Transcripts For CSPAN3 Nixon Administration Foreign Policy 20240713

Foreign policy approach. Reflects on grand strategy and leadership. Mr. Lore describes president nixons relationship with his secretary of state, Henry Kissinger and how it was instrumental in developing Foreign Policy strategies. The Richard Nixon Foundation Hosted this event. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Im with the Richard Nixon foundation. Welcome to the library. Before we introduce our speaker, i wanted to mention a couple of special guests. We have our distinguished speakers daughter here, lisa and her husband, jack wild. And we have betsy huet, the wife of our newly elected president and ceo, hugh huet. Our speaker was to kissinger as kissinger was to nixon. He joined the staff in 968 as special assistant traveling the world on just about every major event in the cold war. He was with him during the grinding talks with negotiators in paris that cull min nated in the paris peace according of 1973. He was with president nixon in moscow during his first president ial trip there in the Historic Arms control treaties in may 1972 and he was there for shuttles after the 1973 war. And he is a quay actor in president nixons historic trip to china in february 1972, known as the week that change d the world. Ambassador lord went to hold such president of the counsel on foreign relations, ambassador to the peoples republic of china and assistant secretary of state for Southeast Asian and pacific affairs. From 2015 to 2016, he conducted several hours of oral histories with dr. Kissinger on behalf of the Nixon Foundation and the interviews cover a variety of subject matter. China, russia, the middle east, vietnam, Leadership Strategy as statesmanship and can be found in this highly readable look. Kissinger on kissinger reflections on grand strategy and leadership. It is available for purchase in our store. Ambassador lord will be interviewed by dr. Frank beggan. Dr. Gannon on tabed his masters after working advertise iing, he worked with churchill to write the definitive biography of sir randolphs father. In 1971, gannon became a white house fellow under rums field in the Nixon Administration anded under ron zeigler. In 1974, he left washington the california aboard air force one following nixons resignation and was a chief Editorial Assistant on rn. He is he has the rare distinction of having interviewed nixon for 38 hours in 1993 which are available at t in digital format at the nixon president ial library. Well see some of these videos tonight. Yesterday our president visited dr. Kissinger in new york city knowing that ambassador lord was going to be speaking tonight. Dr. Kissinger asked hugh to pass on his best wishes to everyone here and watching on cspan and asked us to note that winston lord is an indespinsable partner and very good friend. Ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to introduce dr. Frank gannon and ambassador winston lord. Well thaupg all for coming and thank you for being r here. Its a great pleasure and honor to end what hugh huet brought fresh from Henry Kissinger. I found one of several references to you in the various kissinger memoirs. I wont read the one about your being a terrible puntster, but this one, he says he, you, became one of my best corroborators, a resident conscious and close friend, more than almost anyone, he was familiar with my views, had a global, not simply a regional perspective. So praise from seize ar is praise. And after the association with dr. Kisonsingekissinger, you we very distinguished career, which could be the subject of another talk but im in a curious position that you have a book, an excellent book. Which is your edition of the number of interviews you conducted with dr. Kissinger. Im in the curious position of asking you to comment. Ill refer to some of the things of the book that are open ended. Its very short, accessible and really interesting, so i would recommend the best thing to do is to buy it and read it. You cant go wrong. Its always also appropriate here here at the library in the genesis of these interviews. First, a few personal notes. Ive been going around the country promoting this book and a scene than this one, that compares with this one in terms of the appropriateness and relevantness for reasons you have touched upon. First because it is the Nixon Library and museum and this is an Nixon Kissinger Foreign Policy. Certainly frank himself conducted 30 hours p president nix nixon, 38 hours, and so in a book thats based on interviewed also very rell rant, not to mention the fact he was in the white house when i was. Thirdly, the foundation has been crucial and im delighted to see this. Im delighted that hugh is the new president. He interviewed me on this book by the way. So the book, we did several interviews first of panels on some of the key events that were in this volume. Then we prevailed upon kissinger to do one interview to reflect back on these events. Its extraordinary. He was 93 when he did the interviews, reflecting on events that were 50 years old and its just amazing we barely touched the transcript. What you read here will be extraordinary for a 30yearold talking about weeks news but for a 92yearold talking about 50 years ago, its really quite extraordinary. The point im making is the foundations together with the National Archives supported these interviews and no one was more indespinsable than jonathan, who ran the videos, who was absolutely essential in the composition and editing and giving other advice. He worked closely for jeff sheppard, whos also involved. And if it wasnt for jonathan and jeff and the foundation, which i mentioned in my acknowledgments, we wouldnt have this book. One last comment i mentioned hughs interview of the book, were looking for ways to make this a best seller. You all certainly can help. But we have another idea that were toy iing with. We put out a press release on the book before it was issued and a good friend of mine, tom, i hate to drop names, but tom saw the press release on his iphone. Saw a very small space and the iphone cut off the last two letters of the book. So tom got you see whats comeing, right . Tom got very excited. Went out and bought 100 copies think iing he was getting a boo kissinger on kissing. So we may change the title. Kissinger on kissing, so we may change the title so it boosts the sales. I have a very short video that was made, about two minutes, that was made for dr. Kissingers 95th birthday which was in new york in may. And this, its a couple of clips from the interviews, so you conducted, was it, six, twohour interviews over a period of several months. Thats right. And so this gives a very brief flavor of what the book is based on. Nixon sort of followed politics, the grand strategy, that Foreign Policy was the improvement of the relationship of countries to each other, the balancing of their self interests, with remote peace, and the security of the united states. And i havent studied any other american president who thought of it in such conceptual and such long terms. While nixon was focusing on objectives, he would talk in terms of the practical experiences that he had had in meeting with leaders. My approach was very similar to his in terms of focusing on objectives, but the material things were historical and philosophical, i thought in terms of aknoll gonalogous to t Current System and the lessons that i had studied and draw from it. The key objective was to prevent the soviet union from becoming the dominant country. The soviet army had just occupied czechoslovakia. And 42 divisions were sitting on the chinese border. So the use of soviet military pressure was a feature of the cold war, where nixon began by opening arms control negotiations on Strategic Nuclear weapons. The plan was to have the summit with the soviet union, to create additional incentives in china, but then the soviet union tried to in effect blackmail us, with the prospect of a summit, and acted on it, so we reversed the project, and we said well go to china first. If you look at what nixon said about china, he addressed the problem of china