed deep-seated
differences between the American and the Soviet reactions to the process
of international relations.

For many Americans, tensions and enmity in international relations
are anomalies, the cause of which is attributed either to deliberate
malice or misunderstanding. Malice is to be combatted by force, or
at least isolation; misunderstanding is to be removed by the strenuous
exercise of good will. Communist states, on the other hand, regard
tensions as inevitable by-products of a struggle between opposing
social systems.

Most Americans perceive relations between states as either friendly or hostile, both defined in nearly absolute terms. Soviet foreign policy, by comparison, is conducted in a grey area heavily influenced by the Soviet conception of the balance of forces. Thus, Soviet diplomacy is never free of tactical pressures or adjustments, and it is never determined in isolation from the prevailing military balance. For Moscow, East-West contacts and negotiations are in part designed to promote Soviet influence abroad especially in Western Europe — and to gain formal acceptance of those elements of the status quo most agreeable to Moscow.

The issue, however, is not whether peace and stability serve
Soviet purposes, but whether they serve our own. Indeed, to the
extent that our attention focuses largely on Soviet intentions we
create a latent vulnerability. If detente can be justified only by
a basic change in Soviet motivation, the temptation becomes overwhelm-
ing to base US-Soviet relations not on realistic appraisal but on
tenuous hopes: a change in Soviet tone is taken as a sign of a basic
change of philosophy. Atmosphere is confused with substance. Policy
oscillates between poles of suspicion and euphoria.

Neither extreme is realistic, and both are dangerous. The hopeful view ignores that we and the Soviets are bound to compete for the foreseeable future. The pessimistic view ignores that we have some parallel interests and that we are compelled to coexist. Detente encourages an environment in which competitors can regulate and restrain their differences and ultimately move from competition to cooperation.

A. <u>American Goals</u>

America's aspiration for the kind of political environment we
now call detente is not new.

The effort to achieve a more constructive relationship with the
Soviet Union is not made in the name of any one administration, or
one party, or for any one period of time. It expresses the continuing
desire of the vast majority of the American people for an easing of
international tensions, and their expectation that any responsible
government will strive for peace. No aspect of our policies, domestic
or foreign, enjoys more consistent bipartisan support. No aspect is
more in the interest of mankind.

In the postwar period repeated efforts were made to improve our
relationship with Moscow. The spirits of Geneva, Camp David and
Glassboro were evanescent moments in a quarter century otherwise
marked by tensions and by sporadic confrontation. What is new in the

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current period of relaxation of tensions is its duration, the scope of
the relationship which has evolved and the continuity and intensity
of consultation which it has produced.

A number of factors have produced this change in the international
environment. By the end of the sixties and the beginning of the
seventies the time was propitious — no matter what administration
was in office in the United States — for a major attempt to improve
US-Soviet relations. Contradictory tendencies contested for preeminence
in Soviet policy; events could have tipped the scales towards either
increased aggressiveness or towards conciliation.

— The fragmentation in the Communist world in the 1960s challenged the leading position of the USSR and its claim to be the arbiter of orthodoxy. The USSR could have reacted by adopting a more aggressive attitude toward the capitalist world in order to assert its militant vigilance; instead the changing situation and US policy seem to have encouraged the Soviet leaders to co-operate in at least a temporary lessening of tension with the West.

— The prospect of achieving a military position of near parity with the US in strategic forces could have tempted Moscow to use its expanding military capability to strive more determinedly for expansion; in fact it tempered the militancy of some of its actions and sought to stabilize at least some aspects of the military competition through negotiations.

— The very real economic problems of the USSR and Eastern Europe
could have reinforced autarkic policies and the tendency to create
a closed system; in actuality the Soviet Union and its allies have
come closer to acknowledging the reality of an interdependent world
economy.

— Finally, when faced with the hopes of its own people for
greater well-being, the Soviet Government could have continued to
stimulate the suspicions of the Cold War to further isolate Soviet
society; in fact it chose — however inadequately and slowly — to
seek to calm its public opinion by joining in a relaxation of tensions.

For the United States the choice was clear: to provide as many
incentives as possible for those actions by the Soviet Union most
conducive to peace and individual well-being and to overcome the
swings between illusionary optimism and harsh antagonism that had
characterized most of the postwar period. We could capitalize on
the tentative beginnings made in the sixties by taking advantage
of the compelling new conditions of the 1970s.

We sought to explore every avenue towards an honorable and just
accommodation while remaining determined not to settle for mere
atmospherics. We relied on a balance of mutual interest rather than
Soviet intentions. When challenged — such as in the Middle East,
the Caribbean or Berlin — we always responded firmly. And when Soviet
policy moved towards conciliation we sought to turn what may have
started as a tactical maneuver into a durable pattern of conduct.

Our approach proceeds from the conviction that in moving forward
across a wide spectrum of negotiations, progress in one area adds
momentum to progress in other areas. If we succeed, then no agreement
stands alone as an isolated accomplishment vulnerable to the next
crisis. We did not invent the inter-relationship between issues expressed in the so-called linkage concept; it was a reality because of

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the range of problems and areas in which the interests of the United
States and the Soviet Union impinge on each other. We have looked
for progress in a series of agreements settling specific political
issues and we have sought to relate these to a new standard of inter-
national conduct appropriate to the dangers of the nuclear age. By
acquiring a stake in this network of relationships with the West the
Soviet Union may become more conscious of what it would lose by a
return to confrontation. Indeed it is our hope that it will develop
a self-interest in fostering the entire process of relaxation of tensions.

B. The Global Necessities

In the late 1940s this nation engaged in a great debate about
the role it would play in the postwar world. We forged a bipartisan
consensus on which our policies were built for more than two decades.
By the end of the 1960s the international environment which molded that
consensus had been transformed. What in the fifties had seemed a
solid bloc of adversaries had fragmented into competing centers of
power and doctrine; old allies had gained new strength and self-
assurance; scores of new nations had emerged and formed blocs of their
own; and all nations were being swept up in a technology that was
compressing the planet and deepening our mutual dependence.

Then, as now, it was clear that the international structure formed
in the immediate postwar period was in fundamental flux, and that a
new international system was emerging. America's historic opportunity
was to help shape a new set of international relationships — more
pluralistic, less dominated by military power, less susceptible to
confrontation, more open to genuine cooperation among the free and
diverse elements of the globe. This new, more positive international
environment is possible only if all the major powers — and especially
the world's strongest nuclear powers — anchor their policies in the
principles of moderation and restraint. They no longer have the power
to dominate; they do have the capacity to thwart. They cannot build
the new international structure alone; they can make its realization
impossible by their rivalry.

Detente is all the more important because of what the creation
of a new set of international relations demands of us with respect to
other countries and areas. President Ford has assigned the highest
priority to maintaining the vitality of our partnerships in Europe,
Asia and Latin America. Our security ties with our allies are essential
but we also believe that recognition of the interdependence of the
contemporary world requires cooperation in many other fields. Coopera-
tion becomes more difficult if the United States is perceived by allied
public opinion as an obstacle to peace and if public debate is polarized
on the issue of whether friendship with the United States is inconsistent
with East-West reconciliation.

One important area for invigorated cooperative action is economic
policy. The international economic system has been severely tested.
The Middle East war demonstrated dramatically the integral relationship
between economics and politics. Clearly whatever the state of our
relations with the USSR the international economic agenda must be
addressed. But the task would be infinitely more complex if we proceeded
in a cold war environment.

International economic problems cut across political dividing
lines. All nations, regardless of ideology, face the problems of
energy and economic growth, feeding burgeoning populations, regulating

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the use of the oceans, and preserving the environment.

At a minimum easing international tensions allows the West to devote more intellectual and material resources to these problems. As security concerns recede humane concerns come again to the fore. International organizations take on greater significance and responsibility, less obstructed by Cold War antagonisms. The climate of lessened tensions even opens prospects for broader collaboration between East and West. It is significant that some of these global issues — such as energy, cooperation in science and health, and the protection of the environment — have already reached the US-Soviet agenda.

In the present period mankind may be menaced as much by international economic and political chaos as by the danger of war. Avoiding either hazard demands a cooperative world structure for which improved East-West relations are essential.

### III. The Evolution of Detente — the Balance of Risks and Incentives

The course of detente has not been smooth or even. As late as 1969 Soviet-American relations were ambiguous and uncertain. To be sure negotiations on Berlin and SALT had begun. But the tendency towards confrontation appeared dominant.

We were challenged by Soviet conduct in the Middle East cease-fire of August 1970, during the Syrian invasion of Jordan in September 1970, on the question of a possible Soviet submarine base in Cuba, in actions around Berlin, and during the Indo-Pakistani war. Soviet policy seemed directed toward fashioning a detente in bilateral relations with our Western European allies, while challenging the US.

We demonstrated then, and stand ready to do so again, that America will not yield to pressure or the threat of force. We made clear then — as we do today — that detente cannot be pursued selectively in one area or towards one group of countries only. For us detente is indivisible.

Finally, a breakthrough was made in 1971 on several fronts — in the Berlin settlement, in the SALT talks, in other arms control negotiations — that generated the process of detente. It consists of these elements: an elaboration of principles; political discussions to solve outstanding issues and to reach cooperative agreements; economic relations; and arms control negotiations, particularly those concerning strategic arms.

#### A. The Elaboration of Principles

Cooperative relations, in our view, must be more than a series of isolated agreements. They must reflect an acceptance of mutual obligations and of the need for accommodation and restraint.

To set forth principles of behavior in formal documents is hardly to guarantee their observance. But they are reference points against which to judge actions and set goals.

The first of the series of documents is the Statement of Principles signed in Moscow in 1972. It affirms: (1) the necessity of avoiding confrontation; (2) the imperative of mutual restraint; (3) the rejection of attempts to exploit tensions to gain unilateral advantages; (4) the renunciation of claims of special influence in the world; and (5) the willingness, on this new basis, to coexist peacefully and build a firm long-term relationship.

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An Agreement for the Prevention of Nuclear War based on these principles was signed in 1973. It affirms that the objective of the policies of the US and the USSR is to remove the danger of nuclear conflict and the use of nuclear weapons. But it emphasizes that this objective presupposes the renunciation of *any* war or threat of war not only by the two nuclear superpowers against each other, but also against allies or third countries. In other words, the principle of restraint is not confined to relations between the US and the USSR, it is explicitly extended to include *all* countries.

These statements of principles are not an American concession; indeed we have been affirming them unilaterally for two decades. Nor are they a legal contract; rather they are an aspiration and a yardstick by which we assess Soviet behavior. We have never intended to "rely" on Soviet compliance with every principle; we do seek to elaborate standards of conduct which the Soviet Union would violate only to its cost. And if over the long term, the more durable relationship takes hold, the basic principles will give it definition, structure and hope.

## B. Political Dialogue and Cooperative Agreements

One of the features of the current phase of US-Soviet relations is the unprecedented consultation between leaders either face-to-face or through diplomatic channels.

Although consultation has reached a level of candor and frequency without precedent, we know that consultation does not guarantee that policies are compatible. It does provide a mechanism for the resolution of differences before they escalate to the point of public confrontation and commit the prestige of both sides.

The channel between the leaders of the two nations has proved its worth in many crises; it reduces the risk that either side might feel driven to act or to react on the basis of incomplete or confusing information. The channel of communication has continued without interruption under President Ford.

But crisis management is not an end in itself. The more fundamental goal is the elaboration of a political relationship which in time will make crises less likely to arise.

