I just wanted to mention a couple of special guests. We have our distinguished speaker this evening, i wanted to mention a couple of special guests. We have our distinguished speakers daughter here and her husband. We have betsy hewitt, the wife of newly elected hugh hewitt. Our distinguished speaker was to dr. Kissinger as dr. Kissinger was to nixon. He was with dr. Kissinger during the peace accords in 1973. He was with president nixon in moscow during his first president ial trip there. He was there for kissingers shuttles between arabs and israelis. He was a key actor in president nixons historic trip to china. He was state Department Director of policy and planning, ambassador to the peoples republic of china and assistant secretary of state for South East Asia and Pacific Affairs part he conducted several hours of oral histories of dr. Kissinger on behalf of the Nixon Foundation. He conducted several hours of oral history on behalf of the Nixon Foundation and the collection of interviews cover a variety of subject matter. Strategy andership this highly readable book called kissinger on kissinger reflections on diplomacy, grand strategy, and leadership. It is available for purchase at our museum store. Ambassador lord will be interviewed by dr. Frank gannon. He obtained his masters degree at the London School of economics and doctorate at oxford. He worked with churchill to write the definitive biography of his father, winston churchill. A in 1974, he left washington to california aboard air force one following the early resignation on president nixons bestselling memoir. Nixon. Rviewed president they are all available in digital format. We will see some of these videos in the presentation tonight. Hewitt visited in new york city, knowing that assador work thatked for us to note winston lord is a really good friend. It is my pleasure to introduce dr. Frank gannon. [applause] thank you all for coming and for being here. It is a great pleasure and an to be here. I found one of several references in the various memoirs. I will not be the one about him being a terrible punster. It became one of my best collaborators, conscience and close. He was familiar with my lou my views. Of course, after the association , he went onsinger to a very distinguished career, which could be the subject of another talk. ,ou have an excellent book which is you are in addition of a number of interviews that you conducted with dr. Kissinger. That, we haveing heard some of the things in the book, but it will be openended. Accessibleshort and and interesting. To buyt thing to do is it and read it. You cannot go wrong. Ares appropriate that you at the library because the Nixon Foundation played a part. I have been going around the country, promoting this book nothing else compares with this one. This is about the nixon and kissinger Foreign Policy. Hours of interview. Also very relevant, not it isn the fact crucial and i am delighted. The interview in this book, the interviews that we did give detailed. Interviews,al panels on some of the key events. Kissingervailed upon to do one interview to reflect that. It is extraordinary. On the years. Ng here will be extraordinary for a 30yearold talking about last weeks news. The point i am making is that the foundation, together with National Archives supported interviews, and no one was more jonathan, whothan ran the video was essential in the composition and editing of and worked closely. If it were not for jonathan and jeff, and the foundations that i mentioned in my acknowledgment, we would not have this. , the fact we are looking for ways to make this a bestseller. We have another idea that we are toying with. Presley press release before it was issued. Vocalized. Nd of mine the iphone cut off the last two letters of the book. He got very excited, thinking he calledting a book kissinger on kissing. I have a very short video that was made for dr. Kissingers 94th birthday. Clips fromouple of the interviews. Six two hour interviews. This gives a very brief flavor of what the book is based on. [indiscernible] improvement of their relationship, of countries to each other, balancing of their self interest would promote u. S. And security of the nixon focused on objectives. In terms of experiences that he had with leaders. My approach was very similar to his in terms of focusing on objectives. Wasmaterial for my thinking his story. In terms of the situation that i had studied. Drawing from that. It was to prevent the soviet union from becoming the dominant country. Use of soviet military pressure was a feature of the cold war. Nixon began by opening up control of negotiations. Plan was to create additional incentives in china. We reversed the process and said ok. We will go to china first. What nixon said about china. The pointed it from of view of world order. Involved in the , it wouldnal system be transformed because all other countries would have to consider andimpact of china in terms he calculated that we might review the situation in which andica would be closer therefore had a strong bargaining position. The second day in office, i looked at more plan. The expected consequences of a nuclear war. Up without a strategy in which you could use them. They did not destroy civilization. Summit was a high point of the vietnam war. One of the main themes of the Nixon Administration. The possibility of negotiating agreement for peace. They had to indicate specific them. To combine nature that nixon conducted. View thatays had the the breakthrough in negotiation would come when one of the arab that sovietncluded military support was not the way to achieve their objectives. During the war, we managed to establish ourselves as mediators between the arab and israeli side. Ended, and we be had to do this in conjunction with the soviet union because Thesoviet Union still had main influence in the arab world. People would have said this is absolute madness. The task of taking a society from where it is to where it has never been. Ou need courage [applause] nixon liked to spring surprises. To hisouncement principal advisors