from the point of view of world order. His view was that by getting china involved in the international system, a whole pattern of International Politics would be transformed, because all other countries would then have to consider the impact of china in terms of the new dispense sation. And he calculated that we then might pursue the situation in which america would be closer to most of the contestants than they were to each other, and therefore have a strong bargaining position. The second or third day in office, i looked at the war plans, and the expected consequences of the nuclear war. Some would say that we will not negotiate, that we will simply let it be, without being able to device a strategy which you could use it in a way that would not destroy civilization, those were the compelling motives. The summit, with bresch nev in 72, occurring at a high point of the vietnam war, demonstrated one of the main themes of the Nixon Administration, we started out, it resulted in the possibility of negotiating agreements forward, and to indicate specific steps towards it, and to combine these two actions in one relatively brief period of time, over months, symbolizes the special nature of the Foreign Policy that nixon conducted. We had all had the point of view, that the great view in negotiations, when one of the arab countries concluded that the soviet military support was not the way to achieve their objective. And during the war, woe managed to establish ourselves as mediators between the arab and the israeli side. The war had to be ended, and we had to do this in conjunction with the soviet union, because the soviet union still had the major influence in the arab world. Somebody had said that were, in a limited period of time, we are going to have a big array of negotiations with the soviet union, after we have opened china, people would have said this is an absolute fantasy. Any leader who has the task of taking a society from where it is, to where it needs to be, and you need courage to walk alone. [ applause ] nixon liked first and he liked to spring surprises, and his announcement of his first two principal advisers ticked all of those box, chief economic adviser was a harvard professor who was a kennedy supporter, and a member of the kennedy administration. And his principal foreign adviser was a harvard professor had worked for his political rival. In your, in the interviews, dr. Kissinger tells you, 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 adviser. The politics breeds strange bed fellows but nixon and kissinger were truly an odd couple. Right. What do you think nixon saw in kissinger and why do you think kissinger said why . First of all, let me thank you for the excerpt that sets up the era and the book itself nicely. It was a strange alliance. And nixon showed great courage in doing this. I mean he was a conservative from the west coast. Distrustful the of the ivy league and harvard professors and here you have a jewish immigrant teaching at hard and working for, harvard and working for nelson rockefeller, it was not forordained. They had once met but not at a social meeting. Nixon had read kissingers books. Nixon wanted to dominate Foreign Policy and he was so well versed and he was so interested in this, and he knew to be able to do that, he needed an able and thoughtful National Security adviser. And so he put politics aside, and thought about the national interests, and also what would serve his interests, in forging a new world order, and so just the shear brilliance of nixon, already exhibited this. Now to get one other aspect, mainly the view of the world, but let me get to henrys acceptance. He himself said shamefacedly, when he was asked by the president , to his surprise, to be National Security adviser, instead of saying yes, immediately, he hesitated. Partly out of misplaced in this case loyalty to rockefeller, partly not entirely sure of what nixon was going to be doing, and he went to rockefeller, who chewed him out and said you got to serve your country, what the heck are you doing, hes taking the chance, not you, by picking you. And henry of course immediately saw that, and henry would have said yes anyway, because his main motive would be serving the national interest. He is someone who would analyze Foreign Policy and history, all his life, and im sure he left it to chance to do something about it, in terms of policy, he had been adviser to jfk, and consulted with johnson and other president s. So these are the main motives, and then what really brought them together, and its in the foreword to the book that henry writes which is the common approach to Foreign Policy which we have seen examples of, namely the strategic conceptual approach that looks at the world and longterm trends that takes into account the impact of what to do in one area, with one country, and others, and does not just react in kneejerk fashion to discrete events but ties them together in a mosaic. So it was clear they each shared this strategic worldview which i think is probably a major reason that nixon chose him as well as the others i mentioned and clearly why kissinger was happy to join him. An they brought digit strengths. Nixon as a congressman, more importantly, as Vice President , and then as private citizen, that traveled the world extensively, and knew many world leaders, and studied Foreign Policy, and was the best that a president ever, for Foreign Policy, kissingers strength was historical, philosophical, conceptual, strategic, they had the same instincts in strategy, but one brought the residence of history and the over brought the immediacy, other brought the immediacy of the knowledge of world affair, so it was a wonderful mix but not foreordained. You mentioned the president , and the president elect, wanted to bring the Foreign Policy apparatus into the white house. You have a very interesting thing that i havent seen before, where nixon and kissinger go out to see the ailing and in fact, dying general eisenhower, at walter reed. And he gives them some very specific advice and Henry Kissinger has also kind of a brush with the former general. Its an interesting anecdote. And whats interesting about this book, that henry not only would call strategies and specific milestone, but he punctuates his recounting with anecdotes. Some revealing. Some amusing. In this case, it was early in the administration, kissinger had the conventional mistaken view that eisenhower was a decent guy but wasnt brilliant, you know, he soon learned differently and by the way i think eisenhower is one of our great president s, in my opinion, so they went out to, as a courtesy, in one sense, but also given eisenhowers interest in national issues, and they just had an meeting on the middle east i think it was, and they went out and greet him at walter reed hospital. The very next day, not because of their meeting, but because of somebody in the nsc, there was a leak in the press about what had happened, the meeting, the very things he told eisenhower about, and eisenhower chewed kissinger out, saying how dare you let this stuff get out in the public you just told me about, and kissinger said, well, im not sure i can control this, and he said, young man, if you cant control these kind of things, do a better job, due deserve, you dont deserve it, and he gained henrys Great Respect as a result of that. That was from the very first weeks of the administration, plagued by leaks and that was, i think they had briefed eisenhower on the most secret plan in the middle east and the next day it is on the front page of the New York Times. Right. Before we get into talking about the book, i want to talk a little bit about you. When you were a high school student, in the early 50s, what did you think you wanted to be when you grew up . Secretary of state. [ laughter ] no, actually, i did have an interest in international relations, Foreign Policy, fairly early on, for two reasons. One, my mother was very much in the public service, national cochairman for eisenhower by the way, but she took Eleanor Roosevelts place as ambassador to the u. N. For human rights and she was involved