It was difficult in the past to speak of a US-Soviet bilateral relationship in any normal sense of the phrase. Trade was negligible. Contacts between various institutions and between the peoples of the two countries were at best sporadic. There were no cooperative efforts in science and technology. Cultural exchange was modest. As a result there was no tangible inducement toward cooperation and no penalty for aggressive behavior. Today, by joining our efforts even in such seemingly apolitical fields as medical research or environmental protection, we and the Soviets can benefit not only our two peoples but all mankind; in addition we generate incentives for restraint.

Since 1972 we have concluded agreements on a common effort against cancer, on research to protect the environment, on studying the use of the ocean's resources, on the use of atomic energy for peaceful purposes, on studying methods for conserving energy, on examining construction techniques for regions subject to earthquakes, and on devising new transportation methods. Other bilateral areas for cooperation include an agreement on preventing incidents at sea, an agreement to exchange information and research methods in agriculture, and the training of astronauts for the Soviet-US rendezvous and docking mission planned for 1975.

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Each project must be judged by the concrete benefits it brings. But in their sum — in their exchange of information and people as well as in their establishment of joint mechanisms — they also constitute a commitment in both countries to work together across a broad spectrum.

### C. The Economic Component

During the period of the Cold War economic contact between ourselves and the USSR was virtually non-existent. Even then many argued that improved economic relations might mitigate international tensions; in fact there were several Congressional resolutions to that effect. But recurrent crises prevented any sustained progress.

The period of confrontation should have left little doubt however that economic boycott would not transform the Soviet system or impose upon it a conciliatory foreign policy. The USSR was quite prepared to maintain heavy military outlays and to concentrate on capital growth by using the resources of the Communist world alone. Moreover it proved impossible to mount an airtight boycott in practice, since over time, most if not all the other major industrial countries became involved in trade with the East.

The question then became how trade and economic contact — in which the Soviet Union is obviously interested — could serve the purposes of peace. On the one hand, economic relations cannot be separated from the political context. Clearly, we cannot be asked to reward hostile conduct with economic benefits even if in the process we deny ourselves some commercially profitable opportunities. On the other hand, when political relations begin to normalize it is difficult to explain why economic relations should not be normalized as well.

We have approached the question of economic relations with deliberation and circumspection and as an act of policy not primarily of commercial opportunity. As political relations have improved on a broad basis, economic issues have been dealt with on a comparably broad front. A series of interlocking economic agreements with the USSR has been negotiated, side by side with the political progress already noted. The 25-year-old lend-lease debt was settled; the reciprocal extension of most favored nation treatment was negotiated, together with safeguards against the possible disruption of our markets and a series of practicaly arrangements to facilitate the conduct of business in the USSR by American firms; our government credit facilities were made available for trade with the USSR; and a maritime agreement regulating the carriage of goods has been signed.

These were all primarily regulatory agreements conferring no immediate benefits on the Soviet Union but serving as blueprints for an expanded economic relationship if the political improvement continued.

This approach commanded widespread domestic approval. It was considered a natural outgrowth of political progress. At no time were issues regarding Soviet domestic political practices raised. Indeed, not until *after* the 1972 agreements was the Soviet domestic order invoked as a reason for arresting or reversing the progress so painfully achieved.

This sudden, *ex post* *facto* form of linkage raises serious questions:

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- For the Soviet Union, it casts doubt on our reliability as a negotiating partner;

- The significance of trade, originally envisaged as only one ingredient of a complex and evolving relationship, is inflated out of all proportion;

- The hoped-for results of policy become transformed into pre-conditions for any policy at all.

We recognize the depth and validity of the moral concerns expressed by those who oppose — or put conditions on — expanded trade with the USSR. But a sense of proportion must be maintained about the leverage our economic relations give us with the USSR:

- Denial of economic relations cannot by itself achieve what it failed to do when it was part of a determined policy of political and military confrontation.

- The economic bargaining ability of Most Favored Nation status is marginal. MFN grants no special privilege to the USSR; in fact it is a misnomer since we have such agreements with over 100 countries. To enact it would be to remove a discriminatory hold-over of the days of the Cold War. To continue to deny it is more a political than an economic act.

- Trade benefits are not a one-way street; the laws of mutual advantage operate or there will be no trade.

- The technology that flows to the USSR as a result of expanded US-Soviet trade may have a few indirect uses for military production. But with our continuing restrictions on strategic exports, we can maintain adequate controls — and we intend to do so. Moreover, the same technology has been available to the USSR and will be increasingly so from other non-Communist sources. Boycott denies us a means of influence and possible commercial gain; it does not deprive the USSR of technology.

- The actual and potential flow of credits from the US represents a tiny fraction of the capital available to the USSR domestically and elsewhere, including Western Europe and Japan. But it does allow us to exercise some influence through our ability to control the scope of trade relationships.

- Over time, trade and investment may leaven the autarkic tendencies of the Soviet system, invite gradual association of the Soviet economy with the world economy, and foster a degree of inter-dependence that adds an element of stability to the political equation.

### D. The Strategic Relationship

We cannot expect to relax international tensions or achieve a more stable international system should the two strongest nuclear powers conduct an unrestrained strategic arms race. Thus, perhaps the single most important component of our policy toward the Soviet Union is the effort to limit strategic weapons competition.

The competition in which we now find ourselves is historically unique:

- Each side has the capacity to destroy civilizazation as we know it.

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- Failure to maintain equivalence could jeopardize not only our freedom but our very survival.

- The lead time for technological innovation is so long, yet the pace of change so relentless that the arms race and strategic policy itself are in danger of being driven by technological necessity.

- When nuclear arsenals reach levels involving thousands of launchers and over ten thousand warheads, and when the characteristics of the weapons of the two sides are so incommensurable, it becomes difficult to determine what combination of numbers of strategic weapons and performance capabilities would give one side a militarily and politically useful superiority. At a minimum clear changes in the strategic balance can be achieved only by efforts so enormous and by increments so large that the very attempt would be highly destabilizing.

- The prospect of a decisive military advantage, even if theoretically possible, is politically intolerable; neither side will passively permit a massive shift in the nuclear balance. Therefore, the probable outcome of each succeeding round of competition is the restoriation of a strategic equilibrium, but at increasingly higher levels of forces.

- The arms race is driven by political as well as military factors. While a decisive advantage is hard to calculate, the appearance of inferiority — whatever its actual significance — can have serious political consequences. With weapons that are unlikely to be used and for which there is no operational experience, the psychological impact can be crucial. Thus each side has a high incentive to achieve not only the reality but the appearance of reality. In a very real sense each side shapes the military establishment of the other.

If we are driven to it, the United States will sustain an arms race. Indeed, it is likely that the United States would emerge from such a competition with an edge over the Soviet Union in most significant categories of strategic arms. But the political or military benefit which would flow from such a situation would remain elusive. Indeed after such an evolution it might well be that both sides would be worse off than before the race began. The enormous destructiveness of weapons and the uncertainties regarding their effects combine to make the massive use of such weapons increasingly incredible.

The Soviet Union must realize that the overall relationship with the United States will be less stable if strategic balance is sought through unrestrained competitive programs. Sustaining the buildup requires exhortations by both sides that in time may prove incompatible with restrained international conduct. The very fact of a strategic arms race has a high potential for feeding attitudes of hostility and suspicion on both sides, transforming the fears of those who demand more weapons into self-fulfilling prophecies.

The American people can be asked to bear the cost and political instability of a race which is doomed to stalemate only if it is clear that every effort has been made to prevent it. That is why every President since Eisenhower has pursued negotiations for the limitation of strategic arms while maintaining the military programs essential to strategic balance.

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There are more subtle strategic reasons for our interest in SALT. Our supreme strategic purpose is the prevention of nuclear conflict, through the maintenance of sufficient political and strategic power. Estimates of what constitutes "sufficiency" have been contentious. Our judgments have changed with our experience in deploying these weapons and as the Soviets expanded their own nuclear forces. When in the late 1960s it became apparent that the Soviet Union, for practical purposes, had achieved a kind of rought parity with the United States, we adopted the current strategic doctrine.

We determined that stability required strategic forces invulnerable to attack, thus removing the incentive on either side to strike first. Reality reinforced doctrine. As technology advanced, it became apparent that neither side could realistically expect to develop a credible dis-arming capability against the other except through efforts so gigantic as to represent a major threat to political stability.

One result of our doctrine was basing our strategic planning on the assumption that in the unlikely event of nuclear attack, the President should have a wide range of options available in deciding at what level and against what targets to respond. We designed our strategic forces with a substantial measure of flexibility, so that the United States response need not include an attack on the aggressor's cities — thus inviting the destruction of our own — but could instead hit other targets. Translating this capability into a coherent system of planning became a novel, and as yet uncompleted, task of great complexity; but progress has been made. In our view such flexibility enhances the certainty of retaliation and thereby makes an attack less likely. Above all, it preserves the capability for human decision even in the ultimate crisis.

Another, at first seemingly paradoxical, result was a growing commitment to negotiated agreements on strategic arms. SALT became one means by which we and the Soviet Union could enhance stability by setting mutual constraints on our respective forces and by gradually reaching an understanding of the doctrinal considerations that underlie the deployment of nuclear weapons. Through SALT the two sides can reduce the suspicions and fears which fuel strategic competition. SALT, in the American conception, is a means to achieve strategic stability by methods other than the arms race.

Our specific objectives have been:

(1) to break the momentum of ever increasing levels of armaments;

(2) to control certain qualitative aspects — particularly MIRVs;

(3) to moderate the pace of new deployments; and

(4) ultimately, to achieve reductions in force levels.

The SALT agreements already signed represent a major contribution to strategic stability and a significant first step toward a longer term and possibly broader agreement.

When the first agreements in 1972 were signed, the future strategic picture was not bright:

- the Soviet Union was engaged in a dynamic program that had closed the numerical gap in ballistic missiles; they were deploying three types of ICBMs, at a rate of over 200 annually, and launching on the average eight submarines a year with 16 ballistic missiles each.

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- the United States had ended its numerical build up in the late 1960s at a level of 1054 ICBMs and 656 SLBMs. We were emphasizing technological improvements, particularly in MIRVs for the Poseidon and Minuteman missiles. Our replacement systems were intended for the late 1970s and early 1980s.

- by most reasonable measurement of strategic power, we held an important advantage, which still continues. But it was also clear that if existing trends were maintained the Soviet Union would first, exceed our numerical levels by a considerable margin, and then develop the same technologies we had already mastered.

The five-year Intermin Agreement which limited antiballistic missile defenses and froze the level of ballistic missile forces on both sides represented the essential first step towards a less volatile strategic environment.

- by limiting antiballistic missiles (ABMs) to very low levels of deployment, the United States and the Soviet Union removed a potential source of instability; for one side to build an extensive defense for its cities would inevitably be interpreted by the other as a step toward a first-strike capability. Before seeking a disarming capability a potential aggressor would want to protect his population centers from incoming nuclear weapons.

- Some have alleged that the intermin agreement, which expires in October 1977 penalizes the United States by permitting the Soviet Union to deploy more strategic missile launchers, both land-based and sea-based, than the United States. Such a view is misleading. When the agreement was signed in May 1972, the Soviet Union already possessed more land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) than the United States and, given the pace of its submarine construction program, over the next few years it could have built virtually twice as many nuclear ballistic missile submarines.

