Kissinger (2011) - full transcript

HENRY KISSINGER: I am a little
bothered by that last answer

where you said, "Are you sorry

or should he have done
anything differently?"

And thought, and I say,
you know, I'm going to learn

the right answer
to that someday.

That looks sort of arrogant,

and I'd like to rephrase that
same thought in a different way.

You have to understand,

you are presiding over
a historical process

of a magnitude that
the world has never seen.

I certainly would go
that same direction again,



painful as some of
the aspects of it were.

At this period in my life

I'm not running a popularity
contest on Google.

l have to stand
on what I did and wrote

and be somewhat
fatalistic about it.

Can we stop this for one second?

RICHARD NIXON: I'm gonna
turn right so goddamn hard,

it will make your head spin.

I'm going to bomb those bastards
right off the earth.

I really mean it.

KISSINGER: I think that's right.

DAN RATHER: Henry Kissinger is
the right man in the right place

at the right time
doing the rightjob.

NIXON: Henry,
this is the President.



Listen, we're playing
for very high stakes,

and we have
very little time left.

MAN: Dr. Kissinger,
referred to by the President

as the senior diplomat
of the world,

has really pulled
another miracle.

NIXON: Hello, Henry?

Where are you?

NARRATOR:
"After work," said Kissinger,

"I try to be with
a beautiful girl."

KISSINGER: Listen, I used
to be a serious person

before you people
caught up with me.

I don't stand on protocol.

If you'll just call me
Excellency, it will be good.

Everything is beginning
to fit together.

[rumbling]

REPORTER: Dr. Kissinger,
we have just learned, too,

that the Russians have sent
a man 186 miles into the sky

and returned him.

Would you care
to comment on that?

KISSINGER: It seems to me that
this supports the conclusions

of the Rockefeller report.

It indicates that, probably,

the Russians are
considerably ahead of us

in the missile field,

because it shows that
they have rocket engines,

which have a thrust far greater

than any that we possess
at the moment.

NIALL FERGUSON: Your Harvard
senior thesis was famously

the longest ever written, and it
had a pretty grand title, too—

"The Meaning of History."

KISSINGER: Yes.

FERGUSON: That's quite ambitious
for an undergraduate, isn't it?

KISSINGER: When Iwas
an undergraduate at Harvard,

I was totally undecided in what
direction Iwould wind up.

For example,
I was phenomenally good

in elementary chemistry courses.

Until I realized that
this was pure memory.

Then I was playing with the idea

of maybe becoming
a creative writer,

and that awakened my interest
in philosophy of history.

THOMAS SCHELLING: Henry was not a warm,
friendly, modest, jovial sort of person.

He was thought of as one of
the more anxious, temperamental,

self-conscious, ambitious,
inconsiderate people at Harvard.

KISSINGER:
Then I wrote a best seller

called Nuclear Weapons
and Foreign Policy.

NARRATOR: The work
which made his reputation

promoted the notion
that a limited nuclear war

might be winnable
by the United States.

But one critic complained,

"I don't know if Kissinger
is a great writer,

but anyone finishing his book
is a great reader."

It brought a note
of congratulations

from then Vice President Nixon.

KISSINGER:
After his election in 1968,

Nixon invited me to visit him
at his transition headquarters

at the Pierre Hotel in New York.

Nixon talked to me
for about two hours

about the international
situation,

and I knew he wanted something,
but I didn't know what.

About a week later,
John Mitchell,

who was one of Nixon's
closest aides at that time,

called me up and said,

"Well, are you gonna
take the job or not?"

And I said, "Whatjob?"

NIXON: Dr. Henry Kissinger,

Professor of Government
at Harvard University,

has agreed to come
with the White House staff

as the assistant
to the President-elect

for National Security Affairs.

[applause]

KISSINGER: I have often thought
the personality of Richard Nixon

will require a Shakespeare
to render,

partly because there were
so many different Nixons.

He must have been
seared by rejection

at an early stage in his life.

Nixon did not have close friends,
nor was I one of them.

But he didn't have much of
a social life with anybody.

NARRATOR:
Back in the Oval Office,

the valet has brought in the
President's dog, King Timaho.

NIXON:
He's used to good furniture.

Want to go out?

Go out?

KISSINGER: One has to remember,

here is a man who was not
a natural politician.

He hated to meet new people,
he was basically shy.

He felt fundamentally
threatened.

NIXON: Here we go.

NIXON: Yeah, hello, Henry?

KISSINGER: Mr. President,
I think we're on the right course.

I've read the speech over, and
I think it is very strong now.

NIXON: Yeah, it's a pretty good
speech, actually.

KISSINGER: Ithink it's
an excellent speech.

NIXON: Good evening,
my fellow Americans.

KISSINGER: For Nixon
to make a major speech

was a huge extended effort

of getting himself ready
for confrontation.

OPERATOR: Dr. Kissinger.
NIXON: Yeah.

KISSINGER: Mr. President?
NIXON: Yeah, hi, Henry.

KISSINGER: This was the best
speech you've delivered

since you've been in office.

NIXON: This little speech
was a work of art.

I mean, know a little something
about speech writing,

and it was no act,
because no actor could do it.

No actor in Hollywood could
have done that that well.

I thought that was done well,
didn't you think?

KISSINGER: Well, no actor
could have written it.

You couldn't have done it
unless you meant it.

NIXON: OK.
Thank you. Bye.

KISSINGER: Talk to you later.
Bye-bye.

After every speech, he expected
his key associates to call him

to tell him that
he had done well,

which he, in his own mind,
would then translate

that he had not done badly.

NARRATOR: Kissinger meets alone
with the President every day,

sometimes for as long
as an hour and a half.

And here he can make
his own views known

if his counsel's asked for.

KISSINGER: My influence depended
on my relationship with Nixon.

I would call ten times a day,
and see him every time I could.