in a lot of international, as well as domestic issues, so we sat around the dinner table, these issues would come up. And then secondly, i did an awful lot of traveling, when i was young. One of my vacations, from yale, was, it was uzbekistan and kazakhstan, you know, just to take a casual example. So these two forces suggested i wanted to go into these field but i wasnt quite sure how, and so i made sure i took a broad education, english major, at yale, so i think writing is important no matter what, took a lot of Political Science and history courses, and then went to the graduate school, where i met may wife, at the fletcher school, she took extremely good notes in economics class, and that was my weak subject, so i decided to become her friend, so thats how we got going on that. So you were an english major who became a diplomat. She was an economicing may, economics major who was a best selling novelist. She was originally a chemistry major and blew up the lab and said she better go into some other discipline. Its really true, by the way. And you also, you had, to put it mildly, a very distinguished academic career. What was the path that led you to the kissinger . It was really by chance. I grown up in the Foreign Service to the defensive Department Policy planning staff, and i worked for a brilliant young people, really ironic, named mort hallperson, who ended up suing kissinger later for, i wont get into the details, but kissinger knew him from yale and he asked him to join his staff and asked him to put together,ed hallpern withi me to go with him and so i went a month after it started, february 1969 but we shouldnt spend too much time on me, we ought to spend it on nixon and kissinger. But there was obviously a great opportunity. We started out, this gets to kissinger, i have to have an interview with him, he basically took me there, and it was a 15minute interview and you could see already the dynamism and the chaos of the front office he was about to see, the secretary of the treasury, on the phone, looking at memos, and he zeroed in on me, on a key issue, he said look, i want debate, i want disagreement, i want good intellectual exchange from my staff, but if you lose the battle, on a policy, i want you to carry it out loyally, which i think is the correct approach. And i guess i passed that test. And the point here is that the first year, i was not in his front office, i was sitting across the eisenhower office, and among other things besides the nsc system, we would send kissinger memos like a mini policy planning staff, looking ahead, being devils advocate, challenging, and i wrote several memos that were critical, or at least raising questions about some of the things that nixon and kissinger were doing, he hired me as his special assistant, not despite that, but because of that. He did not like the yes man or the yes women. He wanted to make, he would, he would be brutal if you gave mushy or sentimental advocacy to an issue. But as long as you argued it intelligently, he respected that. So this is a good example of someone who encouraged debate. He is, was, and i suspect is, because he goes to the office every day, a legendaryily difficult boss and some of the stories i assume, where there is smoke, there has to be some fire, the Larry Eagleberger story, true, not true, aprocyphal. Not true. Eagle berger was one of the top assistants and there was some kind of crisis and eagleberger fainted in kissingers office and kissinger essentially, and i wasnt there and im not entirely sure this was true, but this is the story, he stepped over the guy and went to the phone and started working on the next issue. Ill give you another example. Unbelievable respect and affection for henry. Even if you dont send him the transcript of the meeting, im going to be nice about him behind his back, but he wasnt perfect. Unlike some of us here this evening. He was extremely demanding. As i say, in my portrait, if you read nothing else, i would like to you read my foreword, my personal portrait of henry, nobody that close to him has ever done this, of course i round out some of the edges but i do refer to. So less attractive aspects, to some of the less attractivive aspects but he stretched my nerves and patiences but he also stretched my horizons and perspectives and i learned a great deal of course about how to approach Foreign Policy and i have always been, as i say in the book, appreciative to him for the climb as well as the view. But the climb can be very arduous. And i will give you one example. Speech writing. I can write fairly well. Nowhere like my knife. But she does fiction. I do, like my wife. But she does fiction. I do nonfiction. I do speeches for henry and sometimes indirectly for the president. It would go Something Like this. First of all, the timing would generally be just before the redskins kicked off against the cowboys in a football game, i was an avid fan and he would call me up and tell me he wanted me to work on his speech and that was pretty annoying and one reason i would quit about once a week. Here is how it would go in speech writing. This is about 90 true. It gives you the flavor. It may not be, you know, accurate in every word. He would give me a topic about a speech. And i would come in two days later with a draft. And he would call me in his office the next day, and he would say, is this the best you can do . And i would say henry, i think so but let me take another whack at it. So i go away and do a second draft and come in and calls me in the office a day later and says are you sure this is the best you go, and really, i thought so, henry, let me try again. This goes on for six drafts and im getting a little annoyed. I finally say in the sixth draft when i know he has asked me this question. Henry, i looked at every sentence, i have tweaked every colon and semi colon, i cant improve this speech any more, it is the best i can go and henry would turn to me and say, in that case, now ill read it. And we stretch it. And by the way, we push me on speech writing or writing memos to the president for him, because he knew i could write. Another staff member might be good on research or negotiations, but he wouldnt push that person, so he had a sense of where to push and where not to push. You recommend reading your foreword, i should have said this book, not only has, its not only the edited transcript of interviews they are arranged in a very interesting and useful way. But it has an introduction by dr. Kissinger, it has your setup and then you have introductions to each of the chapters. I wrote the introductions to the chapters. And occasional interpositions of information, and then the questions that you asked. So it is not, its not uninterrupted, its not at all uninterrupted reading of just edited transcripts. Would you come on my book tour with me . Yes, well [ laughter ]. In the book, he has an interesting assessment of nixons Strategic Vision and he talks about him as one of his main contributions was the, that he was interested in the concept, the conceptual aspect of Foreign Policy and he writes or he says to you, nixon was, except for the founding fathers, and i would say teddy roosevelt, the american president who thought of Foreign Policy as branch strategy, to him Foreign Policy was the structural improvement of the relationship of countries to each other, in a way that the balancing of their selfinterests would promote global peace and the security of the united states. And he thought about that in relatively longrange terms. Is that the way you thought, or think of nixon . Oh, absolutely. Let me say this. Im the last remaining centrist in america, i am a flaming centrist, i mention that because i have worked for republican and democratic president s, ive voted for both, i was a political appointee of reagan and of clinton, so when i say that of the seven president s ive served that nixon was by far the most formidable on Foreign Policy, this is coming from a relatively objective, although i worked for them obviously, but i also worked for other president s, so he was in a class by himself. Look, the man had flaws. We all know