Kissinger Speaks Out on Foreign Policy

Henry Kissinger is on the move again. Last week, after making his first visit to Canada, he flew to Tokyo and then on to Peking. Before going to Ottawa, the Secretary of State sat down for two hours with TIME Diplomatic Editor Jerrold Schecter and State Department Correspondent Strobe Talbott for a wide-ranging discussion of his foreign policy. Excerpts from the conversation:

Q. Will the continuing tension between you and Congress affect American foreign policy?

A. I don't think that there is tension between me and the Congress on a personal basis. I have, I think, extremely good personal relationships with most members of the Congress. But personal relations are not the issue. We are going through a period right now where, in the aftermath of Viet Nam and Watergate, the Congress is attempting to shift the balance between Executive and congressional power. There is [also] a profound feeling of distrust in the Congress of Executive discretion, which causes them to insist on a kind of documentary evidence which no congressional committee ever asked for before. At the same time, the structure of the committees has disintegrated to such an extent that the documentary evidence becomes public, creating new foreign policy problems.

To some extent, I favor [the tension]. I think the balance swung too far toward Executive authority in the '60s. But there is a danger that it may swing too far toward congressional authority in the '70s. And this will tend to paralyze foreign policy.

Can this problem be solved by taking Congressmen into negotiations? I don't want to exclude this totally. But it is not enough, for example, to have somebody in on a negotiation unless he knows all of the strategy that went into it. And it raises the issue of what happens if there is not complete agreement as to tactics.

In foreign policy, unless you have an overall design, your behavior grows random. It is as if, when you are playing chess, a group of kibitzers keeps making moves for you. They may be better chess players than you are, but they cannot possibly get a coherent game developed. Especially if, at the same time, you have to explain each of your moves publicly so that your opponent can hear it.

I don't know exactly what the solution is. I know I am spending over half of my time now before congressional committees. And that, too, is getting to be a problem in policymaking. I spent 42 hours in testimony and in private conversations with Congressmen in a three-week period on the Sinai accord. That is a lot of time, and it is in addition to the normal congressional contacts.

Q. You talk about kibitzers. Isn't that part of an open democracy?

A. There is no parliament in the world that has the access to policymaking that the Congress of the U.S. has--not in Britain, not in France, not in any of the democracies. The key decisions have to be subjected to congressional approval. The democratic process involves an approval [by Congress] of the general direction in which a country is going, as well as of specific individual steps. But to attempt to subject every single decision to individual approval will lead to the fragmentation of all effort and will finally lead to chaos and no national policy.

Q. In an article in the Public Interest, U.N. Ambassador Daniel Moynihan wrote that "liberal democracy on the American model tends to the condition of monarchy in the 19th century: a holdover form of government, one which persists in isolated or peculiar places here and there, but which has simply no relevance to the future. It is where the world was, not where it is going."

A. I don't agree at all. Where the world is going depends importantly on the U.S.

In the 1950s every new country wanted to be democratic because we were impressive or looked impressive, powerful and purposeful. In the 1970s, after all we have gone through, that condition no longer exists. This is not an Inevitable result. It may well be that democracy is not going to make it. But if democracy isn't going to make it, this is going to mean such a monumental change in the American perception of the world and of itself that it will have the profoundest consequences within America over a period of time.

Democracy in the 19th century was an essentially aristocratic phenomenon. You had limited ruling groups in most countries. This was not true of the U.S., although we did have restricted franchises. And you had, above all, a doctrine of limited government and relatively simple issues. Now the Government is involved in every aspect of life. The issues become unbelievably complex.

Another problem is that in almost every democratic country so much energy is absorbed in getting into office that leaders are not always as well prepared as they could be and have to learn their job by doing it.

All of this has created a crisis of leadership in many democratic countries. But it is a crisis that we must solve.

Q. Do you think we are better off than European countries?

A. Far better. The American body politic is basically healthy. Our people are confident. They want to believe in their Government. There is not the fundamental division you have in many foreign countries. Too often, the Communist vote reflects the fact that a significant segment of the population has opted out of the democratic process and has lost confidence in their government.