I would spend a lot
of time with him

in very intense conversations.

What is the role
of particular groups?

What is the state of the world?

In January 1969,

the United States was in
an extremely complicated situation.

It was three years
after total involvement

in the Vietnam War.

It was the first year in which
the protest movement

had turned absolutely
ugly and violent.

Internationally, we had
no contact whatever with China.

Relations with the Soviet Union
had been frozen.

And the Soviet Union
was building

a submarine base in Cuba.

So to think that there
was a Communist problem

in the world at that moment

was not the paranoid imagination
of a president.

NIXON: Yeah.

OPERATOR: I have Dr. Kissinger
now, Mr. President.

NIXON: Hello?

KISSINGER: Mr. President.

NIXON: Listen,
we can't diddle around

with the Russians
or anybody else.

KISSINGER: Right.

NIXON: We are playing
for very high stakes,

and we have
very little time left.

KISSINGER: We were engaged
in an ideological struggle

with the Soviet Union
with incompatible value systems.

We were engaged
in a power struggle

with the Soviet Union.

There were Soviet troops
"1 EQYPt,

and it supplied most,
if not all,

of the military equipment
for Vietnam.

We could not permit
Soviet domination of the world

on the basis of either their
principles or of their power.

So this had to be resisted.

On the other hand, we also
believed that the nuclear age

imposed a special obligation
on leaders—

especially of
the nuclear countries.

[speaking Russian]

KISSINGER: The nuclear arms race
was out of control

in the sense that
by the late '60s,

it was predictable that
the Soviet Union would exceed

our number in
strategic missiles.

Imagine the dialogue

that somebody goes in
to the president and says,

"If you would fire
1,000 missiles tomorrow,

you can wipe out
the Soviet force.

You'll kill 30, 40 million
people in the process

in one day."

And I have to add that one of
my moral dilemmas in government

always was this—what would I do
if the President asked me,

"Is this the day that we do it?"

And I must say, frankly,
I had not made up,

reached a conclusive
answer in my mind.

Because it's one thing to win
a war with historic casualties,

that's serious enough.

To kill tens of millions
of people in one day

creates a new world.

The world will
never be the same.

[helicopter approaches]

NIXON:
If we, if we start, you know,

simpering around and catering
to these bastards,

hell, they'll just eat us alive.

KISSINGER: We've got to do
something dramatic soon.

FERGUSON:
Cold War politics aside,

the Vietnam War was
not exactly going well.

Under previous administrations,

including President
Lyndon Johnson's,

more than 30,000 Americans had
already been killed in action.

So why not just stop the war
and pull the troops out?

KISSINGER: One has to understand
the basic strategy

pursued by the Johnson Administration.

It was an extraordinary
concept of warfare.

500,000 American troops
were committed

without a definition of victory.

The purpose of the strategy

was to inflict so much pain
on the North Vietnamese

that they would
enter negotiation.

But it turned out that
their level of pain toleration

was much higher
than had been estimated.

NIXON: I'm gonna turn right
so goddamn hard,

it'll make your head spin.

We'll bomb those bastards
right off the earth.

I really mean it, and Ithink
you agree, don't you?

KISSINGER:
I think, Mr. President,

we have to make
fundamental decisions.

NIXON: That's right.

KISSINGER:
The Nixon Administration

came into office
on January 20th.

Three weeks later, the North Vietnamese
started an offensive

that killed between 400 and 500
Americans a week.

Our strategy was the withdrawal
of American troops

while, at the same time,
guaranteeing the security

of our long-standing ally,
South Vietnam.

The North Vietnamese demands
were the following—

that America had to agree
to an unconditional withdrawal

of all its forces.

We were really talking,
in effect, about surrender.

That could not, that was not,
of course, not acceptable.

To begin an administration
by a man

whose conservative record had
been established over 20 years,

by simply announcing,
in effect, surrender,

which were the only terms
open to us, was inconceivable.

SOLDIER 1: This is,
this all probably seeds,

and we're getting busted,
but I don't care.

SOLDIER 2: Shotgun.

KISSINGER: I believe the vast
majority of Americans,

they wanted the war over with.

But the biggest problem
domestically

was whether we could
finally unite the country

in which those who wanted peace
would have peace

and those who wanted honor
could live with themselves.

In August 1969,

we started to meet the North Vietnamese
secretly in Paris.

I had come to the conclusion

that the war could not
be won militarily.

And, therefore,
I favored negotiation.

My principal opposite number
was Le Duc Tho.

Though he aged me prematurely,
Le Duc Tho was a remarkable man.

[speaking Vietnamese]

He came from the capital
of a distant country,

with no international
experience.

He had spent his entire life
being a revolutionary,

and there he faced
a representative of a superpower,

never lost his poise, infinitely tenacious,
almost always polite.

His conduct was obnoxious
and impeccable.

The son of a bitch.

We get in there
on Monday afternoon,

he withdraws every concession
he's made two weeks previously.

It was a roller coaster,
up and down the whole time.

His job was not negotiation.

His job was to break our spirit

by brilliantly exploiting
our domestic divisions.

In America, we were
constantly accused

of not wanting a settlement.

Some of the very best people
in the country

developed the view
that the war itself

reflected some weakness
or failure of the American soul,

and that it was
in our interest to lose it.

FERGUSON: It was
the bombing of Cambodia

that came to be the focus
of this domestic opposition.

Why was it, and why is it
still today so contentious?

KISSINGER: The so-called
secret bombing of Cambodia

is one of the most deliberately
misrepresented episodes

of that period.

Let's first understand
clearly what happened.

[jet airplane]

GEORGE McGOVERN:
A terrible war

has been charted
behind closed doors.

I want those doors open,
and I want that war closed!

[crowd cheers]

NIXON: Have them fly
at 95,000 or 110,000 feet

and drop their goddamn bombs
on the boondocks,

but get up some...