that. Who doesnt. But you cannot take away this strategic approach and it is described well, both in this film, and also as you just said. And it is one reason why he and kissinger got along, as i said earlier, because they approached things the same way. And he not only, he did a couple of things that were important. He knew exactly how to work with kissinger. First of all, the world views coincided. But he struck a beautiful balance. Some president s micro manage, and for example, jimmy carter used to determine who could play on the tennis court. Actually thats a pretty important subject. Its not a bad idea. And where some others would delegate completely. Nixon, of course, had the white house, dominate the process, he had to make the courageous decisions, how they ended the vietnam war, opened to china, didnt know what the reaction was going to be, going into the middle east and so on, and he had to back up kissinger. And he had a strategic approach, which kissinger could reflect, but then he left it to henry to do the actual negotiations, and the tactics, and never secondguessed him and henry always had the confidence, that he had enough shared world view, that on tactics, he would be backed up by the president. For example, when we were in china, negotiating the shanghai communique before the historic visit, this was in october, it was a public visit, i wont goo detail now, we can get back into it but the chinese presented a totally different approach how we should approach the communique, totally different from what nixon had approved before we left washington and in those days there was no way to communicate back home. We were on our own. But kissinger was sufficiently confident of the president s view, and his loyalty, that he agreed to the chinese approach, which proved to be very successful in the shanghai communique. So it just shows you hoe they worked together. So that was extremely important as well. In addition to nixons sort of longterm grand Strategic Vision, there is an axiom that dr. Kissinger quotes, i think at least three, maybe four times in the book, so it meant something to him, about no half measures. Right. Well, he believed that you got to pay a price for some controversial policy, whether you go halfway or go all out. And so rather than, because the china visit was carefully set up, we can get into that, both privately and publicly over two years, but still, it was a very bold move to send your National Security adviser secretly for china, not knowing, and having enough confidence that the china had a self interest because of the threats from the soviets, that they want to engage with, and we made sure it would go beyond taiwan before we went, but he couldnt know how the reaction was going to be, back home. But he went full bore on that. Taking a chance of negotiating in the middle east. Versus the soviet influence. Before the moscow summit, which came shortly after the china summit, came about because of the china summit, because they got their attention, triangular diplomacy, hanoi launched a major offensive against South Vietnam, just as we were about to go to moscow, and the president ordered very tough response, both bombing and mining of the harbors, and even though he thought it might jeopardize his summit, which we had worked on for so long which had major arms control and we h economic gleams teed up and it would be a tremendous loss but he wasnt about to go to moscow while the vietnamese were getting slaughtered by moscows allies. By the way, kissinger and i and others thought that this bombing and so on, even though it was correct in terms of policy in vietnam, was probably going to sink the summit. And i remember going in a helicopter, up to camp david, to write the speech, and we were bee moaning all of these agreements that we had teed up were going to go down the tubes. Nixon said no. The soviets will go ahead with the summit. They have too much self interest in it. And he was absolutely right. Now, an interesting episode happened to play out there. When were in moscow, i was in charge of both henrys and the president s briefing books, and we were sitting in an office, near the kremlin, or in the kremlin, and there was a space agreement between signed breznev and nixge and take a break for a while and go out to the motorcade to talk about vietnam, because even though they agreed to have us come, while we were bombing the hell out of their allies, they had to be tough with us, and send a transcript to hanoi to say they were loyal, with lips and teeth and so on. What happened is breznev got nixon to go out immediately, in the motorcade, without stopping, leaving me behind, with the briefing books, and i frankly, knowing henrys temper, i said oh, my god, he is going to be really happy i dont have the president s briefing books at the meeting, even though it wasnt my fault, we macked to ta, managed to talk to the russian kgb into another car to go out there and got there in time thank god but the point here, it let up to an interesting evening, getting to the question of nixons courage to go there and the russian reaction. We sat for three hours, while the four top soviet leaders attacked nixon on vietnam, so they could send a transcript to hanoi. And nixon just basically sat there, didnt try to engage. He knew they were going through charade. We thent go up stairs for the banquet and it was a Different Things and trying to get us drunk and it was like never happened and then he had sat down to negotiate salt at 2 00 a. M. In the morning after about three hours of vod cast so my whole point in this very long meandering story is that nixdon have the qualities both of vision, as henry said, how do you get from here to there and sometimes its lonely, and the courage to make those decisions. And its particularly tough for a leader to make these decisions because early in the crisis, you dont have full information, therefore, you have to take a courageous decision based on inadequate knowledge of the landscape and whats going to happen. So youre quite lonely in taking a risk based on incomplete knowledge, but if you wait until you have so much knowledge that the path is certain, by then, youre hemmed in, and you cant do what you wanted to do. So it is very tough. Tactical decisions can be made by a president and theyre usually very tough otherwise it would be our group that would take care of it but otherwise it getting bumped up to the president. And these are strategic big step decisions that are basically the president. And 5149, the decisions that can be made at the lower levels and it is the president that gets the tough one. I will give you one other example. Nixon on Foreign Policy. In terms of his interest and care. I was in charge of assembling his briefing books. Now, others did most of the contributions, but i had to put them together and also help write some of it. We put together six briefing books about this thick. And i swear that nixon read every page. Because it was marked up almost every page was marked up. And even as we were flying in air force one and stopping in guam and hawaii, sitting in the back of air force one, he would send memos back saying i want to know about this. And what do you think of this. Or whats the favorite poem i can use in my toast. What are the chinese going to say on north korea . That kind of thing. He is amazing. I have been at lots of summits and never seen a president work that hard for a meeting. Ambassador, im sure many or all of you know, is in our, in the introductory video to the new library, to the new exhibits and thats the point that you make, that you would say you would never, you served eight president s. Seven. Seven president s but whos counting. And none were as prepared as him. Yes. Another aspect of this book is that it is sort of a master class in applied diplomacy, china, russia, vietnam, the middle east, and to start with china, now, we know that it worked out well, but at the time, nixons, the idea of the notion of going to china was crazy. Was unthinkable. And somebody, even one of our major ambassadors reversed to believe until he was called back, and how did you, how