Transcripts For CSPAN3 Nixon Administration Foreign Policy 20240713

Policy approach, hes the author of kissinger on kissinger, afflictions on diplomacy grand strategy and leadership, he describes president nixons relationship with the secretary of state Henry Kissinger and how is instrumental and developing Foreign Policy strategies they hosted this event, good evening ladies and gentlemen, im with the Richard Nixon foundation, welcome to the president ial library, before we introduce our speaker, i just wanted to mention a couple of special guests, we have our distinguished speakers lisa lord and her husband jack wild and we have betsy here its the wife of. Distinguish speaker just a doctor kissinger as to president nixon and he joined the security staff in 1969, special assistant working and traveling the world on every major Diplomatic Initiative in the midst of the vietnam war and the greater cold war, use with him during the talks in paris that culminated in the paris peace accords in 1973, he was with president nixon during his first president ial trip in the Historic Arms treaty, he was there for kissinger settles with the israelis after the 1973 yom kippur war and he was a key actor and historic trip to china, known popularly as the week that change the world. He holds such posts as state director of planning, and Council Foreign relations, ambassador to the peoples republic and this is secretary of state for South East Asian and fares, from 2000 15,016 he conducted several hours of worlds stories with kissinger and the collections of interviews you have a question of subject matter, china, and russia, middle east vietnam and can now be found with his readable book, its called kissinger on kissinger, reflections on diplomacy, grand strategy and it is available for purchase and he will sign coffees for you he will be interviewed by dr. Frank, he obtained his masters degree and doctorate that oxford after working at law thompson he wrote the biography and in 1971 he became a white house fellow under the Nixon Administration and served on the council and White House Press secretary, in 1974 he was aboard air force one, following president nixons resignation and was the chief he has a rear distinction of having interviewed extend for 13 hours which are all available, which are all invisible in digital format and we will see some of these videos in his presentation tonight, i should also mention that yesterday our president visited him in new york city knowing that the ambassador was going to be speaking tonight at the library, he asked him to pass on his best wishes, everyone tonight and watching on cnn he has roster know that winston is an indispensable partner in a very good friend, ladies and gentlemen it is my pleasure to introduce him. applause applause well thank you all for company, thank you for being here it is a great pleasure and honor law what you brought fresh, i found one of several references to you in the memoirs, i wont read the one about you being a terrible posture but this one he says, he became one of my best collaborators, more than almost anyone who is familiar with my view, sierra global not regional perspective, and after the association with kissinger you said that you had a distinguished career which could be subject of another top, and the position they have a very good book and its the addition of the number of interviews you conducted so the curious position of asking you to comment on Henry Kissinger, so rather than doing that already fear to some of the things in the book that will be open ended and the advantage of the book, it is very short, its very accessible and its really interesting so i would recommend the best thing to do is to buy it and redid, you cant go wrong, its also appropriate that youre here at the library because i think the foundation played a part in the genesis of these interviews. Well personal notes, ive been going around the country promoting this for federally no other scene and then this one compares, in terms of the appropriateness and relevance for reasons you have touched upon, first of course it is an excellent library and museum and this is about the next and qishan care Foreign Policy, secondly frank conducted 30 hours of interviews with nixon, 38 hours, so and a book thats based on interviews and not to mention the fact that he was not in the white house when i was, really the foundation has actually been crucial and im delighted to see this, im delighted that he is the new president , you will be a terrific danny interviewed me on this book by the way, so the interviews we did we get martini interviews, but several interviews on panels of the key events and then we prevailed upon kissinger to do an interview to reflect back on his advance and its extraordinary, 93 when he did the interviews reflecting on events that were 50 years old and its amazing the decision and, they barely touch the transcript, what you read would be sure gary for 30yearold talking about last weeks news but for a 92yearold talking about 50 years this is really quite extraordinary, the point im making is the foundation to go to the National Archives supported these interviews and no one was more indispensable than the person who introduces, jonathan who ran the videos was absolutely essential and the composition and giving advice and he worked closely for jeff who is also involved and if it was in for jonathan and jeff and they foundation, i mentioned in my acknowledgments, so look at this comment that i mentioned the interview of the book and im moving around and you could buy this afternoon so were looking at ways to make this a best seller but we have another idea, a good friend of mine tom saw the press release on his iphone, very small space and the iphone cut off the last two letters of the book so tom, you see whats coming right, tom godfrey excited got 100 copies thinking he was getting a book kissinger on kissing law so we may change the title to boost the ceos, i have a very short video that was made and its about two minutes though is made forward after kissingers 95th birthday issues and new york and law its a couple of clips from the interview so you conducted was it six, two hours of interviews over a period of several months and this gives a very brief flavor what the baby is based on. Nixon that that Foreign Policy was the improvement of the relationship of