Years of Upheaval

by Henry Kissinger

  And so it turned out. When I met the President on May 18, at the Elysée Palace, Pompidou emerged as the first European leader to deal seriously with the substance of the Year of Europe. He did not resort to procedural evasions and went straight to the heart of the problem. He had some comments to make about my April speech, he said. He did not share the general reaction to my reference to Europe’s regional role. If I had asserted that Europe had no right to its own opinion, it would have been a different matter. But I had not done so — a point neglected by most journalistic critics. I had merely stated an objective reality. It was “more or less true,” Pompidou continued, that Europe represented a secondary power (an assertion that went much further than mine had). He also agreed that the Atlantic nations had before them a vast agenda of unresolved problems that needed to be solved simultaneously. It was not possible to overcome economic disputes, for example, without a framework of shared political and military strategy. He looked forward to discussing the whole range of outstanding questions with Nixon in Reykjavik.

  Pompidou understood that East-West détente, in particular, highlighted the need for some agreement on overall goals. Essentially he was worried that Nixon had gone too far in his overtures to the Soviets. What especially bothered him was the Agreement on the Prevention of Nuclear War, which was due to be signed by Nixon and Brezhnev in June and on which we were keeping Pompidou regularly informed (see Chapter VII).

  He interpreted it — erroneously, in my view — as renouncing nuclear war between the superpowers and thus opening Europe and China to pressures below the threshold of all-out war. Had Nixon a different policy from mine? Were we still pursuing a policy of balance between the various power centers, or were we siding with the Soviet Union against China? And what would be our attitude to a “camouflaged” Soviet advance, one that came, that is, “without recourse to force but . . . as a ‘progressive tide’?” In other words, what would we do if Communist-dominated forces gained control of vital Third World countries or perhaps even of European parliaments?

  It was a penetrating, prescient set of questions, which identified the key problems of the next decade. The American strategy of détente was based on garnering support among moderate elements at home, avoiding appearing to our allies as a source of international tensions, giving the Soviets an opportunity for a reasonable accommodation, but it was never an end in itself. If Soviet expansionism continued, we were determined on a firm response and our policy was disposed to create the widest possible base for it. Still, it was true that Pompidou had spotted its weak point: Détente might confuse tactics with strategy, rhetoric with reality. If a leader as subtle as Pompidou was uncertain, there was a serious risk that in the effort to demonstrate a commitment to peace we might demoralize the traditional opponents to Soviet expansionism. In removing the argument that NATO was an obstacle to peace, we might also confuse its perception of the danger. All this might give momentum to what Pompidou called the “progressive tide” — in 1973 still only a ripple on the horizon.

  Whether the United States would have been able to square this circle in a normal Presidency will never be known. We obviously thought not only that we could but that in the long run we could strengthen the West’s cohesion in no other way. In the fetid atmosphere of Watergate, when Nixon’s hopes of broadening his base by a moderate policy were being shattered, we ran the dual risk that camouflaged Soviet advances would confuse the public while attempts to rally resistance would find no constituency.

  Pompidou had indeed asked the basic question that Americans above all are reluctant to address: Do we, as the strongest free nation in the world, resist the fact of change or the method of change? Do we seek to prevent only that Soviet expansion brought about by illegitimate means (however “illegitimate” is defined), or do we have a stake in defending the geopolitical equilibrium whatever the method by which it is challenged — even if, as Pompidou put it, the assault on it is disguised as a “progressive tide”?

  A tradition of faith in international law and an historical reluctance to think in terms of balance of power incline Americans to the view that we resist only the method and not the fact of change. And of course we cannot, and should not, be wedded to a blind defense of every status quo. Justice as well as stability must be a goal of American foreign policy, and indeed they are linked. Yet there are changes in the international balance that can threaten our nation’s security and have to be resisted however they come about. For a century England went to war rather than permit the port of Antwerp to be acquired by a major power, by any methods. Control of the seas, the prerequisite to Britain’s survival, was considered incompatible with the existence of a secure naval base so close to Britain’s lifeline. As the product of a similar tradition, Pompidou was asking whether there were comparable limits to American forbearance. His question placed me in a quandary. Intellectually, I agreed with him. The security of free peoples depended on whether the United States could develop a concept of national interest that we would defend regardless of the guise that challenges to it might take. But I also knew that this ran counter to American stereotypes of foreign policy and that I was in no position to give him an unequivocal answer.

  The philosophical thrust of the foreign policy of the Nixon Presidency was to develop such a perception of the national interest and to educate our people to its complexities. Unfortunately, the Vietnam war confused the terms of reference and Watergate was on the verge of submerging the debate. For reasons extraneous to our foreign policy we were losing the ability to make our fundamental point: that our nation had a duty to defend the security of free peoples if it wanted to preserve its own; that to resist challenges to the equilibrium in the early stages is an inherently ambiguous task. For if one waits till the challenge is clear, the cost of resisting grows exponentially; in the nuclear age it may become prohibitive.