Q. Do the totalitarian countries have an advantage over us?

A. They are at an advantage over us with respect to any one decision they may want to make. However, they face a problem of initiative and creativity. Moreover, the quality of leadership in most totalitarian countries is worse, because they have a problem of how to replace leaders at the very top, and how to rotate leaders at middle levels.

The Communist appeal in the Third World is not due to their own merit. Nondemocratic forms are gaining. Much of the world has its origin in some form of revolution. On the whole, revolutionaries don't make revolution in order to give up power after they have seized it. Therefore, in many parts of the world, there is a tendency toward totalitarianism simply because the generation that seized power did not go through all that suffering in order to yield it. Our revolution was very peculiar, [since] it was made by people who knew who they were to begin with, and who thought they were carrying out an existing tradition.

Q. Could we tolerate Communists in the government of Italy or in France?

A. If you deal with a modern complicated democratic state, like Italy and France, it is not directly in our power to prevent it. It must be the responsibility of the governments concerned to prevent it. The alienation from government cannot be remedied primarily by the U.S.

At the same time, insofar as we can, it is necessary for the Western democracies to recapture the sense that they can control their own destiny--that they are not subject to blind economic forces that sweep across, that produce unemployment, that produce inflation. This is the reasoning behind the planned summit meeting in November.

Q. How do you think detente is perceived by the American public?

A. The detente debate suffers from a number of misconceptions and oversimplifications. One is that detente is a favor we grant to the Soviet Union, or that we can withhold it as a punishment. The fact is that we are attempting to carry out a foreign policy geared to the realities of the period. One, that the Soviet Union is a nuclear superpower, whose military potential cannot be effectively wiped out in a surprise attack, any more than ours can. This being the case, any war between us will involve colossal, indeed catastrophic, damage.

Second, the U.S. is no longer predominant, though it is still probably the strongest nation.

Third, the prevention of Soviet expansion, which remains a primary objective of American policy, has to be carried out in a more complicated way than in the 1940s and 1950s.

Fourth, the world is no longer monolithic. It is not one in which we can give orders, or in which we can dominate a Western group and the Soviets dominate an Eastern group.

And fifth, we have to consider what this country has gone through with Viet Nam, Watergate and the attendant congressional restrictions. For us to run the risks of a confrontation that will be considered by our people as unnecessary is to invite massive foreign policy defeats.

I believe that the policy we are carrying out with the Soviet Union has put us in the best position to resist Soviet pressures and in the best position to exploit possibilities of positive developments in Soviet policies. Now, however, the debate gets carried on as if we are giving away things to the Soviet Union. Where has the Soviet Union made a unilateral gain?

Q. It has been charged that because of detente we gave the Russians too generous terms in the 1972 wheat deal, and that at Helsinki we allowed the Soviet Union to ratify its dominant position in Eastern Europe.

A. The wheat deal is generally recognized today as a bureaucratic mistake. It had nothing to do with detente. In 1972 the decision was made to sell them wheat because it was considered a good thing for our farmers. And for that reason, it wasn't watched sufficiently at the political level. That was a mistake, but it was not a mistake of detente.

The so-called Helsinki issue has to be seen in the context of the evolution of East-West relationships. We used it as an incentive to get a Berlin Agreement and the start of mutual balanced force reductions in Europe by refusing to agree to a European Security Conference until after a Berlin Agreement. And that in turn quieted down an explosive situation, we hope for the foreseeable future.

With respect to the frontiers, Helsinki ratified nothing that had not been ratified before, at Yalta, Potsdam and in the peace treaties. The Soviet political position in Eastern Europe depends on military predominance, and on history since 1950, which has made it clear that the Soviet Union would not tolerate a breakaway from its form of government and that the West would not intervene if the Soviet Union asserted itself militarily.

Q. If we don't have a SALT agreement this year or early next year, would that basically change the relationship between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R.?

A. I don't want to give a specific deadline for the SALT agreement. But if the SALT negotiation should fail, both sides will be forced to build their strategic forces in anticipation of what the other side might do.

In our case it would mean that rather than the Soviet Union reducing their strategic forces from the approximately 2,600 units they have now to 2,400, we would have to calculate that they will stay at 2,600--or maybe go on beyond that. To match this would involve a significant increase in our strategic defense budget That, in turn, can only be justified on the basis of an increased danger. So the rhetoric of both sides will become more confrontational, and I would think that it would lead to a substantial chilling in the relationship--if not to a return of the cold war.