countries to each other, the balancing of interests, and i have been studied any other president thought of it its not good social terms. Well nixon was focusing on objectives he thought in terms of the practical experiences that he had hallowed in a meeting with leaders, my approach was very similar to his in terms of focusing on objectives, but the material for my thinking was historical and philosophical, i saw the world in terms of narratives to situations that i had studied in the relationship you control that in the teaching objective was to prevent the soviet union from becoming the dominance army in the soviet army had occupied czechoslovakia the use of military pressure was a future and exceeded began by opening arms control negotiations Nuclear Weapons in our original plan but then the soviet union try to blackmail us with the prospect of a summit so we reverse the project and said okay we will go to china first, if you look at what nixon said about china he address the problem of china from the point of view of worlds order, his worldview said, i getting china involved in the system, the pattern of International Politics to be transformed because all other countries would have to consider the impact of china in terms of any calculated that we might produce a situation in which america would be closer to most of the contest and spend to each other and therefore have a strong position in, the second or third day in office i looked at the plans and the consequences of a nuclear war they were horrendous so to say we do not negotiate that without ever being able to devise a strategy in which you could use it in a way that different destroy civilizations, this summit in 72 occurring at a high point in the vietnam war demonstrated one of the main things of the Nixon Administration, we saw the possibility of negotiating agreements and to indicate steps towards an end to come these two actions and one brief period of time, similar urges and nature of the we always had the view that breakthrough and negotiations would come when one of the arab countries concluded that soviet military support was not the way to achieve their objectives and during the war we managed to establish ourselves as mediators between the arab and the israeli side more, had to be ended and we had to do this with the soviet union because the soviet union still had main influence in the arab world, somebody said now within a limited time we were gonna have negotiations with the soviet union after they opened, they said this was an absolute fantasy and id like to have the task of taking the society from where it is to where it has never been and you need the courage to walk along part of the way. applause nixon liked first, he liked to spring surprises and his announcement of his advisers, his chief adviser was a kennedy supporter and member of the Kennedy Administration and his principal foreign adviser was a harvard professor who had worked for his political rival, in the interviews he tells you, says to you, if you consider that i spent 15 years of my life trying to keep him from becoming president , remains astonishing that he chose me for his security adviser, it breeds strange bed fellows but they were truly an odd couple, what do you think nixon saw and kissinger and why do you think kissinger said yes . First of all let me thank you for that exert, it sets up the book very nicely, it was a Strange Alliance and knicks and showed great courage and doing this, he was a conservative from the west coast, distrustful of the ivy league here you have a jewish immigrant working for nelson rockefeller, they never met, maybe ones at a social meeting, nixon had read his books, nixon wanted to dominate politics and in order to do that he needed a very able and thoughtful National Security adviser, so he put politics aside and thought about the National Interest and what would serve his interest and foraging a new world order so its a sheer brilliance of nixon already exhibited, now get back to one other aspect but let me get to the acceptances and he himself says when he was asked by the president for his supplies to the National Security adviser instead of saying yes immediately he hesitated, partly out of misplaced 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 have to serve your country, what are you doing, hes taking the chance not you, and he immediately saw that and he wouldve said yes, he is someone who would analyze Foreign Policy for all his life and im sure he left at the chance of doing something about it in terms of policy he had been an adviser to jfk and consolidated with johnson and other president s so these are the main motives and what really brought them together and the common approach to Foreign Policy which weve just seen examples of, mainly the strategic conceptual approach that looks at the world in a long term trends that takes to the account what you do with one country on the other end does not just react in major reaction into discrete events but ties them together and mosaic so it was clear that they each shared a world view that i think was a major reason then expand shows as well as the others and clearly why he was happy to join him and they had different strengths, nixon as a congressman but more importantly as private citizen had traveled enrolled many World Leaders and was the best president ever for Foreign Policy, kissingers strength was historical, philosophical, conceptual, strategic and the residents of history on the other brought the immediacy of knowledge, who is a wonderful makes. You mention that the president of the president elect wanted to bring the Foreign Policy apparatus into the white house, very interesting thing or nixon and kissinger go out to sea the ailing and dying any give some very specific advice and Henry Kissinger has a brush with the former general. Its an interesting anecdote and and the not only a recall strategies and specific milestones but punctuates his counting with anecdotes, some using, in this case it the administration kissinger had the conventional mistake that he soon learn differently and by the way eisenhower one of our great president s in my opinion so they went out as a courtesy and National Issues and they just had a meeting and they went out and briefed him at the hospital and the very mixed day there was a lead in the press and told eisenhower about an each year