  A nation and its leaders must choose between moral certainty coupled with exorbitant risk, and the willingness to act on unprovable assumptions to deal with challenges when they are manageable. I favor the latter course. Indeed, shrinking resources leave us no other realistic choice. But it carries with it the burden that it can never be proved whether the sacrifices it demands are in fact necessary. Had France resisted the reoccupation of the Rhineland by Hitler in 1936 — clearly the seminal event in the outbreak of World War II — it would have succeeded at minimal cost. But then Ph.D. theses would still be written debating whether Hitler was a misunderstood nationalist or a maniac bent on world domination. Four years later everyone knew what Hitler was; the knowledge was acquired at the cost of millions of lives.

  The statesman’s duty is to bridge the gap between his nation’s experience and his vision. If he gets too far ahead of his people he will lose his mandate; if he confines himself to the conventional he will lose control over events. The qualities that distinguish a great statesman are prescience and courage, not analytical intelligence. He must have a conception of the future and the courage to move toward it while it is still shrouded to most of his compatriots. Unfortunately, while it is true that great are the statesmen who can transcend ambiguity, not everyone who confronts ambiguity is a great statesman. He may even be a fool.

  And so in the year of Watergate and after a decade of Indochina, I spoke to Pompidou more as a professor than as a diplomat. We would maintain the world balance of power at all costs, I said. There were some changes we would not accept, however disguised the catalyst — even if it appeared as a “progressive tide.” He was wrong, therefore, in believing that Nixon had opted for the Soviet Union over China. On the whole we would prefer not to have to choose, but if we did:

  There is no sense in choosing the strongest against the weakest. If the Soviet Union managed to render China impotent, Europe would become a Finland and the United States would be completely isolated. It is therefore consistent with our own interests not to want and to try not to permit that the Soviet Union should destroy China. . . . How can one support China? Today, such
an idea would not be conceivable for American opinion. We need several years to establish with China the links which make plausible the notion that an attack directed against China could be an attack on the fundamental interests of the United States. This is our deliberate policy.

  As for the “camouflaged Soviet advance,” I said that we would do our maximum to prevent the deterioration of Western vigilance in which such circumstances could arise. This was the reason we wanted to give a new moral dimension to Atlantic relations, to create a new commitment to common goals and values. It was in this spirit that Nixon would come to Reykjavik.

  But even as I uttered these reassuring phrases, I was sick at heart. The America of Watergate would probably not be able to muster the domestic support to give effect to them, and the Europe of competitive approaches to Moscow might not listen even after America had recovered its unity. Yet to admit this would accelerate all the dangerous trends. Sometimes one can do no better than maintain the faith against seeming odds and trust to Providence to prevent the worst.

  Pompidou replied with understanding. He knew the obstacles we faced, and ironically the time left to him was now too short for him to do more than concern himself with palliatives. In this mood he responded by emphasizing the tactical. He was going to Iceland to achieve a “positive thing.” He was ready for “real discussion” of a new document by which the allies could reaffirm their solidarity and their long-range purpose: “We must talk to one another so that Europeans will not have the impression that things are dictated by the United States.” And with this, after a month of fruitless exchanges, I began to think that we were at last on the verge of an important European-American dialogue of the kind we had envisaged.

  Icebergs in Reykjavik

  THE summit between Nixon and Pompidou at Reykjavik on May 31 and June 1, 1973, failed to fulfill these hopes. That we went there with every intention of making a breakthrough is shown by our internal debates. Our economic agencies, for example, were convinced that their goal of a floating monetary system had been nearly frustrated at the Azores in 1971, when Pompidou and Nixon had settled the monetary crisis initiated by our abrogation of limited gold convertibility.5 Despite Nixon’s promise to Pompidou then to defend the dollar — which implied fixed exchange rates — our neglect, or inability (depending on the point of view), to do so had by March 1973 brought about in fact the very practice of floating exchange rates that our Treasury had always preferred and the French had equally strenuously opposed.

  As we headed for another Franco-American summit, my friend George Shultz was concerned that we might sell these hard-won gains — as they then appeared — for a mess of pottage, which is how the proposed Atlantic Charter appeared to economists. In his thoughtful, understated manner he submitted a memorandum to the President just before our departure. Its basic point was that Nixon should not retreat from our position on monetary reform for vague French promises of political cooperation. It was a reasonable position for Treasury to take; it was necessary for the political leadership to reject it. I mention it here only to stress the irony that our own associates’ fears contradicted those of our European critics.

  Nixon and I, caught between the hesitations of our bureaucracy and the suspicions of some of our allies, proceeded in what we took to be the spirit of my conversation with Pompidou. Jobert had asked me to send him a “private,” that is, unofficial, paper — if such a thing is possible between senior diplomats. Pompidou and he, he said, would study our views in preparing for the summit and respond constructively. Whether this was another of Jobert’s subtle traps or the product of his sardonic, playful cynicism that delighted in making us appear the supplicant, I saw no harm in responding; the French would have to come to grips with our views sooner or later. On May 26, I transmitted a memorandum through our Ambassador, John Irwin. It summed up our thinking. The paper was entitled “Proposed Outcome of the Meeting Between Presidents Nixon and Pompidou in Iceland.” The operative paragraph described what we had in mind for an “Atlantic Declaration”:

  We would like to reach an understanding to begin the process of drawing up a set of principles of Atlantic relations by the time the President visits Europe later this year. The principles could be embodied in a document which could be published as a Declaration to which the countries that are members of the North Atlantic Alliance and the European Communities would subscribe. We are, however, flexible as to the precise form that such a set of principles would take or what name to give them. . . .