Q. Isn't there a basic difference between the Pentagon and tht State Department on our SAL T negotiating position?

A. If there is a basic difference, I know about it only from the newspapers. The last position that was given to Foreign Minister [Andrei] Gromyko was jointly worked out by the Secretary of Defense and. myself. It was then approved by the President. If there should be a disagreement--and the disagreement is always much more in the press than in reality--then it will be settled by the President.

Q. Do you expect that there will be an agreement this year?

A. It's now getting rather late in the year. It would take about sb to eight weeks, even after an agreement in principle, to work ou all the technical details. So it may slip beyond the end of this year

Q. Would it be possible for [Soviet Party Chief Leonid] Brezhnev to come to the U.S. before a SAL T agreement is worked out?

A. I would think it's unlikely. I think his visit would be tied to i SALT agreement.

Q. Do you agree--as the Chinese have charged--that the danger of war between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. is increasing?

A. I do not see the danger of war increasing with the Soviet Union. I think that in the next decade, as Soviet power grows --and it will grow not as a result of detente, but as a result of technology and economic development--the temptation to achieve political positions commensurate with that power may also grow. And in that sense there could be a danger of increased conflicts if we do not, prior to that event, regulate our relationships in some manner, and if we fail to keep up our defenses.

Q. Would it be in our strategic interest if there was war between the Soviet Union and China?

A. No. We are not stimulating the rivalry; we are doing nothing to encourage that conflict. It exists; it is a fact of political life. It is not anything in which we can ourselves get involved. But a war between those two countries would be unfortunate. We're trying to improve relations with both [countries]. Of course, each might prefer it if we did not have a relationship with the other. For our purposes, it is better to have a relationship with both.

Q. Why should the President go to China this year?

A. The President is going because the essence of our relationship with China depends on a mutual understanding of each other's perceptions of the world. That requires a periodic exchange [of views] at the highest level. There hasn't been a meeting between the top Chinese leaders and an American President for nearly four years. In a relationship in which so much depends on intangibles, an occasional meeting is quite important. [The trip] will certainly not be just ceremonial.

Q. Do you expect the question of normalization of relations--short of our breaking of relations with Taiwan--to be resolved?

A. The issue will certainly come up, and we'll discuss it in the spirit of the Shanghai Communique, which provides that the purpose of our contacts is to achieve full normalization. We don'tr have a timetable right now. [As for the Chinese) well, they've stated publicly that they're patient.

Q. There have been reports that you will make a visit to Israel and Syria in December. Is that correct?

A. Absolutely not. Short of some crisis that I now don't see, I don't believe that I will visit Israel and Syria at that time.

Q. Do you feel that there will be a major reassessment of American commitment to Israel--and American policy in the Middle East in general--when the aid appropriations are presented to Congress?

A. The aid discussions take on a very curious form. The impression has been created that the aid requests for Israel and Egypt are caused by the Sinai agreement. Indeed, I saw it in your magazine [TIME, Sept. 15] that "Kissinger promised them certain things." The fact is that before the agreement the Israelis asked for $2.6 billion and were confident enough of getting it that they put it into their budget as a public figure. Seventy-six Senators urged us to meet that request.

Last year Israel received $3 billion of emergency and regular aid, and a substantial sum for Israel has been in every budget for the last 15 years. Similarly, we had allocated a certain amount for Egypt prior to the agreement. Aid levels were never discussed with Egypt during the agreement. We set the levels unilaterally after the agreement was completed. Aid to Israel and Egypt reflects our own interests; it is not a payment for the agreement.

Q. What about a reassessment in terms of our own domestic priorities--for example, the problems in New York?

A. This is not a fair choice because if you sacrifice an ally abroad, even if it has no immediate consequences, the long-term consequences in terms of your international position are very severe. We must overcome the idea that when we deal with foreign governments it is a favor that we do them, that we can withdraw without penalty to ourselves. If we have a close relationship with a foreign government, it must be because we believe that we have permanent interests. If we don't, then that relationship is in trouble. But if we do have permanent interests, then we cannot choose between New York and, say, Israel.