kissinger out and said how dare you let this stuff get out and kissinger said im not sure i can control this, he said a young man if you can control these things do better job you dont deserve it and he gained Great Respect as a result of that. Thousands from the very first weeks of the administration, that was i think they briefed eisenhower on the most secret plan and the next day was on the front page, before we get into youre talking about the book i want to talk a little bit about you, when you were a High School Student in the early fifties, what did you think he wanted to be when you grew up . Secretary of state. I actually wanted to be an international relations, for two reasons my mother was into public service, but she took out the ambassador for she was involved in issues and these issues would come up and secondly we did an awful lot of traveling when i was yeah and one of my vacations from yale was uzbekistan and kazakhstan to take a casual example, these two forces suggested i want to go into this field but i wasnt sure how some major intricate broad medication and so i think of that support are no matter what it took a lot of history courses and i went to the graduate school where i met my wife, she took extremely good notes and economics class and that was my subject so i decided to become her friend, that is how we got going. You are an english major who became a diplomat she was an economic major who became a bestselling novelist. Thats correct but she went to the lab and said to you better go to some other discipline. And you put it mildly a distinguished career and what was the path that led to your kissinger . It was only by a chance, i did Foreign Service for the Defence Policy staff and i worked for a brilliant young person who ended up suing kissinger later, i wont get into details but kissinger knew how, we asked him to join the staff and he wanted me to go with or so that whatever it to join the staff a month after it started in february 1969 but we should its been so much time, we had to spend it on Kissinger Nixon but he was obviously a great opportunity, we started out and this gets to kissinger, i had to have an interview with any took me off, and he had a 15 minute interview with me and you could see the chaos and the secretary of the treasury was on the phone looking at memos but he zeroed in on me on a key issue and he said look, i want to debate im on disagreements, in them on good intellectual exchange from a staff, but if he wins the battle i want you to carry it out and i think that is the correct approach and i guess a pass that test and the point is that the first year i was not in the front office, so sitting across the Eisenhower Office and one of the things in the system we would send kissinger memos and looking ahead playing devils advocate in challenging and i wrote several memos our critical, at least raising questions that Kissinger Nixons were doing, he hired me as a special assistant not despite that but because of that he did not like this, he wanted to bait now he would be brutal if you gave such a mental advocacy for an issue, but iran has you argued it intelligently he respected that so this is a good example of someone who encourage debate. He was and i suspect is, he goes to the Office Every Day legendary difficult boss, lets take some of his stories have to be where theres smoke theres some fire, lets take the larry story, true, untrue, apocryphal . He goes one of his top assistants and they were in the role of some crisis and he fainted in the office and kissinger essentially, i was and there are so im not entirely sure this is true but its a good story, he stepped over the guys body to get to the flaw and start working on to the next issue, will give you another example, look i have unbelievable its respect for him even if you dont send him the transcript behind his back but he wasnt perfect unlike some of us here this evening, he was extremely demanding they say in my portrait and fury nothing else id like you to read my personal portrait and i round out some of the edges but i do refer to some of them some of the less attractive aspects but he stretched minors and patients but he also stretched my horizons and perspectives and i learned a great deal about how to approach Foreign Policy and ive always been appreciative or him for the review, and climb, but the climb gaby arduous speech writing i could raid fairly well nowhere near like my wife, she does fiction i do nonfiction and, so i did speeches for henry and sometimes indirectly for the president , they would go something like, this first of all the timing will generally be just before they kicked off against the cowboys in a Football Game and he called me up and say you should do a speech, that was pretty annoying, its one reason i quit but heres how it goes, speech writing, this is about 90 true, it gives you the flavor, may not be accurate but hed give me a topic to write a speech and id come, and asks if this is the best you can, do i said i think, so he took another whack at it and he calls me into the office a day later and he says are you sure this is the best you can do and i said i thought so, let me try again, anyways this goes on and im getting a little annoyed, i finally say i, know hes asked me this question and i say have looked at every sentence, ive tweeted every cohen and semicolon, i cant improve this anymore, its the best i can do so he turned to me and smile, he said in that case ill read it, so he would stretch it, by the way you read push me on speech writing and writing memos because he knew i could write, and whether i was good and researcher on negotiations he would push that so he knew where to push him or not to push. Its not only the edited transcript interesting and useful way but it has an introduction by doctor kissinger, it has youre setup and then you have introductions to each of the chapters. And then occasional inter positions of information and then the questions that you acts, so its not uninterrupted, its nod uninterrupted readings of edited transcripts. In the book he has an assessment of a contribution that he was interested in the concept of Foreign Policy and he writes to you, nixon was except for the founding fathers, i would say teddy roosevelt, the american president s who thought of Foreign Policy as grand strategy, to Foreign Policy was the structural