did that, and nixon also, sort of announced it in the first weeks, in the white house, how did you receive word of this, and what did you think about it . This is of course, i cant do justice and i want to make sure we have time for other questions, and for the audience, by the way, getting it to the china decision, i encourage again, nixon and kissinger consulted many outside experts as well as collecting information, when when it was still secret that people didnt know what it was for, but we go a lot of help from the experts and he also called in outsiders and nixon talked to the four top experts in the state department, or retired experts, on the soviet union. George kennen. Tommy thompson. Floyd coaler. And one other. I forget who it was. They all told him do not move toward china. They could see through some public gestures that we were trying to change our policy. And they said if you go toward china, you are going to wreck relations with moscow. Nixon and kissinger did not believe this. But it took courage to go against all of these soviet experts. And in fact, just the opposite, the soviets had been dragging their feet on the summit. We had asked, for a couple of years, henry mention this in the film, and we had resisted pressures, we had some crises, but we werent making any progress with the soviets on arms control, or berlin, or any of these things. On the way, on a public trip which covered our secret trip in july 71, i was in thailand and got a call from al haag, the deputy to kissinger who said in sign language that didnt fool anybody listening on the phone but he basically said the russians have once again turned down a summit. So that meant we would give the chinese the summit first. We then, as soon as we got back from the secret group, nixon announced in san clemente, in fact kissinger had been there, we were going to go the next year, within day, the russians agreed to a summit, within weeks they moved on arms control in berlin. So it disproved the people, and we have Great Respect for George Kennen and it shows you how even the smartest people can get things wrong and what courage it took to go against it. In the section on vietnam dr. Kissinger i think really definitively lays low two of the ongoing controversies. I forget you called them, v c. Hivel rouse or troublesome. And one of them was the agreement that was achieved in 73 could have been achieved earlier. Look, vietnam is troeshlg and though one can sit here and say it was a splendid outcome. It was a terrible outcome because the north veelt that mese violated the agreement and i understand the controversy and god knows we lost a lot of lives and money and i respect those who, that we shouldnt have gone in, that we should have gone out sooner, i dont respect those who glorify the viet kong and the north vietnamese as the good guys or we are the bad guys or the president s are baby killers, but i do respect those who disagree. But on the agreement itself, there are two persistent critiques that i just disagree with completely. And i mention this in the book. One is that we could have had the vent ule deal sooner, and the other part is the deal we got was a cynical fake one, knowing South Vietnam would collapse after the quote decent interval which would cover our another way of saying we never should have made the deal that we should have made sooner. I mean you cant have both arguments. Now, very quickly, this is a big subject, we ought to get to other things. We insisted that any eventual deal be a military settlement only leave the future political fate of vietnam to north and South Vietnam, and we werent going to overthrow the saigon government as we left, which is what they demanded until a month before our president ial election, and they saw nixon was going to get reelected, it is going to be four more years of this mad man, you better make a deal, and so they caved in and gave us a military settlement only. This exceeded the expectations of critics who thought we would have a Coalition Government as well as withdrawal and a Coalition Government was the first step to the collapse or at least the communist takeover. We held out against that. And we managed to beat the vietnamese at their game. However, that deal was never possible, if you noted the first year, but then before that, we outlined this as early as the nixon speech in 1970, very carol casually aired and we had a specific seven point proposal which i helped draft in 71 which laid out the eventual settlement. They said no, no, no you got to get rid of the saigon government, let us take over, otherwise you cant just leave, or you couldnt even get our prisoners back. So the first argument that we could have had soon is absolute nonsense. Second argument, people can disagree on, because after all, it collapsed, right . And people could say we should have known that the South Vietnamese werent that strong or that the congress would not back up enforcement. But we felt the deal, first place, it was not a decent interval, where nixon and kissinger, nixon refused to have any settlement before the election because he wanted to have a deal that was credible and not one to help get the election. So they did the best they could. And we felt that the deal, we were not naive about hanois treachery, but we felt, with this military settlement only, that the few could survive, and we were not looking for a decent interval, we were looking for a decent opportunity for South Vietnam to determine its future, and that america couldnt be there forever, we had expended our lives and our treasure, we had trained them, to build up their forces, and at some point, the American People deserved to have us turn over the war, over on honorable conditions. So we felt that twa fit was a minor cease fire violation, the South Vietnamese were Strong Enough to handle it with our economic and military aid. We felt incorrectly and naively perhaps that if there was a major invasion, if there was, that the u. S. Congress and people would back bombing to prevent that. Not sending in troops. Nobody wanted to do that. But at least, after all these expenditures and credibility, and north vietnamese treachery, we thought even with the antiwar mood, that people would be willing to go back and bomb. That was wrong. It turned out. But we honestly thought that would be the case. Thirdly, we offered economic incentives to hanoi, as well as our allies, so that the hanoi politic could debate among themselves, lets put off objectives and take the aid for reconstruction, and lets go along with this deal. We got rid of the american troops. And well just bide our time but take the aid. So we thought that was the incentive. Fourthly, we thought china and russia and our self interests, not wanting this issue to flare up again between us, would help persuade hanoi to behave themselves. Well, these assumptions did not work out. Reasonable people can challenge it but they have to come up with what should we have done, stayed on longer . With the American Opinion the way it was . And after all we had done for South Vietnam . Or go allout and use nukes and bombs . They werent just great alternatives, because of the anguish, i respect those who disagree but i dont respect these two arguments which i think are phony. Earlier, just earlier tonight, didnt you say that dr. Kissinger says that the moment, i think in october 72, when the north vietnamese changed for the first time their position and made a settlement possible, was the most emotional, you thought of that as the emotional . That was asked in forums, and not just when i was present or he does in the book, what was the single greatest hooilt of his career at least in emotional terms and he said when hanoi came around our position in october of 72 after three exhausting years of secretive negotiations and after all of the fighting and treasure, and then we went out in the garden after the meeting, and to takee he said weve done. It it was meaningful mostly because of the vietnam situation, getting our pows back, ending this anguish on what we thought were honorable terms but personally between us, between 1970, without going into