I want a hell of a lot of
sorties flown by B-52s today.

Is that clear?

KISSINGER: Right, Mr. President.

On January 20th, within three
weeks of his coming into office,

while the White House people
still didn't even know

where all the bathrooms were,

the North Vietnamese
launched an attack

in which 400 Americans
were killed a week.

Most of these attacks
came from base areas

that the North Vietnamese had
established on Cambodian soil.

Nixon, faced with
these dilemmas,

decided to authorize attacks.

He saw to minimize the danger
of these demonstrations

that had taken place
erupting again,

by not announcing that these
attacks were taking place.

HAROLD KNIGHT:
While I was in South Vietnam,

the falsification of strike
reports was a common practice.

I prepared at least
a dozen myself.

I got the impression that
the practice had been going on

for several years prior
to the time I got there.

All the reports
I personally faked

were 3-52 strikes into Cambodia.

KISSINGER: The plan was that
we would undertake one attack.

That then somebody would
announce it, complain.

To our amazement,
nobody complained.

Not Sihanouk,
the ruler of the country,

not the North Vietnamese...

...nobody.

I thought it was appropriate
to attack those bases.

FERGUSON:
What about the accusation
that hundreds of thousands

of defenseless civilians
were killed?

KISSINGER: Hundreds of thousands
is total rubbish.

I am talking about
the so-called secret bombing.

There was almost
no civilian population.

Undoubtedly,
civilians were killed

as a result of
military operations,

but what I am saying applies
only to the secret bombing.

NIXON: When they say
we're killing civilians,

we'll say, well, now,
there were a lot of civilians

killed in the south.

KISSINGER: Right, Mr. President.

HUBERT HUMPHREY:
We now face the unhappy prospect

of an expansion of the war
in Southeast Asia,

and most regrettably,
the prospect of increased tension

and protest and even violence,
I'm afraid, here at home.

NARRATOR: As on many other
campuses across the nation,

students at Kent demonstrated
against Nixon's decision

to send American troops
into Cambodia.

National Guardsmen
opened fire without warning

on a crowd of students,

killing four who were
not even taking part

in the demonstration.

[gunshot]

KISSINGER:
The controversy over Cambodia

deepened domestic divisions,

but it was the right decision
and had to be taken.

I don't regret it, because I
think Nixon was basically right.

For me, the protest movement

was a personally extremely
painful experience.

NARRATOR: While his children
are with him,

Kissinger tries to keep
his afternoons free.

He'll take them to a beach near
his home where they can swim

while he walks or simply
sits on the beach

and fights off efforts
to get him in the water.

DAUGHTER: Come on, daddy.

It's a beautiful ocean.

You'll be thinking,
you'll be thinking of us.

KISSINGER: I was separated
from my wife at the time,

but I visited
my children regularly.

They tell me that
in their schools

there was sometimes harassment,
not by the other children,

but by their teachers,

like being asked to write
on a blackboard,

"Please drive the love of war
out of President Nixon's heart,"

which, for a child of mine,

was a painful choice
they had to make.

Almost all my friends

were engulfed in
the protest movement,

all the people I'd
gone to school with.

REPORTER: Last May, 12 of his
former Harvard colleagues

came to the White House
to tell him bluntly,

and on the record,

of their disappointment over the
decision to go into Cambodia.

SCHELLING: That we came
to tell Mr. Kissinger

that we were not only
deeply disturbed...

REPORTER: Last month I spoke
to the man who led that group,

Kissinger's good friend
for 10 years,

Harvard Economics Professor
Tom Schelling.

SCHELLING:
And after an hour and half,

I think he must have
been affected

by the fact that 12 people,
all of whom he knew,

all of whose views he knew,

all of whom would not
have wanted personally

to hurt him or embarrass him,

felt obliged to come and tell
him that they were so shocked

with him and his president,
that, in effect,

they were backing out of
any more personal relation.

KISSINGER: Iwould have
preferred to retain

many friendships that were
weakened as a result of this.

I had my obligation,
as I saw it,

was to put fonNard
my convictions

to the best of my ability
and to carry them out.

There is no secret
about my views.

NIXON: I pledged in my campaign
for the Presidency

to end the war in a way
that we could win the peace.

I have an issue...

KISSINGER: The most haunting
problem at that time

was that this domestic conflict

adversely affected
the peace negotiations.

NIXON: For the more divided
we are at home,

the less likely the enemy
is to negotiate in Paris.

HENRI SALVADOR: Each time we see
Mr. Kissinger, Mr. Le Duc Tho,

they come to Paris,
they congratulate,

they shake hands,
they give a big smile.

Then they go back
to their countries

and one month again,
they reappear,

they come back and say "Hello!"
big smile again,

the journalists
ask the question.

No answer.

All the time.

I say, this is a good song.

J‘ Kissinger J‘

J‘ Le Duc Tho J‘

J‘ Kissinger J‘

J‘ Le Duc Tho J‘

J‘ Kissinger J‘

J‘ Le Duc Tho J‘

[imitating Asian speech]

The reason why
I'm in Paris again...

[speaking French]

KISSINGER: They had not
fought for 30 years

in order to make a compromise
in which they did not get power.

SALVADOR: All we want is peace.

J‘ Kissinger J‘

J‘ Le Duc Tho J‘

KISSINGER: You see, every draft
we give back to them

already incorporates
70% of their changes.

The trouble is we have
an entirely new document,

and Le Duc Tho is
going to walk out.

So the meetings were
extremely long

and extraordinarily
inconclusive.

And the things I have said
to him in front of his people,

you would not believe.

You know, about his
tawdry performance,

about his
extraordinary trickery.

NIXON: It takes two
to make a deal.

There must be give and take
on both sides,

and I'm convinced that
the agreement, as modified,

and as we will modify it,
is a good one.

We can make it better,

but we cannot scuttle it,
and Iwill not do it.