improvement of the relationship of countries to each other, in a way that the bouncing up their self interests would promote global peace and security of the united states, he thought about that in relatively longrange terms, is that the way you thought or think of nixon . Absolutely, let me say this im the last remaining centrist in america, im a flaming centrist and i really mention that because ive worked for the public and the democrats, i was a political appointee of reagan and clinton so when i say 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 work from office, but i work four other president s, he looked the man had flaws, we all know, that who does, it but you cannot take away the strategic approach, it is described well and this film and also as you just said, its one reason why kissinger not long, ago because he approaches things the same way, and not only, he did a couple things that were important, he know exactly how to work with, kissinger first of all their world views coincided, but he struck a beautiful balance, some president s micromanage and jimmy used to determine who can play on the tennis court, actually thats a pretty important subject, but where some others were delegate completely, nixon of course had the white house dominate the process, he had to make the courageous decisions, and we dont know what the reactions were going to be so he had to backup kissinger and he had a strategic approach which kissinger could reflect, then he left it to henry to do the actual negotiations and tactics and never second guess them and henry always had the confidence, they had enough of a shared world view that on tactics they will be backed up by the president , for example when we were in china negotiating the shanghai communicate before the historic visit, this was in october, i will go to the detail now but the chinese representative had a different approach, totally different from what nixon approved before i went to washington and there is no way to communicate back all, we were on our own, but kissinger was confident the president s view and his loyalty that he agreed to the chinese approach which proved to be successful so it shows you how they work together, that was extremely important as well. In addition to the long term grand Strategic Vision and, there is an axiom that he quotes, i think at least three or maybe four times, a man something to him about no half measures. Well he believes that you have to pay for controversial policy, whether you go halfway, and so the china thing was carefully set up, we could get into that publicly and privately over two years but still who is a very bold of to send the National Security adviser to china not knowing we had enough confidence that they want out of self interest and they want to engage us and we made sure we go beyond taiwan before we went, but he couldnt know how their reaction was going to be back home but he went full blown on that and taking a chance on negotiating the middle east versus the soviet and forehands before the moscow summit which came shortly after the china summit, because of the china summit because we got their attention, hanoi launched a major offensive against South Vietnam, justice we are about to go to moscow, the president ordered very tough response for the mining of the harbors even though he thought might jeopardize the summit, we had worked on him for so long and it had major control and economic agreements tap, wouldve been a tremendous loss but he wasnt about to go to moscow well they are getting slaughtered by moscows allies, by the way kissinger and i and others thought that this balmy even though its correct in terms of policy in vietnam, its probably going to sink the summit and, i remember going into a helicopter to write the speech and with all these great agreements we had, nixon said no, the soviets will go ahead with the summits, they have too much self interest now an interesting episode happen to play out there when we are in moscow, i was in charge of henry and the president s briefing books and we were sitting in an office near the, four and the kremlin and there was a space agreement being signed by nixon and they were going to take a break to the statue to talk about the mafia now more, even though they agree have as well we are bombing the heart of their allies they had to be tough with us and send a transcript to show that they were loyal, well what happened is they got nixon to go out immediately and a motorcade without stopping leaving me behind with the briefing books and knowing henry i said all my god, hes gonna be really happy i dont have the president s briefing books, even i was in my fault, we managed to talk to the kgb and we got out there in time but the point here was a lead up to an interesting evening getting this question of nixons courage to go there and the russian reaction, we sat for three hours law while the soviet leaders attack nixon on vietnam so that they could stand a transcript to hanoi, he basically sat there and he knew they were going through a charade, we then go upstairs and they are completely depressed and nothing ever happened and then he made kissinger set out and negotiated a 2 am in the morning after about three hours of caucus oh my whole point and this meandering stories that mix and did have the qualities both of the vision as he said how do you get from here there and the courage to make those decisions, it is particular tough for a leader to make these decisions because really in a crisis and you dont have full information, and therefore you have to take the courageous decision based on an adequate knowledge of the landscape or whats going to happen, so you are quite lonely and taking a risk on incomplete all age, if you wait until you have so much knowledge that the path is certain, by then you cant do what you want to do, so its very tough on these tactical decisions can be made by the president and theyre very tough because then it would be bumped up to the president , put the strategic big step decisions are the most difficult, thats what you need in a president. Doctor says its 51 for the man a decisions could be made at the lower level and its the president that gets the tough ones. Ill give you another example, on nixon and Foreign Policy in terms of this interest in care, i was in charge of assembling the briefing books and others did most of the