ticked all of those boxes. A harvard professor who was a and member ofter the Kennedy Administration was a harvard professor who had worked for his arrival. Consider that i spent years of my life trying to prevent him from becoming president , it amazes me that he chose me to become his advisor. They were a truly couple. Why do you think that kissinger said yes . It was strange. Nixon showed great courage in doing this. He was a conservative from the many. Oast, distrustful of teaching them. They had actually never met. Had read his books. Nixon wanted to dominate Foreign Policy. He was so interested in this. He knew that he needed enable, thoughtful National Security advisor. He put politics aside and thought about the National Interest and what would serve his interest in forging a new world order. He was asked by the president to be National Security advisor. Instead of saying yes immediately, he hesitated. Partly out of misplaced loyalty and partly not entirely sure where he would be going. Him out and said, you have to serve the country. He is taking a chance by thinking you. Henry would have said yes anyways because he would be serving the National Interest. Analyzedmeone who had Foreign Policy all his life, and i am sure that he leapt at the chance. Jfk andeen advisor to consulted with johnson and other president s. These are the main motives. It is in the forward of the book. The common approach to Foreign Policy. Teaching a conceptual approach that looks at the world new term that takes into account the impact of what you do in one just ad does not kneejerk reaction, but ties it together. Shared aear that they worldview, which i think was a major leap. It was clearly why kissinger was happy to join him. They had different strengths. He knew many World Leaders and had studied Foreign Policy. Kissingers strength was philosophical, conceptual, strategic. They had the same interesting strategy. It was a wonderful mix. President ed with the and the president elect wanted to bring the Foreign Policy apparatus into the white house. Very interesting things i have never seen before where they go see the dying general eisenhower at walter reed and he gives them very specific advice. He has a brush with the former general. It is an interesting anecdote. Strategy,y recalls but he punctuates the recounting with anecdotes, some revealing and others amusing. It was early in the administration. Kissinger had the conventional. Istaken view is one of our great president s, and my opinion. They just had a meeting. The very next day, not because of the meeting but there was a leak in the press about what had happened. Outnhower to kissinger saying, how dare you let this get out into the public. If i cani am not sure control this. He gained henrys Great Respect as a result. That was from some of the very first weeks, plagued by leaks. Before we get into talking about the book, i want to talk about you. Student inigh school the early 50s. What did you think that he wanted to be you grew up . Secretary of state. No. I had an interest in Foreign Policy fairly early on for two reasons. My mother was very much in the public service. She was an ambassador to the u. N. For human rights. She had a heart for international and domestic issues. Secondly, i did a lot of traveling when i was young. Vacations was uzbekistan. I wanted to go into this field, but i was not sure of how. I took a lot of political history courses. I went to the graduate school where i wet my met my wife. Weekook notes in my weakct, side to side subject, so i decided to become her friend. You also have a very distinguished academic career. What was the path that led you to kissinger . I worked i worked for a man who ended up suing kissinger. Staff. D me to join his he wanted me to go with him. Join his staffto a month after. But we should not spend too much time on me. We want to spend it on kissinger. It was a great opportunity. It was a 50 minute interview. Concede the chaos. The phone and looking at memos. He said, i want debate, but if you lose the ballot battle on policy, i want you to carry it on. Here is that as i was sitting across the eisenhower we would send him memos, looking ahead. I wrote several memos that were critical on raising questions about some of the things nixon and kissinger were doing. He did not like the yes men or yes women. He wanted debate. He would be brutal. As long as you argued intelligently, he respected that. This was a good example of someone who encouraged debate. He is a legendarily difficult boss. Some of the stories have to be where there is smoke, there is some fire. True or untrue . He was one of his top assistants. It was in the middle of some crisis. He stepped over the guys body to get to the phone. I will give you another example. Unbelievable respect and affection for henry. Even if you dont to him the do not send him the transcript for this meeting. He was extremely demanding. If you read nothing else, read the forward, the personal portrait. I do refer to some of them as attractive aspects. He stretched my nerves and patients, but he also stretched my horizons. I appreciate him for the climb, as well as the view. Speechwriting. I can write fairly well. I do nonfiction. I would give speeches for henry. It would go Something Like this. Just beforeould be the redskins kicked off against the cowboys. That was pretty annoying. That is one reason why i quit about once a week. This is about 90 true. It gives you the flavor. He would give me a topic to write a speech and i would come two days later with a draft. I would go away and do a second draft. He would say, is this the best that you can do . I would say, let me try again. This would go on for six drafts and i am getting a little bit annoyed. Draft,ly say on the six i have looked at every sentence, tweaked every and dust; semi colon. And; he would stretch winston by the way, he would push me on writing memos to the president for him because he knew i could write. Another staff member might be good on research. He had a sense of where to push and where not to push. You recommend