Years of Upheaval

by Henry Kissinger

  At last, after two weeks, the hearings drew to a close. They had performed their function: The imperative of a show of Congressional vigilance had been fulfilled without impairing a subsequent relationship of confidence between the nominee and the committee. The Senators had been persistent but, by and large, constructive. If the hearings repeated disputes of the past more than they sketched visions of the future, they drained some of the venom from the controversies and permitted a fresh start to be made. And they contributed importantly to the good relations that continued between me as Secretary of State and the committee while Watergate moved inevitably to its conclusion. This relationship was never ruptured even when the accession of President Ford made it safe to reassert traditional partisanship. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee under Senator Fulbright and then Senator Sparkman remained for the next three and a half years true to the wise words with which it concluded its report on my nomination:

  It would be naive to assume that the Executive and Legislative Branches will always agree. But, if the issues are debated openly and clearly, it should be possible to avoid the public confusion, mistrust and alienation which have developed during the last decade.

  Each of the branches has its respective powers and responsibilities. Some conflict between the two is inevitable and may, on occasion, serve the national interest. From time to time in recent years each of the branches may have become overly assertive of its own powers but it is clear that the American constitutional system works best when each branch has a clear sense of the limits of its authority and of the rights of the other. We hope that this balance can be restored for neither branch is all-wise or all-powerful.

  On September 18, the committee voted 16–1 in favor of my nomination. Senator George McGovern, the lone dissenter, had telephoned the evening before to tell me of his high personal regard. He thought the Senate should confirm me; his negative vote, he said, was a debt owed to those who had supported his Presidential campaign and did not reflect his high regard for me or his eagerness to cooperate with me after my confirmation. I was not put off by McGovern’s attempt to carry water on both shoulders. Circumstances impose on any public official some demand for a show of hypocrisy, and he can only hope that when the final balance is struck the causes for which he fell short were worthy ones.

  On September 21 the full Senate voted 78–7 to confirm me. On September 22 Chief Justice Warren Burger administered the oath of office in the East Room of the White House in the presence of my parents and children, and under the genial but ambivalent auspices of President Nixon. The East Room is not large. It can seat no more than perhaps a hundred and fifty people at formal events, especially since a large part has to be given over to the news media. A lectern and platform were set up on the east side, facing an array of seats arranged in a semicircle. White-gloved military aides unobtrusively ushered the invited guests to their places. Congressional leaders from both parties attended, as well as Robert Strauss, Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, whose friendship then and thereafter was a testimony that the foreign policy of the United States reflects purposes that transcend the fluctuations of partisanship. Chief Justice Burger had interrupted a European trip to swear me in — a moving gesture. My parents were as in a dream; they had been driven out of their native country; thirteen members of our family had become victims of man’s prejudices. They could hardly believe that thirty-five years later their son should have reached our nation’s highest appointive executive office. I had set out to prepare some written remarks but found myself so tense that I gave up, and relied on the inspiration of the moment.

  Only Nixon seemed driven by his own demons. He did not join in the family gathering in the Red Room with the Chief Justice just before I was sworn in. His remarks at the swearing-in ranged from the perfunctory to the bizarre. He began by pointing out that I had overcome intense Congressional opposition to win confirmation — perhaps implying that he was not alone in having trouble with the legislative branch. He then sought to explain that my appointment represented yet another historic first, for three reasons: I was the first naturalized citizen to become Secretary of State; the first Secretary who had visited Peking and Moscow before his appointment; and the first Secretary of State since World War II who did not part his hair. He did not amplify the first two points but he pursued the last topic relentlessly, speculating as to what category Dean Rusk, who had no hair, belonged: “But then my barber, who is a very wise man and seldom wrong — I said, ‘But what about Secretary Rusk?’ And he said, ‘Well, Mr. President, he didn’t have much hair, but what he had, he parted.’ ” I replied, evading this fascinating subject but saying what was in my heart:

  Mr. President, you referred to my background, and it is true, there is no country in the world where it is conceivable that a man of my origin could be standing here next to the President of the United States. And if my origin can contribute anything to the formulation of our policy, it is that at an early age I have seen what can happen to a society that is based on hatred and strength and distrust, and that I experienced then what America means to other people, its hope and its idealism. And therefore, in achieving a structure of peace under your leadership, Mr. President, we will strive not just for a pragmatic solution to this or that difficulty, but to recognize that America has never been true to itself unless it meant something beyond itself.

  And as we work for a world at peace with justice, compassion and humanity, we know that America, in fulfilling man’s deepest aspirations, fulfills what is best within it.

  The ambivalence, to put it mildly, of the Nixon family to my appointment was shown by the fact that Mrs. Nixon — whom I admire — refused to join the receiving line after my swearing-in. Nixon disappeared immediately afterward, not mingling even for a few moments with the guests at the traditional reception in the State Dining Room.

  The following cable went out from the State Department to all diplomatic and consular posts a few moments later:

  DR. HENRY A. KISSINGER TOOK HIS OATH OF OFFICE AND ASSUMED THE DUTIES AS 56TH SECRETARY OF STATE AT 1106 EDT SEPTEMBER 22, 1973.

