Winston lord talks about the Nixon Administrations Foreign Policy approach. He is the author of kissinger on kissinger reflections on diplomacy, grand strategy, and leadership. Mr. Lord describes president nixons relationship with his secretary of state Henry Kissinger and how it was instrumental in developing Foreign Policy strategies. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Nixonith the richard foundation. Before we introduce our distinguished speaker this evening, i wanted to mention a couple of special guest. Distinguished speakers daughter here and her husband. , the wifetsy hewitt of newly elected hugh hewitt. Our distinguished speaker was to dr. Kissinger as dr. Kissinger was to nixon. He was with dr. Kissinger during the peace accords in 1973. He was with president nixon in moscow during his first president ial trip there. He was there for kissingers shuttles between arabs and israelis. He was a key act your and president nixons historic trip to china he was a key actor in president nixons historic trip to china. He was state Department Director of policy and planning, ambassador to the peoples republic of china and assistant secretary of state for South East Asia and Pacific Affairs part he conducted several hours of oral histories of dr. Kissinger on behalf of the Nixon Foundation. It can be found in this highly readable book called kissinger on kissinger reflections on diplomacy, grand strategy, and leadership. It is available for purchase at our museum store. Ambassador lord will be interviewed by dr. Frank gannon. He obtained his masters degree at the London School of economics and doctorate at oxford. He worked with churchill to biographydefinitive of his father, winston churchill. 1974, he left washington to california aboard air force one following president nixons resignation. He is the rare distinction of having interviewed present nixon for 30 hours he has the rare distinction of having interviewed president nixon for 30 hours. We will see some of this video these videos in the presentation tonight. Yesterday, our president visited dr. Kissinger in new york city knowing that ambassador lord would be speaking tonight. Dr. Kissinger asked hugh to pass on his best issues. Winston lord is an indispensable partner and a very good friend. [applause] applause]d well, thank you for coming. Thank you for being here. It is a great pleasure and honor. I found one of several references to you in the various kissinger memoirs. I will not be the one about you being a terrible punster. You became one of you became a good friend. He had an original perspective. Praise from caesar. You went on to a very distinguished career, which could be the subject of another talk. I am in the curious position, you have an excellent book, addition of the number of interviews your edition of the number of interviews. I will refer to some of the things in the book that will be openended. The book is very short, very accessible, interesting. The best thing to do is to buy it and read it. You cannot go wrong. Appropriate, if you are here at the library, the Nixon Foundation played a part in the genesis of these interviews. Ambassador lord i have been going around the country promoting this booklet. No other scene compares with this one. It is the Nixon Library and museum and this is about the nixonkissinger Foreign Policy. Conducted 30 hours of interviews with president so, that isurs, and also very relevant. He was in the white house when i was. Crucial and i is am delighted that hugh is the new president he interviewed me on this book, by the way. Interviews. Al the keyanels on some of references and we prevailed on kissinger to reflect back on these events. It is extraordinary. Events 50 years old. Would beread extraordinary for 30yearold talking about last weeks news. The point i am making, the foundation, together with the national archive, supported the interviews and no one is more than jonathan, who is essential in the editing and video. Tion of the if not for them, we would not have this book. One last comment, i mentioned hugh interviewing me for the , youin my moving around we havethis afterwards, another idea we are toying with. Onput out a press release the book before it was issued sawa good friend of mine the press release on his iphone and the iphone cut off the last two letters of the book. You see what is coming, right . Kissinger on kissing. Title to boosthe the sales. Video,ave a very short about two minutes, that was made for dr. Kissingers birthday which was in new york in may. This is a couple of clips from the interviews. Six interviews . Flavorves a very brief of what the book is based on. Nixons Foreign Policy, grand strategy. It was the improvement of the relationship of countries to each other, the balancing of their selfinterest would the security of the united states. I have not studied any american he did so in terms of practical experiences in meeting with leaders. My approach was very similar to his in terms of focusing on objectives. Historicalerial was and philosophical. Aw the world in terms of that i had studied. Our strategic objective was