KISSINGER:
Periods of intense activity

would be followed by months when
there was little contact at all.

So it was very cynical,
very tough.

How do I get out of here?

Sorry to disturb you.

NIXON: It's all right.
No, I'm not doing anything.

How are the casualties
running this week?

KISSINGER:
They are above 50, actually.

They're going to be
announced tomorrow.

Ithink 56.

NIXON: Around 56, you say?

KISSINGER: That's right.

NIXON: Oh, my.

KISSINGER: For every reason,

we have got to have
a diversion from Vietnam

in this country for a while.

NIXON: That's the point,
isn't it, yeah?

FERGUSON: So you were
in the middle of the Cold War,

with the ever-present threat
of nuclear Armageddon,

you were fighting a bloody war
in Southeast Asia

that was ripping
the country apart.

What on Earth were
you going to do?

KISSINGER: President Nixon and I
had been working

from the beginning on a strategy
to bring peace to the world.

We had detected that
the Soviet Union and China

were adversaries
rather than allies.

And we also believed

that the constellation
in the world was unnatural.

China was out of
the international system.

So the strategy was including
China in international affairs

would give the Soviet Union
something else to think about.

And finally there was another
important consideration.

By improving
relations with China,

it could be persuaded
to use its influence

to induce the Vietnamese
into making concessions.

NIXON: Oh, Henry, the thing is,
a historic change

is going to take place—
it has to take place.

We're not going overboard,
but we're saying,

well, if they open the door,
we'll open the door.

KISSINGER: Ithink if
we get this thing working,

we'll end Vietnam this year.

Between 1954 and 1970,

there had really been no
diplomatic contact with China.

REPORTER: Chairman Mao is here.
Chairman Mao is here.

[choir singing]

KISSINGER:
In the '60s there was the
so-called Cultural Revolution,

which we knew was
dramatic and awful.

China was engaged

in extremely deplorable
and immoral behavior.

This led to dramatic hardship
for millions of people.

But that was not the key point.

While the ovenNhelming dangers

seemed the imminence
of nuclear war,

the human rights behavior
of various countries

was not a basic principle
of American foreign policy.

When we opened to China,

we did so on the basis
of national interest.

The biggest problem was how
to communicate with the Chinese.

Finally, on a visit to Pakistan,

we asked the Pakistan president
to pass a message.

The messages between
China and the United States

passed in the following manner.

The Chinese would send us
a handwritten note,

which was given
to a Pakistan emissary,

delivered in Islamabad,

brought by another Pakistan
emissary to Washington.

We replied on a typed paper,
with no watermarks,

which was sent back to Pakistan

and hence to Beijing
in the same manner.

So it was almost like
historic diplomacy

in the sense that
an exchange of messages

took a minimum of six days.

NIXON: Now on the China thing,
what we have to realize, Henry,

is that in terms of
the American public opinion,

it is still against
Communist China, you know?

KISSINGER: Right.

NIXON: So we're not, we're not
making any boasts with this.

KISSINGER: You said, "I want
no publicity whatsoever."

NIXON: Yeah, yeah.

KISSINGER: Nixon had the courage
to open to China

with only one advisor

and no previous consultation
with other countries,

because he thought
that if it became public

before he could announce it,
it would never be carried out.

NIXON: Let me say
that the envoy,

the more I think about it—
the envoy thing—

if we're gonna go,

I think we ought to go
at the highest level.

KISSINGER: I think the envoy
could prepare for it.

NIXON: You just can't tell.

And I don't know if there's
anybody we can trust

to send over there.

KISSINGER: Nixon needed
a representative

who knew his thinking very well

and who knew how
this plot would evolve.

When I arrived in Beijing,

I was greeted
by Marshal Yeh Chien-ying,

who was the ranking officer
of the armed forces at the time,

a veteran of the Long March.

And he escorted me
to a state guesthouse.

The next morning,

we were taken
to the Forbidden City,

which had been closed
to the public for that day,

and which, empty,
is truly magical.

[man speaking Chinese]

KISSINGER:
You could see how these Chinese
emperors impressed the envoys

coming from distant countries

with the majesty and simplicity
of that architecture.

Nixon coming to China
did not come up

until there were 18 hours
left for my departure.

Of course, you can say all
of this was cleverly designed

to get our back
against the wall.

Because for me to have gone
to China, and with no result,

would have not been widely
acclaimed in Washington.

NIXON: Let's face it, in the long run,
it's so historic.

You know, when you stop to think
of 800 million people,

where they're going to be,
Jesus, this is a hell of a move.

KISSINGER: One has to understand

that Nixon had gone
through three years

having demonstrated
extraordinary fortitude

in the face of often
very violent protests.

So it was inevitable
and understandable

that he wanted to be the person
on whom attention would focus.

NIXON: If we make
the breakthrough on China,

this is the biggest thing
that's ever happened

in, you know, 20 years, Henry.

KISSINGER: A historic
turning point, Mr. President.

NIXON: That's right.
They all know it, don't they?

KISSINGER: Oh, no question.
Not a question.

REPORTER:
This is the historic handshake

the President of
the United States

travelled halfway across
the world to make

with Premier Chou En Lai
at Peking airport.

KISSINGER: Every meeting
followed a certain pattern.

And the pattern was this—

the Chinese never told you ahead
of time when you would see Mao.

You were then taken
to Mao's residence,

which was in the Forbidden City,
in a house like any other house.

Very simple.

No armed guards.

You went past a corridor that
had a ping pong table in it,

into the study,

which, on my first visit to him,

had a bed in the corner,

and that bed later disappeared.

There were books scattered
all over the floor.

Mao was sitting in a semi-circle
of easy chairs.

Mao would then get up
and would start a conversation.

In my public life,

I've met a few people whose
presence dominated a room,

like that of great actors
who can step on the stage,

and just stepping on it,
win the audience.

