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Q. Mr. Secretary, you have repeatedly spoken of the potential consequences of what has happened in Southeast Asia. I would like to ask if you feel that your personal prestige & therefore your personal ability to negotiate between other countries has been damaged by what has happened & the failure of the past course?
Secretary Kissinger: If I should ever come to the conclusion that I could not fulfill what the President has asked of me, then I would draw the consequences from this. Obviously, this has been a very painful experience & it would be idle to deny this has been a painful experience for many who have been concerned w/ this problem for a decade & a half. I think the problems in Viet-Nam went deeper than any one negotiation & that an analysis of the accords at the time will require an assessment of the public pressures, of what was sustainable, but I don't think, again, that we should go into this at this particular moment, nor am I probably the best judge of my prestige at any particular point.
20:38:06 Q. Mr. Secretary, what was it in particular that led you to believe until Sunday night that Hanoi might be willing to go for a nonmilitary solution? Did you have some specific information from them to indicate that, because certainly the battlefield situation suggested otherwise?
Secretary Kissinger: Well, maybe to you, but the battlefield situation suggested that there was a stand-down of significant military activity, & the public pronouncements were substantially in the direction that a negotiation would start w/ General Minh. There were also other reasons which led us to believe that the possibility of a negotiation remained open.
20:39:06 Q. Mr. Secretary, you have blamed the Soviets & the Red Chinese for breaking faith w/ the letter & the spirit of the Paris peace accords. The Soviet Union has apparently, thru its broadcasts, encouraged a Communist takeover in Portugal. The Chinese have signed a joint communiqué w/ North Korea encouraging North Korea to unify South Korea by force. My question is, why, in view of these violations in both the letter & in the spirit of detente, does the United States continue to believe in detente; secondly, are we ever going to take some obvious action showing American displeasure at the behavior of the two Communist superpowers?
Secretary Kissinger: Then first, I think it is important to keep in mind that our relationship w/ both the Soviet Union & the People's Republic of China is based on ideological hostility but practical reasons for cooperation in certain limited spheres. With respect to the Soviet Union, they & we possess the capability to destroy mankind. The problem of, the question of how to prevent a general nuclear war is a problem that some Administration must solve before consequences that would be irremedial. Therefore there is always a common interest, & indeed a common obligation, to attempt to deal with this particular problem. With respect to the various points you made, it is important for us to recognize that we cannot, in this situation, ask of the Soviet Union that it does our job for us. On the one hand, as I pointed out previously, of course the Soviet Union & the People's Republic must be responsible for the consequences of those actions that lead to an upset of the situation in Indochina, or maybe in the Middle East; that is, the introduction of massive armaments that will in all probability be used offensively is an event that we cannot ignore. On the other hand, I think it would be a grave mistake to blame the Soviet Union for what happened in Portugal. It may have taken advantage of the situation in Portugal, but the fact that the Communist Party in Portugal has emerged despite the fact that it, in recent elections, had only 12 percent of the votes cannot be ascribed to Soviet machinations primarily, but due to causes that are much more complicated & also due to evolutions in Europe that have roots quite different from Soviet pressures. So, we must not make the mistake of ascribing every reverse we have to our Communist opponents, because that makes them appear 10 feet tall. On the other hand, we must not make the mistake of lulling ourself, w/ a period of detente, into believing that all competition has disappeared. Between these two extremes, we must navigate, seek to reduce tensions on the basis of reciprocity, & seek to promote a stabler world. When either of the Communist countries have attempted actively to bring foreign policy pressures, the United States has resisted strenuously, & again we have called their attention to the fact that the fostering of international conflict will certainly lead to a breakdown of detente. But the individual examples which you gave cannot be ascribed to Communist actions primarily.
Vietnam War End; Saigon Evacuation; Secretary of State; 29Apr75; 1975;
NOTE: Up to any continuous 24 minutes of 20:00:00 - 20:47:26 sold at per reel rate.