to prevent the soviet union from becoming the dominant country. The soviet army had just occupied czechoslovakia. The soviet military pressure was a feature. Nixon began by opening armscontrol negotiations of Strategic Nuclear weapons. The soviet union tried to blackmail us. We said, we will go to china first. Nixon faced the problem of china from the view of world order in his view was world order. His view was getting china involved in the international whole fathom of International Politics would be transformed. Consider theve to impact of china. And he calculated that we might produce a situation in which rica would be closer to then they would be to each other. I looked at the war plans and the expected consequences of nuclear war. Those were the compelling moments. Occurring at the high point of the vietnam war. It was one of the main themes of the Nixon Administration. We saw the possibility of and toting agreements indicate specific steps towards it and to combine these two actions in one relatively brief period of time. We always had the view that the breakthrough in negotiations would calm when dashwood, when of the arab countries would come that one of the arab countries concluded that the we established ourselves as mediators between the arab and israeli side. Conjunction this in with the soviet union because in soviet union still had the arab world. People said this is madness. Society fromaking where it is to where it has never been. To walk alonege part of the way. [applause] nixon liked to spring surprises and his announcement of his first two principal advisors checked all of those boxes. His Economic Advisor was a harvard professor who was a kennedy supporter and a member of the Kennedy Administration and his foreign advisor was a harvard professor who worked for his political rival. In the interviews, after kissinger says to you, if you consider that i spent 15 years of my life trying to keep him from becoming president , it remains astonishing that he chose me for his security advisor. Politics breeds strange bedfellows. What do you think nixon saw in kissinger and why did kissinger say yes . Ambassador lord i want to thank you for that excerpt. It sets up the year and the book very nicely. Andas a Strange Alliance nixon showed great courage in doing this. He was a conservative from the west coast, distrustful of the ivy league and harvard professors. Immigrant jewish teaching at harvard and working for nelson rockefeller. They had actually never met, maybe once at a social meeting. He read kissingers books. He knew to do that he needed a very able, thoughtful National Security advisor. Heap politics aside and thought about he put politics aside and thought about the National Interest in what would serve his interest in following forming a new world order. One other aspects let me get to henrys acceptance. One otherwhen he was asked by te president to be National Security advisor, instead of saying yes immediately, he hesitated. Partly due to loyalty to rockefeller and uncertain about what nixon was going to be doing. Rockefeller chewed him out, you have to serve your country. He is taking a chance, not you. Henry immediately saw that. Have said yes anyway because his main motive was serving the National Interest. I am sure he left at the chance at theomething leapt chance to do something about it. He consulted with johnson and other president s. These are the main motives. What really brought them , common approach to Foreign Policy. A strategic conceptual approach that looks at the world and longterm trends. It isdo to one area not just not just to react in kneejerk fashion. It was clear they each shared strategic worldview, which was a major reason he was chosen. And clearly why kissinger joined him. They brought different strengths. Traveled the world extensively and knew many World Leaders and studied Foreign Policy and was the best prepared president ever for Foreign Policy. Kissinger strength was. Istorical, philosophical they had the same instinct on strategy. It was a wonderful mix. Mentioned the president elect wanted to bring Foreign Policy apparatus into the white house. The interesting thing i had not been before, were mixing and kissinger where nixon and kissinger go out to see the dying general eisenhower at walter reed. He gives them some specific advice. Brush withnger has a the former general. Ambassador lord henry not only recall strategy and specific milestones but he punctuates the copy with anecdotes. In this case, it was early in the administration, kissinger had the conventional mistaken view that eisenhower was a guy. T i think eisenhower was one of our great president s. And went out as a courtesy given eisenhowers interest in National Issues and they had a meeting with the middle east and they went out to walter reed hospital. The very next day, not because their meeting but because they told eisenhower about an eisenhower chewed kissinger out. How dare you let this stuff get out in the public. Kissinger said, i am not sure i can control this. He said, young man, if you cannot control these things, you do not deserve it. From the