The intermin agreement confined a dynamic Soviet ICBM program to the then existing level; it put a ceiling on the heaviest Soviet ICBMs, the weapons that most concern us; and it set an upper limit on the Soviet submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) program. No American program was abandoned or curtailed. We remained free to deploy multiple warheads. No restraints were placed on bombers — a weapons system in which we have a large advantage. Indeed, the US lead in missile warheads is likely to be somewhat greater at the end of this agreement than at the time of its signature.

The SALT I agreements were the first deliberate attempt by the nuclear superpowers to bring about strategic stability through negotiation. This very process is conducive to further restraint. For example, in the first round of SALT negotiations in 1970-72 both sides bitterly contested the number of ABM sites permitted by the agreement; two years later both sides gave up the right to build more than one site. In sum, we believed when we signed these agreements — and we believe now — that they had reduced the danger of nuclear war, that both sides had acquired some greater interest in restraint, and that the basis had been created for the present effort to reach a broader agreement.

The goal of the current negotiations is an agreement for a ten-year period. We had aimed at extending the Intermin Agreement with adjustments in the numbers and new provisions aimed at dealing with the problem of MIRVs. We found, however, that our negotiations for a two- or three-year extension was constantly threatened with irrelevance by the on-going programs of both sides that were due to be deployed at the end of or just after the period. This distorted the negotiation, and indeed devalued its significance. We shifted to the ten-year approach because the period is long enough to cover all current and planned forces but not so long as to invite hedges that would defeat the purpose of an arms control agreement. In fact it invites a slowing down of planned deployments; further a period of this length will allow us to set realistic ceilings that represent more than a temporary plateau from which to launch a new cycle in the arms race. Future reductions thus become a realistic objective.

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With respect to ceilings on strategic forces, we have defined our goal as essential
equivalence in strategic capabilities. What constitutes equivalence involves subjective
judgment. Because US and Soviet forces are different from each other -- in number and size
of weapons, in technological refinement, in performance characteristics -- they are
difficult to compare.

Yet in the negotiations we shall, for example, have to compare heavy
bombers in which the United States is ahead with heavy missiles which the
USSR has emphasized. We shall have to decide whether to insist on
equivalence in every category or whether to permit trade-offs in which an
advantage in one category compensates for a disadvantage in another. The
equation does not remain static. We shall have to relate present advantages
to potential development, existing disparities to future trends. This is
a difficult process but we are confident that it can be solved.

Numerical balance is no longer enough. To achieve stability, it will
be necessary to consider as well the impact of technological change in such
areas as missile throw weight, multiple reentry vehicles and missile
accuracy. The difficulty is that we are dealing not only with disparate
levels of forces but with disparate capabilities -- MIRV technology being
a conspicuous example. The rate of increase of warheads is surging far
ahead of the increase in delivery vehicles. This is why the United States
considers MIRV limitation an essential component of the next phase of the
SALT negotiations. If we fail, the rate of technology will outstrip our
capacity to design effective limitations; constantly proliferating warheads
of increasing accuracy will overwhelm fixed launchers. An arms race will be
virtually inevitable.

The third area for negotiations is the pace of deployments of new or
more modern systems. Neither side will remain in its present position
without change for another decade. The Soviets are already embarked on
testing an initial deployment of a third generation of ICBMs and on a
third modification of submarine launched missiles -- though the rate of
deployment so far has been far short of the maximum pace of the late
sixties.

For our part we are planning to introduce the Trident system, and to
replace the B-52 force with the B-1; we also have the capability of
improving our Minuteman ICBM system, adding to the number as well as
capability of MIRV missiles, and, if we choose, of deploying mobile
systems, land based or airborne. Thus, our task is to see whether the two
sides can agree to slow the pace of deployment so that modernization is
less likely to threaten the overall balance or trigger an excessive
reaction.

Finally, a ten year program gives us a chance to negotiate reductions.
Reductions have occasionally been proposed as an alternative to ceilings;
they are often seen as more desirable, or, at least, easier to negotiate.
In fact, it is a far more complicated problem. Reductions in launchers,
for example, if not accompanied by restrictions on the number of warheads
will only magnify vulnerability. The fewer the aim points the simpler it
would be to calculate an attack. At the same time reductions will have
to proceed from some base line and must therefore be preceded by agreed
ceilings -- if only of an interim nature. But a ten year program should
permit the negotiations of stable ceilings resulting from the start of a
process of reductions.

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Detente is admittedly far from a modern equivalent to the kind of stable peace that characterized most of the 19th century. But it is a long step away from the bitter and aggressive spirit that has characterized so much of the post-war period. When linked to such broad and unprecedented projects as SALT, detente takes on added meaning and opens prospects of a more stable peace. SALT agreements should be seen as steps in a process leading to progressively greater stability. It is in that light that SALT and related projects will be judged by history.

## IV. An Assessment of Detente

Where has the process of detente taken us so far? What are the principles that must continue to guide our course?

Major progress has been made:

- Berlin's potential as Europe's perennial flash point has been substantially reduced through the Quadripartite agreement of 1971. The U.S. considers strict adherence to the agreement a major test of detente.

- We and our allies are launched on negotiations with the Warsaw Pact and other countries in the European Conference on Security and Cooperation -- a conference designed to foster East-West dialogue and cooperation.

- At the same time NATO and the Warsaw Pact are negotiating the reduction of their forces in Central Europe.

- The honorable termination of America's direct military involvement in Indochina and the substantial lowering of regional conflict were made possible by many factors. But this achievement would have been much more difficult -- if not impossible -- in an era of Soviet and Chinese hostility toward the United States.

- America's principal alliances have proved their durability in a new era. Many feared that detente would undermine them. Instead, detente has helped to place our alliance ties on a more enduring basis by removing the fear that friendship with the United States involved the risk of unnecessary confrontation with the USSR.

- Many incipient crises with the Soviet Union have been contained or settled without ever reaching the point of public disagreement. The world has been freer of East-West tensions and conflict than in the fifties and sixties.

- A series of bilateral cooperative relations have turned the US-Soviet relationship in a far more positive direction.

- We have achieved unprecedented agreements in arms limitation and measures to avoid accidental war.

- New possibilities for positive US-Soviet cooperation have emerged on issues in which the globe is interdependent -- science and technology, environment, energy.

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These accomplishments do not guarantee peace. But they have served
to lessen the rigidities of the past and offer hope for a better era.
Despite fluctuations a trend has been established; the character of inter-
national politics has been markedly changed.

It is too early to judge conclusively whether this change should be
ascribed to tactical considerations. But in a sense, that is immaterial.
For whether the change is temporary and tactical, or lasting and basic,
our task is essentially the same: to transform that change into a
permanent condition devoted to the purpose of a secure peace and mankind's
aspiration for a better life. A tactical change sufficiently prolonged
becomes a lasting transformation.

But the whole process can be jeopardized if it is taken for granted.
As the Cold War recedes in memory, detente can come to seem so natural that
it appears safe to levy progressively greater demands on it. The temptation
to combine detente with increasing pressure on the Soviet Union will grow.
Such an attitude would be disastrous. We would not accept it from Moscow;
Moscow will not accept it from us. We will finally wind up again with the
Cold War and fail to achieve either peace or any humane goal.

To be sure, the process of detente raises serious issues for many
people. Let me deal with these in terms of the principles which underline
our policy.

First, if detente is to endure, both sides must benefit.

There is no question that the Soveit Union obtains benefits from
detente. On what other grounds would the tough-minded members of the
Politburo sustain it? But the essential point surely must be that detente
serves American and world interest as well. If these coincide with some
Soviet interests, this will only strengthen the durability of the process.

On the global scale, in terms of the conventional measures of power,
influence and position, our interests have not suffered -- they have
generally prospered. In many areas of the world the influence and the
respect we enjoy are greater than was the case for many years. It is also
true that Soviet influence and presence are felt in many parts of the world.
But this is a reality that would exist without detente. The record shows
that detente does not deny us the opportunity to react to it and to offset
it.

Our bilateral relations with the USSR are beginning to proliferate
across a broad range of activities in our societies. Many of the projects
now underway are in their infancy; we have many safeguards against unequal
benefits -- in our laws, in the agreements themselves and in plain common
sense. Of course, there are instances where the Soviet Union has obtained
some particular advantage. But we seek in each agreement or project to
provide for benefits that are mutual. We attempt to make sure that there
are trade-offs among the various programs that are implemented. Americans
surely are the last who need fear hard bargaining or lack confidence in
competition.

PR #366

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Second, building a new realtionship with the Soviet Union does not entail any devaluation of traditional Alliance relations.

Our approach to relations with the USSR has always been, and will continue to be, rooted in the belief that the cohesion of our alliances, and particularly the Atlantic Alliance, is a precondition to establishing a more constructive relationship with the USSR.

Crucial, indeed unique, as may be our concern with Soviet power, we do not delude ourselves that we should deal with it alone. When we speak of Europe and Japan as representing centers of power and influence, we describe not merely an observable fact but an indispensable element in the equilibrium needed to keep the world at peace. The cooperation and partnership between us transcend formal agreements; they reflect values and traditions not soon, if ever, to be shared with our adversaries.

Inevitably, a greater sense of drama accompanies our dealings with the Soviet Union because the central issues of war and peace cannot be other than dramatic. It was precisely a recognition of this fact and our concern that Alliance relations not be taken for granted that led to the American initiative in April of 1973 to put new emphasis on our traditional associations. We sought political acts of will which would transcend the technical issues at hand, symbolize our enduring goals and thus enhance our fundamental bonds. Much has been accomplished. The complications attendant to adapting US-European relations should not be confused with their basic character. We were tested in difficult conditions that do not affect our central purposes. Today relations with Europe and Japan are strong and improving. We have made progress in developing common positions on security, detente and energy. The experience of the past year has demonstrated that there is no contradiction between vigorous, organic alliance relations and a more positive relationship with adversaries; indeed they are mutually reinforcing.

Third, the emergence of more normal realtions with the Soviet Union must not undermine our resolve to maintain our national defense.

There is a tendency in democratic societies to relax as dangers seem to recede, there is an inclination to view the maintenance of strength as incompatible with relaxation of tensions, rather than its precondition. But this is primarily a question of leadership. We shall attempt to be vigilant to the dangers facing America. This Administration will not be misled -- or mislead -- on issues of national defense. At the same time we do not accept the proposition that we need crises to sustain our defense. A society that needs artificial crises to do what is needed for survival will soon find itself in mortal danger.

Fourth, we must know what can and cannot be achieved in changing human conditions in the East.

The question of dealing with Communist governments has troubled the American people and the Congress since 1917. There has always been a fear that by working with a government whose internal policies differ so sharply with our own, we are in some manner condoning these policies or encouraging

PR #366

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their continuation. Some argue that until there is a genuine "liberalization" -- or signs of serious progress in this direction -- all elements of conciliation in Soviet policy must be regarded as temporary and tactical. In that view, demands for internal changes must be the precondition for the pursuit of a relaxation of tensions with the Soviet Union.

Our view is different. We shall insist on responsible international behavior by the Soviet Union and use it as the primary index of our relationship. Beyond this we will use our influence to the maximum to alleviate suffering and to respond to humane appeals. We know what we stand for, and we shall leave no doubt about it.

Both as a government and as a people we have made the attitude of the American people clear on countless occasions, in ways that have produced results. I believe that both the Executive and the Congress, each playing its proper role, have been effective. With respect to the specific issue of emigration:

- The education exit tax of 1971 is no longer being collected. We have been assured that it will not be reapplied.