contributions but i had to put it together at how bright some of it, we put together six briefing books about this and i swear nixon read every page because it was mark up, and even as we were flying on air force one and stopping and sitting on the back of air force one he would send memos back and say i want to know about, this what does he think of this, was a favorite problem i can use in my toast for what are the chinese going to say on north korea, that kind of, thing it was amazing, ive been to lots of summits and ever seen the president work that hard for a meeting. Ambassador im sure many or all of you know it is in the introductory video to the new library to the new exhibits, that is the point you make, you served eight president s . Seven. Who is counting . And none were as prepared as, another aspect of this book is it is a master class in apply diplomacy and the middle east and to start with china now you know that i worked out well but at the time and nixons, the idea notion of granted china was crazy, was unthinkable and even one of our major ambassador is refused to believe it until he was called back and how did that, nixon also in the first weeks, how did you receive word of this and what did you think about it. At the justice now on a make sure that for the audience by the way getting at the chant decision and courage again nixon and kissinger got outside experts here anyone whos still said that we did not do was for but we got a lot of help from the experts, he also called in outsiders and nixon talked to experts or retired experts from the soviet union george and tommy and one other, forget who they all told him, to not move to china, they could see from public gestures that we were trying to change our policy, they said if you go youre great a wreck relations with moscow, this city because under the not believe this but it took courage to go against them and in fact is the opposite, the soviets have been dragging their feet, we resisted pressures but we werent making any progress with the soviets on berlin or any of these things, and a public trip that covered our secret trip i got a call from the deputy who said, inside language that didnt fool anybody but he basically said the russians are once again turning down a summit so we would give the chinese the summit first and then as soon as he got back he announced the fact that kissinger had built their lives with days the russians agreed to a summit and within weeks they moved an arm control so they approved how even in the smartest people cant get things wrong and locker to talk to go against this. In the section on vietnam kissinger definitively lays to love the ongoing controversies and troublesome or something and one thing is the notion that the agreement that was achieved in 73 couldve been achieved earlier and can you look a vietnam is controversial and no one can sit here it say that it was a splendid outcome those attended outcome at the vietnamese violated the agreement so i understand the controversy and god knows we lost a lot of lives of money and i respect those that we should have gotten out sooner and i dont respect those who glorify the vietnam the good guys are the bad guys that are baby killers but i do respect those the disagree but on the agreement itself there are two processes take that i disagree with and i mention this in the book one is that we couldve had the deal sooner and the other thing is the deal that we got was a cynical fake land knowing South Vietnam would collapse after a decent interval but we covered another city here that we should never have made the deal you care to have both arguments now very quickly because it is a big subject and we have to get other things we insisted that any eventual deal the political fate to north and South Vietnam we werent going to overthrow the government as we left which is what they demanded until a month before our election and they saw that nixon was gonna get reelected and i was gonna be four more years of this mad man you better make a deal so they caved it and said you better give us the deal only this exceeded the expectation who thought they would have a Coalition Government and who is the first step to a collapse and we managed to be the vietnamese however it was never possible and before that we outlined this as early as the nixon speech very casually there and we gave a specific proposal that i have draft laid out the eventual settlement to the set now you have to get a bit of this on government let us take over and we couldnt even get our prisoners back so the first argument was absolute nonsense and the second argument people could not disagree on because after the collapse and people can say we should have now that they werent that straw or that the congress will not back enforcement but we felt the deal was not dissent and nixon and kissinger they refused to have any settlements because they wanted to have a deal that was credible and not want to help get reelected so they did the best they could and we felt that the deal we were not naive about an ice treachery but we felt that with this military settlement only that the deal could survive and we were not looking for a decent interval but a decent opportunity for South Vietnam to determine its future and that america couldnt be there forever and we expected our lives and treasure and we built up their forces and at some point the American People deserve to have us turn over the world but an honorable conditions so we felt that if it was a minor ceasefire violation the vietnamese were Strong Enough to handle it with our economic military aid and we felt it correctly had naively perhaps said if there was a major vision that the u. S. Congress and people would back bombing to prevent that and not sending in troops nobody wanted to do that. We thought they would be willing to go back and bomb, that was wrong it turns out, we thought it would be the case, thirdly we offered economic incentives so that the hanoi people could debate against themselves and a lot take the reconstruction go along with this deal when we got rid of the troops and we would bite our times so we got that incentive, forth we thought china and russia did not this issue to flare up and they 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 be done to stay on a longer, with American Opinion the way wasnt after all we have done for South Vietnam