very first weeks of the administration, plagued by leaks. Before we get into talking about the book, i want to talk about you. When you are a High School Early 1950s, what did you think you wanted to be when you grew up . Ambassador lord secretary of state. [laughter] ambassador lord i did have an interest in Foreign Policy early on for two reasons. Much intowas very National Culture and voted for eisenhower, by the way. She was involved in lot of international and domestic issues. We sat around the dinner table and these issues would come up. I did all sorts of traveling when i was young. Wasof my vacations uzbekistan, as a casual example. How. Not quite sure yale. H major at scienceot of political and history courses and went to graduate school, where i met my wife. She took extremely good notes in economics class and that was my week subject. I decided to become her friend. That is how we got going. You were ending this major who became you were an aglish major who became diplomat. And she was an economics major who became a bestselling author. Distinguished academic career. What was the path that led you to kissinger . I had gone from the Foreign Service to the defense department. And i worked for a brilliant young person named talbert, suingt, who ended up kissinger later. I will not get into the details. Join the staff a month after i started. We should not spend too much time on me. We ought to spend it on kissinger and nixon. It was a great opportunity. I had to have , a 15 minute interview. Treasurytary of the was on the phone. Debate and int want disagreement, good intellectual exchange for my staff. To Foreign Policy, i want you to carry it out loyally. The point is, the first year i was not in the front office. I was sitting across from the eisenhower office. Send kissinger memos. Devils advocate, challenging. I wrote several memos that were critical about some of the things nixon and kissinger were doing. Men ornot like the yes yes women. As long as you argued intelligently, he respected that. This was a good example of someone who encouraged debate. He is a legendarily difficult boss. Some of the stories have to be where there is smoke, there is some fire. True or untrue . Ambassador lord true. He was one of his top assistants. Theye in the middle were in kissingers office. I was not there. I am not sure it is true but it is a good story. He stepped over the guys body to get to the phone. I will give you another example. Unbelievable respect and affection for henry. Even if you dont to him the transcript of this meeting even if you do not send him the transcript of this meeting. He was not perfect, like some of us here this evening. Myould like you to read eward. Ord. He stretched my nerves and stretched my horizons. I have always been appreciative of the climb as well as the view. Writewriting, i can fairly well, nowhere near like my wife. She does fiction and i do nonfiction. I did speeches for henry. It would go Something Like this. The timing would be just before the redskins kicked off before the cowboys. Work on the to speech so that was pretty annoying. One reason i quit about once a week. About 90 true and it gives you the flavor. You a topic to write a speech and i would come in two days later with a draft and he called me in his office the next day and say, is this the best you can do . Henry, i think so. I will take another whack at it. Best youure this is can do . I thought so, henry. This goes on for six drafts and i am getting annoyed. , henry, i have looked at every sentence and i have tweaked every and;, i cannot improve this speech. He said, in that case, now i will read it. [laughter] onthe way, he would push me writing memos to the president for him. Another staff member might be good on research. He had a sense of where to push and were not to push. You recommend reading your fr eword. It is not only edited transcripts of dutch unedited transcripts of interviews. It is not only unedited transcripts of interviews. Ambassador lord i framed the chapters. It is not uninterrupted it is not at all uninterrupted reading of transcripts. In the book, he has an interesting assessment of the sion. Strategic vi he was interested in the conceptual aspects of Foreign Policy. He says to you, nixon was, except for the founding fathers, the american president who. Hought of Foreign Policy in a way that the balancing of their self interest would promote peace and the security of the united states. He thought about that in relatively long range terms. Is that the way you think of nixon . Ambassador lord absolutely. Centristlast remaining in america. I am a flaming centrist. Was a political appointee of reagan and clinton. Of the seven president s i have served, nixon was the most formidable in Foreign Policy. A relativelyg from objective he is in a class by himself. Thecannot take away strategic approach. Theye reason why approach things the same way. Things hele of knew exactly how to work with kissinger. He struck a beautiful balance. Some president s micromanage. Determineer used to who could play on the tennis court. Some others would delegate completely. Had