And Mao was one
of these figures.

There's no doubt that
when Mao got up,

there was a concentrated
willpower emanating from him.

He had a sardonic
sense of humor.

Also slightly threatening,
always threatening.

Mao said to me,
"You see, Professor,

I will be easy to deal with.

Every concession I make
is for a thousand years."

What he was really telling me
is, "Watch out,

if you get into a fight with me,
it won't end easily."

[orchestra playing]

One of Nixon's nightmares
always was endless dinners.

[speaking Chinese]

Nixon was never at ease
at big banquets.

He didn't like big banquets.

But he liked
the Chinese occasions,

because they were colorful.

They were a culmination
of years of his efforts,

and because they,
with all the drama,

they didn't last too long.

From the point of view of
strategy and long-term policy,

it was the most seminal event
of the Nixon first term.

The more long-term impact

was, first of all,
on the American public.

It demonstrated that America
had options in the world

that could not be, that were
not exhausted by Vietnam.

NIXON: All in all, of course,

the whole thing that you can
take some comfort in—

you know, we talk about
how this happened,

and it wouldn't have happened
if you hadn't stuck to your guns

through this period,
too, you know.

KISSINGER: Mr. President,
you made it possible.

NIXON: We have played a game,

and we've gotten
a little break here.

We were hoping we'd get one,
and I think we have one now.

If we play it skillfully

and we'll wait a couple
of weeks and then...

KISSINGER: But we set up
this whole intricate web.

When we talked about linkage,
everyone was sneering.

NIXON: Yeah, I know.

KISSINGER:
But we've done it now.

Everything is beginning
to fit together.

Let's talk about the secrecy.

The mechanics of opening to
China, they were done secretly.

Every president
had felt constrained

to have private emissaries.

The peculiarity of
the Nixon Administration

was that they used one private
emissary for everything.

NIXON: That's right,
that's right.

Well, Ijust wish
that we operated

without the bureaucracy.

We do.

KISSINGER: All the good things
that are being done

are done without them.

NIXON: We do, we do, we do.

KISSINGER: One has to
understand, first of all,

why the secret, why there was
a secret back channel.

Well, now there are two ways
of doing that.

One would be to do it
back channel via Connolly,

the other would be to
tell it through State.

NIXON: No, no.
Back channel through Connolly.

KISSINGER:
Right, that's what I thought.

NIXON: That's good.
Great, Henry. Bye, thank you.

KISSINGER: Some of
the requirements of secrecy

arose from the fact,

not that we wanted to keep
something from the press,

but we wanted to keep something

from the State Department
bureaucracy.

And over there,
they waffle around

and give you on the one hand
and on the other hand.

NIXON:
And write reams of nothing.

KISSINGER:
And write reams of stuff that
evaporates under your fingers.

NIXON: Yeah.

KISSINGER: Nixon had developed
an almost compulsive distrust

of the State Department.

REPORTER: Despite
the highest level denials,

Henry Kissinger is,
by all accounts,

the President's principal
advisor on foreign policy,

far more influential than
Secretary of State Rogers.

And this one lean fact

has suddenly kicked off
the hottest controversy in town.

Operating out of these
freshly redecorated offices

at the White House,

Kissinger has been slowly
accumulating power,

his staff more than
doubled to 110,

his budget quadrupled,
now $2.3 million a year.

STUART SYMINGTON: It makes
the Secretary of State, in effect, a figurehead.

REPORTER: Secretary, can you
give us a progress report

on the talks so far?

WILLIAM ROGERS: No, thanks, I'm
just a little late for dinner.

Ithink I should go in.
Thank you.

[Nixon speaking]

NIXON: I know all of you
will want to hear

from the new Secretary of State,

speaking for the first time
in that capacity.

KISSINGER: In September 1973,
I became Secretary of State.

There is no country in the world
where it is conceivable

that a man of my origins
could be standing here

next to the President
of the United States.

[applause]

[Nixon speaking]

FERGUSON: What does this
photograph make you remember?

KISSINGER: It's a photograph,
obviously, of my mother

with my brother and me.

And we were a close family.

My grandfather lived
in a village 40 miles from Furth,

the town in which I was born.

But in those days, it took
several hours to bicycle there,

and that's what we often did.

Of course, every village
through which you drove

had a sign at
the entrance saying,

"Jews are not desired here."

The Nazis came to power
when I was 9 years old.

I was prohibited to go from,
to German schools.

All the German people
with whom my parents associated

more or less cut off
all contact with us.

[chanting]

For my parents, it was
a shocking change in their life.

My parents weren't
intellectuals.

My father was a teacher
and not a practical man.

And he was sort of paralyzed

in the face of the evil
the Nazis represented.

My mother was more elemental,
extremely practical.

And she decided,
for the sake of her children,

that they should leave Germany.

My father didn't object.

What I felt was the loss of all
the associations of my friends

when we left Germany.

That was a wrench in my life
that had a deep impact on me.

It was the possibility

that what had given you security
could disintegrate.

Three years after
I arrived as a refugee,

America and Germany were at war,

and I was drafted
into the United States Army.

REPORTER: American youth
rallies to the colors,

volunteers to man the ramparts
against the Axis menace,

against the white
and yellow bandits

who would banish freedom
from the earth.

KISSINGER:
When I came back to Germany,

I experienced aspects
of the holocaust

from the point of a member
of the army of occupation.

We drove in, and I was
amongst, probably,

the first who was there.

As I remember it, from
the direction which I came,

the Jewish camp was
on the right side,

they were wearing
these striped clothes.

NARRATOR: Ahlem concentration
camp near Hannover.

Prisoners who could walk
were removed

before American troops
entered Hannover.

The others were left
to starve and die.

KISSINGER: Well, the Ahlem
concentration camp was,

well, we, I hadn't seen
a concentration camp before,

obviously not, and I had not
seen prisoners like this before.

