Years of Upheaval

by Henry Kissinger

  By then, the United States Congress had received a public letter from Academician Sakharov supporting the Jackson amendment.3 Sakharov had come to prominence in the West in 1968 with an eloquent essay urging increased economic and scientific exchanges between East and West because they would ameliorate the Soviet system.4 Sakharov’s striking reversal of position opened the floodgates. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. — heretofore another strong defender of East-West trade — wrote in the Wall Street Journal on September 27, 1973: “Always trust the man on the firing line.”

  Unfortunately, the issue was not so simple. I greatly admired Sakharov’s heroic journey from the coddled, privileged status of a nuclear scientist working on Soviet military technology to the chilly isolation and harassment that the Soviet state inflicts on its dissidents. I had been helpful to friends at MIT who had sought exit permits so that Sakharov’s children could study in the United States. During my confirmation hearings, I had said on September 7, 1973:

  I have been very moved as an individual by Academician Sakharov, who wrote 5 or 6 years ago a very lengthy declaration of his conception of human liberty and of the progress that at that time he felt was being made in the Soviet Union toward that goal. I am disappointed, as a member of the intellectual profession, that this progress has not continued, and I am certainly dismayed by the conditions that Academician Sakharov reports.

  Yet for a Secretary of State, moral issues become transmuted into operational ones: in this case, to what extent these conditions could be changed by overt American pressure. We agreed with Jackson about the desirability of improving the rights of individuals within the Soviet Union as well as emigration procedures; we were working toward these ends by methods our experience had taught us were the only ones that would work. But the single-minded dedication of the dissidents did not reflect selfish motives; they were not interested in improving the conditions of their own existence. Had that been their purpose, they would not have run the risks of opposition in the first place. What they sought, with extraordinary courage and fortitude, was to change the political and moral character of the Soviet system. The rigorous standards that had impelled them to court suffering and harassment made them resentful of the gradualism inherent in diplomatic methods.

  And this is why the “men on the firing line” were not the best witnesses to design American strategy. Diplomacy may be, in Clausewitz’s terms, the continuation of war by other means, but it has its own appropriate tactics. It acknowledges that in the relations between sovereign states, even the noblest ends can generally be achieved only in imperfect stages. Prophets are needed to raise sights; yet the statesman cannot always live by their maxims. An attempt to transform the Soviet system — not by starting an historical process of erosion, the means we favored, but by insisting on instant conversion — was certain to be fiercely resisted by the Soviet Politburo. What are Bolsheviks if not experts in the seizure and holding of power? It would make an across-the-board confrontation inevitable — as the Carter Administration was later to find out. And if America then proved unready or unwilling to stay the course, we stood to lose in two ways: in the further deterioration of human rights in the USSR and in the weakening of the credibility of our foreign policy.

  Upon Congress’s return from summer recess in September 1973, Jackson inserted Sakharov’s letter into the Congressional Record. The same day, AFL–CIO chief George Meany sent a telegram to the House Ways and Means Committee urging passage of the Jackson amendment.

  Still, the Administration continued to seek a compromise with Jackson. Our first move was to gain time through a parliamentary maneuver: to eliminate all reference to MFN in the trade bill then before the House so as to eliminate the Jackson amendment with it. The idea was to force a conference between the Senate, which was expected to pass Jackson’s amendment, and the House; in the conference we would then work out a compromise. It was a clever ploy thought up by our legislative liaison experts. It stood no chance. In fact, it demonstrated to what indirections our inability to fight the issue head-on had reduced us. The Administration, which wanted MFN, wound up in the absurd tactical position of seeking to delay it; while Jackson, who sought to defeat it, urged a vote on it so that he could encumber it with his amendment.