or go all out and use accent bombs and there werent great alternatives because they dont respect those who disagree but i dont respect these two arguments as well. Earlier tonight didnt you say that the doctor says that at that moment the north vietnamese change for the first time, position that made the settlement possible, did you think of that is the most emotional, or other forms not just what he does in his book, what was the single greatest highlight of his career at least and im notional terms, and he said when no i came around in october 72 after three exhausting years of secret negotiations and after all the fighting and we went out at the garden and he said take a break and he shook my hand and it was meaningful, obviously mostly because of the vietnam situation getting p. O. W. Is back and in the english and what we thought were honorable terms but he was meaningful between a spot in 1970 without going into detail i came very close to quitting the staff not on legal or ethical grounds but on practical domestic grounds, i was very close to quitting and my wife talked me out of it and she always moved me in the right direction and my wife said, look you can go on waving a placard or you can stay here and work for peace, so given that i almost left vietnam for us to working together and have a breakthrough, who was obvious emotional for me but i was touched by the fact that he was at the top of his list. One last question before we open to the audience who i expect will have more contemporary questions, on the august 8th, the night of the president s resignation speech, Henry Kissinger asked if he could walk an extent hall from the oval office to the residents as he has done on so many happier occasions. I think trying to cheer up next and kissinger says he, you know mister president s history will treat you out and he says that the pets are gay rights who writes in history. Its 50 years since he became president , 45 cents he resigned, 25 since he died, how is history treaty Richard Nixon . Thats a good question, its hard to generalize, it depends what platform you are talking about, i think its oversimplified for even his critics to point, if you look at this exhibit i will say that domestic policy, whether its the environment, womens rights to other, the battle east and its the critics just to say thats the only good thing he did, the simplify thing is even on china they say its inevitable, well it was easier for him that it wouldve been for you not read because nixons flag was protected, but it took great courage as i said and even on the air force one coming off from beijing nixon and kissinger were worried about what just happened and they didnt realize the impact to television that the Chinese Military played american socks at the first summit that really had a major impact, so i was seen as a great triumph and by the way up the morale of the American People who had been fatigued, not only by the way war but racial riots, assassinations, demonstrations, people were just depressed and to see that you could open up one quarter of humanity and put the absolute exit from vietnam in perspective in terms of what we support it, shows how we could act on the stage and i think they deserve great credit for this. This janeiro ethereal points as well as a subjective i think the longer we go on the kinder history will be, now lets face, it some of the criticism, i say that, and some of you have this perspective, he did so bad things, he paid for it and its a shame, im not saying its a not deservedly paid for but he did things that were unfortunate and because of the paranoia of his enemy some of which was justified just went into a dark area it is just a shame because he was poised to be a truly great president and now its going to be loving, it should, be he made mistakes, but he had just been reelected by an incredible landslide, he had the war behind us, he opened up at the top with the soviet union, he was moving to solidify alliances with our friends, he was moving in the middle east, he had a record it domestic policy that was sufficiently attractive that a very liberal columnist for the New York Times wouldve put, buddy disagreed with the first time he said nixon was lousy and Foreign Policy but was terrific in domestic affairs, so its just a shame and we all know that it was in the crime but this so destroyed his presidency and he has to go down as a good president but he couldve been a great president except for this unnecessary self inflicted wound that is really tragic, i might add that he is doing an extensive portrait of makes it, hes already done that for forthcoming book along with portraits of other leaders, so itll be very interesting to see what he has to say. Before we go to questions, ladies and gentlemans joined me for thanking him. applause before i get to questions i want to say kissinger on histories available, i would like to start with the 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 . Relations with china . On the Current Situation in hong kong. Oh hong kong, excuse, me yes. I think the hong kong demonstrations, on the want hand are extremely hopeful and a bright spied on the horizon but also makes one extremely apprehensive, after the berlin wall fell and countries were returning to more democratic regimes that i look like the end of history, we got too confident about it, the last ten years, particularly the last few years weve gone in reverse whether its china getting much more repressive, put it following as usual, but hungary and turkey and saudi arabia and other tendencies, obviously populism and nationalism are on the rise, i dont think thats permanent but its depressing. We have seen a few flickers lately around the world that maybe someone of a comeback, the people who want freedom have not given up, you see it in turkey, you see in hungary, you see the even in the soviet union, hong kong is a master magic example, its about other issues as well, housing and inequality, corruption, but essentially hong kong wants to be hong kong and they want freedom. Now the agreement that the british made with the chinese on the one hand, absolutely guaranteed Civil Liberties but it was a little vague or on elections, by the way democracies more than elections, it is freedom of press, independent judiciary and so on, so these Civil Liberties have been eroded, it started off relatively