-Caveat Lector-
"Famous for improving relations with Russia, Kissinger said there is a
danger in today's Russia of communists and nationalists joining forces to
oppose the United States. '`I think the war in Kosovo contributes to this,''
he said. ``There is a danger of something similar to Germany's National
Socialism arising in Russia.''
Kissinger Looks at Events He Shaped
By CHRIS TOMLINSON
.c The Associated Press
Associated Press Writers
NEW YORK (AP) - Sitting in his 26th-floor Park Avenue office, against a
backdrop of photos of himself with many of the 20th century's most
influential people, Henry Kissinger looks out at a world drastically
different from the one he shaped as America's top diplomat.
``There is no recollection of what the Cold War was like,'' Kissinger said.
``I keep hearing about how tough foreign policy is now, but (in 1969) we had
a thermonuclear adversary with 15,000 nuclear weapons. When we came into
office - the administration under which I served - there were 400 dead a
week'' in Vietnam.
``Now when we have one dead, or there is one prisoner taken, we have a
national emotional breakdown,'' he added in an interview with The Associated
Press.
Whether it is U.S. relations with China and Russia, the peace process in the
Middle East, ethnic conflict in Africa and southeastern Europe, or human
rights abuses in Chile, Kissinger had a hand in all of it a quarter century
ago.
In his third and final volume of memoirs, ``Years of Renewal,'' Kissinger
aims to remind the world of the role he played in 1973-76 as secretary of
state for Presidents Nixon and Ford and of the context in which he made
decisions that still reverberate today.
Where U.S. policy was successful, Kissinger gives credit to Ford and himself.
Where the administration failed, he blames the Democrat-controlled Congress
or other outside forces.
In the book, Kissinger candidly assesses world leaders - Nixon (flawed), Ford
(authentic), Mao Tse-tung (determined), Leonid Brezhnev (envious), Yitzhak
Rabin (wise), Augusto Pinochet (necessary), Mobutu Sese Seko (ostentatious).
And he gives an insider's view of detente with Russia, expanded relations
with China, shuttle diplomacy in the Middle East, the division of Cyprus and
civil war in Angola.
Many of these issues remain major challenges for President Clinton and his
administration.
The question of relations with China has been heated up by claims its agents
stole U.S. nuclear secrets, but China is now a major American trading
partner. Such things must be kept in perspective, Kissinger said.
``When you are the world's most advanced technologically, you are expected to
be spied on,'' he said.
``The fundamental issue, whether we want to stop China from becoming a strong
power, we don't admit to ourselves. On this we need to debate because if we
go down that road, you are in an endless confrontation.''
On Chile, Kissinger denies allegations the United States was behind
Pinochet's 1973 coup and says that while he welcomed the overthrow of
Salvador Allende's Marxist government, he told Pinochet the general's record
on human rights complicated relations with the United States.
Kissinger declined to comment on Spain's criminal torture charges against the
former Chilean dictator, who is currently under arrest in London fighting
extradition.
``But I do think the procedure, where a magistrate in one country - where the
alleged crimes did not occur - can issue an arrest warrant for a former
leader of a country elsewhere and that they then become criminalized through
the extradition procedure is extremely dangerous,'' Kissinger said.
``No senior American official would be safe if this became an accepted
practice, because anybody can be accused of something.''
Nixon first appointed Kissinger to be his national security adviser in 1969
and then promoted him to secretary of state in September 1973. Kissinger
remained in that post after Nixon resigned and served under Ford until
President Carter took office in early 1977.
A refugee from Nazi Germany, Kissinger taught political science and
international affairs at Harvard University before entering public life and
now runs an international consulting firm, Kissinger Associates.
The bookshelves in his office sag under the weight of thick autobiographies,
many written by his contemporaries. Kissinger himself has been prolific - his
two previous 1,000-page memoir volumes, ``The White House Years'' and ``Years
of Upheaval,'' put his combined autobiography at more than 3,000 pages, or
more than a page for every day in office.
He still carefully observes U.S. foreign policy and sees some parallels
between the Vietnam War and the Kosovo crisis.
``The similarity is in the sense that the Kennedy and Johnson administrations
went into Vietnam thinking that they could win with technological
superiority, not assessing the element of endurance, and this is clearly true
in Kosovo and the Balkans,'' he said.
``If you use military force, and you are not willing to suffer casualties,
then you get into the dilemma we are now in Kosovo. And when the only way to
win is to make the population of the adversary suffer for it, that is a
strange definition of morality and of humanity.''
Kissinger said U.S. presidents must always remain focused on what is in the
national interest, something he contends Nixon understood well and Clinton
does not.
``I do not accept this concept of humanitarian foreign policy. In specific,
horrible cases like (the 1994 genocide in) Rwanda, I could say that the
conscience of mankind is so offended that one really cannot be in a world
where that happens,'' he said. ``In Kosovo, I believe we could have prevented
the worst of ethnic cleansing by diplomacy, and I think we started down this
path at least prematurely.''
Famous for improving relations with Russia, Kissinger said there is a danger
in today's Russia of communists and nationalists joining forces to oppose the
United States.
``I think the war in Kosovo contributes to this because it has created a
public reaction (in Russia) that everyone agrees goes far beyond the Moscow
elite,'' he said. ``So I think there is a danger of something similar to
National Socialism in Germany, which is what the Nazis were.''
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