- Hardship cases submitted to the Soviet Government have been given increased attention, and remedies have been forthcoming in many well-known instances.

- The volume of Jewish emigration has increased from a trickle to tens of thousands.

- And we are now moving toward an understanding that should significantly diminish the obstacles to emigration and ease the hardship of prospective emigrants.

We have accomplished much. But we cannot demand that the Soviet Union, in effect, suddenly reverse five decades of Soviet, and centuries of Russian, history. Such an attempt would be futile and at the same time hazard all that has already been achieved. Changes in Soviet society have already occurred, and more will come. But they are most likely to develop through an evolution that can best go forward in an environment of decreasing international tensions. A renewal of the Cold War will hardly encourage the Soviet Union to change its emigration policies or adopt a more benevolent attitude towards dissent.

## V. Agenda for the Future

Detente is a process, not a permanent achievement. The agenda is full and continuing. Obviously, the main concern must be to reduce the sources of potential conflict. This requires efforts in several interrelated areas:

- The military competition in all its aspects must be subject to increasingly firm restraints by both sides.

PR #366

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-- Political competition, especially in moments of crisis, must be guided by the principles of restraint set forth in the documents described earlier. Crises there will be, but the United States and the Soviet Union have a special obligation deriving from the unimaginable military power that they wield and represent. Exploitation of crisis situations for unilateral gain is not acceptable.

-- Restraint in crises must be augmented by cooperation in removing the causes of crises. There have been too many instances, notably in the Middle East, which demonstrate that policies of unilateral advantage sooner or later run out of control and lead to the brink of war, if not beyond.

-- The process of negotiations and consultation must be continuous and intense. But no agreement between the nuclear superpowers can be durable if made over the heads of other nations which have a stake in the outcome. We should not seek to impose peace; we can, however, see that our own actions and conduct are conducive to peace.

In the coming months we shall strive:

-- to complete the negotiations for comprehensive and equitable limitations on strategic arms until at least 1985;

-- to complete the multilateral negotiations on mutual force reductions in Central Europe, so that security will be enhanced for all the countries of Europe;

-- to conclude the Conference of European Security and Cooperation in a manner that promotes both security and human aspirations;

-- to continue the efforts to limit the spread of nuclear weapons to additional countries without depriving those countries of the peaceful benefits of atomic energy;

-- to complete ratification of the recently negotiated treaty banning underground nuclear testing by the US and USSR above a certain threshold;

-- to begin negotiations on the recently agreed effort to overcome the possible dangers of environmental modification techniques for military purposes;

-- to resolve the long-standing attempts to cope with the dangers of chemical weaponry.

We must never forget that the process of detente depends ultimately on habits and modes of conduct that extend beyond the letters of agreements to the spirit of relations as a whole. This is why the whole process must be carefully nurtured.

PR #366

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In cataloging the desirable, we must take care not to jeopardize what is attainable. We must consider what alternative policies are available, and what their consequences would be. And, the implications of alternatives must be examined, not just in terms of a single issue, but for how they might effect the entire range of Soviet-American relations and the prospects for world peace.

We must assess not only individual challenges to detente, but also their cumulative impact:

* If we justify each agreement with Moscow only when we can show unilateral gain;

* If we strive for an elusive strategic "superiority";

* If we systematically block benefits to the Soviet Union;

* If we try to transform the Soviet system by pressure;

* If, in short, we look for final results before we agree to any results, then we would be reviving the doctrines of liberation and massive retaliation of the 1950s. And we would do so at a time when Soviet physical power and influence on the world are greater than a quarter century ago when those policies were devised and failed. The futility of such a course is as certain as its danger.

Let there be no question, however, that Soviet actions could destroy detente, as well.

* If the Soviet Union uses detente to strengthen its military capacity in all fields;

* If in crisis it acts to sharpen tension;

* If it does not contribute to progress towards stability;

* If it seeks to undermine our alliances;

* If it is deaf to the urgent needs of the least developed and the emerging issues of interdependence, then it in turn tempts a return to the tensions and conflicts we have made such efforts to overcome. The policy of confrontation has worked for neither of the superpowers.

We have insisted toward the Soviet Union that we cannot have the atmosphere of detente without the substance. It is equally clear that the substance of detente will disappear in an atmosphere of hostility.

We have profound differences with the Soviet Union -- in our values, our methods, our vision of the future. But it is these very differences which compel any responsible administration to make a major effort to create a more constructive relationship.

PR #366

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We face an opportunity that was not possible 25 years, or even a decade ago. If that opportunity is lost, its moment will not quickly come again. Indeed, it may not come at all.

As President Kennedy pointed out: "For in the final analysis our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future, and we are all mortal."

* * * * * * * * * *

476

HAK SFRC Dehnte
 Hearings - QA
 Sept. 19, 1974

[LC]

The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.

You started with a statement something to the effect that
men have always thought peace but waged war; is that correct?

We have been talking disarmament but we continue to arm, do
we not?

Secretary Kissinger. Yes.

The Chairman. We are building arms as rapidly today as
we ever did, are we not?

Secretary Kissinger. Well, Mr. Chairman, arms are being
built at a considerable rate. I do not want to compare it to
other periods but they are being built.

The Chairman. Just by background, we go back to the
alleged missile gap of 1960 in which we were told that we had
a missile gap and we were way behind the Russians. As a
matter of fact, it turned out we had about eight or ten or
20 times as many as they did after we had examined the
situation, but it created an attitude of the mind that has
been extremely difficult to overcome no matter what you say
or others say or I say, and there is a feeling that the
Russians are always about to get ahead of us. As a matter of
fact, at no time during this interim period or at the present
have the Russians ever had a superiority, if you can use
that word, in numbers of weapons of warheads, have they?

Secretary Kissinger. No, Mr. Chairman. It is, of course,
as I pointed out in my statement, very difficult to assess

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477

what superiority is when you are dealing with weapons for
which there is no operational experience and which are so
difficult to relate to political objectives. I think there
is, however, common agreement at this period at no time in
the post-war period has the Soviet Union had any military
superiority over the United States in the strategic field in
any significant category. This condition obtains today as
well. The concern of some people is that as trends are
projected over ten years that an imbalance might develop, but
it would be incorrect to say that such an imbalance exists today
in the Soviet favor or is in prospect in the immediate future.

The Chairman. One thing that bothers me is that you
said, I believe, the arms race is, I forget the word, pushed
or by technology it is spurred on by the development of
technology, and I have the feeling this is what has happened
in this country because we are more technologically advanced,
we are always coming up with these new weapons, such as
TRIDENT and B-1 and B-14 or F-14. Certainly the B-1, the
Russians have nothing comparable or even thinking about it,
nothing in being. There is nothing to indicate that they are
going to build a TRIDENT unless we do, and this is what bothered
me about the attitude that so many of our people take that
we are always being imposed upon by the Russians and they
are leading the parade, so to speak, and we are trying to
catch up. I do not think that is true from your own testimony

478

in past times and today. We have always been at least equally,
if not superior. We have far more numbers now. We have forward
bases. And so at least this question I am unable to under-
stand -- I know your own devotion to the detente concept --
why we cannot make greater progress and did not make greater
progress in the recent agreement.

The witnesses have said the threshold agreement is not
really of any significance because the threshold is so high.
It is no real restraint, simply the idea of an agreement in
this area possibly has some value. But as far as its being
a real restraint upon, it is not. Is that not correct?

Secretary Kissinger. Well, let me take your original
point first.

One of the difficulties in assessing the strategic
equation, as I pointed out in my formal statement, is that
the weapons of the two sides are so different that they become
extremely hard to compare. In some categories, such as
intercontinental ballistic missiles, the Soviet Union is
numerically superior to us, partly by our own decision. In
other categories, such as in long-range bombers, we are far
superior to the Soviet Union, and they really do not have
equivalent weapons to our long-range bombers.

This, however, makes the problem of comparing the forces
of both sides almost a problem of comparing apples and
oranges.

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479

As far as technology is concerned, the United States in the field of strategic weapons has generally been ahead of the Soviet Union and, therefore, in such areas as, for example, the development of multiple warheads, the United States has enjoyed a considerable lead time over the Soviet Union and probably I would say, is still ahead today.

Now, then, the question is why did we not make greater progress in these negotiations? The first thing to remember is that in the first SALT agreement, that the first SALT Agreement which was really a rather simple agreement dealing with overall numerical ceilings, took over two years to negotiate. The follow-on negotiations have so far been extended only over 18 months and they deal with a much more complicated area, because simple numerical limitations are no longer enough because the elaboration of technology has reached the point where even at present ceilings so many warheads can be put on each missile that you can have a multiplication of strategic forces, inconceivable even ten years ago, without increasing the number of launchers.

Up to now our negotiations have concentrated on a five-year period. That period was probably too short, given the momentum that is inherent in the military programs of both sides. We are now negotiating about a ten-year agreement. We believe that this is a period of time which can take into account all of the existing and planned programs and, there-

480

fore, should permit us to come to, at least we hope it will
permit us to come to an agreement within a reasonable period
of time.

With respect to the test ban. Our general approach has
been to make agreements that established the principle of
an approach and then use them as the point of departure for
a further elaboration.

I do not fully agree with some of the witnesses you have
heard about the lack of significance of the agreement but we
consider it a starting point in any event.

The Chairman. I did not really intend to get involved
in the numbers game on the weapons. The broad conclusion
I think of all of the witnesses is both sides have far more
weapons than necessary to constitute a viable and credible
deterrent. I remember when the former Secretary of Defense
said he thought 400 effective weapons was sufficient to be a
deterrent. I wanted to mention that as a preliminary to your
comments. You elaborate upon the overall significance of
detente with the Russians on our policy, what we can do in
such places as the Middle East and Far East and Latin
America, this continued competition of which the military is
only one aspect, it seems to me, is an almost insuperable
obstacle to what you call the structure of peace, and this
is particularly significant in the Middle East.

I do not see how we can expect to make real progress in

481

any of these areas if we do not have what you have already described so well, detente, and all of these other moves that you are engaged in are to a great extent dependent upon. Is that not true?

Secretary Kissinger. I agree with that statement, Mr. Chairman. I believe that an unconstrained arms race in the strategic field will over any period of time be inconsistent with improved political relationships because the significance of an unconstrained arms race is both sides perceive the other to gain a decisive advantage in a category of weapons that threaten their very survival. Under those conditions to speak of increased economic contact or to believe that political consultation can ameliorate tensions is over a period of time unrealistic and, therefore, we consider the limitation of strategic arms and the turning down of the arms race, an absolute prerequisite to progress also in the political field. We have made this clear on innumerable occasions recently to the Soviet Union and we are prepared to gear our own policy to this.

I might add, Mr. Chairman, that what I have said here represents not the point of view of a department, it represents the point of view of the Administration.

The Chairman. Well, there is a considerable feeling that our Joint Chiefs of Staff have never been enthusiastic about detente, when you say the Administration. I personally feel

482

that they have not been very forthcoming in their support
of your policy of detente. This is a matter which is very
difficult for any members of the Administration to comment
upon because you are inherently and necessarily the spokesman
of the Administration as a whole and I suppose it is possible
to elicit that from any member of the Administration.

Secretary Kissinger. I think that the Joint Chiefs of
Staff will support the decision of the President in the field
of strategic arms.

The Chairman. The influence of the decision is very
material.