reading your foreword. I should have said, this book, it is not only unedited transcripts arranged in a very interesting and useful way, but it has introduction by dr. Kissinger, your set up and then you have introductions to each of the chapters. Winston i framed the chapters. Frank it is not uninterrupted it is not at all uninterrupted reading of just edited transcripts. Winston [indiscernible] [laughter] frank in the book, he has an interesting assessment of the nixon strategic vision. He talks about him as one of his main contributions, so interested in the conceptual aspects of Foreign Policy. Says to you, or he nixon was, except for the Founding Fathers and i would say Teddy Roosevelt the american , president who thought of Foreign Policy as grand strategy. It was an improving of countries to each other in a way that the balancing of their self interest would promote peace and the security of the united states. And he thought about that in relatively long range terms. Is that the way you thought of or think of nixon . Winston absolutely. I am the last remaining centrist in america. I am a flaming centrist. I mentioned that because i have worked for republican and democratic president s. I have voted for both. I was a political appointee of reagan and of clinton. When i say of the seven president s i have served, nixon was by far the most formidable in Foreign Policy, this is coming from a relative objective i worked for him but he is in a class by himself. The man has flaws. Who doesnt . You cannot take away the strategic approach. It is described in this film and also as you just said. Why he hadeason kissinger got along is because they approached things the same way. He not only he did a couple of things. He knew exactly how to work with kissinger. First of all, their worldviews coincided. But he struck a beautiful balance. Some president s micromanage. And for example jimmy carter used to determine who could play on the tennis court. Actually that is a pretty important subject. Not a bad idea. Some others would delegate completely. Have the white house dominate the process. He had to make the courageous decisions with the vietnam war, opening to china, dont know what the reaction is going to be, going to the middle east. He had to back up kissinger, and he had a strategic approach which kissinger could reflect, then he left it to henry to do the actual negotiations and the tactics, and never secondguessed him, and henry always had the confidence. They had enough shared worldview he would be backed up by the president. In china, before the historic visit in october, it is a public visit, the chinese presented a totally different approach how we should communicate totally , different approach from what nixon had approved before we left washington. In those days there was no way to communicate back home. Kissinger knew of the president s view and loyalty that he agreed to the chinese approach, which proved to be successful in the shanghai communique. It shows you how they work together. That was extremely important as well. Frank in addition to the sort of longterm grand strategic vision, there is an axiom that dr. Kissinger quotes i think at least three or four times in the book, so it meant something to him about no half , measures. Winston you got to pay for some kind of controversial policy whether you go halfway or all out. The china visit was carefully set up. We could get into that for two years. Still it was a very bold move to send the National Security advisor secretly to china. God knowing we had enough confidence the chinese had their own selfinterest group and the soviets who they were engaged with. But he could not know how the reaction was going to be back home. But he went full bore on that, taking a chance on negotiating in the middle east versus the soviet influence. Before the moscow summit, which came shortly after china, came about because of the china summit, got there attention, finally launched hanoi launched a major offensive against South Vietnam just as we were about to go to moscow. The president ordered a very tough response, even though he thought it might jeopardize the summit which we had worked on for so well, which had major arms control agreements teed up. It would have been a tremendous loss, but he wasnt about to go to moscow while americans and South Vietnamese are getting slaughtered by moscow allies. By the way, kissinger and i and bombing, even the though it is correct in terms of policy in vietnam, is probably going to sink the summit. I remember going in a helicopter to camp david to write the speech. We were bemoaning all of these late agreements going down the tubes. Nixon said no, the soviets will go ahead with the summit. They have too much self interest in it. He was absolutely right. An interesting episode happened to play out there. When we were in moscow, i was in charge of the president s briefing books, and we were sitting in an office near the kremlin or in the kremlin, and there was a space agreement being signed by president nixon , and then they were going to take a break for half an hour, and we were all going to go out in a motorcade to the statue to talk about vietnam. Even though they had agreed to have us come when we were bombing the hell out of their allies, they had to be tough with us and send a transcript to hanoi to show us they were loyal. Nixon would go out immediately in the motorcade without stopping leaving me behind with , the briefing books. And i frankly knowing henrys god her, i said oh my , was going to be mad even though it was not my fault. Managed to talk to the russian kgb to go out there in time thank god. ,the point here, it led up to a very interesting evening the , question of nixons courage to go over there and the russian reaction. We sat for three hours while the four top soviet leaders attacked nixon on vietnam so they could send the transcript to hanoi. And nixon just basically sat there and did not engage. He knew they were going through a charade. We then go upstairs to a banquet and the mood changes completely. Trying to get us all