Superstar Statecraft: How Henry Does It
By now the scene has been played so often--four trips to eleven nations in the past ten weeks alone--that it has taken on an atmosphere of, "If this is March, then it must be Moscow." The big, blue and white Boeing 707, with the seal of the President of the United States emblazoned on its door, wheels and whines to an airport ramp. As local officials rush forward, the door swings open, and out pops a wavy-haired, rather pudgy man (185 Ibs. on a 5-ft. 8-in. frame), with the unmistakable aura of a true celebrity. Adjusting his glasses and his smile, the visitor speaks in a solemn baritone, the scholarly English sentences laced, to the puzzlement of some, with the Germanic accents of his native Fuerth. But the audiences listen carefully. The hopes, fears and future of his own country and the world may well depend on whatever is about to transpire.
It is March, and it is Moscow. Early Sunday evening, Air Force Two was scheduled to roll up to a ramp at Vnukovo airport as U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, 50, arrived on his sixth and potentially most important visit to the Soviet Union since he became the foreign-policy plenipotentiary of Richard Nixon's Administration. In the Russian capital, the policymakers of the two ranking superpowers were to review a number of issues that affected not only East-West detente but the entire world.
Items on the agenda:
1) SALT II, or a continuation of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks. Since the signing in May 1972 of the SALT I agreement, which limits offensive weapons and anti-ballistic missiles, the Soviets have tested four new intercontinental ballistic missiles and have developed their first submarine-launched multiple warhead missile. The Pentagon, meanwhile, as part of a record $85.8 billion budget request, included items to improve missile accuracy, guidance and control that are also meant to prod the Soviets into a formula for "essential equivalence" in missiles and payloads. At a predeparture press conference in Washington last week, Kissinger indicated that the two nations had passed the stage of technical exchanges and were "at the point where we should be making, or should be attempting, a conceptual breakthrough on arms limitation agreements."
2) TRADE. Both the Soviets and U.S.
industry are anxious to increase U.S.-U.S.S.R. trade, but the credits and most-favored-nation status that Moscow seeks are both bottled up in Congress. Amendments to pending trade legislation, notably including one sponsored by Democratic Senator Henry ("Scoop") Jackson of Washington, tie M.F.N. status to a nagging political question and one which is directly tied to Jewish emigration to Israel--the right of Soviet citizens to leave the U.S.S.R. without harassment or penalties. Kissinger firmly insists that emigration is a domestic Soviet issue, and he has fought all efforts to tie it to the trade legislation that he considers essential to detente.
3) THE MIDDLE EAST. The two superpowers are at odds over how to achieve a peaceful resolution of Arab-Israeli hostilities. In a dazzling display of his personalized brand of "shuttle diplomacy," Kissinger successfully negotiated disengagement between Egypt and Israel. After his return from Moscow, he will attempt to work out a similar agreement involving Israel and Syria, a considerably more difficult task. The settlement talks began last December in Geneva under joint Soviet-American auspices. But the Russians, who for years have been the chief arms suppliers to the Arab world, feel humiliated and embarrassed that they have seemingly contributed nothing to the shaping of a possible peace and that Kissinger has quickly made friends with Egypt, once a virtual Soviet client. Soviet resentment is visceral and obvious: last week pointed articles appeared in Pravda and other Soviet publications charging that Kissinger had negotiated disengagement, not for the Middle East's benefit, but to protect U.S. oil sources. It was a rare criticism of the American agent whom the Russians know and like best of all.
As Kissinger admitted with some understatement at his Washington press conference, U.S.-Soviet relations have entered "a more difficult period." Beyond the agenda, there were other items to be discussed in Moscow that would make his trip particularly critical. In the course of his visit, as politely as possible, Brezhnev and other Soviet leaders were bound to ask critical questions that nag statesmen everywhere: can President Nixon survive Watergate, or should the Soviets prepare to deal with someone else? Kissinger's probable answer: Nixon will survive, but even if he does not, the institutional structure of the U.S. is strong enough to stand an impeachment trial, and the U.S. will fulfill its commitments to detente no matter what happens. Thus the Russians should look to their long-term interests in detente and not take a quick, dangerous advantage of a seeming American weakness.
For the President, who takes a special pride in his mastery of foreign policy, there may well be particularly poignant irony in the fact that Kissinger is now widely viewed as an autonomous operator who might well survive the collapse of the Nixon Administration. (Vice President Gerald Ford has made it clear that, should he become President, he would ask Kissinger to stay on.) Whatever private doubts Kissinger may have about Nixon's role in Watergate, he keeps them well hidden in public. Despite his immense prestige, the Secretary carefully preserves the ritual required of a subordinate who takes orders from a Commander in Chief. When in Washington, he consults daily with the President; on the road, he cables back reports and requests for foreign policy guidance when necessary.
