Warning of War

Kissinger: "We will resist"

The rhetorical question was whether the West faced "the prospects of a new war, not a cold one." And Henry Kissinger's answer to his own inquiry was grim indeed. "We must bring to a halt the Soviet geopolitical offensive," he declared last week. "It must be stopped even in the Soviet interest." If not, he said, the Western democracies may have to pay an even more fearful price than they did for failing to halt the rise of Hitler. Said Kissinger: "In 1936 it would have been easy for the democracies to resist Hitler physically, but psychologically it was not. Five years later ... they paid for their psychological uncertainty with 20 million lives."

The setting for this warning was the picturesque Swiss town of Davos, where a select group of European businessmen gather each year to discuss the future with distinguished guest speakers. A number of listeners were profoundly shocked by the former Secretary of State's message. Said one Austrian businessman: "Until hearing Kissinger tonight, I did not realize how profoundly the mood has changed in America. It will take us some time to catch up with that mood."

The transatlantic gap in perception of the Soviet threat apparently concerned Kissinger greatly: some of the sharpest points of his speech--delivered from notes--were addressed directly to Europe. Said he: "I do not believe that Europe in a period of danger can adopt the posture that it will assume the monopoly of conciliation, while America assumes the monopoly of defense. Europe has a vital interest that the policy we are now adopting succeed." Kissinger also took an apparent dig at such frequent critics of American policy as French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing and German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt: "When the U.S. negotiates with the Soviet Union, some accuse it of condominium. When it resists the Soviets, it is accused of needless intransigence."

The former Secretary of State argued that the West still has both the economic power and the political vitality to fight back. Nonetheless, he went on, "the West has neglected for too long its military strength. Since 1962 the Soviet Union has increased its defense budget by 5% in real terms every year. The United States has not equaled those expenditures and Europe has done even less."

Kissinger, who endorsed Carter's declaration that Soviet expansionism must stop, ended with an eloquent plea to his listeners to appreciate America's global role--and its determination. "The American people are a vital people. We will not be defeated without noticing it, and when we notice it, we will resist."

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