drunk and camaraderie, like nothing had ever happened. Now the Prime Minister negotiated at 2 00 in the morning after three hours of vodka. My whole point in this long , meandering story, nixon did have the qualities of both said, how dohenry you get from here to there . Sometimes it is lonely. And the courage to make those decisions. It is tough for leader to make these decisions because early in a crisis, you do not have full information, therefore you have to make a courageous decision based on inadequate knowledge of what is going to happen. You are 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, you are hemmed in and cannot do what you wanted to do. It is very tough. He made tactical decisions. They can be fairly tough. Otherwise bureaucracy would take care of it but it gets bumped up to the president. These strategic, big step decisions are the most difficult, so that is what you need in a president. Frank 5149 with the decisions that can be made at the lower level. It is the president but gets the tough ones. Winston i will give you one other example of kissinger i mean nixon on Foreign Policy in terms of interest and care. I was in charge of assembling his briefing books. I had to put them together and also held like some of it. We put together six briefing ck. Ks about this thi i swear nixon read every page. It was marked up, almost every page was marked up. Even as we were flying in air force one in guam and hawaii he , would send memos back, i want to know about this. What does mao think of this . What is a famous poem i can use in my toast . It was amazing. I have never seen the president work that hard in a meeting. Frank ambassador lord im sure , many or all of what you know is in the introductory video for the library exhibits. That is the point you made. You served eight president s . Winston seven. Frank seven, but who is counting . None were as prepared as him. Another aspect of this book is that it is sort of a master class in applied diplomacy. China, russia, the middle east. To start with china, we know that it worked out well. Thethe time, nixons idea of going to china was crazy, was unthinkable. Even one of our major ambassadors refused to believe it until he was called back. And how did you it can also sort of announced in the first weeks in the white house, how did you receive word of this and what did you think of it . Winston i wanted to make sure we have time for other questions from the audience. By the way, getting to china, its the courage again. Next in an kissinger consulted many outside experts including collecting information even when it was still secrets. They didnt know what it was for, but we got a lot of help from the experts. We also called in outsiders, and the next and talked to four top experts in the state department on the soviet union. They all told him, do not move toward china. Vacancy through public gestures that we were trying they could see through public gestures we were trying to change our policy. 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. When asked one. We had asked for we resisted one. Pressure. We were not making any progress with the soviets on arms control or berlin or any of these things. Triphe way in the public which covered our secret trip in july 1971, i had a call from the deputy to kissinger said in sign anybody, didnt fool listening on the phone, he said, the russians have once again turned down a summit. We would give the chinese the summit first. That he got back and nixon announced to the same committee to the fact that kissinger had was going to go the next year. Within days, the russians agreed to a summit. Within a week, they moved on arms control in berlin. So it just proves the people there is no war respects them just shows you how even the smartest people can get things wrong. What courage it took to go against it. Frank in the section on vietnam, dr. Kissinger really definitively lays out two of the ongoing controversies. Troublesome chivalry and one of them is the notion that the agreement that was achieved in 1973 could have been achieved earlier. Can you winston yeah. Vietnam is controversial. No one can sit here and say it a splendid outcome. It was a terrible outcome. The north vietnamese violated the agreement. I understand the controversy. God knows we lost a lot of lives. I respect those who felt we should not have gone in or we should have gone out sooner. I do not respect those who glorify the viet cong and north vietnamese. I do respect those who disagree. On the agreement itself, there are two persistent critiques i disagree with completely. One is that we could have had the deal sooner and the other is the deal we got was a cynical fake one knowing South Vietnam would collapse. We had to cover our rear end. We never should have made the deal that we should have made sooner. You cant have both arguments. This is a big subject. We got to get to other things. Futurested that for the political fate of vietnam to north and South Vietnam. We werent going to overturn 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 and there were going to be four more years of this madman, and so there better be a deal. They caved in and gave us a military settlement. 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 Towards collapse of a communist take over. We held out against that and we managed to beat the vietnamese at their game. However that was never possible before that. We outlined as early as the nixon speech in 1970 and we gave a specific sevenpoint proposal may 1971lped draft in they said, you cannot just leave. We couldnt even get our president back. The first argument we could have had was absolute nonsense. Second argument, people can disagree on. This is after all collapse and , people can say we should have known the South Vietnamese were not that strong or that the congress would not back up enforcement. But we felt of the deal was not decent. 