to make the courageous war,ions with the vietnam china, going to the middle east. He had to back up kissinger and he had a strategic approach. Then he left it to henry to do the actual negotiations and tactics and never secondguessed him and henry always had the confidence that he would be backed up by the president. China, before the historic october, the chinese presented a totally different approach from what nixon had approved. There was no weight to communicate back home no way to camino kate back home. There was no way to communicate back home. He agreed to the chinese approach, which proved to be successful. It shows you how they work together. To the longterm grand strategic vision, there is an axiom that dr. Kissinger quotes at least three or four times in the book about no half measures. Payssador lord you have to a price when you go halfway. The china visit was carefully set up. Bold move to send the National Security advisor secretly to china. He could not know how the reaction was going to be back home. That, went full board on taking a chance on negotiating in the middle east. The soviet influence. , only the moscow summit launched a major offensive against South Vietnam. The president ordered a very even though he thought it might jeopardize the summit. He had major arms control agreements t up. Teed up. By the way, kissinger and i and this is correct in terms of policy in vietnam which will probably sink the summit. I went to camp david to write the speech. Nixon said, the soviets will go ahead with the summit. They have too much selfinterest, and he was absolutely right. Moscow, i was in moscow, i was in charge of the president s briefing books and we were sitting in an office near the kremlin or in the kremlin and there was an agreement being signed by president nixon and they were going to take a break for half an hour and we were all going to go out in a motorcade to talk about vietnam. Even though they agreed to have us come when we were bombing the , theyut of their allies had to show they were loyal. Leaving me behind with the briefing books. Knowing henrys temper, i thought he was going to be mad even though it was not my fault. Talk the russian kgb into another car and we got there in time, thank god. Nixons courage and the russian reaction. Nixon onaders attacked vietnam so they could send the transcript to hanoi. There and did not engage. He knew they were going through a charade. We went upstairs to the to a banquet in the mood changes. It was like nothing ever happened. My whole point in this long meandering story, nixon did have andqualities of both vision the courage to make those decisions. It is tough for leader to make these decisions because early in the crisis, you do not have full information and you have to make a courageous decision based on inadequate knowledge of the landscape. Lonely and taking but if in taking risk you wait until you have so much knowledge that the path is certain, by then, you cannot do what you wanted to do. He made tactical decisions. Strategic big step decisions are the most difficult and that is what you need in a president. 5149 with the decisions that can be made at the lower level. Ambassador lord nixon on Foreign Policy in terms of interest and care. I was a charge that i was in charge of assembling his briefing books i was in charge of assembling his briefing books. We put together six briefing books. Everyread every paige page. Even as we were flying and air one, one in air force he would send memos back, i want to know about this. Poem i can famous use in my toast . It was amazing. Know, sure all of you ambassador lord is in our introductory video for the library. You have served seven president s. Him. Were as prepared as another aspect of this book is that it is a master class in diplomacy. To start with china, we know that it worked out well. Idea of goinghe to china was crazy, was unthinkable. Even one of our major ambassadors refused to believe it until he was called back. Sort of announced it in the first weeks of the white house. How did you receive this . Ambassador lord i want to make sure we have time for other questions from the audience. Its the courage again. Consulted many outside experts. We got a lot of help from the experts. We also called in outsiders and nixon talk to top experts in the state department on the soviet union. They all told him, do not move toward china. Said, if you go toward china, you are going to wreck relations with moscow. Nixon and kissinger did not believe this. The soviets had been dragging their feet. We resisted pressure. We were not making any progress with the soviets on arms control or any of these things. Public trip covered our secret trip. Said inty to kissinger said, theage, he russians have turned down a summit. We would give the chinese the summit first. Announced to the same committee to the fact that kissinger had been there. Within days, the russians agreed to a summit. Within a week, they moved on arms control in berlin. Even the smartest people can get things wrong. Vietnam, section on dr. Kissinger really talks about the controversies. The