Total Trust. Despite five years of close association, Kissinger and the President have a relationship that, in the view of White House observers, is best described as formal and correct rather than personal. Nixon's trust in Kissinger, on diplomatic issues, is total. The Secretary recognizes that the quickest way to lose his negotiating flexibility would be to exceed the President's instruction. Sums up Presidential Aide Alexander Haig: "I think the President considers Henry a unique national institution."
For Kissinger personally, the success of his Moscow trip is particularly crucial for the continuation of his grand vision of American policy, for the maintenance of the accomplishments he has both achieved and has still in the making. So swiftly and dramatically has the Secretary of State worked radical changes in U.S. diplomacy--detente with Moscow, friendship with Peking, progress toward a settlement in the Middle East--that he has acquired something of the mystique of a magician, pulling doves of peace out of a hat for a fascinated circle of world watchers.
Of late, however, the Kissinger magic has come under attack as a kind of international legerdemain that is at least partly mere illusion. Critics, including Scoop Jackson and liberal academicians, charge that detente has been unproductive, that Kissinger's personal style of diplomacy pays more attention to principals than principles, that he has neglected relations with such proven allies as Europe and Japan for deals with America's ideological enemies in Moscow and Peking. They are hard problems, partly because final judgments remain to be uncovered by events.
Kissinger is a fast-moving target; aiming at him requires a long lead, and in a measure, he controls his trajectory.
The criticisms, voiced most loudly in recent weeks by Europeans (see box page 26), represent a startling reversal for Kissinger. In an Administration marked by scandal, he has not only survived but prospered--a scholar, statesman and superstar who has done the seemingly miraculous for so long that it has become almost routine. Despite the new chorus of complaints and questioning, Kissinger today probably has more impact than any other person in the world. Quite possibly, he has now become the world's indispensable man.
According to a recent Gallup poll, Kissinger is the man Americans admire most in the world today. Abroad he has achieved the kind of celebrity status seldom enjoyed by anyone but top movie stars; in fact, he has become in some places almost a cult hero. His round, expressive face draws more instant recognition in many nations than even that of the local ruler. Government leaders, like so many shy fans, inveigle ways to be photographed with him.
Arab sheiks, fascinated as much by the machismo image of his well-publicized dates with Actresses Jill St.
John and Mario Thomas as by his statesmanship, insist on being briefed by no one else. In Cairo he is referred to as "the American magician." Taxi drivers reverently point out to tourists the streets along which he has traveled, and when the car hits a pothole the cry is, "Where's Kissinger?"
Meeting other Western Hemisphere foreign ministers in Mexico City recently, the Secretary of State was so sought-after by his Latin American counterparts that they even pursued him to the men's room to carry out impromptu discussions. "Kissinger y Rabasa conferencian en el W.C.," headlined Mexico City's Ovaciones, after one such session involving Kissinger and Foreign Minister Emilio Rabasa.
One reason for Kissinger's exalted reputation as a wonderworker, obviously, is the record of his diplomatic successes. Another is the fact that, with Richard Nixon hampered and crippled by Watergate, Kissinger increasingly looms as the architect as well as the voice of U.S. policy. That, of course, is not quite the case. Kissinger himself always makes it clear that the necessary thrust of the White House is behind his success, but the misperception is understandable. Still another reason is that Kissinger happens to be the right man in the right place at the right time. As London Times Foreign Editor Louis Keren recently put it: "Much of the world, East as well as West, hankers for Superman. The role was thrust upon him, although presumably he did not have to be persuaded." In fact, as Kissinger readily agrees, he did not.
Chain Reaction. Some tradition-oriented European diplomats insist that Kissinger's success is built mainly on naked power politics, as is Soviet foreign policy. "He is a troublemaker out of the 19th century," snaps a ranking French Gaullist. In fact, Kissinger has created a novel personal approach to diplomacy fashioned primarily out of self-confidence, charm, boundless energy, humor when applicable, and an ability to grasp what Kissinger, the once--and perhaps future--scholar, calls "the historical process."
Israel's Deputy Premier Yigal Allon, a friend and former student (see box page 28), describes the triumph another way. "He does his homework," says Allon, who also admires Kissinger's "mastery of detail, quick mind and acute sense of timing." The success of the Secretary's "chain reaction" diplomacy is that Kissinger "manages to make you feel that he is listening to you with great understanding, and yet he is never soft.
He does not antagonize you by coming with a specific plan, although I am sure he has his own ideas. He gives you the feeling that he really cares about you, your country, and the Middle East."