Q. There's been considerable questioning and criticism ...

A. If it's criticism, it was unfair. [Laughter.]

Q.... about the failure of the U.S. to speak out for trial by jury and the rights of the accused in the case of the summary execution of Basques and leftist terrorists in Spain. Why was that?

A. I don't have the impression that trial by jury is part of the Spanish legal tradition. Trial by jury isn't the case in France and Germany. It's not the case in any country that has the Napoleonic Code or the Roman law. Trial by jury is an Anglo-Saxon concept that exists only in countries within the Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence.

We did not take an official position on the legal proceedings that were carried out in Spain, and I don't think that was the objection of many of the Europeans. Rather it was a rallying point for a historical resentment of Franco Spain, which is rooted in the experience of the Spanish Civil War. The relationship between Spain and the West--bringing Spain back to the West--is one of the critical problems of our foreign policy over the next five to ten years.

Q. What are your top priority items in foreign policy?

A. In foreign policy there are always periods of innovation and then there are periods of consolidation. We went through a period of innovation with respect to the Communist countries between '71 and '73. We are now in the process of consolidating this. We then went through a period of innovation in our relations with Western Europe and Japan in the period of '73 and '75. This is still going on. Although it has not been, in my view, adequately noted, I think our relationship with the industrial democracies is better and more creative than it has been at any time since the late 1940s. The things that were considered very advanced in '73, when I put forward the Year of Europe, are now accepted as a matter of course. At that time when we proposed that economic policies should be coordinated, this was rejected. Today it is made as a demand. This is a period I would put in the middle of its creative phase.

Then we have the relationship with the new countries in which we have just begun the process of construction with the Seventh Special Session.

Those are the three areas which are in various states of evolution. Of course, you have critical problems like the Middle East, which must, in my view, in the next three to five years make a substantial advance toward peace--or maybe achieve peace.

One of the things we've often discussed is the vitality of Western institutions in the period of change. This is perhaps our deepest problem, to which a foreign policymaker can contribute by performance but not directly.

Q. Last week you met with the Portuguese Foreign Minister [Melo Antunes] and the Administration has put forward to Congress the proposal for $85 million in aid. How do you now feel about the survival of pluralist democracy in Portugal?

A. My position has been that without a systematic effort to encourage the pluralistic forces in Portugal, they would be defeated. For a while there was a disagreement between us and the West Europeans, who thought that the forces of the government that was in office earlier this year would over a period of time produce pluralism. I was skeptical about this. During the summer the West Europeans came to the same conclusions we had earlier reached; namely, that pluralism had to be actively encouraged. And that has always been my position. I think it is still a very precarious situation in Portugal, the outcome of which is not clear. Recent trends are more encouraging.

Q. In your U.N. speech you suggested a conference between the concerned powers about the future of North and South Korea. That was rejected by the Chinese and the North Koreans.

A. Yes, but I'm not sure that is absolutely their last word on the subject. Even if there is no formal conference, we can have exchanges of views. We are not opposed to North Korea as such. What we don't want to do is have bilateral talks with North Korea to the exclusion of South Korea. We don't want to have South Korea maneuvered into the position of an international pariah while we settle the future of North Korea in negotiations with other countries. We would be prepared to participate in any negotiations or in any conference whose composition was reasonably balanced that included South Korea. Similarly, if the Soviet Union or the People's Republic were prepared to recognize South Korea, we would be prepared to recognize North Korea.

Q. In 1961 in A World Restored, you wrote that "statesmen often share the fate of prophets"--that they're without honor in their own country. Do you feel that you're suffering this fate?

A. Well, the lead time for prophecy has shortened. I think in the country there's a general feeling that our foreign policy is reasonably effective. Some of the criticism is the natural result of an election year. Some of it is the inevitable consequence of having been in office for seven years, in which you accumulate a lot of mortgages on yourself.

Inevitably, after one is out of office, one's policies will be seen in clearer perspective, because then the alternatives will have to be tried or rejected by somebody else. But, on the whole, the criticism does not go to the central core of the policy and, therefore, I believe the central core of the policy will be carried on after I leave office--even if another Administration succeeds us.

Q. It sounds like you'll stay, if the President's elected.

A. Don't scare me like that. I'd lose at least my dog, and probably my wife. [Laughter.]

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