  But we would like to reach some understanding on the categories of topics to be included, e.g.,

  — a fresh statement of the values and broad interests shared by the Atlantic nations,

  — a definition of common security interests and objectives under the strategic conditions of the seventies.

  — basic approaches to East-West relations and to relations with third areas,

  — principles of cooperation on such common problems as the environment, energy supply, exchange of technology, etc.,

  — and the basic approach to economic relationships, including trade negotiations and the effort to reform the international monetary system.

  There was no time for a French reply before we met in Iceland.

  In the interval, Heath and Pompidou had had a private meeting, which once again underlined European reserve. Neither side gave us much of an account even though the principal topic of their conversation was an American initiative. The French told us nothing at all — as if their consultations with Britain did not concern us. Heath wrote a noncommittal letter friendly in tone, sparse in content, repeating what Pompidou had already told us himself: that the French President was going to Iceland with a “positive attitude.” From that point on, Heath was to strike the pose of a pained bystander at an incipient family quarrel.

  While we learned little of the private discussions, the public omens were bleak. The idea of an early Atlantic summit, which both Pompidou and Brandt had earlier endorsed, was pushed into the remote future. Heath and Pompidou now refused to set a date unless and until bilateral and multilateral consultations warranted a higher-level meeting. This was, of course, a tautology: Since the result of consultations would depend on the will of the governments involved, those reluctant to have a summit had the veto inherent in the capacity to drag their feet. Indeed, by refusing to establish a target date, Heath and Pompidou created incentives for procrastination. They thwarted any attempt at using the prospect of a summit, or even of a Presidential trip to Europe, as a deadline to accelerate talks. Lest any misunderstanding remain, the two leaders allowed the press to learn from their aides that they saw no chance of the consultations being completed by the end of 1973.

  But Nixon was preoccupied with Watergate, I with another round of Vietnam negotiations, and neither of us had yet begun to understand that the Year of Europe might turn into an adversary procedure. Reluctant to face the debilitating impact of Watergate, constrained by procedures marvelously designed to confuse the issue, impelled more by righteous conviction than by cool calculation, we read the tea leaves to give us the answers we wanted. We would not face the fact that it was either too late or too early for the new era of creativity, the vision of which had sustained us through the anguish of Vietnam.

  Before turning to the purpose of our visit to Iceland, we had to meet the leaders of that hard land of rockstrewn tundra and stark mountains, where amidst the nearly perpetual daylight of summer and the endless gloom of winter an admirable people wrests a living from the reluctant soil and the merciless seas. As is diplomatic custom, Nixon, Secretary of State Rogers, and I called on the Icelandic government to thank its key members for their hospitality. We found them polite but only slightly interested in the Franco-American summit. Their overwhelming concern was the war they were about to start with Britain over codfish.

  The issue was territorial rights over offshore waters. Iceland claimed to have exclusive fishing rights in waters lying between it and Britain; it raised implicatio
ns for defense and for access to deep-sea minerals. Whatever the merit of Iceland’s legal position, the little country meant to enforce it by the threat of closing the NATO airbase on its soil and if necessary by war with Britain. British trawlers and a British warship had already been attacked by Icelandic speedboats, which made up in skillful handling for what they lacked in firepower. The Icelandic ministers were uttering dire threats of escalating military action while Nixon and Rogers implored them to withhold the final sanction.

  I sat there in wonderment. Here was an island with a population of 200,000 threatening to go to war with a world power of 50 million over codfish, and here was a superpower that considered it necessary (a) to express a view and (b) to restrain not the stronger but the weaker. Nixon and Rogers made soothing noises while the Icelandic ministers implacably insisted on what in any previous period would have seemed suicide. I thought of a comment by Bismarck over a century earlier that the weak gain strength through effrontery and the strong grow weak because of inhibitions. That little tableau in the town hall of Reykjavik — the beseeching superpower, the turbulent tiny country threatening to make war against a nation 250 times its size and to leave NATO (without which it would be defenseless) — said volumes about the contemporary world and of the tyranny that the weak can impose on it.

  That same evening — May 30 — I called on Michel Jobert for what I thought would be a routine preparatory meeting for the encounter of the two principals. As in the Azores in 1971, the French had managed to obtain the best accommodations on the island, a large villa where Jobert and I met around 10:00 P.M., which in Iceland at that time of the year was broad daylight. For some reason Jobert preferred that the room reflect the conditions that would have obtained farther south. Heavy drapes produced the darkness to which he was accustomed at this hour, necessitating the use of electric light. Jobert wasted little time in getting to the point, which was quite the opposite of Pompidou’s encouraging goodwill of two weeks earlier. Indeed, it turned out to be a catalogue of grievances against the United States. If Pompidou was coming to Iceland to achieve something “positive,” as he had told me, he would clearly reserve that for his personal encounter with Nixon.