detail, i came very close of quitting the staff because i opposed cambodia, but not on lethal ethical but practical domestic and legal and military grounds, i was very close to quitting, my wife talked me out of it and she always steer me in the right direction and henry said as well as my wife, you can go ahead and wave a placard or stay here and work for peace and given ta background, i almost left before vietnam and for us to be working together and have a break through, was obviously emotional for me but i was eks statusic he cites that at the top of his lift. And one more question and i think we will open up to the audience who i suspect will have more contemporary questions. On the august 8, the night that the president made his resignation speech, Henry Kissinger asked if he could, after the speech, if he could walk nixon home, from the oval office to the residence. As he had done on so many happier occasions. And i think trying to cheer up nixon, kissinger says, you know, mr. President , history will treat you well. And nixon says, that depends who writes the history. Its a years since nixon became president , 45 since he resigned, and 25 since he died, and how is history treating Richard Nixon . Thats a good question because it is hard to general lize. It depends what platform youre talking about. I think its oversimplified for even his critics to point to the china opening, as if that is the only thing he did. If you look at this exhibit. I must say the domestic policy, whether it is the environment, or womens rights, or going off the gold standard, as well as his Foreign Policy, but other, the middle east, and detante, it is wrong for critics to say that is the only good thing he did. And in the owe bit. It is water gate and china. And even on china they say inevitable. It is easier for him than Hubert Humphrey because nixons right flank was protected where humphrey would have gotten pummelled by the republicans. But it took great courage, as i said, and even on the air force one coming back home from beijing, nixon and kissinger were worried about the reception domestically, to what had just happened. And they didnt realize the impact of television, and the Chinese Military army, playing american songs, and toasting and the first summit that television had a major impact on and it was seen as a great triumph and by the way helped the morale of the American People, who had been fatigued, not only by the vietnam war, but by racial riots, assassinations, demonstrations, and people were just depressed, and to see that you could open up the one court of humanity, sort of put the ambivalent exit from vietnam in perspective in terms of what was important, and it also showed that we could sell that on the world stage and i think nixon and kissinger take great credit for the points as well as the specific objective. I think the longer we go, the kinder history will be. Lets face. It some of the criticism, and i say that, in the Nixon Library, and someone who obviously has respected it. He did some bad things. And he paid for them. And it is a shame. Im not saying they were not deservedly paid for. I mean he just did things that were unfortunate. And this man, because of, sort of the paranoia about his enemies some of which was justified, just went that a dark area that it is just a shame. Because he was poised to be a truly great president in my opinion. And now it is going to be a mixed bag. As it should be. Because he made mistakes. But he had just been reelected by an incredible landslide. He had the war behind us. He had opened up the detante with the soviet union, and moving to solidify alliances with our friends, and he was moving into the middle east, he had a record of domestic policy, that was sufficiently attractive, that a very liberal columnist for the New York Times wrote a book which he said, i disagree with the first set he was lousy in Foreign Affairs but great in domestic affairs. And this was pat moynihan. It was democrat, liberal. And we know it was the coverup, it wasnt the crime, that this so destroyed his presidency, and he will still go down as a good president , but he could have been a great president , except for this unnecessary selfinflicted wound, and it is really, really tragic. I might add that kissinger is doing an extensive portrait of nixon, he has already done that, for a forthcoming book, along with portraits of other leaders. It will be very interesting to see what he has to say. Before we go, to question, ladies and gentlemen, please join me in thanking ambassador once more. [ applause ] before we get to questions i want to remind everything that kissinger on kissinger is available in the store and as i said, the ambassador will sign your copies. I like to start out with the first question. As the former ambassador to the peoples republic of china, could you comment a little bit on the situation in hong kong right now . In relation to china . Excuse me . On the Current Situation in hong kong. Oh, hong kong, excuse me. 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. After the berlin wall fell, cracy was on the, and countries more democratic regimes and it looked like the end of history, quote and to use a quote, we got too confident about. It the last ten years, particularly the last few years we have gone in reverse, whether it is china getting much more repressive, putin following his usual act, but hungary and turkey, and saudi arabia, and other tendencies, obviously, populism and nationalism, are on the rise in democracies, somewhat under tree. I dont think that is permanent but it is depressing. We have seen a few flickers lately around the world that may be somewhat of a comeback, to people who warrant freedom have not given up, want freedom have not given up. You see it in turkey. You see it in hun glare gather. You see it even in the soviet union in a limited scale obviously. But hong kong is the most dramatic example. It is about other issues as well. Housing and inequality. Corruption. But it is essentially, hong gkog wants to be hong kong and not another chinese city and they want freedom. Now the agreement that the british made with the chinese on the one hand, absolutely guarantees Civil Liberties, but it was a little vaguer on elections. By the way, democracy is more than elections. Its the freedom of the press, independent judiciary, and so on. So these Civil Liberties have been eroded over, it started out relatively well with china, promised that hong kong be different, and one country, two systems, but thats been eroding. The self censorship as well as censorship in the press, the rule of law has getting frayed around the edges and the chinese have been kidnapping publishers of books, and literally, who published books they didnt like, and anyway, there is a lot of things going on and then it was brought to a head as im sure most of you know, by a bill that the Hong Kong Government puppets of beijing introduced which in effect said that you should exit to china, and this awful, nonlegal system, anybody we dont like. Im oversim simplifying and that was the final straw and thats what the demonstrations are about and extraordinary, theyve gone on for months. Now, thats the good news. The bad news is that, and we should encourage it, we should speak out on their behalf, there is a bill in the congress which would effectively try to deter the chinese from cracking down, by saying in effect, if you crack down, well no longer reflect the status of hong kong being a different type of city, that you get the same financial and economic treatment there as you get elsewhere, in china, which would really hurt them. I mean the gdp used to be 20 in hong kong, it is only 3 , but they depend on hong kong, the station, for finance and investment. So this would be a great deterrent against the chinese cracking down. I think we should pass the bipartisan bill. Its nice to have something in washington that is bipartisan that is there. It would also hold accountable through visas and seizing of assets of those involved in the crackdown when it is hong kong or chinese. So thats what we ought to do. But theres no way that china, and