well with china and hong kong, and one country two systems but that has been eroding, the censorship in the press, rule of laws are failing on the edges, the chinese have been kidnapping publishers and books, literally who published books they did not like, anyway there is a lot of things going on and whats brought to a head as im sure a lot of you now by bill that the Hong Kong Government and puppets of aging introduced which in effect said that you should extra day china and its awful not a legal system, anybody we dont like, im over simplifying. Those the final straw so thats what the demonstrations were about, its extraordinary they went on for 15 months, now that is the good news, the bad news is that when we should encourage and speak out on their behalf, there is a bill on that congress which would effectively try to deter the chinese really cracking down, saying in effect that if you crackdown we will no longer, you get the same financial on economic treatment as you get elsewhere in china which would really hurt them, the gdp is to a 20 23 but they depend on hong kong for fuel and finance and investment, so this would be a great deterrent against the chinese backing down, i think we should pass the bipartisan bill, it would be nice to have something in washington thats bipartisan that is there. We also hold accountable through visas at freezing of assets, and elitists that were involved, whether hong kong and chinese, so thats why we have to do, there is no way that china and the cedar in particular is going to let hong kong get out of control, so theyre not gonna get on the major demands in part of the problem is that this demonstration, the good news is, there is no leaders and unlike previous demonstrations there is no way to organize demonstrations and five demands, and considering with the Hong Kong Government to get the demands men and the chinese dont want to go in, but trust me if that is the only option they have to put this down they will go in with some then camouflage just like the soviets went and they much prefer their presence strategy and sally this is where we will end up though theyre going to exhausts the protests, its been going on for 15 weeks but how many times kenny reschool lawyer business but on a tear gas mask and rescue her future career, weekend after weekend, unfortunately some of it has been violent which shouldnt happen, it gives the good propaganda, beating up the police and they are on the rise with economic games, they get, has leaders not future want some of whom are in this country bailed, tycoon andrus having thats probably whats gonna happen, we do have a deadline of october 1st with the anniversary of the seventh founding of the party, its embarrassing for this to go on what is happening, i think to put up with that rather than resorting to a crackdown, im sorry to take such a long time on one question, and i promise to be shorter from now on but it is a complicated situation, i sit on the outside its 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 stress on the chinese economy, the chinese economy ops for a shooting more rather than losing face by caving to washington. They wont do a shooting war, by the way she was some difficulty, dictated for life and as all the power of control which means all the successful credits he has but the blame psycho on between hong kong and the economy and by trump being tough he may be in some difficulty not to mention the Anti Corruption campaign which is get in principle, it will wipe down enemies as well as bad people, we are talking including high level he is in a dilemma on both these issues, this can be to keep them, and there is gonna wait a mao, whether it is better for his reelection, should be mr. Tough by not have a bad deal and get attacked for doing it or is that gonna spooked is stockmarkets and the economy, i think what will happen is we will have a deal, the chinese will agree to buy soybeans, etc, america will lift tariffs and both sides agree to kick the can down the road on the real issues which are technology, intellectual policy, cybertheft, making companies turnover technology i think trump will have been much better off and then on the a handful of leaders, foreign leaders enjoy that noble title, including cuba, castro and former president charles, and africas move abe, chinese peoples of france, do you think this is a positive objective, that Henry Kissinger deserves and what you excepted are now . There is many parts of the question first of all im happy to say that there will be a chinese edition of this because of the interest ed approval, this will be published from china and russia and tomorrow it comes out in the german edition, thats the good news but unless we change the title i dont think its going to be a bestseller, its obviously honorable acclamation not only what he did with on nixon but he has been working tirelessly and the media between any american president , democratic or republican because they believe in serving whatever president s in office, whatever he thinks of that person and so there is fact not all he revolution he brought about and the relationship with the chinese leaders and nixon but also that he has worked so hard ever since to have the relationship go well, the chinese, the fact that they have some bad ideas like calling mr. Castro thats not henrys fault to be in that company, but they generally me respect, when nixon was down by watergate and the chinese warmly welcome them and have them come over, that is their tradition, they are very good at doing this and they also play on that and play on your friendship to try to do favors for them and its part of their very skillful diplomacy, what subtle differences are you noticing in terms of the approach to Foreign Policy to other republican administrations since then . How many hours have we got here, that is a huge question i cant do you justice to this, look what i say is self serving because ive served in this administration, but ive also served in many other administrations, i have said this at the outset, i really feel that this is, im not saying we did make mistakes or an x in an kissinger failed but to controversial things, they did and their humanitarian perfect but i do think the strategic approach so we have been discussing has never been replicated since you dont necessarily have to have grand strategies, it sure