  The public could not be expected to understand such intricacies. No Congressman wanted to be recorded as opposed to what was presented as a chance to increase Soviet emigration. Jewish groups either supported Jackson or did not know how to dissociate from him. Nixon-haters were set to oppose whatever the President favored. Conservatives were only too happy to vote against the Soviet Union. Watergate had deprived the President of moral or political leverage. The trade bill with the Jackson-Vanik amendment in it passed the House Ways and Means Committee on September 26, 1973 — hardly an auspicious prelude to Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko’s annual global review with Nixon scheduled for two days hence. Gromyko and Nixon talked vaguely about the amendment; the Soviets still believed Nixon’s assurance that in the end he would be able to handle matters.

  The Mideast war and its aftermath imposed a hiatus in Congressional maneuvering that worked in favor of the Jackson forces. The shorter the time available for a decision before the Congressional recess, the harder it would be for the Administration to corral the necessary votes. Jackson did not mind if the trade bill languished until the next Congressional session, calculating — correctly — that in the end its proponents would not permit a dispute over MFN for the Soviet Union to stand in the way of a general liberalization of trade.

  The debate over the Jackson amendment soon spread to other aspects of our foreign policy. Normally, Jackson would have supported our policy, which was, after all, a tough, occasionally ruthless strategy of assisting our ally Israel while reducing Soviet influence in the Arab world. (In fact, he supported us over the alert.) But to prevail with his amendment, he could not let stand the proposition that détente had enabled us to limit Soviet pressures in the Middle East, resist them effectively, and finally outmaneuver Moscow. (The Chinese — careful students of international politics — understood this very well.) Jackson and his supporters had an incentive to portray the Administration as insufficiently resolute. The way the issue was posed, the Administration could not win, for even Soviet restraint was used against us. A sympathetic Jewish leader working for a compromise described Jackson’s arguments to me in April 1974: “The Soviets must be getting something to be good boys; what is it? QED, it is not in the American interest.” Jackson posed a Catch-22 situation for us: If the Soviets were restrained they had to have been given some pay-off, which, if it was not apparent, was likely to be even more insidious because it was secret. If they were uncooperative, they must be punished by the withholding of already agreed-to commitments. Either way, the amendment would go forward, for Jackson was risking nothing. He relied on the contradictory arguments that detente was both fraudulent and impervious to his maneuver. According to one chronicler of the period, Jackson briefed his supporters with the reassuring argument that “if you believe deténte will unravel, then you’re foolish.”5

  While Jackson marshaled his forces, I was far away in the Middle East and China. Finally, early in December 1973, Nixon wrote to House Speaker Carl Albert putting the President’s prestige behind a straight choice: defeat the Jackson-Vanik amendment or delete MFN from the trade bill. But by that time, the President had little prestige left. On December 11 — while I was once again on my way to the Middle East — the Jackson-Vanik amendment passed the House by 319 to 80. An amendment to delete MFN from the trade bill was defeated by 298 to 106.

  The battle over the trade bill now moved to the Senate, an even more difficult forum for the Administration. I was still seeking an agreement with Jackson. On February 8, 1974, just before the Washington Energy Conference, I told a group of Jewish leaders that I was eager to work things out with Jackson:

  KISSINGER: I know we can settle it amicably and in a way that he gets credit. If he is interested.


  PARTICIPANT: Would it be helpful that he be made aware that if he settles it in a compromise, he won’t get flak?

  KISSINGER: Even more, that his standing in the Jewish Community would be enhanced. I am afraid that if I approach him prematurely, it will be an issue between him and me. . . .

  PARTICIPANT: Jackson sincerely thinks he has succeeded with his amendment and his policy, and he is right.