NARRATOR: Some of the inmates
are too weak

to leave their bunks
or even eat.

The victims relate the atrocity story,
and photographs are made.

KISSINGER: The Jews were in a state
you couldn't describe as human.

They were extremely weak.

They lived in wooden sheds

where three or four people
were living on one board.

And there were several
dead bodies lying around.

So, the immediate instinct
was to feed them.

And I and my colleagues
gave them our rations.

And we killed some of them
by giving them solid food,

which they could
no longer digest.

It was a world of...

...of shocking incongruities.

Many members of my family

and about 70% of the people
with whom I went to school

died in concentration camps.

So that is something
one cannot forget.

My obligation was to
contribute to something

that would prevent that
from happening again.

I don't go around the world
preaching to people to be good.

But I do believe
in absolute values

that should not be violated.

FERGUSON:
This gets to the heart of some
very fundamental questions

about the role of morality
in foreign policy.

Was it simply a necessary evil
for the United States

in the context of the Cold War
in the 1970s,

to deal with regimes
like Pinochet's Chile

even when, as you yourself
have written,

they exceeded acceptable moral
norms in their domestic policy?

Can you talk about
that general problem

of having dealings
with dictators?

KISSINGER:
Can we stop this for one second?

In September 1970,
the Marxist Salvador Allende

was campaigning for
the presidency in Chile.

There was a fear,
which, incidentally,

all the documents
demonstrate was correct,

that Allende was very closely
tied to the Soviet Union

and that he was
very closely tied to Cuba.

[crowd chanting]

[speaking Spanish]

established in Santiago.

And I believe that any
fair student of the subject

will recognize that Allende
was, if anything,

to the left of
the Communist party,

because he had no patience.

This was the assessment
of the Chilean issue.

But I won't go any deeper into
the Chilean issue, incidentally.

Suddenly we're told Allende
is going to win the election.

So, in the middle of a crisis,
the President gave an order

directly to the Central Intelligence Agency.

[teletype machine]

What we attempted to get done
and what Nixon basically did

was to give an order
that something should be done.

Suddenly we are told Allende
is going to win the election.

[crowd chanting "Allende"]

In the end, the plan failed,
and Allende was elected.

After that, Nixon was
absolutely outraged.

Suddenly, people come, walk in

and tell him there's a Communist
government in Santiago.

Once Allende was elected,

the United States made no direct
effort to overthrow him.

The only thing we did
was to get some money

to parties and newspapers

that were being suppressed
by Allende.

[speaking Spanish]

in September 1973,

was the US government—
were you—involved?

KISSINGER: We had nothing
to do with the military coup,

and every investigation
has found that.

DAVID ATLEE PHILIPS:
We and the US government

would much prefer for that coup
not to have taken place

so there could have
been elections.

MAN: Were you aware that a coup
was about to take place?

PHILIPS: I'm sorry?

FERGUSON:
When the coup did happen,

which I suppose you
and President Nixon

must have welcomed...

KISSINGER: Absolutely.

FERGUSON: You certainly weren't
sorry when he went.

KISSINGER: No.

FERGUSON:
...nor was President Nixon.

KISSINGER:
Neither of us were sorry.

One has to understand that
all of this was occurring

while various regions
of the world were in turmoil,

where the Soviet Union
would be tempted

by its ideology and its power
to play a shaping role.

The fundamental problem was how
to deal with Soviet aggression

and at the same time reduce the
threat of nuclear annihilation.

So I believed it was essential

to have a dialogue
with the Soviet leaders.

The Soviet leaders were
products of the purges,

advancing up the ranks

when Stalin exterminated
their fathers.

So they had lived
under conditions

of almost abject terror.

So, in a way, they were
like extinct volcanoes.

What made the Russian leaders
humanly somewhat vulnerable

was the enormous desire
to be recognized as equals.

And to be recognized

as being able to live up
to Western economic standards.

[singing in Russian]

KISSINGER: Brezhnev invited us
to Zavidovo,

which is a hunting retreat

in which he had
a rather elaborate house.

He asked me how much
that hunting lodge

would cost in the United States.

So I said $400,000,
which sounded like a lot to me.

And I could see that
Brezhnev was crestfallen.

Then one of my associates said,

"Why don't you say
that the whole complex

would cost several million?"

And when I did that, Brezhnev
brightened considerably,

and there was in Brezhnev
this element of insecurity.

[gunshot]

[man speaking Russian]

KISSINGER: Brezhnev ran
a massive operation,

over which he was
sort of losing control.

He knew it wasn't
working properly.

He knew he wanted peace
with the United States.

OPERATOR: Yes, please?

KISSINGER: Get me
the Soviet ambassador, please.

OPERATOR: Thank you, sir.

KISSINGER: So that was the
background to set up the summit,

which led to the first strategic
arms limitation agreement.

Mr. President.

NIXON: Well, you got your hair
cut now, all ready to go, huh?

KISSINGER: Ah-ha, yes.

NIXON: Fine.

Wish you well on your trip,
and I hope it's not too tiring,

in a sense, you know.

and terrible pressure,
you know, is very hard.

KISSINGER: Our original plan was
to have a summit of arms control

with the Russians
before consummating

our budding relationship
with the Chinese.

But the Russians
overplayed their hand,

and the next thing they heard
was thatl had been in Beijing.

NIXON: The Chinese thing is
going just the way we want it.

Our purpose is to
get along with both.

We want to be,
you can be our friend

without being
anybody else's enemy.

KISSINGER: All right.

NIXON: That's the line.

KISSINGER: Within three weeks
of my being in Beijing,

the Russians accepted a summit
and were eagerly pushing it.

NARRATOR:
At the Intourist Hotel,

several hundred members
of the international press

have gathered to report
on the progress of the talks.

KISSINGER: It was a culmination
of four years of effort—

the conclusion of
the fundamental agreement

stabilizing the nuclear forces
of both sides.