helps, particularly when you inherit the landscape that nixon and qishan through a day to get out of that and we had no relationship with the court of humanity and we had intense Nuclear Standoff with the other superpower, we had no influence in the middle east except with israel we are bogged down in a war where we had a tremendous upheaval in america, you had to have a grants ravaging to get out of that and today since then we havent seen that, and weve the way they handled the cold war after they made the breakthrough and bush assemble a coalition of arabs as well as other air allies to go in and impose the invasion and then not get bogged down in baghdad so it is a Media Campaign successful but no one is opposed to this conceptual approach nixon can do, question over here. During the yom kippur war israel asked for help from the united states, doctor kissinger recommended we give them a little bit of help, why was that is recommendation . And where president nixon stated israel is our ally and we will give them all we have, were going to get to criticize rather we give them a little or a whole bunch of help, so we will give israel all the help we can. That is consistent with what you pointed out, dont do things halfway, but i didnt get the first part, i do is it henry is phased caution as opposed to im not sure thats correct, now henry might have said thats package it in a way that we dont destroy a chance to destroy the arabs but he was pro israel as anybody, so i dont know i dont know if youre promises correct, there is some hesitation and he required nixon a couple of times and he said i would agree with the thrust of your question and he deserves great credit for this because you both are in the negotiated position, im is not sure about the gingerly and i dont believe so because you know you john separate pressure and so i think that he was in favor of it but i will point out that this is a good example of Foreign Policy, its not just a strategic approach but a sense of timing, part of this strategy when they came and it was from that middle east, both nixon and kissinger wanted to supplant soviet influence in the middle east which was quite extensive because of the supply and soviet arms, nixon and kissinger wanted to show the arab nations that the soviets can help build up your armament on that its not going to defeat israel but you wont get any territory back and he wont move towards peace unless you have an honest mediator like the united states, a strong ally of israel but also interested to talk to both sides, so when a yom kippur war broke out this was a few weeks after he became secretary of state, by the way it shows his coolness under pressure i was with him with the Un General Assembly and putting in the finishing touches and all hell breaks loose with the young people are more and hes on the phone with the president , foreign ministers, ambassadors and hes also sitting at his desk in finishing caviar but what henry saw, nixon as well in terms of timing was the following, the beginning of that war the egyptians made major advances against the israelis, the first time in israel itself and military defeat, israel with our help rebounded and me and back and retake the territory, they then deployed and surrounded the Egyptian Army and were about to wait it out this internet were with him and we immediately went to moscow to freeze the situation in place for the ceasefire, because they figured the following, for the first time israel had been snowbird up by the military setback and could see that maybe some negotiated settlement would be in their security interests and before that they suffer from hubris about their military superiority, meanwhile they hit canada half and not had his army wiped out which wouldve gone back to previous situations so they had some dignity and self respect and he could without humiliation and then negotiations, so by freezing the situation for the first time kissinger and knicks and so after waiting for three years they had a chance to go into the area and begin to broker between both sides so its a good strategy and a matter of timing about how you implemented. He comes up with a nice formulations that he repeats a couple of times, so whether they win the war through soviet arms but they need american diplomacy, exactly that sums up, we have time for one last question. Hey, its a pleasure being here, and finally as of yesterday so im practicing, my question is from my knowledge or experience we never really understood what was kissingers opinion about what happened and how nixon handled it, from my opinion here today just said yes i did and that wouldve been the end of it instead he kind of covered it up or trying to cover it up, so your opinion, i dont recall kissinger making any comments over what his thoughts were and how we handle. Well i dont want to speak for him, but i think he would subscribe to the conventional wisdom that many subscribe to, including me that the initial scene of breaking and looking for research on the opposition syria originally without nixons knowledge if you just said that in authorizes it was a mistake and it wont happen again second term, and the opportunities are lost, that is why its so sad but i have to be honest integrated fire he went to three 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 an obviously out a lost opportunity for the country in terms of the second term and Foreign Policy, a personal tragedy for a man he really respected but im sure that he feels who is a terrible tactical mistake and it was for many experts, and makes it much more than i am so i dont want to go to far afield here but he did have suspicions of certain enemies and even paranoid enemies and he had enemies that were unfair but a carry on too far and its a real shame that it happened, so would be interesting to see whether kissinger addresses this morning directly and his next portion, i may say sensor closing i want to think john is and for what he did and arranging this evening and frank obviously taking great care and putting this together as well as the clip so its been a real, pleasure thank you applause he is a available to speak to and the books are available in the store, thank you. applause coming up our look at rapid city continues as we look at the first man light into the stratosphere. 1935 to Army Captains sailed off from a south dakota es