  On March 6, 1974, two days after returning from the Middle East trip that started up the Syrian-Israeli negotiation, I finally met with Jackson to resolve the issue. It was the beginning of a dialogue that made me long for the relative tranquillity of the Middle East. In preparation for the meeting, Dobrynin had given me in writing, at my request, statistics on emigration. The previous year the Soviets had promised us that emigration would not be reduced, in effect guaranteeing a level of about 35,000 a year. That promise was kept but because there had been a decline of 28 percent in the last quarter of 1973 (compared with the same period in 1972) the Soviets felt they owed us an explanation. It was that “the recent events in the Middle East” made Soviet citizens reluctant to emigrate there — a not-illogical proposition in the middle of a war. More significant than the explanation itself was the fact that the Soviets volunteered any explanation at all for what was, after all, legally a domestic matter. The explanation implied, moreover, that but for the Mideast war there would have been a greater rise in emigration. Another breakthrough was that for the first time the Soviets responded formally to compassionate appeals about “hardship cases” — individuals dismissed from their jobs or in prison — both from the Congress and the executive branch. I had brought a list of 738 hardship cases to Dobrynin’s attention; we were now told that 268 had received or were about to obtain exit permits; 177 allegedly had not applied; 149 had been refused visas but their cases were being reviewed. It was an unprecedented gesture for the Soviet Union to account for specific individuals to a foreign government. Was it Jackson’s pressure or our quiet diplomacy that brought this about? Almost certainly a combination of both. The former provided an incentive, the latter a mechanism, for easing the fate of those prisoners of conscience. I was quite prepared to acknowledge Jackson’s role and I considered we were starting our dialogue on a firm foundation. I had much to learn.

  Jackson was a fierce negotiator. He quickly tied me up in another Catch-22 proposition: If the Soviets stonewalled, it proved that his amendment was essential. If we warned about the dangers of his course, he inveighed against the insufficient commitment of the Administration to human rights. If the Soviets made a concession, it showed that the ante could be raised at will. Jackson affably pocketed the Soviet note as of little consequence but as an augury of what could be achieved if we pressed his tactics.

  I realized soon enough that I was up against a master psychological warrior. Jackson and his staff tried to make it appear that it was my reluctance to ask the Soviets to increase the rate of emigration that was the obstacle to a solution. The real problem was my conviction — which turned out to be correct — that there was a limit beyond which the Soviets would not let themselves be pushed. When that was reached they would turn, reduce emigration, and perhaps damage the design of our foreign policy — especially in the midst of delicate Mideast negotiations that the Soviets had at least some capacity to complicate.

  As bad luck would have it, the morning after my first meeting with Jackson I fulfilled a commitment of many weeks’ standing to testify before the Senate Finance Committee, which was considering the trade bill. I had proposed a compromise to Jackson whereby the Senate, after granting MFN, could review Soviet emigration practices at agreed intervals — say, every two years — and thereby exercise some leverage on Soviet actions. Jackson had rejected it; nothing less than a written Soviet guarantee of a greatly increased number of emigrants would be acceptable. Invariably, my prepared statement, drafted days before my meeting with Jackson, repeated my familiar arguments against Jackson’s amendment. His staff later characterized this as pressure. In fact, in my testimony I leaned over backward to be conciliatory and to avoid even the appearance of seeking a showdown:

  I have hesitated putting forward a compromise proposal because I did not want to turn it into a contest between an administration proposal and that of the sponsors of these amendments because I am very hopeful that we can come up with something that everyone will agree to.

  Senator Gaylord Nelson, a Democrat from Wisconsin and no supporter of the Administration, took this as an invitation to put forward his own idea of a compromise. It turned out to be along the lines Jackson had rejected the night before. So far as I knew, Nelson was unaware of the fact that I had even met with Jackson, much less of what I had proposed to him. On the other hand, I could not evade a direct question; I spoke sympathetically of Nelson’s ideas. Jackson’s staff (and, for all I knew, Jackson) claimed to be offended; they leaked to the press that I was trying an end-run via the Finance Committee — a curious idea since the Secretary of State had a duty to give his honest views to the committee dealing with the bill. To leave me no escape hatch, Jackson on March 8 put out a statement rejecting the compromise. Our dialogue was beginning to resemble negotiations between sovereign countries.

  On March 15, 1974, still hoping to ease the tension, I met with Jackson and Abraham Ribicoff, another Senator close to the Jewish community and a man of exemplary decency and fairness who later became a close friend. Jackson suggested that a written Soviet guarantee of 100,000 exit visas — or three times the existing number — would cause him to take another look at his amendment. Ribicoff was clearly uncomfortable.