  The Department of State

  IN the West Wing of the White House, all the working offices are rather austere and small, even the President’s. The national security adviser, despite his supposedly fearsome power, has always had to make do with humble and compact quarters, sometimes on the ground floor, sometimes in the basement. The Department of State, in contrast, like most Cabinet departments, lavishes on its Secretary a spacious and elegant suite of offices on a regally high floor with a magnificent view of the city of Washington and its monuments. It provides a beautiful panorama of the Lincoln Memorial, the Potomac River, and Arlington National Cemetery. It took some getting used to. In my White House warren, if I wanted to express displeasure at some untoward happening in my usual emphatic way, it was a short walk to my door and my deputy was an available target a few steps beyond. In the State Department, my deputy seemed to be almost a mile down the corridor, and in any case by the time I reached the outer door of my own office I had usually forgotten what had triggered my charge. If I made it through the door I encountered the disapproving gaze of Jane Rothe (now Jane Rothe Mossellem). Coolly beautiful, unflappably efficient, Jane had served four previous Secretaries, imposed her own standards of how Secretaries of State should behave, and in the end proved as indispensable to me as to my predecessors.

  This was not the only or the most significant contrast. The qualities for the job of national security adviser do not translate so readily into the responsibilities of the Secretary of State as some incumbents may be tempted to believe. The Assistant for National Security Affairs is the President’s creation; he operates solely by Presidential mandate. He presides over a microscopic staff. His task as originally conceived is to advise the President whether the foreign affairs departments and agencies of the government are placing the appropriate information and options before him. Usually, of course, the security adviser does m
uch more. Propinquity to the Oval Office tempts the President to use his security adviser as confidential troubleshooter. (Psychologists may explain someday why physical proximity to the Oval Office gives one such an advantage over officials only a ten-minute car ride distant.)

  The security adviser, in turn, is human; he seeks status; he is only too well aware that his power depends on his ability to demonstrate a unique kind of usefulness. Since his only responsibility is that assigned to him by the President, he can afford to take the “big view.” He can present geopolitical analyses unconstrained by the flood of detail or pressing problems that are the lot of the Secretary of State. If he is skillful, he can position himself in bureaucratic debates close to the President’s predilections, which he usually has the possibility to learn more intimately than his competitor in Foggy Bottom.

  The Secretary of State’s responsibility is vastly different. He presides daily over a vast catalogue of international relationships that are not always reflected on the Presidential agenda or in the labors of the National Security Council and many of which are far from glamorous. He must contend hour to hour with a hundred and fifty countries and an array of multilateral issues and international organizations — economic problems, arms control, foreign assistance, visa and immigration policy, and so forth. He is responsible for a colossal enterprise.

  In the short run, this vast effort places the Secretary of State at a bureaucratic disadvantage. Inevitably, he must grapple with many mundane or highly technical subjects. He is forced to champion unpopular causes, such as the annual appropriations for foreign aid. There is always the risk that the Secretary of State begins either to bore the President with arcane problems that require urgent Presidential decision, or to appear to him like some special pleader.

  And yet a President who succumbs to impatience with the ponderous State Department damages the country in the long run. A foreign policy achievement to be truly significant must at some point be institutionalized; it must therefore be embedded in permanent machinery. No government should impose on itself the need to sustain a tour de force based on personalities. A foreign policy to be lasting must be carried by the understanding of those charged with the regular conduct of diplomacy and over time must be implanted in the heart and mind of the nation.

  That can only be accomplished by a confident partnership between the President and the Secretary of State, such as existed between Harry Truman and Dean Acheson, Dwight Eisenhower and John Foster Dulles, or the Presidents I served and me. The security adviser can fill a gap in confidence only for short periods of time and then at the risk of demoralizing the bureaucracy and confusing foreign governments. If the President does not trust his Secretary of State he should replace him, not attempt to work around him by means of the security adviser. Any other course complicates the problem it is supposed to solve. Nixon’s fear of State Department leaking was such that he excluded it wherever possible from all sensitive negotiations. He had some cause for his suspicions. But it was also a self-defeating course — though I did not understand that when I was in the White House. The more the State Department was excluded from policymaking, the less incentive it had to safeguard any information it managed to acquire on its own. Indeed, it was tempted to snipe at whatever emerged, out of wounded pride or ignorance of the difficulty of negotiating. And it was untenable to have several allied foreign ministers better informed about major negotiations than our own. We were not to remedy this administrative schizophrenia until I became Secretary of State in the fall of 1973.