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 him elected. They did the best they could. We felt that the deal we were not naive about hanois treachery. But we felt with his military settlement only the deal could survive, and we were not looking for a we were looking for a decent opportunity for South Vietnam to determine its future. And that america could not be there forever. We had trained them to build up their forces. At some the American People point deserve to have us turn over the war. Although under honorable conditions. We thought it was a minor ceasefire violation, the South Vietnamese were Strong Enough to handle it with our economic and military aid. We felt incorrectly and naive perhaps that it was a major innovation, and it was, that the u. S. Congress and people would back bombing to prevent that. Not sending in troops. Nobody wanted to do that. With all of the north vietnamese treachery we thought even with , the antiwar movement, people would be willing to go back and bomb. That was wrong it turned out. We honestly thought that would be the case. Thirdly we offered economic incentives to hanoi as well as their allies so they could debate among themselves. This could offer objectives for aid for reconstruction. Lets go along with this deal. We will take out american troops and we will just bide our time. Take the aid. That was incentive. Fourth, we thought china and russia would help persuade hanoi to behave themselves. Note these assumptions did work out, reasonable people can challenge it, but they have to come up with what we should have done. Stayed on longer . With American Opinion the way it was and all we had done for South Vietnam . Or go all out . Nukes and bombs . There were not great alternatives. I do not respect these two arguments which i think are phony. Frank earlier tonight, you said that dr. Kissinger says the moment of october 1972, the north vietnamese changed for the first time their position and made settlement possible. Just as he does in the book. It was the single greatest highlight of his career. And he said when hanoi came around to our position in october 1972 after exhausting years of secret negotiations and all the fighting and treachery we went out in the garden after , the meeting, he said take a break he shook my hand and said, weve done it. The vietnam situation getting , our pows back, ending the anguish on we thought honorable terms. The president thought it was meaningful because in 1970, without going into detail, i came very close to quitting. In fact cambodia [indiscernible] impractical domestic opposition. I was very close to quitting. My wife talked me out of it. She has always steered me in the right direction. Henry and my wife, you can go on waving a placard or you can stay here and work for peace. And so given that i almost left , over vietnam. For us to be working together, it was honestly emotional for me. I have been touched by the fact he sites that at the top of his list. Frank one last question before we open to the audience, who i expect will have some more contemporary questions. On the august 8, the night of the president made his resignation speech, Henry Kissinger asked if he could walk nixon home from the oval office to the residence, as he had done on so many happier occasions. I think trying to cheer up nixon, kissinger says, mr. President , history will treat you well. Nixon says, henry, that depends on who writes the history. It has been 50 years since nixon became president , 45 since he resigned, 25 since he died. How has history treated Richard Nixon . Winston that is a big question. It depends on what platform you are talking about. I think it is oversimplified but even his critics point to the china opening that is the only thing he did. If you look at the exhibit, i must say domestic policy, whether it is the environment or womens rights or going off the Gold Standard as well as his foreignpolicy, others, the middle east and detente, it is wrong for the critics to say that is the only good thing he did. The certified obit is even on china, they say it was inevitable. It was easier for him then it would have been for you and humphrey because humphrey would have gotten pummeled by the republicans. But it took great courage and even on the air force one coming home from beijing, next in an kissinger were worried about the reception to what just happened. They did not realize the impact of the television the chinese , military army playing american songs, this whole thing. The first summit that had a major impact. It was seen as a great triumph. And by the way, helps the morale the American People had been theatigued not only by vietnam war, but racial riots, assassinations, demonstrations. And people were just depressed. And to see that you can open up one corridor of humanity, so to put the ambivalence on the economic perspective, it showed he could still act on the world stage. I think nixon and kissinger deserve great credit. I think the longer we go on, the kinder history will be. Now lets face it. Some of the criticism i say that at the next and library, someone who is respected he did some bad things. And he paid for them. And it is a shame. I am not saying they were not deservedly paid for. They just did things that were unfortunate. This man, because of the paranoia about his enemies, some of which was justified went into , a dark area. It is just a shame because he was poised to be a truly great president in my opinion. Now it is going to be a mixed bag because he made mistakes. Incredible landslide. He had the war behind us. He opened up to china, he talked with the soviet union, he was moving with solidified alliances with our friends, he was moving in 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 in a book, she said nixon was lousy in foreign, but he was terrific in domestic affairs. This was from a liberal, pat moynihan. It was it is just a shame. We all know it was the coverup, not the crime. That so destroyed his presidency. He will still go down as a good president , but he could have been a great president except for this unnecessary selfinflicted wound. It is really tragic. I might add kissinger is doing a really expensive portrait of nixon. He has already done that for a forthcoming