A man with a large measure of self-esteem--some critics call it egomania --Kissinger considers himself a statesman rather than a diplomat. Yitzhak Rabin, Israel's former Chief of Staff, as well as Ambassador to Washington and now Minister of Labor, recalls vividly Kissinger's own definition of the distinction: "The diplomat believes that an international conflict derives from misunderstanding. Therefore he seeks a verbal formula to overcome it. The statesman believes that conflict derives from a difference of interest and confrontation positions. Therefore he tries to change the realities on the ground."
The Secretary believes in taking what he calls a "conceptual approach" to negotiations: he tries to consider not problems or areas but the overall perspective. He carefully judges how far each side in his negotiations is prepared to go. He also tries to avoid getting bogged down in either minute detail or rhetorical polemics. A classic example:
the Egyptian-Israeli disengagement negotiations, which climaxed with Kissinger, in his now famous shuttle diplomacy, making almost daily flights between Jerusalem and President Anwar Sadat's vacation retreat in Aswan.
The October war had ended with both armies hunkered down along the Suez Canal in a hazardous politico-military tangle. Kissinger began the negotiations on disengagement by going to each side and asking, in effect, "What would you like to get out of this situation? What are the minimum requirements with which you would be satisfied?" From then on, it was a matter of trying to reconcile the two positions, trying to make one side see and understand the other's conditions, suggesting subtle adjustments here and there--all the while keeping a basic concept in sight.
Kissinger himself appears to work best when, rather like a playground basketball superstar, he can go one-on-one with a leader who shares his own sense of geopolitical realities. "He always looks for the guy who can deliver," says an aide who has sat in on many of Kissinger's negotiating sessions.
Kissinger's diplomatic success in the Middle East so far is due, in part, to the fact that the October war ended in a stalemate, and both sides were psychologically ready for some kind of settlement. The situation was tailor-made for Kissinger: the Israelis, from sad past experience, greatly distrust the United Nations, and the Russians, besides being wholly committed to the Arab cause, had no diplomatic relations with Israel. But to make progress Kissinger also had to deal with an Arab leader who possessed both courage and imagination. Egyptian President Anwar Sadat turned out to be that kind of man.
Last October, for instance, Sadat took a major political risk by tolerating the encirclement of Egypt's Third Army by Israeli forces in the Sinai.
Moreover, he did not overreact when Israeli troops violated the Oct. 22 cease-fire and surrounded the city of Port Suez. Sadat's restraint allowed Kissinger to make a convincing case to the Israelis that Egypt really wanted an agreement.
Kissinger considers Sadat the outstanding Arab leader, "a man of vision and courage, not concerned about standing up against enormous, difficulties." Egypt's President enthusiastically returns the praise. As Sadat told TIME in a recent interview, "He is a very good man. For the first time, you have a real politician as Secretary of State. He is a man of vision and also a strategist. Above all, he is a man of his word."
Another Middle Easterner who seems to have a conceptual knack for successful bargaining is Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan. He handled many of the negotiations with Sadat --through Kissinger, of course--and has been designated Israel's representative in the disengagement talks with Syria that will begin in Washington this week.
Another Kissinger favorite, surprisingly enough, is French Foreign Minister Michel Jobert, who has been the Secretary's most acerbic critic in European assemblies. Kissinger's superlatives, though, are saved for Chinese Premier Chou Enlai, whom he describes as "the greatest statesman of our era."
In forging Washington's new links with Peking and establishing a personal rapport with Chou, Kissinger shrewdly capitalized on China's fears of Soviet expansionism. Tuning, Kissinger readily concedes, has always played a large part in his success as a statesman. But says one Washington friend and admirer: "Sure, a lot of doors open for him. but he walks through them with class."
Flexible Tactician. Kissinger approaches negotiations, not as a lawyer trying to dispose of a case, but as an intellectual and historian. His thorough steeping in the facts about a country and its problems seldom fails to impress government leaders. Although a flexible tactician, he will, if necessary, present a proposal over and over in hopes of getting it accepted. In Paris during 1972. negotiating an end to U.S. participation in the Vietnamese war, Kissinger often worked double sessions, seeing the North and South Vietnamese separately and at length in search of ways to bring the two antagonists closer. He established a respectful relationship with Hanoi's chief representative Le Due Tho. despite his exasperation with the doggedly hortatory North Vietnamese approach to negotiations.
Kissinger has a finely tuned sense of hierarchy and addresses those he deals with in subtly differing ways. When he meets Israeli leaders, for instance, Kissinger calls Golda Meir "Madame Prime Minister," while Dayan and Allon are always "Moshe" and "Yigal." Foreign Minister Abba Eban, by contrast, is simply "Eban." Explains one participant in their talks: "For Mrs. Meir he has high respect, with Dayan good rapport, with Allon comradeship. With Eban there is not much more than a colleague-to-colleague relationship, since Eban is the silent man on the team who does not have much to say." Although Sadat addresses his "dear friend" as "Henry," Kissinger calls the Egyptian leader "Mr. President."