Secretary Kissinger. The point of view of every agency
must be heard in making a decision but I am confident --

The Chairman. One last aspect of this. Presently, of
course, we are all now preoccupied with the domestic economy
and our problem of inflation which was triggered and to a
great extent still supported largely by the price of oil.

Now, the settlement in the Middle East, which you have
given so much time to and have done a great deal to help, is
to a great extent dependent upon detente. You cannot expect
to have a real settlement of the Middle East without the
cooperation or certainly acquiescence of the Russians. Is
that true?

Secretary Kissinger. It is correct that progress in the
Middle East will be very difficult, if not impossible, except

483

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in the context of at least Soviet acquiescence.

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The Chairman. Would you not agree that progress in the
Middle East is, I would say, indispensable to real progress
in the control of inflation?

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Secretary Kissinger. I think progress in the Middle East
is important to deal with the dangers of an economic crisis
in all of the industrialized countries.

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The Chairman. That crisis is very evident from the
performance of our economy and Britain's and Europe's and all
of Europe. It is a very great feeling that we are threatened
with a chaotic situation developing in the international
monetary system. Is that not correct?

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Secretary Kissinger. That is an issue of considerable
concern, yes.

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The Chairman. Well, is it not more than considerable?
I think there is a feeling, I detect a lack of concern about
the seriousness of our economic --

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Secretary Kissinger. I would say that the impact of
the high oil prices on the economies of all of the industrialized
nations, as President Ford pointed out yesterday at the United
Nations General Assembly, is one of the big problems of the
international community and the relationship between the
obligations of the raw material producers and consumers and
between the food producers and consumers is one of the issues
that the international community must deal with if it is

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484

going to avoid both a human and an economic catastrophe.

The Chairman. I wanted you to emphasize that. In reading the morning's paper it is inconceivable, it is just hard for me to believe that a serious obstacle to the progress of detente can arise out of a matter that was discussed in the morning paper about how many emigrants can be allowed out of Russia. This sacrifice of the economy over such an issue seems to me to be a height of irresponsibility.

Secretary Kissinger. Well, we are in the process now of attempting to work out a solution to this issue and I hope that this may turn into a moot question.

The Chairman. If it is not worked out it will be a great stimulus to the catastrophe which you have described.

Secretary Kissinger. If we cannot work it out I think it will represent a significant setback.

The Chairman. Senator Sparkman.

Senator Sparkman. Right along that line, Mr. Secretary, I read with interest the comments in your statement regarding this very problem and I gather from what you say you think considerable progress has been made. Would we be safe in saying satisfactory progress is being made?

Secretary Kissinger. Well, I think we will know within a week. I believe that considerable progress has been made and it is safe to say that so far the progress has been satisfactory and I am very optimistic that with good will on

both sides, which I believe exists on both sides, we can work
something out.

Senator Sparkman. I gather from your statement as a
whole, that you think that we have made real progress in this
field of detente with the Soviet Union.

Secretary Kissinger. I believe that we have made real
progress. I think we must recognize the two countries with
such different philosophies and with such different interests
in the world are not going to move from confrontation to
cooperation without that progress being uneven.

The reason why detente is so important is precisely
because of these differences, which still exist, but recognizing
the difficulties, I believe that considerable progress has
been made and that further progress can and will be made.

Senator Sparkman. What is your feeling with reference
to the SALT talks, those that have been held and those that
are anticipated? Did you feel encouraged?

Secretary Kissinger. Well, we are just now starting a
new series of talks in Geneva. As President Ford pointed out,
we expect these to deal with general principles of a ten-
year agreement and that the more detailed discussions will
take place when I visit the Soviet Union late in October.

I believe that the conditions exist to make considerable
progress. I hope and expect that the Soviet Union will
recognize that the conditions that I have described here apply

1. equally to both sides, and if they do, then I believe progress
2. can be made and my personal assessment is that progress
3. will be made.

4. Senator Sparkman. From time to time and from place to
5. place, it will happen that the United States and the Soviet
6. Union will be operating in pretty much the same fields. That
7. certainly has been true in the Mid East, for instance.

8. Do you have any great difficulty in treating with them in
9. such circumstances?

10. Secretary Kissinger. Our interests are not identical
11. in the Middle East and we have historically supported different
12. sides in the Middle East, though in the last year the United
13. States relationship with the Arab states has enormously
14. improved.

15. The Middle East is one area where our relationship is
16. ambiguous, partly competitive, partly cooperative. It is
17. my judgment that in the negotiations in which I have been
18. involved, that while the Soviet Union gave no active support,
19. it did not block them, as it might have, through a more
20. aggressive policy, and we throughout these negotiations kept
21. in touch with them and we did not find it difficult to stay
22. in touch.

23. Senator Sparkman. I have read the newspaper reports
24. about the buildup of arms in the Middle East. If those reports
25. are true, it would seem to me it is somewhat of an alarming

1 situation.

2 What would be your feeling on that?

3 Secretary Kissinger. Both we and the Soviet Union have
4 friends in the Middle East whom we have tended to support
5 militarily. It is true that the Soviet Union has sent
6 substantial military shipments to Syria, mostly of a character
7 to improve the weapons systems that Syria has, not necessarily
8 increasing the numbers very much, but improving the quality
9 so that the strategic effect is not negligible.

10 This has to be seen in the context of the overall situa-
11 tion and of the negotiations that are going on.

12 We believe, of course, that restraint in military ship-
13 ments should go side by side toward peace in the Middle East.

14 Senator Sparkman. Mr. Secretary, I think this is a power-
15 ful statement that you gave us this morning.

16 Secretary Kissinger. Thank you.

17 Senator Sparkman. I think it is a very fine presentation
18 and I appreciate it.

19 That is all.

20 The Chairman. Senator Case.

21 Senator Case. Thank you.

22 Mr. Secretary, Senator Sparkman is right, it is a
23 powerful and comprehensive statement and any questions any
24 of us have, certainly I included, raise with you is not in
25 any way in derogation of that judgment.

488

There are just a couple of things I would like to under-
score and discuss a little bit with you, and one is I think
you will surely say yes to this.

Is it not true that in our relationships with the Soviet
Union, a very basic principle has got to be that we do our
negotiating on the basis of para passue, short-term effect,
agreements, concessions, and so forth, so that there is always
something each side will get from the other if it acts in a
reasonable way?

Secretary Kissinger. I agree.

Senator Case. And that we cannot put all of our efforts
upon present benefits by us and commitments by us in exchange
for promises of future conduct?

Secretary Kissinger. Absolutely.

Senator Case. Particularly over a long-term period.

Secretary Kissinger. That is correct. It is correct
for both sides. Neither side can do it.

Senator Case. Of course it is.

I say this, and I repeat what I said before, none of
us can reduce the judgment of importance of what is being
accomplished and the goal that we seek.

I do suggest for the most part the gains that have been
made in detente have accrued largely to the Russian side,
that is, on specific issues.

Secretary Kissinger. I disagree completely with all

this.

Senator Case. The value you attribute undoubtedly to such relaxation of tensions and absence of interference in your dealings with many problems around the world undoubtedly cause you to make that judgment, and you may be absolutely right. From the outside I just raise this, not necessarily as my view, but as a view that ought to be faced, and you have faced it in a sense, but not quite so specific.

Many people have, if I may be permitted to phrase the question a little more sharply, have the feeling that overall, in respect of the Middle East, the oil crisis and our relationships with the Arabs and the Arab-Israeli War and whatnot, the Russians stirred the whole thing up and encouraged the actions that were taken and then sought to get some benefit by a measure of relaxation when we went in to try to repair the damage. There can be no doubt in my mind it seems to me that the cost of the increase in oil prices and of the use of the oil weapon by the Arab states has cost the West many times and will cost it in the future in dislocation and economic disturbance and in chaos what has been accomplished by any nation in regard to any other nation over in this century, I would say.

Now that is not, it seems to me, in any significant way balanced by such concessions as being willing to help and not interfere with to deal with the Middle East crisis in detail

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and the splendid job you have done there. God knows you are
entitled to every help and understandably feel great for the
absence of interference from many of those, and the same is
true in your efforts with regard to Cyprus, but it does
seem to me that we have not quit, that we are almost too
grateful for these relatively small concessions coming after
the enormous destructive action that the Soviets took in
encouraging this in the first place.

I wish you would comment on this.

Secretary Kissinger. Senator, as I pointed out in my
interjection, I do not agree with this analysis, on many
grounds.

I believe that on balance, if anything, the gains of the
detente have been more in our favor than in the opposite
direction.

We should after all, consider the situation which the
United States face over the last four years. When we were in
the process of extricating ourselves from the war in Vietnam,
that we were spared at the same time a series of other con-
frontations which would have sharpened the divisions in this
country even more, was not a minor matter. On the whole
series of issues, as I enumerated in my statement, in Central
Europe, on Berlin, the ending of the Vietnam War, and in other
areas there has been increased in restraint.

Now the situation in the Middle East is an extremely

complex one in which I believe the explanation is that the
Soviet Union really felt it did enough to keep up its relation-
ship with the Arab countries but not so much as to gain
their gratitude, so that one at the same time find itself
accused by the United States of having done too much and being
accused by virtually every Arab country of not having done
enough. And I think the complexity of this situation must be
understood.

I think the use of the oil weapon and the situation that
developed prior to 1973 is partly due to Soviet action but
it is partly due to the action of others, and it gives the
Soviet Union too much credit to believe that they can unleash
a Middle East crisis by themselves nor are we excessively
grateful for what they may have done since.

I do not believe that they wanted a war in 1973. What
I believe happened was that in an ongoing relationship with
Arab countries they were not prepared to give up that relation-
ship and so everybody last year slid into a situation that
was unforeseen and was not sufficiently controlled.

I think that is a correct criticism and there should be
a warning in it for everybody of what happens to great powers
if their allies run too loose.

But on balance I would not agree that the Soviet Union
has gained excessively or unequitably from detente.

I do agree that the relationship of oil prices to the

world economy is one of the serious issues and I do not
believe that we should link the Soviet Union so intricately
to it that we can deal with it as a separate issue.

Senator Case. We are faced with a problem and we must
try, I am talking now about the recent history of the situation
which seems to, should not deter us from doing everything
we can to make the best of a bad bargain. But it also does
not require us to shut our eyes to the fact that we are deal-
ing with an essentially hostile party on the other side here
and that the hostility is not small.

Secretary Kissinger. That, I agree with. I agree that
we are dealing with a country that has an ideology opposed to
ours and many operating practices that we oppose strenuously.

Senator Case. Of course. When I say hostile, I mean
determined to maintain not only its existence in accordance
with its own ideas but as it perceives the necessity to do
that by keeping everybody else, knocking everybody else down,
it regards itself incapable essentially of getting along in
a world in which everybody has an equal chance.

Now, in that connection, if I may revert and just raise
one other point at this time --

There does seem to me to be one matter which you have
just touched on at one point which is of enormous significance
here, and that is this.

First of all, let me cut away things on both sides, to

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basic internal operations of another country. It is futile
to attempt to do this. But I do raise this point. That
we can, it seems to me, take into account most seriously
what that country's government is saying to its own people
continuously, and that one of the most important factors
in the relations between the U.S. and the Soviet Union is
what the Soviet Union is saying to the Russian people about
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You made a suggestion here they have let up a bit on
this, I think just in one point in your admirable statement.
I have heard other comments that we have failed in a measure
to take such account of what the Russian Government is
saying to its people over time and continuously and right now
and the point, of course, is this.