notion that the agreement that was achieved in 1973 could have been achieved earlier. Vietnam islord controversial. No one can sit here and say it was a splendid out,. Outcome. The north vietnamese violated the agreement. I understand the controversy. We lost a lot of lives. Who not respect those glorify the viet cong. I do respect those who disagreed. Itself, therent were two consistent critiques. One is that we could have had the deal sooner and the other is fake onewe got was a knowing that South Vietnam would collapse. Never should have made the deal that we should have made sooner. You cannot have both arguments. We got to get to other things. It would leavet of vietnampolitical to north and South Vietnam. They saw nixon was going to get reelected and there were going to be four more years of this madman and so there better be a deal. This exceeded the expectations of critics who thought we would have a coalition government. That and weagainst managed to beat the vietnamese at their game. Outlined in the nixon speech in 1970 and we gave a specific sevenpoint proposal. They said, you cannot just leave. Argument was absolute nonsense. The second argument, people can say wee and people can that congressown would not backup enforcement. Refused to have any settlement because he wanted to have a deal that was credible. Could. D the best they naivet we were not about hanois treachery. We were looking for a decent opportunity for South Vietnam to determine its future. We had trained them to build up their forces. The American People deserve to have us turn over the war. We thought it was a minor ceasefire violation and the South Vietnamese were Strong Enough to handle it. Incorrectly that the u. S. Congress would back bombing to prevent that. Nobody wanted to send an troops. Send in troops. We thought even with the antiwar movement, people would be willing to go back and bomb. We thought that would be the case. We offered economic incentives to hanoi. This could offer objectives for reconstruction. Just bide our time. China and russia would help persuade hanoi to behave themselves. These did not work out. People can challenge it but they have to, with what we should have done. Have to come up with what we should have done. Should we stay longer . Go all out . There were not great alternatives. I do not respect these two arguments. Tonight, you said that dr. Kissinger said the 1972, theoctober north vietnamese changed their position. Ambassador lord the single greatest highlight of his career. Around to oure yearson after exhausting of secret negotiations. We out we went out in the garden after the meeting and he shook my hand and said, weve done it. Back, endingows the anguish. In 1970, without going into detail, i came very close to quitting. I was very close to quitting. You can go on waving a placard or you can stay here and work for peace. I almost left over vietnam. For us to be working together, it was emotional for me. Question before we open to the audience, who i expect will have some more contemporary questions. August eight, the night of the president made his resignation speech, Henry Kissinger asked him if he could from the ovale office as he had done on so many happier occasions. Nixon,to cheer up kissinger says, mr. President , history will treat you well. Depends on whot writes the history. Nixon been 50 years since became president and 45 since he he died. 25 since how has history treated Richard Nixon . Ambassador lord it depends on what platform you are talking about. Domestic policy, whether it is the environment or womens rights or going off the gold it is wrong for the critics to say that is the only good thing he did. China, they say it was inevitable. It took great courage and even on air force one coming home they did not realize the impact of the Chinese Military army playing american songs. The first summit that had a major impact. It was seen as a great triumph. The American People had been fatigued by the vietnam war and racial riots, assassinations, demonstrations. People were depressed. Nixon i think deserves great credit. On, a kinder go history will be the kinder history will be. He did some bad things. And he paid for them. It is a shame. I am not saying they were not deservedly paid for. He did thanks that were unfortunate that she did things that were unfortunate he did things that were unfortunate. He went into a dark area. It is just a shame because he was going to be a truly great president. Now it is going to be a mixed bag. Landslide. Unionlk with the soviet he was willing to solidify alliances. He was moving into the middle east. He had a record of domestic policy that was sufficiently attractive. Nixieral columnist said was lousy nixon was lousy in foreign but he was terrific in domestic affairs. Shame. Ust a it was the coverup, not the crime. That so destroyed his presidency. He could have been a great president except for this wound. Flicted before we go to questions, ladies and gentlemen, please join me in thanking ambassador lord. [applause] i want to remind everyone that kissinger on kissinger is available in the store. Ambassador