book. I will be interested to hear what he has to say. Winston frank before we go to questions, ladies and gentlemen, please join me in thanking ambassador lord. [applause] before i want to remind everyone that kissinger on kissinger is available in the store. As i said earlier ambassador lord will sign your copies. As the former ambassador to the peoples republic of china, could you comment a little bit on the situation in hong kong right now . Winston relations with china . On the Current Situation in hong kong. Winston 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, democracy was on the march and countries were turning to more democratic regimes. It looked like the end of history, to use a quote. We got too confident about it. The last 10 years in particular the last few years, we have gone in reverse, whether it is china getting more repressive, prudent doing his usual putin doing his usual act turkey, saudi arabia, other tendencies nationalism is on the rise. And retreat. Mewhat i dont think it is permanent but it is depressing. We have seen a few flickers lately around the world that comeback,what of a people who want freedom have not given up. You see it in turkey, you see it in hungary, you see it even in the soviet union. Hong kong is the most dramatic example. It is about other issues as well. Essentially hong kong wants to be hong kong and not a 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. And by the way democracy is more than elections. It is freedom of press, independent judiciary and so on. These Civil Liberties have been eroded. It started off relatively well. China promised to let hong kong be different, one country, two systems, but that has been eroding. The selfcensorship as well as censorship in the press, the rule of law, and the chinese have been kidnapping publishers of books literally who publish books they did not like. Anyway a lot of things going on. , it has been brought to a head by a bill that the hong kong government, puppet of beijing, introduced which says you should chinado extradite to anybody we dont like. I am oversimplifying. That was the final straw. That is what the demonstrations are about. Extraordinary they have gone on 15 months. That is the good news. The bad news is, we should speak encourage, behalf. We should encourage, we should speak out on their behalf. There is a bill in congress which would deter the chinese from cracking down by saying in effect, if you crack down, you no longer reflect the status of hong kong being a different kind of city. You get the same economic treatment there as you get elsewhere in anywhere in china. It would really hurt them. Their gdp is 20 they depend on hong kong as finance and investment. This would be a great deterrent against the chinese cracking down. I think we should pass with bipartisan it would be nice to have something in washington that is bipartisan. It would hold accountable elitists involved in the crackdown, whether it is hong kong or chinese. That is what we ought to do. There is no way that china, this leader in particular, is going to let hong kong get out of control. And so they are not going to give in on a major demand. Part of the problem is in this demonstration, the good news is there is no leaders. The bad news is there is no leaders, unlike previous demonstrations. There is no way to organize and to come up with demands. They have five demands, one of which it will not be met. Had some leaders, they could negotiate with the hong kong government. As tough as it is, getting some of the demands met but now the chinese dont want to go in, but trust me. That is the only option they have to put this down or go in. Like the soviets went in the campaign wearing green uniforms. If you had asked me to predict i think it is sadly where we will end up, that they are going to exhaust the focus. It has been going on for 15 weeks but how many times can you , leave your school and business and put on a teargas mask and go out and risk your future career, you know, weekend after weekend . Unfortunately, some has been violent, which should not have been which gives the chinese good propaganda. The chinese strategy, these people will wear themselves out at some point. They have already been surprised how long it has gone on. They censor their own news and get their own citizens of stoked nationalism stoked up on nationalism. Chinese nationalism is on the rise. That is one where they stay in power along with the economic gains. They get the tycoons in hong kong nervous about their Economic Future and disruptions which is happening. , they jail past leaders, not future ones, some of whom are in this country right now, temporarily on bail. And they figure through censorship, propaganda, pressure, the tycoons selfinterest, they will get this thing to subside. I think that is probably what will happen. We do have a deadline of october 1, the chinese anniversary, 70th anniversary of the founding of the party, and it is embarrassing for this to be going on when thats happening, but i think you have to put up with that rather than resorting to a crackdown. Sorry to take such a long time on one question. I will promise to be shorter from now on. But it is a complicated situation. As i said at the outset, it is both hopeful and dangerous. Jonathan sir jonathan we have a question in the back row. Sir, in light of the current trade war with china, what is the likelihood, because of the severe stress on the chinese economy, that the Chinese Government opts for a shooting war rather than losing face by caving to washington . Winston a shooting war . No they wont do a shooting war. By the way, xi, as you know, hes dictator for life, he has got all the powers, which means all the successes he gets credit for, but hes going to get the blame when things go wrong. Between hong kong and the slowing of their economy, prompted by trump being tough, he may be in difficulty. Not to mention the anticorruption campaign, which has wiped out enemies as well as bad people. You know, we are talking hundreds of thousands of people, including at the