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If a government keeps telling its people that the rest
of the world is an enemy, it is not going to be possible for
that government even with the best will, to conduct relations
on a reasonable basis with the rest of the world. It is going
to be forced by internal opinion in its own country, which it
has created and fostered, and now I wonder if that is not
a matter which we ought seriously to take into account as
one of the factors here in our effort to accomplish true
detente?

Secretary Kissinger. I agree. I believe that it is not

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possible to have a lasting detente if each country depicts
the other to its own public as a permanent enemy, and I have
not looked in detail into what the evolution of Soviet
propaganda has been, but if your assessment is correct, that
it has not let up, then that would be a matter of great
concern.

Senator Case. I do think a suggestion that has been
made, and I will defer to someone else, I think the suggestion
which has been made that we ought to monitor this and it
ought to be done on a regular basis and considered by the highest
level of our Government continuously is a very important
point.

Secretary Kissinger. I think it is a very interesting
idea. But we know enough that what is being presented has
worrisome aspects.

The Chairman. Mr. Church.

Senator Church. Mr. Secretary, the policy of detente
with the Soviet Union rests with considerable degree upon
highly pragmatic considerations. You yourself have emphasized
those in your very learned statement, and I would certainly
agree that the fact that the Soviet Union possesses a tremendous
nuclear arsenal and the fact that, as we all know, a nuclear
war between our two countries would result in an utter
catastrophe for both, looms large in the need to recognize
the importance and the necessity for this detente policy.

495

However, to the extent that a nation's foreign policy becomes utterly pragmatic, it in that degree becomes utterly unprincipled. You have referred to traditional American principles in your statement. You said at one point we have profound differences with the Soviet Union in our values, our methods and vision of the future.

You said at another we know what we stand for. You said still at another point, where the aged-old antagonism between freedom and tyranny is concerned, we are not neutral.

Well, I agree wholeheartedly with these principles as you have enunciated them, but I am puzzled as to whether or not these principles do not have a hollow ring when we begin to apply them to other aspects of American foreign policy.

Now, it is true that Chile, a small country in our Hemisphere, has no nuclear weapons and no great arsenal with which to threaten the American people, but how can we justify, even in the name of the spirit of detente, to which you earlier referred, let alone in the name of the traditional principles for which this country has historically stood, a policy of unfettered intervention in Chile, designed, if reports are to be believed, for the purpose of destabilizing and subverting a government which had been chosen in accordance with the constitutional processes of Chile?

I deplore the Allende regime but I recognize Allende had been chosen by a plurality of the Chilean people in a free

election. I thought it was a Chilean affair. He had subsequently
been selected by a majority of the Congress and installed
as the legitimate president, and yet we are now told, despite
these words about the principles that distinguish us as a
nation, that we not only interfered for the purpose of bringing
down that government, by an elaborate covert action
policy by the CIA, but that we were justified in doing it, if
I understood the President correctly, because the Russians
do it, indeed, because the Russians spend more money doing
it than we do.

How can such a policy be squared with our traditional
expression of the right of self-determination of other people?

Secretary Kissinger. Senator Church, before I deal with
the question, let me say one thing. I have not myself read
the testimony that Director Colby gave. I have been assured
by him as well as by those who have read the testimony that
he never used the word "destabilizing."

I have been further assured that he never used the word
"subverting". It is my impression from my knowledge of the
activities that were conducted, that these would be highly
inappropriate words for him to have used.

Senator Church. Mr. Secretary, I did not say that he used
those words. Those words I used and I draw the conclusion
from the substance of his testimony.

Secretary Kissinger. Well, now, I have not read the

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actual text of his testimony, which I understand is being held
on a classified basis in the appropriate committees.

Let me make a few general observations first, and then
let me deal with the specific issue which you have raised.

First, the United States has been conducting various
kinds of covert operations in the post-war period, and it
may be and perhaps should be a matter of philosophical debate
which of these are appropriate to conduct and to continue.
The difficulty is that by the definition of covert operation,
it is not easy to discuss them publicly and this creates
certain anomalies.

Secondly, all of the matters to which you refer have been
developed by well-established procedures in the Government
that have been consistently tightened, approved by the
President and briefed to the appropriated committees. This
does not itself make it right.

Senator Church. It is all the more appalling to me.

Secretary Kissinger. I do not want to make a judgment
on it. I would simply want to indicate what we are talking
about.

The President had a meeting this morning with the
leadership of the Congress in order to put before them what
is involved and to point out that as far as the Executive
Branch is concerned, we are prepared to work out those
procedures that establish appropriate accountability if it is

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felt by the Congress that the existing procedures that have
existed in the entire post-war period, and I repeat have
been progressively tightened by each succeeding Administration,
are not adequate.

Senator Church. Mr. Secretary, in all deference to you,
my question was --

Secretary Kissinger. I will deal with the substance of
your question next.

Senator Church. Very well.

Secretary Kissinger. But I thought it is important to
understand what we are talking about here. That we are talking
about something that was carried out by procedures in which
the entire, all the branches of Government participated accord-
ing to practices that had been established in the entire
post-war period, some things that were a regular operation.

I understand, Senator, this does not go to the heart of
your particular criticism but we are, therefore, dealing with
two separate problems:

(1) Should the United States, whatever the procedures,
do some of the things to which you object and, secondly,
were these activities, once they were being conducted, properly
conducted?

I understand this is not your basic point.

Now, let me deal with the specific question that you
raise, and I hope you will understand that in the circumstances

I must deal with it in general terms, and I repeat I
remain ready to testify before any Congressional committee that
is established by the Congressional leaders and the President
in any degree of detail and so will any other member of
the Executive Branch who has information on the subject.

The Chairman. I wonder if the Senator would allow me to
interject.

Senator Church. I would like to get the answer.

The Chairman. We dealt with this in the Committee
yesterday and this hearing is set for detente. I would hope
the Senator would not try --

Senator Church. I object to this, because detente is
directly related.

The Chairman. I see no relation --

Senator Church. I see a direct relation. I tried to
establish that relation in connection with the question that
I first raised.

Now, we know from what the President has said that there
was a covert plan of operation in Chile that he has said was
meant for the purpose of giving support to the dissenters, to
the opposition party, to certain newspapers against the
government that was then in power. Now, I want to know how
that kind of intervention can be reconciled with any law. We
have all kinds of references to moral principles here that
distinguishes this country and what it stands for in the

nature of the struggle between this country --

The Chairman. It has nothing to do with detente.

Senator Church. Nevertheless, Mr. Chairman, the practice of this Committee has been to give Members of this Committee an opportunity to ask questions of this character, and I would like the Secretary to tell me how we can reconcile this kind of intervention with the moral law that we are supposed to respect, with treaty law, with international law, or with any law other than the law of the jungle.

Secretary Kissinger. Well, Senator, now, the period you are talking about is the period between 1970 and 1973. The beginning of the period to which you refer was in a period of still considerable hostility and acute cold war, so in 1970 the perception of the Administration was not how to reconcile certain actions with detente because detente was something that we were still trying to establish.

May I please finish my answer and then -- I am trying to explain in reference to your question.

Secondly, when the leadership and the President worked out a fuller discussion of these issues, I think fairness would have to require that this be discussed, not just the terms of any one event in Chile but of a history that may have preceded, and that antedated by a considerable number of years, 1970.

But let me now deal with the specific issue that was posed

501

by Allende. According to the Chilean Constitution, a president is elected in two ways, either by a majority vote of the population, or failing a majority vote, by a majority vote of the Congress among the candidates that were running, and by tradition the Congress has voted for the candidate that had the largest number of votes, however narrow that margin might have been.

In 1970, Allende received a one percent margin over his nearest competitor but, nevertheless, only 36 or 37 percent of the vote, which meant that 63 percent of the population had not voted for Allende. This in itself was not unusual in Chile because almost every modern president of Chile has been elected by relatively narrow margins of this kind.

What gave the Allende situation the particular character was that, having been elected by 36 percent, he then set about to establish what appeared to be a one-party government and systematically set about to throttle all opposition parties, all opposition press, so that issue that was raised here was not an intervention in the democratic process, the issue that was raised was whether somebody elected with 36 percent and frankly, pursuing policies that we considered hostile to the United States should then do this, should be able to establish a one-party government.

As the President pointed out, the intent of the United States Government was not to destabilize or to subvert him

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but to keep him, but to keep in being those political parties
that had traditionally contested the elections, and our
concern was with the election in 1976 and not at all with
a coup in 1973 about which we knew nothing and which we had
nothing to do, as I testified to in 1973, and as the President
reaffirmed.

Senator Church. Mr. Secretary, I have just one comment
to make about this and then I am through. The present
Government of Chile is a military government, it has imposed
a blood bath, and there is no opposition and there is no
dissent and there is no covert plan either to assist the
dissidents to the opposition and there was not any in Brazil,
and for that reason, I cannot square this policy with what
I regard as traditional American principles and I think it
is a sad episode.

The Chairman. May I say --

Senator Church. I am finished.

Senator Case. I think that we are in danger of getting
into a matter which we cannot deal with adequately in this
session.

The Chairman. It is anticipated we will have a hearing
on this subject after we get the report of the staff. We
agreed on that yesterday.

Senator Case. Many phases of this have to be gone
into.

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The Chairman. It is much too involved to be gone into
here. I think we should operate on a limit of time so every-
one will have a chance to say something.

Senator Symington. If the Chair will yield.

As the ranking Member of the Multinational Subcommittee,
I was astounded to read in some of the press these accusations
and charges made by the Committee as to what went on in
Chile, but it certainly does not coincide with the testimony
that that Committee has received. If the Chair does not want
to take it up at this time then I will not take it up at
this time, but I do think that the matter is serious enough
to have discussion at the earliest opportunity because the
people have heard and read in detail the accusations that
have been made against a good many people, including the
Secretary of State, and if we are going to proceed with
investigations on the theory of detente, I think this ties
into it.

The Chairman. The Committee voted yesterday to ask the
staff to bring together all of the material relevant to the
Chilean matter and I thought that was agreed to, and this
hearing has been set for a very long time on another subject.
I think it is quite out of order to proceed on this subject
at this time. I am sure at the proper time the Secretary
and others will be available for any testimony the Committee
wishes.

504

1 Senator Symington. I went to the UN opening yesterday
2 so I did not know that.

3 The Chairman. We did vote yesterday and instructed the
4 staff to make a study of this.

5 I hope we can proceed in order under the ten-minute
6 rule we have tried to abide by in these hearings, so everyone
7 will have at least one opportunity to question on the subject
8 of these hearings.

9 The Senator from Illinois.

10 Senator Percy. Thank you.

11 Mr. Secretary, it is likely on the floor of the Senate
12 today we will have legislation dealing with the Ex-Im Bank.
13 One of the most controversial issues is the extension of
14 long-term trade credits to the Soviet Union.

15 Can you give us the benefit of your opinion as to the
16 importance of this matter as it affects detente?

17 Secretary Kissinger. Our approach to the question of
18 trade with the Soviet Union has been an attempt to relate
19 progress in trade toward the progress in political normaliza-
20 tion.

21 Our view is that as we draw the Soviet Union into a web
22 of normal relationship we can also create vested interests
23 on both sides, especially in the Soviet Union in the
24 maintenance of such a relationship.

25 Before the detente process started we consistently

505

opposed both the extension of trade and the extension of credit.