to the peoples republic of china, could you comment a little bit on the situation in hong kong right now . Hong kong, yes. I think the hong kong demonstrations, on the one hand, are extremely hopeful and a bright spot on the horizon but also makes one extremely apprehensive. ,fter the berlin wall fell countries were turning to more democratic regimes. We got to confident about it. Too confident about it. The last few years, we have gone in reverse. China getting more repressive. Arabia,saudi nationalism is on the rise. It is depressing. We have seen a few flickers lately around the world that says maybe there is somewhat of a comeback. The people who want freedom have not given up. Hungary,t in turkey, the soviet union. It is about other issues as well. Kongkong wants to be hong and not a chinese city. And they want freedom. The agreement that the british made with the chinese absolutely guarantees Civil Liberties but a little vaguer on elections. Democracy is more than elections. Civil liberties have been eroded. It started off relatively well. Been eroding. The censorship in the press, the chineselaw, and the have been kidnapping publishers of books they did not like. A lot of things going on. It has been brought to ahead by a bill that the hong kong introduced beijing which says you should extradite anybody we dont like. I am oversimplifying. That was the final straw. That is the good news. Is, we should speak out on their behalf. There is a bill in congress which would deter the chinese from cracking down by saying if down, you no longer reflect the status of hong kong being a different kind of city. You get the same economic treatment as you do in anywhere in china. Be a great deterrent against the chinese cracking down. It would be nice to have something in washington that is bipartisan. That is what we ought to do. But theres a way that they much prefer their present strategy. It is sadly where we will end up. Now for 15 going on weeks, but how many times can you leave your school and business and put on a teargas mask and go out and risk your future career, every weekend . Unfortunately, some has been violent, which has not been good, which gives the chinese propaganda. The chinese strategy, these people will wear themselves out at some point. They censor their own news and get the citizens of stoked on nationalism. Chinese nationalism is on the rise, one way that they stay in power along with the economic game. They get the tycoons in hong kong nervous about their economic future, which is happening. Not jail past leaders, future ones, some of which are in this country right now, temporarily on bail. And they figure through censorship, propaganda, pressure, the tycoons selfinterest, they will get this thing to subside. I think that is probably what will happen. We have a deadline of october 1, the chinese anniversary, 70th anniversary of the founding of the party, and it is embarrassing for this to be going on when thats happening, but i think you have to put up with that. Sorry to take such a long time on one question. A complicated situation. As i said at the outset, both hopeful and dangerous. We have a question in the back row. Sir, in light of the current trade war with china, what is the likelihood, because of the severe stress on the chinese economy, that the Chinese Government opts for a shooting war rather than losing face by caving to washington . A shooting war . No, they wont have a shooting war. Know, way, xi, as you hes dictator for life, has all the powers, which means all the successes he gets credit for, but hes going to get the blame when things go wrong. Between hong kong and the slowing of their economy, prompted by trump being tough, he might be in difficulty. Not to mention the anticorruption campaign, which has wiped out enemies as well as bad people, hundreds of thousands of people, including at the highlevel. A dilemma on both of these issues, and i only mentioned hong kong. With respect to the economy, the problem is that trumps unpredictable. Some say that is an asset. I think it can be to keep them off balance, but in this case the chinese will just wait him out. Whether we get a solution before the election depends on trumps calculation. Notld he be mr. Tough guy, get a bad deal and be attacked for doing it . Or will that spook the stock market and the economy, and you had better make a deal . I think what will happen, we will have a deal where the etc. ,e buy more soybeans, america will lift tariffs, and both sides with agree to kick the can down the road on the real issues, which is technology, intellectual our companysng turnover technology and subsidizing. One, hetrump, number shouldnt have withdrawn from a Major International trading, of 12 nations, the transpacific partnership, which did a lot of things for our economy and new issues like the environment and workers rights. But because it was under obama, trump didnt like it, and pulled out. We should have had that, as leverage on the chinese, on economic issues. These countries dont like what china is doing, either, the protectionism as well as their geophysical presence in asia. It