highlevel. So, hes in a dilemma on both of these issues, and i have already mentioned hong kong. With respect to the economy, the problem is they cant figure out trump. He is very unpredictable. Some say that is an asset. I think it can be to keep them keep people off balance, but in this case, they are so confused, china will just wait him out. Either we get a solution before whether we get a solution before the election depends on trumps calculation. Which is better for his reelection . Should he be mr. Tough guy, not get a bad deal and be attacked for doing it . Or is that going to spook the stock market and the economy, and you had better make a deal . I think what will happen, we will have a new deal where the chinese will agree to buy more soybeans, etc. , america will lift tariffs, and both sides agree to kick the can down the road on the real issues, which is technology, intellectual theft, makingr our companies turn over technology and subsidizing. I think trump, number one, he shouldnt have withdrawn from a Major International trading fact pact in asia of 12 nations, the transpacific partnership, which did a lot of things for our economy and new issues like the environment and workers rights as well as opening up markets. But because it was under obama, trump didnt like it, and pulled out. We should have had that, as leverage on the chinese both on Economic Issues these countries dont like what china is doing, either, the protectionism as well as their geopolitical presence in asia. It was a big mistake to pull out of that. So id go back to that pact, join it. I would settle if i could with our allies the trade wars to get them on our side to pressure china. On tariffs, id be more selective, and i would go after state enterprises, which run against chinese reforms, so it is in their selfinterest over time to go back to private enterprise, and which are the companies that are the most subsidized, the most dangerous to compete with. I dont know that i would if that would solve the problem. But china wont go to a shooting war. It will wait trump out, make a thin deal, and kick the can down the road. Jonathan we have a question right here. I am a new immigrant, from china, living in yorba linda. In china, both Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger are very well known, and have a high reputation among Chinese People, particularly for Henry Kissinger. The chinese official propaganda, in the state owned newspaper like china daily, every time Henry Kissinger visited china, they call him Chinese Peoples old friend. Ok . This is a very noble title from the chinese newspaper. And among them, only a handful of foreign leaders enjoy that noble title, including cuba castro, and former president , and south africas mugabe, and kissinger is Chinese Peoples old friend. Do you think this is a positive, objective comment that Henry Kissinger deserves . If the Chinese People gave you that title, will you gladly accept it, or not . [laughter] winston many parts of the question. If i dont answer all of it, i will come back to it. I am happy to say there will be a chinese edition of this book, because of the interest and approval of kissinger. Certainly not because of my name, although i had something to do with the china opening. This will be published in china. It will be published in russia. 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 bestseller in america. [laughter] obviouslyo, no, it is an honorable acclaim for kissinger. Not only what he did for nixon with the opening, but he has been working tirelessly ever since as a intermediary between any american president , democrat or republican, and the chinese. He believes in serving any president in office, whatever they think of that person. So they respect not only the revolution he brought about in the relationship with the chinese leaders and nixon, but also that hes worked so hard ever since to have the relationship go well. And the chinese the fact they have some bad ideas, like calling mr. Castro an old friend, that is not henrys fault to be in that company. I dont mean that in any way, but they genuinely respect him. By the way, they stick my old friend when nixon was downed by watergate and was an expresident , the chinese warmly welcomed him, had him come over. That is their tradition. They are good at doing this, and they play on that. They play on your friendship, to try to get you to do favors for them, as part of their very skillful diplomacy. Jonathan we have a question right here. What subtle differences are you noticing in terms of the approach to Foreign Policy from the Nixon Administration to other republican administrations since then . Winston how many hours have we got . [laughter] winston thats a huge question. I cant do justice to it. What i say is selfserving because we served in this administration, but i served in many other administrations republican and democrat. ,i said this at the outset. I really feel that im not saying we didnt make mistakes, or the nixon and kissinger failed in certain areas or did controversial things. Of course they did. They were human, they were not perfect, but i think the strategic approach we have been discussing has never been replicated ever since. You dont necessarily have to have grand strategy. It sure helps, particularly when you inherit the landscape the landscape nixon and kissinger did, to get out of that, where we had no relationship with a quarter of humanity, a tense Nuclear Standoff with the other superpower, we had no influence in the middle east except in israel. We were bogged down in a war with tremendous of people upheaval in america. You had to have a grand strategy to get out of that, in my opinion. But today, since then, we havent seen that. That doesnt mean we havent had some good foreign policies. I think bush senior, the way they handled the end of the cold war after reagan made the breakthrough the way he did, bush assembled the coalition of arabs as well as other allies to go into repulse the invasion of kuwait, and then was smart enough not to march into baghdad and get bogged down. So it doesnt mean you cant be successful, but no one has approached it quite with the strategic and conceptual approach that nixon and kissinger did. 