After the detente process developed, we believe that an easing of trade restrictions, including credit restrictions, should go hand in hand with normalization of political

relations. This seemed to us all the more important because we are not the only potential source of either credit or trade for the Soviet Union and many advanced industrialized countries, including the countries of Western Europe and Japan are prepared to engage in these activities.

We, therefore, oppose restrictions though we do not oppose Congressional review, but we oppose legislative restrictions on these, on trade and on credit.

Up to now we have given credit in measured terms. We will not give credit for activities that we think are primarily related to military capability, although, of course, in a complicated economy there are trade-offs possible and it is not easy to make the distinction. Up to now the total amount of credit extended in a three-year period is in the order of $300 million, which is insignificant in terms of the total impact on the Soviet economy, but which is significant in terms of the kind of relationships which it would foreshadow. So we would hope that the Congress would not place restrictions on the limit, on the ceilings, on the amount that could be given, especially as Congress, as we understand, has already written into the bill provisions for

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1 review of specific credits of more than, I believe, $40

2 million, and this we do not oppose. We do not oppose the

3 Congress has the right to review the individual items. So

4 that we believe that Congress has sufficient opportunity in
its review of the individual items not also to require an

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6 absolute ceiling.

7
Senator Percy. I am going to try to phrase this next
question in a way that will meet the exacting standards of

9
the Chair for the purpose of these hearings.

10
In the past, Pakistan has had a relationship with
11 China, the People's Republic of China, India with the Soviet
12 Union. To the extent that we tilt one way or the other, it
13 may have some effect upon detente.

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15 In your judgment, in the Ford Administration, is there
a tilt toward Pakistan or India, and what is our posture
16 in the sub-Continent?

17
I ask that question because it will certainly be put
18 to you in your forthcoming visit of October 27, 28 and 29.
19 Possibly it will save you some time out there if you could
20 answer it for the record right now.

21
Secretary Kissinger. The word "tilt" was used by one
22 unnamed in the Administration as a backgrounder applied
23 to the conditions of 1971 and particularly to the conditions
24 of Indian military operations in what is now Bangladesh and
25 our fear of Indian military operations against West Pakistan.

Our policy in the sub-Continent is to establish relations
of friendship with all of the countries on the sub-Continent.

I think it is safe to say that our relations with India
have improved dramatically in the years since the Indian-
Pakistan War.

I have reason to believe that they will improve consider-
ably over the next months and my visit to India is designed to
accelerate this process.

The Indian Foreign Minister is calling on the President
today and I expect to have extensive talks with him here, then
to continue them with him and Prime Minister Ghandi when I
visit India at the end of October. This is not in ______ of our traditional friendship with Pakistan. The United
States has no national interest in a rivalry between the
countries on the Indian sub-Continent. On the contrary, the
United States would like the Indian sub-Continent to be an
area of peace, and to the extent that we can through our
actions contribute to this, and to the economic development
of the area, we shall do so.

So I think it is safe in assuming that we are not tilting
toward any country on the sub-Continent in this stage of
our policy, and that we do not look at this sub-Continent as
being composed of some countries that are clients of China,
others that are clients of the Soviet Union, others that
should be clients of the United States. We believe that we can

508

have productive relationships with all of them and we believe
also, especially with respect to India, our relations are in
a stage of dramatic improvement.

Senator Percy. The second part of the question dealing
with the sub-Continent relates to the very widespread publicity
I saw this weekend in Calcutta and New Delhi on the Moynihan
cable back to the Department dealing with the covert activities
of the CIA. Very great prominence was given to the fact there
was concern by the Prime Minister of India the CIA might
become involved in some covert activity in India. That was
not pleasing to us. I told the press in my judgment, based on
everything I knew, that was a ludicrous assumption, no comparison of the situation. But I would like to give you the
opportunity if you care to, to comment on that. It might save
some time, being one of the first questions put to you on
the sub-Continent.

Secretary Kissinger. Senator, Ambassador Moynihan is
a very good friend of mine and is given to flights of eloquence,
particularly after returning to Delhi from tiring trips and
reading fragmentary news reports.

Senator Percy. It is a refreshing change from most of
those I read.

Secretary Kissinger. I think his dispatches, which are
frequent and extensive, are always a joy to read.

Senator Percy. In the New York Times or Los Angeles

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1 Times?

2 Secretary Kissinger. Most of the time I get them first.

3 (Laughter)

4 He also thinks that his dispatches are worth reading so
5 he distributes them rather widely to various members of the
6 diplomatic corps. Nevertheless, in this particular instance
7 he was expressing a view not about covert operations in India
8 but about covert operations outside of his area of jurisdic-
9 tion. For the reasons which I gave earlier, I do not want
10 to address publicly specific issues of covert operation
11 but I can say this. I have told the Government of India --
12 I repeat it here -- that if they find any American official
13 or any other American, over whom we have any control at all,
14 engaging in political activities in India, they should let
15 us have the name and he would be removed from India within
16 24 hours. I reaffirm this.

17 Senator Percy. Where would he be moved to? I do not
18 think that, if I were in India, I would be exactly satisfied
19 with that.

20 Do you mean they would be summarily discharged for
carrying out functions for which they are not authorized?

22 Secretary Kissinger. We are not involved in the domestic
politics of India in any manner, so it would have to be
an unauthorized --

25 Senator Percy. Lastly, on the sub-Continent, because we

510

are making considerable progress in the SALT talks and de-
escalating the nuclear arms race, we hope in the mutual and
balanced force reductions with Europe, East and West, the
questions come up as to whether in the Indian Ocean, in
Diego Garcia, we may be involved in an escalation. There is
concern in the sub-Continent on that question. In your judg-
ment, taking into account the President's statement on the
three facilities in the Indian Ocean that are available to
the Soviet Union, do you feel that the request being made now
could in any way endanger our detente or could start us in an
escalation in an area that presumably has been a zone of
peace to date, and that has not been a contest between the
Soviet Union and the United States as to which power can have
the greatest force out there?

Secretary Kissinger. We do not believe that it would
endanger detente and the scale of the activities that are
now perceived we do not believe it would lead to an escala-
tion of the arms race.

Senator Symington. Please let me know when my time is
up.

Mr. Secretary, when the original superb SALT I Agreement
you made in 1972 and deferred so well in Moscow, was
later overthrown down here, with the then President's approval,
I predicted then and believe now that nothing meaningful
would come out of the SALT II discussions, and that the arms

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race, which is obviously being urged on by this Administration
in its budget, as recently brought up by the Chairman a
few minutes ago, would continue. I stress the word meaningful.
I am sure there will be a lot of words about it. The arms
race is not only continuing but it is accelerating. It is
a very expensive part of national security, I think a sound
economy and sound dollar.

Driving home last night I heard one of our more prominent
economists predicting worldwide a depression and giving the
difference between the present recession we are in and
another depression that would be comparable to what we went
through in the thirties, with one great exception. We are
far less in control of the dollar today than we were then
because of the Eurodollar, Japanese dollar, and petro dollar.

I was going to bring up questions incident to Chile,
especially since there has been so much interest in it, but
I did not know yesterday, being at the UN with you, that
the Committee decided not to bring that up. But I would like
to bring up one more matter.

The Soviet Union protested our building a base in the
Indian Ocean. The Indians have expressed, at least some to
me personally, objection to our building this carrier base
on the British Island of Diego Garcia. The recommendations
of the military, the Pentagon, were far different than the
original recommendations of the CIA or conclusions as to just

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what it was that the Soviets were doing in the Indian Ocean.

I would hope that, without getting into the details, we can
take some action to restore public confidence in procedures
by which the Central Intelligence Agency receives its policy
guidance and by which the Congress oversees its activities.
The real problem is not with the agency itself but with the
system in which it operates. The Congress and the past
Presidents, in my opinion, are more to blame than the Agency.

I remember some three years ago -- now we are talking
about detente tying that into things like Diego Garcia --
when the Chairman of this Committee asked the former Chairman
of the Appropriations Committee, whose five senior members
are the only Senators really who have a look at the budget,
whether he knew what the CIA was doing with the money. He
replied he did not know and did not want to know.

All I can say is I do not know who the leaders in the
Congress were. I know the Chairman of the Appropriations
Committee told me he was not going -- yesterday the Chairman
of this Committee was not there. I have been on the CIA
Subcommittee for the Armed Services Committee for around ten
years and none of us really know what is going on. We do know
that the military are very anxious to take over the intelli-
gence. A talk was given by an American general it would be
better if the Defense Department took over intelligence, and
then he went to work for the CIA. He is now back working for

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the DIA, which is the Defense Intelligence Agency, and a new general has taken his place in the CIA.

All I can say, based on my experience, unless prompt steps are taken to restore the integrity and position of the CIA in the Government, instead of constantly knocking it down, no doubt justifiably in some cases, but that is not being discussed this morning. You turn the estimates of what the Soviet Union are doing over to the military and you can forget any future value of the American dollar, in my opinion, because of what they will say the possible enemy is doing. If you have any doubt about that, I would suggest that you read the reports that were given to the Armed Services Committee about what the Soviet was doing in what we used to call a short time ago the "Ocean of Peace", the Indian Ocean, then read the first reports before the massaging began from CIA as to what the Soviet Union was or was not doing in the Indian Ocean, and I regret that we are going ahead with that base. It will be discussed at length on the floor of the Senate because we only agreed to pass it in the committee provided it was approved by both houses, and that was taken up and agreed to, and also by the President stating it was necessary for national security, which I think he has already done.

I personally do not agree with that. I think the arms race is accelerating. I have been in this field in this town for some 30 years now. I think it is accelerating to the

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point where it is jeopardizing another important aspect of
national security, a sound dollar and a sound economy.

Mr. Chairman, I believe I have reached about the limit
of my time.

Secretary Kissinger. Could I make one very quick
observation, which is I think the control that is being
exercised over the Central Intelligence Agency through the
Forty Committee and the President has already been described.
With respect to the analytical function of the CIA, I am not
aware that there is any policy guidance that has ever been
given to it as the direction in which it should go. Certainly
never at my level has there been any attempt made to indicate
even indirectly to the CIA what the expectation would be.
In every instance when we asked for an estimate there is no
discussion from my office either in the Department of State
or in the White House with the Central Intelligence Agency,
until the estimate is completed, and then there is no dispute
about the estimate but simply a briefing from them. In the
process of coming up with the joint estimate, how the various
agencies settle their differences, this is probably what
concerns you, but there is no indication of a preferred answer
that is ever given to the Central Intelligence of which I
am familiar.

Senator Symington. If I may say one more thing. As
Chairman of the Military Construction Subcommittee of the

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Armed Services Committee, we went into this matter in great detail, and based on the report that we got out of the Pentagon, a vast new armament structure was being rapidly developed in the Indian Ocean. So I thought it would be wise to get a check on that through the Central Intelligence Agency, and their original report came back and reminded me of what President Kennedy said, when two people he sent over to Vietnam came back, he said I think you are talking about two different countries. If you compare the two different reports you would think they were talking about two different oceans. Perhaps we would have been outvoted in the Armed Services Committee but perhaps the impact of what has happened in this country because of inflation, it got to the point where they did not want, the Committee did not want to vote on it, and lesser amounts were suggested, and we objected to that, and then the question came up as to whether the President should decide, because we think there is a legislative prerogative, we objected to that, and now it is going to be decided on the basis if the President says it is needed, it comes back to both houses for thorough discussion, and I would earnestly hope because of my respect for you, you look into the matter very thoroughly because I never saw a greater difference of opinion in the beginning between two Government agencies about just what or what not was being done by the other super-power.