in this leader in particular, is going to let hong kong get out of control. And so theyre not going to give in on the major demands, and part of the problem is, that in this demonstration, the good news is, there are no leader, and the bad news is, there are no leaders. Unlike previous demonstrations. So theres no way to organize the resistance. And above all, to come up with reducible demands. They have five demands one of which is free elections essentially. Its not going to be met. And if they had some leaders, they could at least negotiate with the Hong Kong Government, tough as that is, on getting some of their demands met but now it is sort of inchoate. The chinese dont want to go in but trust me, if thats the only option they have to put this down, they will go in, with some thin camouflage, just like the soviets went into ukraine wearing green uniforms, but they much prefer their present strategy. Which if you asked me to predict i think is probably sadly where well end up. That theyre going to exhaust the protesters. I mean they have been going on now for 15 weeks. But how many times can you leave your school, or your business, put on a tear gas march and go out there and risk your future career . You know, weekend after weekend. Unfortunately, some of this has been violent. Which shouldnt happen. Which gives the chinese good propaganda. So the chinese strategy is these people are going to wear themselves out at some point. Although they have already been surprised how long it has gone on. They sense in all of the news, to get their own citizens stoked up on nationalism by portraying the protesters as thugs beating up the police and chinese nationalism is on the rise, thats one way they stay in power, along with economic gains. They get the tycoons in hong kong nervous about their Economic Future and disruption, which is happening. And they will jail, what past leader, not future one, some of whom are in this country right now temporarily on bail, and they just figure, through censorship, propaganda pressure, the tycoons selfinterest, they will finally get this thing to subside. I think thats probably what would happen. We do have a deadline of october 1 wr the chinese have the anniversary of the founding of the party and its the embarrassing for this to be going on while that is happening but i think to have to put up with that rather than resorting to a crackdown. Im sorry to take such a long time on one question. Im promise to be shorter from now on. But it is a complicated situation that i said at the outset is 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, the Chinese Government opts for a shooting war, rather than losing face by caving to washingtons demands. A shooting war . No, they wont do a shooting war. By the way, xi is not, as you know he is dictator for life and hes got all of the powers of control, which means all of the successes, he gets credit for but he will get the blame if things go wrong, between hong kong and the swell under their economy, partly by trump being tough, he may be in some difficulty, not to mention the anticorruption campaign, which is on a scale, which is good in principle, though it wiped out enemies as well as bad people, you know, were talking hundreds of thousands of people, including high level. So hes in a dilemma on both these issues, and i have already mentioned hong kong. And with respect to the economy, the problem is they cant figure trump out. He is very unpredictable. And some say that is an asset. I think it can be to keep people off balance but i think in this case, they are so confused the chinese, they are just going to wait him out. Whether we get a solution before the election depends on trumps calculation, which is better for his reelection. Should he be mr. Tough guy and not have a bad deal and get attacked for doing it, or is that going to spook the stock market, and the economy, and you better make a deal . I think what will happen is we will have an interim deal. The chinese will agree to buy more soybeans, et cetera, and america will lift tariffs, and both sides agree to kick the can down the road on the real issues, which are technology, intellectual property theft, cyber theft, making our companies turn over technology, subsidizing the chinese, so on. I think trump would have been much better off, number one, he shoulden have withdrawn from the Major International trading pact in asia, with 12 nations, called the transpacific partnership, which did a lot of things for our economy, and some new issues, like the environment, and workers rights, as well as opening up markets for us, but because it was done by obama, trump didnt like it and he pulled out. Japan has reconstituted it without us. But we should have had that as leverage on the chinese. Both on economic issues, because all of these countries dont like what china is doing either. Americans protection nists, as well as geopolitical presence in asia, its a big mistake to pull out thereof. So what i would do frankly is to go back to that pact and join it. I would settle if i could with our allies the trade wars so we can get them outside to pressure china. And on tariffs, i would tend to be more selective, and i would go after state enterprises, which run against chinese reforms so it is in their interest to go back over time to private enterprise and the companies that are most subsidized and most dangerous to compete with. I dont know if that would solve the problem. No, china wont go to a shooting war. It will wait trump out and be willing to make a very thin deal, and kick the can down the road. We have a question right here. I am a new immigrant from china, living in onshore flo living in yoba linda. In china, henrifrmden nixon and Henry Kissinger are well known among the people and high reputation and particularly Henry Kissinger and the state newspaper, like china, they make, every time, americans visit china, they call him Chinese Peoples old friend. Okay . This is a very noble title for the chinese newspaper. And among that, only a handful of leaders, foreign leaders, enjoy that noble title. Including cuba, castro, and president , south africas mcgave, and kissinger is Chinese Peoples old friend. Do you think this is a positive objective common that Henry Kissinger is well deserved and if Chinese People give you that title, would you gladly accept it or no . There are many parts of the question, if i dont answer all of them, please come back to it. First of all, im happy to say that there will be a chinese edition of this book, because of the interest, and the approval of kissinger. It certainly is not because of my name although i had something to do with the chine opening but this will be published in china. It will be published in russia and tomorrow, it comes out in the german edition. Thats the good news. But unless we change the title, i dont think it is going to be a best seller in america. No, no, it is obviously honorable acclamation for kissinger. Not only what he did with nixon and all of that, but he has been working tirelessly ever since, he is an intermediary between any american president , democratic or republican and the chinese because henry believes in serving whatever president is in office, whatever he thinks of that person. And so they respect not only the revolution he brought about in an honorable relationship together with the chinese leaders and nixon but also that he has worked so hard ever since to have the relationship go well. And the chinese, so the fact that they have some bad ideas, like calling mr. Castro an old friend, thats not henrys fault to be in that company, and they dont mean that in any way, but they genuinely respect him. By the way, they stick by old friends. When nixon was downed by watergate and was an expresident , the chinese warmly welcomed him and have him come over. So thats their tradition. They play on your friendship to try to get you to do favors for them. Its part of their very skillful diplomacy. We have a question right here. What subtle differences are you noticing in terms of the r approach of Foreign Policy from the Nixon Administration to other prubrepublican