  It was out of the question for the Soviets to agree to such a number, Senatorial pressures or no. On the other hand, unwilling to accept an adversary relationship with Jackson, I treated Jackson’s 100,000 figure as a bargaining device — to “toughen me up and not absolutely your last word,” as I said to the Senator. He made no reply, perhaps out of pity for my obtuseness. The next thing I knew was that the figure had leaked and Jackson was castigating me for the disclosure. The probability was that his staff had done so; they had everything to gain from it. Obviously, the State Department had no conceivable interest in leaking a figure that we knew to be unfulfillable, that at the same time nailed Jackson to a position from which he would find it difficult to retreat, and that might convince the Soviets that no conceivable concession could end the impasse.

  Just to keep things suspenseful, Jackson reserved his position for the improbable contingency that the Soviets would meet the figure of 100,000 exit visas. That was an admission price, he implied, to “consider” the “possibility” of a compromise. The negotiation began to remind me of my encounters with the North Vietnamese, whose tactic also consisted of inviting proposals they then “graded” by criteria they never vouchsafed to me.

  Jackson’s tactics forced me to put forward my own idea of a compromise, fully aware that the odds were that it would be refused by the Senator. It was symptomatic of the developing adversary relationship that I tried it out first on Gromyko, judging him to be the easier party. I later summed up the compromise to the Senate Finance Committee:

  I would attempt to obtain clarifications of Soviet domestic practices from Soviet leaders. These explanations could then be transmitted to them [to the Soviet leaders] in the form of a letter behind which our government would stand.

  The theory behind the proposal was to get around the Soviet refusal to submit its internal practices to another country’s review. The Kremlin might conceivably acquiesce in a statement of the United States government’s understanding of Soviet domestic practices, so long as it did not have to confirm them as a formal international obligation implying an American right of intervention.

  The occasion to put the proposal to Gromyko was a trip to Moscow from March 24 to March 28, 1974. Its purpose was to prepare Nixon’s third summit with Brezhnev, scheduled for late June. It was not a propitious time. Nixon’s plight became more apparent with every d
ay. The Soviets were being squeezed to the sidelines in the Syrian disengagement negotiations; obstacles to US–Soviet trade were multiplying from the most unexpected quarters. On March 8 the General Accounting Office, an arm of the Congress, had raised questions about whether the Administration had followed the required procedures for extending credits to the Soviet Union. Accordingly, the Export-Import Bank stopped working on loan applications for the Soviet Union between March 11 and 23. (The Attorney General then overruled the GAO.) With Watergate raging, MFN deadlocked, detente and SALT becoming increasingly controversial, it was not a glorious moment to negotiate with the Soviet leaders. Nevertheless, Gromyko did not reject the proposal; he was opaque. I took this as a green light to proceed with Jackson.

  Upon my return from Moscow, in early April I put the compromise to Senators Jackson, Ribicoff, and Javits. But the Senators had no incentive to give ground. I was there to be blamed for any failure to achieve their demands. Ribicoff — never at ease with Jackson’s methods — presciently remarked that “nothing we got would satisfy the Senator.” Jackson again mentioned his figure of 100,000 as a “target” — a slight amelioration. Javits said there was no sign of any Soviet “movement.” Jackson, perhaps thinking that he had given me too easy an assignment, came up with a new refinement. Exit visas, he claimed, were being given preferentially to Jews living in the provinces and hence of a lower educational and cultural level than residents of Moscow. That, in Jackson’s view, amounted to harassment; it would have to be rectified if the Soviets wanted MFN. Javits summed up the consensus: “The idea is that the Secretary go back and talk some more.” I was being asked to triple Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union (on top of the hundredfold increase we had already achieved before Jackson entered the lists) and to specify from what region emigrants should be drawn — all in return for giving the Soviets the same trade treatment already enjoyed by over one hundred other nations.