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The Chairman. Senator Pell.

Senator Pell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to follow up on the points raised by Senators Symington and Percy in connection with Diego Garcia, because it does play a direct role in detente, in view of the Soviet, both official and unofficial protests on it. The President is really the prisoner of the information he gets, the intelligence he gets, and in this regard, in his press conference he referred to the justification of Diego Garcia and the fact that there are "three major naval operating bases" of the Soviet Union in the Indian Ocean.

Well, our definition of a major naval base is more than 500 people, and from the CIA briefing, which I also benefited from, I do not recall one base that had that many Soviet personnel in it. I was wondering if you could enlighten us as to what are the three major naval operating bases to which President Ford refers in his press conference.

Secretary Kissinger. I think the President was thinking of the Port of Samalia in Aden and in Iraq.

Senator Pell. I think the statistics will show that none of them have more than 500 Soviets on board.

Secretary Kissinger. He may not have been fully aware of the technical definition by which major is defined covering more than 500. He was thinking of Soviet naval

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facilities in terms of those three ports.

Senator Pell. I wrote a letter to the President on the subject yesterday and I would like to send you a copy of it and ask you, as Senator Symington did to look at the CIA classified briefing and I think you will find that there is no base there that could properly be called a major base or even a minor base.

Secretary Kissinger. Well, nor could Diego Garcia be called a major base.

Senator Pell. When we get the nose of the camel in the tent we will see there will have to be a carrier out there and a screening force and provide justification in the future. I think the move from a 12-carrier Navy to where we are now to 15, we will have a base and commitment there. As of now we have no commitment in the Indian Ocean. It is a pretty good thing and the strategic interest to us is negligible. But just as the Panama Canal is of value to us, as a body of water through which our ships go from the East to the West Coast, the Indian Ocean serves the same role anduez Canal for the Soviet Union.

So I would be grateful if you would look that point up.

Secondly, in view of the fact that the Soviet Union has introduced an addenda item at the General Assembly on the Weather Modification, which as you know is a subject we

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have discussed often before, could you enlarge a little bit on this?

You stated we are going to begin negotiations in a recent agreed effort to overcome the possible danger of environment modification techniques. Who will be our negotiators, where will the negotiations take place, and what is the time frame?

Secretary Kissinger. On the question of environmental modification which you and I have had occasion to discuss previously, we are, of course, in an area of great uncertainty, because one is trying to deal with something whose extent is very difficult to foretell at this particular moment and where those things that one is familiar with are the easiest to deal with, and maybe the most irrelevant.

We have started an extensive interdepartmental study on, first, getting a factual grip on what might be in prospect and how one could go about restricting it, because there are many aspects, for example, that, while useful for military technology, are also useful for civilian technology; methods to disburse fog, for example. It would be very difficult to know into what category to put it so its military utility would be self-evident.

We are planning to start these discussions, I do not remember, either October of November, but certainly this year. We have not yet selected a negotiator, but we should do so within the next few weeks.

Senator Pell. I would think the Department would have had adequate chance to reach a position on it. I introduced my first draft treaty about four years ago and the Senate passed a resolution 82-to-10 advising the Department to move ahead, advising the Secretary of State and the Administration to move ahead in this field, I think about a year ago. It was my resolution.

Secretary Kissinger. We are developing a position, but it was a problem that it took us some time to understand.

Senator Pell. Now, a final question.

Secretary Kissinger. Your friendly harassment was very useful.

Senator Pell. Thank you.

In connection with detente, and here I would say as one member of this committee, and I think most of us share this view, we stand four-square with you in trying to move down this path, because obviously the objectives of detente and normal relations are to the benefit of us all, and yet we see various groups in this country, be it labor, be it conservatives, be it liberals, be it the Jewish people, concerned with the harassment of Jews, or the labor leaders themselves, whatever their views are on detente, each group is nibbling away at it. If you do not watch out, the whole will be nibbled away and that is why I think these hearings are a great help and I support you in connection with detente. It involves not only

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1 the relations with the Soviet Union, but relations with the
2 Communist countries.

3 I see real danger here in connection with the Czechoslo-
vakian agreement. As I understand, we presently have agree-
4 ments with all of the Eastern European countries except Czecho-
5 slovakia with regard to nationalization of countries. In
6 the case of Czechoslovakia we have concluded one referendum,
7 and we will settle I think 40 percent of value of property, and
8 we will return to them the Nazi-stolen gold which we have
9 been holding as ransom all these years since.
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11 Now I understand there is a movement to derail this
12 agreement. What is your view as to the derailment of this
13 agreement?

14 Secretary Kissinger. I believe it will be very unfortu-
15 nate because I agree with you that the process of detente with
16 the Soviet Union should be accompanied with an improvement
17 of relations in Eastern Europe. It would be wrong for the
18 United States to ameliorate its relationship with the Soviet
19 Union while the countries in Eastern Europe with which we have
20 a traditional balance are kept behind.

21 Now, in the case of Czechoslovakia, we put this last
22 on our list for the reasons of its recent history but, never-
23 theless, we felt that the time has now come, this is an agree-
24 ment similar to ones we have made with other countries, and I
25 believe that the actions that have been contemplated in the

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Finance Committee would have a very unfortunate effect and
would be quite counterproductive.

Senator Pell. Thank you very much.

Senator Symington. May I ask that a statement that I made
as to not going to talk about Chile be inserted at this point
in the record.

The Chairman. Without objection.

(The statement follows:)

(COMMITTEE INSERT)

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The Chairman. Senator Muskie?

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Senator Muskie. There was a very interesting column in the morning paper, I do not know whether you had an opportunity to read it, but undertaking to portray a power struggle going on in the Executive Branch involving two very formidable personalities, yourself and the Secretary of Defense.

I put my question not because I have any interest in what-
ever substance there may be to the idea of a personal struggle
because I am interested more in the substance of what appears
to be what is going to be involved, that is, a substantial
disagreement within the Administration as to how hard a line
we ought to follow in negotiations with the Soviet Union in
the context of detente.

If you have read the column, is there substance to it;
if not, do you have any other observations to make?

Secretary Kissinger. First, I have very great respect for the Secretary of Defense. He is one of the outstanding analysts of strategic matters that I know.

Inevitably, in the nature of his responsibilities, when-
ever he makes a presentation before the Armed Serv ices Com-
mittee, for example, it is his obligation to emphasize the
military aspects. This is the charter that he has. Inevi-
tably it is my responsibility when I testify to take the
global, diplomatic aspect; that includes the military aspect,
but is not confined to that.

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1 Inevitably also, there are sometimes differences of view
2 on this or that issue.

3 Nevertheless, I believe that my relationships with the
4 Secretary of Defense are extremely constructive.

5 For example, before I have testified here, he has seen
6 my testimony on the strategic section. I think I am safe in
7 saying that there is no disagreement with the statement. He
8 made a few minor suggestions as it turned out, all of which
9 I accepted except one, where he overstated my own case.

10 The statement has also been seen by the President. I
11 believe very strongly that we have had enough personality
12 debates and that what we need now is to focus on the substance
13 of the issues. There is not a struggle. There is no
14 struggle going on between individuals. The President makes
15 the decision. All the Cabinet members will support him.

16 There are occasional differences in emphasis. There is
17 no difference in philosophy and there is emphatically not a
18 power struggle between the Secretary of Defense and myself.

19 Senator Muskie. May I pursue that with another question
20 on the substantive side of the question rather than the
21 personal side?

22 Yesterday the SALT II talks resumed in Geneva. On
23 September 6 President Ford stated that there will be a unified
24 American position when the talks begin, yet Newsweek reported
25 this week within the Administration debate over the negotiating

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is so intense, President Ford has been unable to make a final
decision.

When the National Security Council sat down last week
to review instruction for the departing SALT negotiators,
concrete proposals were not even discussed.

Would you comment on this report? Do we have a unified
American position? Do our negotiators plan to table a new
set of proposals in Geneva?

Secretary Kissinger. Again, as a matter of policy, it
is not easy to discuss National Security Council meetings in
public, but I can tell you in general where we stand.

When we shifted from essentially a five-year approach
to a gen-year approach, it was necessary to look at the whole
nature of our proposals all over again because the difficulty
with the five-year approach has been that almost any weapon
system that you could imagine would either just start being
deployed right after such an agreement would be finished,
or at the very end of the agreement. So you did not really
know whether you were just deferring by half a year or by a
year things that were going to happen anyway, and create
so much insecurity in the process that the whole effort was
not working and this became increasingly apparent because we
were going through a five-year effort.

All of the weapons we were really most worried about were
going to go into massive deployment on both sides at the end

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of the agreement. So the ten-year approach gives us a new
opportunity to look at all of the programs again.

It is also clear there were some special conditions
within the last six months within our government that made it
more difficult to generate dispassionate discussions.

Our approach is the one that the President explained
at his press conference. We made no attempt to put down an
agreed proposal for the last National Security Council meeting,
not because there were such disagreements, because we first
wanted within the government to agree on certain principles
on emphasis that we were going to put in the negotiations and
we thought it would in fact be a mistake to table an agreed
proposal in Geneva which would only force the Soviets prema-
turely to react before they knew what they were about.
And what we discussed in effect was a classified version of
what I have put into this statement.

The main headings that are in the statement were essen-
tially what has been discussed on a classified basis. Once
the Presidnet has made a decision in this area, we are now
engaged in putting numbers next to these categories.

The intention has always been that these numbers would
then be dealt with by the President early in October, and
that sometime prior to my going to the Soviet Union at the end
of October we would communicate those numbers to the Soviet
leaders and then have a discussion of them when I am in the

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Soviet Union.

The reason we are doing it this way, the complete consensus of all agencies is that in our experience the Soviet leadership prefers to deal with these issues at the highest level rather than by letting them seep up through the bureaucracy.

So it is totally incorrect to say that there are such disagreements that the President could not come to a decision or we could not formulate a proposal. We have made no attempt to formulate a proposal.

Now that we have had the meeting, that the general guidelines have been given, we are working on formulating the numbers and probably what we will try to do is to come up with a number of approaches and see which one of them will work best.

Senator Muskie. Mr. Secretary, I would like to follow up with this question.

In several meetings in executive session of the Foreign Relations Committee, you have proved to be a very eloquent and even passionate spokesman for arms control and the necessity for it. I would hope we might get a similar response to the next observation question.

In an August 20 speech to the American Legion annual convention in Miami you stated that in a nuclear stage, and I quote you: "A limit exists beyond which additional weapons lose their political significance."

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Secretary Kissinger. It was not an alarm; it was applauded.

Senator Muskie. "When each superpower is capable of destroying its adversary." You added that a "continual expansion of strategic foces by both sides would not result in greater security but would only lead to new balances at higher levels of complexity and would generate an atmosphere of hostility and suspicion that makes political conflict more likely."

What I would like to ask you is this: Have we reached this limit? What is your view of sufficiency? Would not the development of a new generation of ICBM submarine-launched ballistic missiles and manned bombers at the same time push us beyond the limit of politically significant weapons and generate the atmosphere of hostility you seem to want to avoid?

Secretary Kissinger. I think this is a profound question and we face a paradox here.

On the one hand, as I have testified in executive session, and as I stated both in my speech at ______ and in my testimony here, the statement you have read represents essentially my views.

At the same time, we face a perceived inferiority, as I have also pointed out in my statement, that could have political consequences or diplomatic consequences so, therefore,