administras since then . How many hours have we got here . Thats a huge question. I cant do justice to. I mean, look, what i say is selfserving because i served in this administration, but i also served in many other administrations, republican and democrat. So i said this at the outset, i really feel this is the im not saying we didnt make mistakes or nixon and kissinger failed in certain areas or did controversial things, of course, they did. Theyre human. They werent perfect. But i do think the strategic approach that weve been discussing has never been replicated ever since. You dont necessarily have to have grand strategies. It sure helps. Particularly when you inherit the landscape that nixon and kissinger did to get out of that. We had no relationship with the quarter of humanity, where we had a tense nucleus standoff with the other superpower. We had no influence really in the middle east except with israel, we were bogged down in a war where we had this tremendous upheaval in america. You had to have a grand strategy to get out of that, in my ow opini opinion. Today, since then, we havent seen that. It doesnt mean we havent had some good foreign policies. I think bush sr. , the way they handled the end of the cold war after reagan made the breakthrough the way that bush assembled a coalition of arabs as well as other allies to go into repulse the invasion of kuwait and then was smart enough not to march in baghdad and get bogged down, so it doesnt mean you cant be successful, but no ones approached it quite with the strategic and conceptual approach that nixon and kissinger did. We have a question right here. During the yom kippur war, israel asked for help from the united states. Dr. Kissinger recommended we give them a little bit of help. Why was that his recommendation . Whereas president nixon stated israel is our ally, were going to give them all we have, were going to get criticized whether we give them a little bit or a whole bunch of help. So were going to give israel all the help we can. No, i heard the end, thats consistent with what you pointed out, dont do things halfway, but i didnt get the first part. I think the idea was that henry advised caution as opposed to is that im not sure thats correct. Now, henry might have said lets package it in a way that we dont destroy any chance to deal with the arabs, but henry was as proisrael as anybody. So i dont know whether the premise of your question is correct. But the there was some his taesitati the part of defense, though. It required nixon a couple times and finally saying oh, no, i would agree with that part of your question, nixon deserves great question for that because you bolstered your negotiating position by doing this, you dont weaken it. Im just not sure about the kissinger leadin. You may be correct. I dont think so. I know he felt, you dont separate pressure and incentives. You need both in a strategy. I think he would have been im sure he was in favor of it. But i will point out this is a good example of in Foreign Policy, its not just the strategic approach weve been discussing but a sense of timing. Part of his strategy when they came in was for the middle east, both nixon and kissinger wanted to supplant soviet influence in the middle east which was quite extensive because of the supply of soviet arms. Nixon and kissinger wanted to show the arab nations that the soviets can help build up your armament, although its not going to be able to defeat israel. But you wont get any territory back and you wont move toward peace unless you have an honest mediator like the united states. Strong ally of israel, but also israels interest willing to talk to both sides. So when the yom kippur war broke out in october 73, this is a few weeks after he became secretary of state, by the way, his coolness under pressure. I was with him in the waldorf astoria, u. N. General Assembly Sessions and putting finishing touches on the speech to the u. N. And all hell breaks loose with the yom kippur war. Hes on the phone with the president , foreign minister, ambassadors. He also sits at his desk and finishes carefully off this speech. What henry saw, and nixon as well, in terms of timing, was the following. Beginning of that war, the egyptians made major advances against the israelis. First time israel had suffered military defeats. Israel with our help rebounded, began to move back and retake the territory. They were then at a point where they surrounded the Egyptian Army and were about to wipe it out. Kissinger, and i was with him, immediately went to moscow to freeze the situation in place with a ceasefire because they figured the following. For the first time, israel had been sobered up a little bit by its military setback and can see that maybe some negotiated settlement would be in their security interests. They dont before that, they sort of suffered from hubris about their military superior toy. Meanwhile, saddat had done enough and had not yet had his army wiped out, which would have gone back to previous situations. So they had some dignity and selfrespect and he could, without humiliation, enter into negotiations. So by freezing that situation, for the first time, kissinger, nixon, saw it after waiting for three years they had a chance to go into the area and begin to broker between both sides and supplant soviet influence. So its a good example of strategy and also amount of timing of how you implement that strategy. Yeah, dr. Kissinger comes up a nice formulation in these interviews that he repeats s a couple times. Tell the arabs may mwin the war through soviet arms, to win peace, they need american diploma diplomacy. That sums it up, yeah. We have time for one last question. Hi. Its a pleasure being here. First time i want to share. A republican finally as of yesterday. I changed parties. So im practicing. My question is, from my knowledge or experience, we never really understood or i havent understood what was kissingers opinion of what happened in the watergate, how nixon handled it . Because from my opinion, he should have just said, yes, i did, and that would have been the end of it. Instead, he kind of covered it up or tried to cover it up. So i want your opinion, i dont recall kissinger making any comments on what his thoughts were and how he handled it. Well, i dont want to speak for him, but i think he would subscribe to the conventional wisdom that many subscribed to, including me, that the initial sin of breaking and looking for research on the opposition carried out originally without nixons knowledge, if he had just said i didnt recognize this, this is a mistake, it wont happen again, second term, all the opportunities were talk thats why its so sad. But then he did go to i have to be honest, as a great admirer of his, he went to unacceptable lengths to cover it up. Including criminal acts and he paid for it. As i said earlier. And he deserves to pay for it. Its a real shame. So what kissinger would think, obviously, he felt incredible lost opportunity for the country. In terms of a second term in Foreign Policy. A personal tragedy for a man he greatly respected. But im sure he would feel that it was a terrible tactical mistake and it was born out of many experts of nixon, much more than i am, i dont want to go too far afield here. He did have suspicions of certa certain enemies and as someone said, even paranoid his enemies. He did have some enemies who were unfair. He carried them too far. Its a real shame that that it happened, so be interesting to see to whether kissinger addresses this more directly in his next portrait. Let me say since were closing here, i want to thank jonathan for what he did to help get this book done and arranging this evening and, frank, youve obviously taken great care of putting this together as well as the clip. So its been a real pleasure. Thank you. [ applause ] thank you vo muso much. The book is available in the museum store for purchase. Thank you all for coming. Please check back for future events at nixonsfoundation. Org. Thank you. This is American History tv on cspan3. Where each weekend we feature 48 hours of programs exploring our nations past