It was one of those few moments
of exhilaration one can feel.

Actually, Mr. President,
with this thing cooking,

I think we are beginning
to hold the cards.

[jet airplane]

Our diplomacy had given
huge incentives

to China and the Soviet Union

to bring the Vietnam War
to a conclusion.

It must have increased the sense
of isolation of the Vietnamese.

The problem was that in the end

that was not sufficient
to bring peace.

NIXON: We'll blast the hell
out of North Vietnam.

Don't you agree?

KISSINGER: Absolutely.

NIXON: There isn't going
to be any bombing halt

under any circumstances.

If anything before the election,

we're going to bomb more,
believe me.

KISSINGER: Massive employment
of American air power

broke the back of
the North Vietnamese offensive

and, in fact, threw them back.

NARRATOR: For 11 days
in December 1972,

B-52s penetrated the strongest
air defense network

ever assembled in the history
of aerial warfare.

On December 30,
North Vietnam announced

that it was ready to resume
peace negotiations.

The B-52s achieved
their objective.

KISSINGER: By September,
Le Duc Tho was in retreat,

and by October,
he threw in his hand

in the terms
of that negotiation.

I came back from that seminal
meeting with Le Duc Tho

and reported to Nixon, Ithink
I said, "Well, we've done it."

You've got three out of three—

that meant Russia,
China and Vietnam.

NIXON: Good evening.

I have asked for this radio
and television time tonight

for the purpose of announcing
that we, today, have concluded

an agreement to end the war
and bring peace with honor

in Vietnam and
in Southeast Asia.

You know, that speech was
a real gem, wasn't it?

KISSINGER:
Oh, that was a beauty.

Three weeks after the bombing
ended, Mr. President,

and you've wrapped it all up.

MAN: There was this positively
marvelous interview

that he gave to
an Italian journalist,

I think her name was
Orianna Fallaci.

And she managed to get more
of his fantasies out of him

in that interview than
I have ever seen before.

And the whole interview
came down to Mr. Kissinger

talking about
himself as a cowboy.

He says, "I've always
been a man acting alone

in the great American tradition
of the cowboy,

riding into town at sunset
with six guns drawn,

everybody waiting for me."

KISSINGER: I was at a party,

and a young lady came up to me
and said, "Are you a swinger?"

And I said, "I'm too busy
to do any public swinging.

And I don't want you to think
that I don't do any swinging,

so why don't you just assume
I'm a secret swinger."

During the period
that I was not married,

I was photographed with
several attractive ladies.

So the question arose,
how does he do it?

NARRATOR: "After work,"
said Kissinger,

who was divorced in 1964, "I try
to be with a beautiful girl."

After an afternoon
with Indira Gandhi,

I certainly don't want to spend
the evening with Golda Meir.

His dates, whom he changed
more often than his suits,

found a charming and witty man

beneath the professorial
exterior.

BARBARA HOWAR: I have
three things about Henry,

if you are speaking of Henry
with no time to be a swinger.

If he's taking you
out to dinner,

don't start to get dressed

until the third time he's called
to say he's on his way.

If he's taking you
to a dinner party,

tell him you'll meet him there,
or you'll never get to eat,

because you'll never make it
for the first course.

And if he's coming
to your house to dinner,

don't lay his place at the table

till you hear him coming
up the front stairs.

I mean, Henry's a busy man,

he doesn't have time
to be a swinger.

FERGUSON:
Probably the most famous phrase
associated with you

is that "Power is
the ultimate aphrodisiac."

KISSINGER: But it's not,
it's not something that I want

to have inscribed
on my tombstone.

BARBARA WALTERS: Some serious
people have been concerned

that the man who goes out
with beautiful women

and dates movie starlets

also negotiates with
Chou En Lai and Le Duc Tho.

Do you see any conflict between
these two aspects of your life?

KISSINGER: No, Ifind
they reinforce each other.

WALTERS: Does the President
tease you about it?

KISSINGER:
Oh, yes, occasionally.

NIXON: Hello, Henry.

Where are you?

Well, Henry, just let me say

that as soon as you
take care of the ladies,

if you can work it
into your schedule,

I want you to get back here
to the White House.

I want to give you hell
for 30 minutes.

[hangs up phone]

KISSINGER: The observer
thinks that success

is sort of an award
people hand you,

and you can bank it.

If you are the practitioner,

you know that success
is an admissions ticket

for a new crisis.

NIXON: Good evening.

I want to talk to you
tonight from my heart

on a subject of deep concern
to every American.

In recent months,

members of my administration
and officials

of the Committee for
the Re-election of the President

have been charged
with involvement

in what has come to be known
as the Watergate Affair.

KISSINGER: At the beginning
of his second term,

it was a period
of great promise,

but Nixon knew
something I didn't.

When he was elected,

he had called in
President Johnson,

and President Johnson had
shown him the taping system

that he had installed
in the Oval Office.

He was becoming
increasingly frantic

about leaks from
the White House.

And some time in late 1970
or early 1971,

he then decided that
he could protect himself

by taping everything,
including my own phone calls.

NIXON: Have you given any more
thought to the Kissinger problem?

BOB HALDEMAN:
Yes, I have, Mr. President.

Ithink it's...

NIXON: Let's get
the Bureau in, by God.

Let's find out, let's get
right on his private phone

and who called him on that.

Why don't we do it?

KISSINGER: The problem was
we were so preoccupied

with Watergate, with ending
the Vietnam War,

opening to Moscow,
opening to China,

that we were surprised
by the attack when it occurred.

The morning of 6:30
on October 6, 1973, Joe Sisco,

who was my assistant secretary
for Near East Affairs,

woke me up and said, "There's
some trouble on the Suez Canal,

and if you get on
the phone right away,

you can get it under control."

Egypt and Syria launched
a surprise attack against Israel.