was a big mistake to pull out of that. So id go back to that pact, join it. Id settle the trade wars with our allies, to get them on our side to pressure china. On tariffs, id be more selective, going after state enterprises, which run against chinese reforms, so it is in their selfinterest over time to go back to private enterprise. The companies that are the most subsidized, the most dangerous to compete with. I dont know if that would solve the problem. But china wont go to a shooting war. A will wait trump out, make thin deal, and kick the can down the road. We have a question here. Fromam a new immigrant, china, living in yorba linda. In china, both Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger are very well known, and have a high reputation among Chinese People, particularly Henry Kissinger. The chinese official propaganda, in state run newspapers like china daily, every time Henry Kissinger visited china, they peoples oldhinese friend. This is a very noble title from the chinese newspaper. Among them, only a handful of leaders enjoy that noble title, anduding cubas castro, the former president , and kissinger is Chinese Peoples old friend. Positive,nk this is a objective comment that kissinger deserves . If the Chinese People gave you that title, will you gladly accept it, or not . [laughter] am happy to say there will be a chinese edition of this book, because of the interest in kissinger. Certainly not because of my name, although i had something to do with the china opening. This will be published in china. It will be published in russia. Tomorrow, it comes out in the german edition. Thats the good news. Title,ess we change the i dont think it will be a bestseller in america. [laughter] honorablesly an acclaim for kissinger. Not only what he did for nixon with the opening, but he has been working tirelessly ever since as a intermediary between any american president , democrat or republican, and china. Serving any president in office, whatever they think of that person. So they respect not only the revolution he brought about in the relationship with the chinese leaders, and nixon, but also that hes worked so hard ever since to have the relationship go well. The fact they have some bad ideas, like calling mr. Castro an old friend, that is not henrys fault to be in that company. But they genuinely respect him. Washe way, when nixon downed by watergate and was a former president , the chinese warmly welcomed him, had him come over. That is their tradition. They are good at doing this, and they play on that. They play on your friendship, to try to get you to do favors for them, as part of their very skillful diplomacy. A question right here . Arehat subtle differences you noticing in the approach to Foreign Policy from the Nixon Administration to other republican administrations as such . How many hours have we got . [laughter] thats a huge question. I cant do justice to it. Is selfserving because we served in this administration, but i served in many others, republican and democrat. Im not saying we didnt make mistakes, that nixon and kissinger failed in certain areas or did controversial things. Of course they did. They were human, not perfect, but i think the strategic approach we have been discussing has never been replicated, ever since. You dont necessarily have to have grand strategy. It sure helps, particularly when you inherit the landscape nixon and kissinger did, to get out of that, where we had no relationship with a fourth of humanity, a tense Nuclear Standoff with the other superpower, no influence in the middle east except in israel, bogged down in a war with tremendous disapproval in america. You had to have a grand strategy to get out of that, in my opinion. But today, since then, we havent seen that. That doesnt mean we havent had some good foreign policies. I think bush senior, the way they handled the end of the cold war after reagan the way bush assembled the coalition of arabs as well as other allies to repulse the invasion of kuwait, and then was smart enough not to march into baghdad and get bogged down. It doesnt mean you cant be successful, but no one has approached it quite with the strategic and conceptual approach of nixon and kissinger. During the yom kippur war, israel asked for help from the united states. Dr. Kissinger recommended we give them help. Why that recommendation . Nixon stated, israel is our ally, we will give them all we have, we will get criticized whether we give them a little bit or a whole bunch of help, so we will give them all the help we can. Consistent with what you pointed out. Dont do things halfway. The idea was, henry advised caution, as opposed to thats correct. Henry might have packaged it in a way that we dont destroy any chance to deal with the arabs, but henry was as proisrael as anyone, so i dont know about the premise of your question, if it is correct. Some hesitation on the part of defense . Nixon, after a couple times, finally said i would agree with that part, that nixon deserves credit. You bolster the negotiating position about doing that. But not sure about kissinger. You may be correct, but