  At the same time the State Department bureaucracy has a tendency to tempt fate. The permanent career service of the State Department has endured so much abuse that its sense of beleaguerment is accompanied by an acute consciousness of bureaucratic prerogative. Convinced of the importance of State Department preeminence, it insists passionately on its formal role, sometimes at the cost of the intangible bond between President and Secretary that is the essence of its real influence. Even before Nixon was sworn in on January 20, 1969, the Department fought a bitter battle to preserve its chairmanship of various interdepartmental subcommittees that had been established in the Johnson Administration. Never mind that these groups were moribund and that the real decisions had been made at the so-called Tuesday lunches President Johnson held with an inner circle of Cabinet members. The symbolism of status seemed to outweigh its reality.10

  The contretemps confirmed all of Nixon’s prejudices. He did not want the State Department preeminent in any event; State’s tenacious struggle for prerogative multiplied his suspicions. Whatever slight chance the State Department had to gain Nixon’s confidence evaporated in this essentially meaningless battle over turf. And while Nixon’s judgment of the State Department was too harsh, his instinct was sound. The State Department is simply not equipped to handle interdepartmental machinery. As I shall explain, its key personnel by style and training are usually uncomfortable with conceptual approaches; its organization is better suited to dealing with the immediate than the long-range. A Secretary of State seeking to run the interagency process imposes a heavy burden on himself. For even should he succeed in overcoming the proclivities of his Department — as he eventually must, however interdepartmental machinery is organized — he would be in a hopeless position bureaucratically.

  Our government tends to operate by adversary procedures. But the chairman of an interdepartmental group must develop a reputation for objectivity. When a department chairs an interagency committee, either it will be tempted to skew the process in favor of its predilections or else it will not adequately represent its own point of view — an ironic outcome of a grab for preeminence. Even should a Solomonic group of chairmen emerge from the Department of State, they would be forced to use up a great deal of energy in defending themselves against the criticism that they exploited their position. No department in our system will for long accept the formal preeminence of another one. It will challenge decisions that go against it, on procedural as well as substantive grounds. In the end, the result is not the predominance of one department but Presidential adjudication of a disproportionate number of disputes.

  I experienced these problems when I attempted a variation of the scheme. When I became Secretary of State I also remained national security adviser, giving me control over interdepartmental machinery by what in dynastic times would have been called personal union. It did not work. The State Department representatives at interagency meetings were my subordinates when I wore my Secretary of State hat; when I chaired a meeting they had to reflect my point of view or else all interdepartmental matters would be outside my control even within the State Department. But that meant in practice that I would either push my department’s view as chairman or dissociate from my subordinates, an inherently absurd proposition. For two years I was exposed to the charge that I had an unfair predominance over the policymaking process. Insofar as this was true, it grew out of my close relationship with the Presidents I served, not from the organizational framework of their administrations. My dual position was, in fact, a handicap and a vulnerability. In November 1975 President Ford took away my job as national security adviser. I resented the decision bitterly because I thought that it would undermine the perception of my position. For a few weeks I was even thinking of resigning.

  It would have been a childish gesture. My influence was unaffected by the organizational change and my peace of mind greatly improved. I prevailed where I did because I managed to convince Ford and when I failed it would have been no different had I remained technically as chairman.

  I have become convinced that the running of interdepartmental machinery ought to be preeminently the responsibility of the security adviser (except perhaps in a crisis). A determined Secretary of State cannot fail to have his view heard whoever chairs the committees. The security adviser’s contact with media and foreign diplomats should be reduced to a minimum; the articulation and conduct of foreign policy should be left in the main to the President and the Secretary o
f State (and of course their designees). The preparation of options, which is in the main what interdepartmental machinery does, should be the province of a security adviser chosen for fairness, conceptual grasp, bureaucratic savvy, and a willingness to labor anonymously. (General Andrew Goodpaster under Eisenhower and General Brent Scowcroft under Ford are two outstanding examples.) The influence of the Department of State would flow from the personal confidence between the President and the Secretary and the quality of the analytical work produced by the Department.

  To elicit that quality of work is a most daunting task for even the most strong-willed Secretary of State. For he runs up against the organization of the Department and its allergy to conceptual thought.

  The internal structure of the Department is wondrous to behold. (The chart on page 436 shows its organization in 1973.) At its apex is the Secretary of State, in whose name all actions are taken; all instructions and cables are issued over his name. He cannot possibly read them all. Thus to produce with great flourish a cable signed by the Secretary of State proves only that he was in town, not that he wrote the cable or even knew of it. In my time the Secretary was assisted by a Deputy Secretary and three Under Secretaries (for Political Affairs, Economic Affairs, and Security Assistance). There is also the Counselor, who is a sort of free-wheeling adviser to be used for whatever role the Secretary finds most useful. (My Counselor was Helmut Sonnenfeldt, a distinguished specialist in European affairs and US–Soviet relations.) These officials have offices on the Seventh Floor of the State Department together with the Secretary and serve as his general staff, at least in theory. At the next echelon are the Assistant Secretaries: In my tenure there were five for various regions of the world, one for international organizations, and seven for functional areas like economic affairs, educational and cultural affairs, oceans and scientific affairs, public affairs, Congressional relations, administration, and security and consular affairs. Then there is the Legal Adviser, as well as the Policy Planning Staff and the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, both headed by officials with the title of Director. In addition, the Secretary of State has a myriad of special assistants — for press relations, international labor affairs, narcotics, refugees, and human rights, in my time. Each of these officers theoretically reports directly to the Secretary regarding his or her specialty. But no executive can possibly direct so many individuals in a personal relationship. There has to be some intermediary staff.