What made this so serious

was that the Soviets
were threatening

to give military backing
to the Arab side.

Then we received
a message from Brezhnev

saying that unless we agreed
to join military operations

with the Soviet Union in Egypt
to stop the Israelis,

they would act alone.

So at that point,
we had to confront the threat,

and we had a few hours to do it.

NIXON: Ijust have a feeling
that, even now, you know,

you pick up the paper and
it's Watergate, Watergate.

KISSINGER: Mr. President, no one
can undo the achievements,

none of these facts are tackled.

The problem was that
this week coincided

with the absolute low point
of the Nixon presidency.

Impeachment proceedings
were starting,

his attempt to make a deal
about the tapes had collapsed.

NIXON: Because people
have got to know

whether or not
their president's a crook.

Well, I'm not a crook.

I've earned everything I've got.

KISSINGER:
So, he was preoccupied.

Therefore, I had a degree
of influence, publicly,

that a Secretary of State can,
in the nature of things,

never attain.

We decided this
was an opportunity

at which we would
attempt to demonstrate

that while they could
make war with Soviet arms,

they would need to make peace
with American diplomacy.

Shuttle diplomacy was necessary,

because it made
possible a momentum

in what was the frozen process

that would not have been
achievable otherwise.

It turned out that that was
the most efficient way

of conducting business.

When you went from Cairo
to Jerusalem, or vice versa,

you went from
different mindsets.

Each meeting took about
six to eight hours.

I seemed to have a lot
of physical endurance,

and I'd sleep only four
or five hours a night.

The enterprise itself
was exciting, was uplifting.

So the shuttles
made possible a momentum

in what was a frozen process

that would not have been
achievable otherwise.

HUGH SCOTT: Dr. Kissinger,
referred to by the President

as the senior diplomat
of the world,

had really pulled
another miracle.

[applause]

KISSINGER: There was a different
atmosphere during Watergate,

because you knew you were
dealing with a wounded leader

who was suffering
and who was preoccupied.

NIXON: Well, rather
a hard day, wasn't it?

KISSINGER:
Well, it was hard for you.

NIXON: Yeah, well, anyway, I've
even considered the possibility

of franklyjust kind of
throwing myself on the sword.

KISSINGER: No, that is
out of the question

with all due respect,
Mr. President.

[applause]

The night before he left,

there were only two people
present, Nixon and myself.

And it was not in itself
unnatural for Nixon

to ask me to sit with him
and reflect.

And now he had destroyed himself

by his own effort,
by his own actions.

And he knew that.

But he called me in to discuss
where it would all lead

and what would be left
and what it meant.

As I left, he asked me to
kneel down in a prayer with him.

Given the magnitude
of the occasion,

and the awfulness
of the destiny,

there was nothing
particularly bizarre about it.

What else was there to do?

I think it was one of the most
moving moments of my life,

and one for which
I respect Nixon.

It was not done
for any witnesses.

It served no other purpose
except to cap an evening

that in itself capped
a lifetime in politics.

The French philosopher,
Raymond Aron,

who was a great friend of mine,
said to me during Watergate,

when I was on the covers
of magazines

and very high
in popularity polls,

he said, "You are used
by the media as an alibi

for their hatred for Nixon.

And you'd better pray
for his survival,

because the minute he goes,
they'll come after you."

The collapse of South Vietnam

and the evacuation of Saigon
was, without doubt,

the saddest moment
of my governmental experience.

There was a new president

who had to deal with
a hostile Congress.

It cut military and economic aid
to South Vietnam by two thirds.

In this demoralized atmosphere,

the North Vietnamese sent their
entire army into South Vietnam.

And even then,
it took them three months

to break the resistance
of the South Vietnamese.

I am unreconstructed
in my conviction

that Vietnam
did not have to fall—

that we did that to ourselves.

For the last month of the war,
President Ford and I

sort of kept going
an American role in Vietnam,

forjust one reason—to give
the maximum number of civilians

an opportunity to go, to leave.

It was clear by early April that
Vietnam would probably fall.

So then the question was how
many Vietnamese could we save?

So every day, there were
airplanes available

to move everybody out.

And we would dole it out
by a few hundred Americans

and thousands of Vietnamese,
and we loaded the planes

with enough Americans
to make it an American airlift,

and the rest of them Vietnamese.

And then the North Vietnamese
started shelling the airport,

so we couldn't use
the airport anymore.

So we decided to go do
a helicopter airlift

from the embassy.

In a crisis, in movies
you see people running around,

picking up telephones,
yelling at each other.

In real crisis,
it gets very quiet,

and very few people
want to be seen.

At one point,
Schlesinger called me up

and said, "We can't keep
this operating much longer,

because the Vietnamese are
getting too close to the city."

And that started, then,
the final evacuation.

Is that the helicopters leaving?

There was no time to think
about what might have been.

There was a great emptiness,

because I had thought
in the months before,

and I think today, that we did
Vietnam to ourselves.

The Vietnamese
did not do that to us.

REPORTER:
Well, this is the Presidential
Palace under new management.

There they are,
the regular troops

of the North Vietnamese army
on the balcony.

They are now the new masters.

KISSINGER: I think it's safe to
say I have done the greater part

of what I will be doing
in this world.

That I came from a group
of people in the academic world

and that I then wound up with
a man they despised as a president

and conducted policies

that whose consequences
they couldn't face.

The major themes of my life
have been to create

a structurally
more peaceful world.

To prevent a catastrophic war

and to help America
towards a stabler direction.

How that will be recognized
is very difficult to say.

For better or worse,
the main strategic decisions,

they reflected my convictions.

And I certainly would go
that same direction again...

...painful as some
of the aspects of it were,

in Vietnam and otherwise.

So I'm not giving you an answer

that is adequate to what you
are putting to me.

And it would certainly be more
impressive to an audience

if there were some
mea culpa expressed.