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NOTE: FOR ORDERING See: www.footagefarm.co.uk or contact us at: Info@Footagefarm.co.uk Q. Mr. Secretary, you have repeatedly spoken of the potential consequences of what has happened in Southeast Asia. I would like to ask if you feel that your personal prestige & therefore your personal ability to negotiate between other countries has been damaged by what has happened & the failure of the past course? Secretary Kissinger: If I should ever come to the conclusion that I could not fulfill what the President has asked of me, then I would draw the consequences from this. Obviously, this has been a very painful experience & it would be idle to deny this has been a painful experience for many who have been concerned w/ this problem for a decade & a half. I think the problems in Viet-Nam went deeper than any one negotiation & that an analysis of the accords at the time will require an assessment of the public pressures, of what was sustainable, but I don't think, again, that we should go into this at this particular moment, nor am I probably the best judge of my prestige at any particular point. 20:38:06 Q. Mr. Secretary, what was it in particular that led you to believe until Sunday night that Hanoi might be willing to go for a nonmilitary solution? Did you have some specific information from them to indicate that, because certainly the battlefield situation suggested otherwise? Secretary Kissinger: Well, maybe to you, but the battlefield situation suggested that there was a stand-down of significant military activity, & the public pronouncements were substantially in the direction that a negotiation would start w/ General Minh. There were also other reasons which led us to believe that the possibility of a negotiation remained open. 20:39:06 Q. Mr. Secretary, you have blamed the Soviets & the Red Chinese for breaking faith w/ the letter & the spirit of the Paris peace accords. The Soviet Union has apparently, thru its broadcasts, encouraged a Communist takeover in Portugal. The Chinese have signed a joint communiqué w/ North Korea encouraging North Korea to unify South Korea by force. My question is, why, in view of these violations in both the letter & in the spirit of detente, does the United States continue to believe in detente; secondly, are we ever going to take some obvious action showing American displeasure at the behavior of the two Communist superpowers? Secretary Kissinger: Then first, I think it is important to keep in mind that our relationship w/ both the Soviet Union & the People's Republic of China is based on ideological hostility but practical reasons for cooperation in certain limited spheres. With respect to the Soviet Union, they & we possess the capability to destroy mankind. The problem of, the question of how to prevent a general nuclear war is a problem that some Administration must solve before consequences that would be irremedial. Therefore there is always a common interest, & indeed a common obligation, to attempt to deal with this particular problem. With respect to the various points you made, it is important for us to recognize that we cannot, in this situation, ask of the Soviet Union that it does our job for us. On the one hand, as I pointed out previously, of course the Soviet Union & the People's Republic must be responsible for the consequences of those actions that lead to an upset of the situation in Indochina, or maybe in the Middle East; that is, the introduction of massive armaments that will in all probability be used offensively is an event that we cannot ignore. On the other hand, I think it would be a grave mistake to blame the Soviet Union for what happened in Portugal. It may have taken advantage of the situation in Portugal, but the fact that the Communist Party in Portugal has emerged despite the fact that it, in recent elections, had only 12 percent of the votes cannot be ascribed to Soviet machinations primarily, but due to causes that are much more complicated & also due to evolutions in Europe that have roots quite different from Soviet pressures. So, we must not make the mistake of ascribing every reverse we have to our Communist opponents, because that makes them appear 10 feet tall. On the other hand, we must not make the mistake of lulling ourself, w/ a period of detente, into believing that all competition has disappeared. Between these two extremes, we must navigate, seek to reduce tensions on the basis of reciprocity, & seek to promote a stabler world. When either of the Communist countries have attempted actively to bring foreign policy pressures, the United States has resisted strenuously, & again we have called their attention to the fact that the fostering of international conflict will certainly lead to a breakdown of detente. But the individual examples which you gave cannot be ascribed to Communist actions primarily. Vietnam War End; Saigon Evacuation; Secretary of State; 29Apr75; 1975; NOTE: Up to any continuous 24 minutes of 20:00:00 - 20:47:26 sold at per reel rate. 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