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, we are going to give them all we have, we will get criticized whether we give them a little bit or a whole bunch of help, so we are going to give them all the help we can. Winston thats consistent with what you pointed out. Dont do things halfway. I didnt get the first part. The idea was, henry advised with caution as opposed to winston im not sure thats correct. 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 about the premise of your question is correct. Some hesitation on the part of defense . There was it required nixon a couple of times to finally say winston i would agree with that part, namely that nixon deserves credit. You bolster the negotiating position about doing that. You dont weaken it. I am not sure about the kissinger lead in. You may be correct, but i dont believe so. I know he felt you dont separate pressure and incentives. You need both in strategy. Im sure he was in favor of it. But i will point out, this is a good example of in Foreign Policy, it is not a strategic approach we have been discussing, but a sense of timing. Part of the strategy when they came in was for the middle east. Nixon and kissinger wanted to supplant soviet influence in the middle east, which was quite extensive because of the supply of soviet arms. Nixon and kissinger wanted to show the arab nations that the soviets would help with your armaments, although they wont be able to defeat israel, but you wont get any territory back and you wont move towards peace and then have an honest broker like the united states. A strong ally of israel, but also in the interest to talk to both sides. When the yom kippur war broke out in october 1973, a few weeks after i was secretary of state i was with him at the u. N. General Assembly Session putting the finishing touches on a speech to the u. N. , and all hell breaks loose with the yom kippur war. And he is on the phone with the president and foreign minister, but also sits at his desk, finishing off this speech. What henry saw, nixon as well in terms of timing was the following. Beginning of the war, the egyptians made major advances against the israelis. First time israel had suffered military defeats. Israel, with our help, rebounded and began to move back and retake territory. They were then at a point where they surrounded the Egyptian Army and were about to wipe it out. Kissinger and i were with them, 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 by its military setbacks, and conceded maybe some negotiated settlement might be in their security interest. Before that this sort of suffered from some hubris about their military superiority. They 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 intout humiliation enter negotiations. By freezing that situation, for the first time kissinger and nixon saw 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 a good example of strategy, and also a matter of timing in how you implement the strategy. Dr. Kissinger comes up with a nice formulation he repeats a couple times in his interviews. War throughn the soviet arms for war, but for peace they need american diplomacy. We have time for one more question. Is a pleasure being here. First time. I am finally a republican as of yesterday. I changed parties. My question is, from my knowledge or experience, we never really understood, or i never understood, what was kissingers opinion of what happened in watergate, and how nixon handled it . Because from my opinion, he should have just said yes, and that would have been the end of it. Instead he tried to cover it up. So your opinion . I dont recall kissinger making any comments or what his thoughts were, how he handled it. Winston 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 sin of breaking in and looking through research on the opposition carried out originally without nixons knowledge. If he had just said, i didnt authorize it it was a mistake, it wont happen again, second term, all the opportunities we talked about thats why it is so sad. But i have to be honest, and he went to unacceptable lengths to cover it up, including criminal acts, and he paid for it, as i said earlier, and he deserved to pay for it. It is a real shame. So what kissinger would say, obviously he felt the 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 it was a terrible tactical mistake, and it was born out of, and there are many experts in nixon who know much more than i am, so i dont want to go too far, but he did have suspicions of certain enemies, and even somebody said paranoia. He did have some real enemies who were unfair, but he carried them too far, and its a real shame that happened. So it would be interesting to see whether kissinger addresses this more directly in his next portrait. Let me say closing here that i want to thank jonathan for what he did, to help get this book done and arranging this evening. Has obviously taken great care putting this together, as well as the clips. It has been a real pleasure. Frank thank you. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] jonathan dr. Kissinger on kissinger is available. Thank you all for coming. [applause] announcer 1 you are watching American History tv, 48 hours of programming on American History every weekend on cspan3. Follow us on twitter for information on our schedule and to keep up with the latest history news. This year cspan is going through cities across the country exploring American History. Next a look at our visit to laramie, wyoming. You are watching American History tv, all weekend, every weekend on cspan three. That are in the mansion Edward Ivinson built in laramie, wyoming in 1892. It is the home of the Laramie Plains museum. It has been restored because for about 10 years, it was vacant. And people broke in, vandalized the building. It has been a long and fruitful effort to make it into this museum we have here that ivinsonts not only the family but historical