i dont believe so. You dont separate pressure and incentives. You need both in strategy. It. Sure he was in favor of but i will point out, this is a good example of an foreign a strategic approach we have been discussing, but a sense of timing. Part of the strategy when they came in was for the middle east. Nixon and kissinger wanted to supplant soviet influence in the middle east, which was extensive because of the supply of soviet arms. Nixon and kissinger wanted to show the arab nations that the soviets would help with armaments, although they wont be able to defeat israel, and you wont get any territory back, wont get any peace, without the united states. A strong ally of israel, but also willing to talk to both sides. When the young kapoor war broke out, in october yom kippur ir broke out in october 1973, was with him at the u. N. General Assembly Session putting the finishing touches on a speech to the u. N. , and all hell breaks loose with the yom kippur war. Hes on the phone, but also sitting at his desk, finishing off this speech. Wellhenry saw, nixon as the beginning of the war, the egyptians made major advances against the israelis. With our help, rebounded and began to retake territory. Then, they surrounded the Egyptian Army and were about to wipe it out. Kissinger and i were with them, and immediately went to moscow to freeze the situation in place with a ceasefire, because they figured the following. Israel hadst time, been sobered up a little by its concededsetbacks, and a negotiated settlement might be in their security interest. Before that, they suffered from some hubris about their military superiority. Enough,e, hed done and had not yet had his army wiped out, so they had some dignity and selfrespect, and he could without humiliation end with a negotiation. By freezing that situation, for the first time kissinger and nixon saw they had a chance to go into the area and begin to broker between both sides and supplant soviet influence. A good example of strategy, and also timing and how you implement the strategy. Dr. Kissinger had a nice formulation he repeats a couple times in his interviews. Need soviet arms for war, but for peace they need american diplomacy. We have time for one more question. Is a pleasure being here. My question is, from my knowledge or experience, we never really understood, what was kissingers opinion of what happened in watergate, and how nixon handled it . From my opinion, he should have just said yes, and that would have been the end of it, and instead he tried to cover it up. So your opinion . I dont recall kissinger making any comments, on what his thoughts were, how he handled it. I dont want to speak for wouldut i think he subscribed to the conventional wisdom that many subscribe to, including me, that the initial sin of breaking in and looking through research on the ied oution carr originally without nixons knowledge, if he just said i didnt know this, it was a mistake, it wont happen again, second term, all the opportunities we talked about. Thats why it is so sad. Honest, ando be he went to unacceptable lengths to covered up, including criminal acts, and he paid for it, as i said earlier, and he deserved to pay for it. It is a real shame. So kissinger, obviously he felt the incredible lost opportunity for the country, in terms of a second term and Foreign Policy. A personal tragedy for a man he greatly respected. Would feel ithe was a terrible tactical mistake, born out of, and there are many experts in nixon who know much more than i am so i dont want to go too far, but he did have suspicions of certain enemies, even paranoia. He did have some real enemies who were unfair, but he carried a realfar, and its shame that happened. So it would be interesting to see whether kissinger addresses this more directly in his next project. Let me say closing here that i want to thank jonathan for what he did, to help get this book down and arranging this evening. And obviously for taking great care putting this together, as well as the clips. It has been a real pleasure. Thank you. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] it is available in the museum store for purchase. Thank you for coming. [applause] on American History tv, sunday at 6 00 p. M. Eastern on american artifacts, we will preview the votes for women exhibit at this missoni ands National Portrait at the smithsonians National Portrait gallery. She was well ahead of her time. She started her business as a wall street banker, and sexcated for free love, outside of marriage. And Sophia Rosenfeld discusses her book, democracy and truth, a short history. No one person, no one institution, no one sector, king, priest, National Research body, specific caste, would get to call all the shots. Explore our nations passed on American History tv, every weekend on cspan3. The cspan cities tour concludes its look at rapid city with a visit to the Journey Museum and Learning Center to learn about a devastating flood that changed the landscape of rapid city. So just imagine. This whole area, underwater. That is what you saw the night of june 9, 1972. At the corner here,