Once he begins negotiations, the particular Kissinger mystique begins to operate, and that in itself is almost a harbinger of success. Wit and humor are key weapons. After many years of conferences and confrontations, he has even relaxed poker-faced Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko to the point that they can kid each other about the recording devices hidden in rooms they are using.
During one sensitive stage of last fall's disengagement negotiations, Kissinger felt that the Israelis were trying to propose more than the Egyptians were prepared to consider. He advised the Israelis to hold back a bit. When an edgy Cabinet minister declared that it would be wrong to offer less than Israel was genuinely willing to concede, Kissinger smiled and answered: "Don't push it. Be despicable--like me." He feels that tension-easing banter can often help negotiations proceed smoothly, which may explain in part his lack of success with relatively humorless Japanese diplomats.
Once talks begin in earnest, however, Kissinger can become deadly serious and wholly pragmatic. Says one Middle Eastern diplomat: "He does not make value judgments. The question for him is not who is right and who is wrong. The question is what in reality can be achieved under the prevailing circumstances." Kissinger frequently stage-manages negotiations to produce the right kind of "atmospherics." Said Costa Rica's Foreign Minister Gonzalo Facio, after the Mexico City conference: "When he has a tough response, he lays it on gently but clearly. But when he has good news, he warms up like a Viennese good fairy, all sugar plums and Schlag [whipped cream]."
Five-Minute Deal. The Schlag is more than topping. In Geneva last December, Egypt almost scotched the first meeting of the U.N.-sponsored talks with Israel on disengagement by objecting to the seating arrangements. The Egyptians demanded an empty table between themselves and the Israelis for distance, with the Israelis sitting next to the Americans like satellites. The Israelis bluntly refused. At that point, recalls one participant, Kissinger "entered the room smiling and cracking jokes. He exclaimed what a pleasure it was to see Abba Eban. (They had breakfasted together.) Grabbing Eban by an elbow, Kissinger took him aside. The Egyptians were in a bind, Kissinger explained. They were embarrassed because the Syrians had refused to join the talks and needed to avoid the appearance of being too easy with the Israelis. Would the Israelis consent to make some adjustments in the seating? 'You don't like the empty table? No? What about another plan, an arrangement that would place the Israelis between the Russians and the U.N. delegation?' If the Israelis agreed, he would try the idea on the Egyptians. In five minutes, a deal was reached, and the talks moved ahead with the Israelis next to the Soviets and the Egyptians alongside the Americans in a symbolically important game of political musical chairs. The ice had been broken largely by Kissinger's warm personality and, even in this relatively minor dispute, his accurate sensing of what each side could or could not yield on."
Background Music. As part of his "atmospherics," Kissinger at times unabashedly uses the American press corps that travels with him aboard Air Force Two. During the shuttle flights between Jerusalem and Aswan in January, which eventually led to disengagement along the Suez Canal, the press was an integral part of Kissinger's diplomatic gap closing. Whenever he was asked how far along the negotiations had come, Kissinger would answer, "Oh, 60% completed." The next time it was 75% and the next 90%. As the two sides kept reading these daily stories, they could not help being nudged into believing that a settlement was nearly at hand. "He played the press like a cello," recalls one reporter. "We created all the background music he needed."
In return for such orchestration, however, Kissinger is more available to journalists than any other major figure in the Nixon Administration and more open than any other Secretary of State in recent years. On long flights aboard Air Force Two he will wander into the press section to trade news or simply chat. At such moments he is unprofessionally informal and often brutally candid in his assessment of the leaders he has just talked to. Shirt open, stomach bulging, he will complain: "When I negotiate I get nervous, and when I get nervous I eat. When I get rid of this Arab-Israeli thing, I am going to weigh 350 Ibs." Newsmen enjoy the proximity to Kissinger and the thoroughness of his briefings, but they also complain that he can occasionally be devious. Despite promises to the contrary, he has yet to reveal the reasons that he says required a worldwide U.S. alert during the latest Middle East war.
These days, Kissinger does much of his socializing aloft. Since becoming Secretary of State, he has cut down on his after-hours activities in Washington. He studiously avoids cocktail parties; if forced to attend a reception, the abstemious Kissinger (who does not smoke) will sip unconvincingly at a glass of wine or champagne. When he does relax, it is within a small circle of friends. They include the writing Alsop brothers (Stewart and Joseph), Humorist Art Buchwald (a regular chess partner) and Columnist Tom Braden and his wife Joan. A pleasant evening for the capital's most sought-after guest may include nothing more than dinner at the Bradens' with "favorite date" Nancy Maginnes, a Nelson Rockefeller aide, followed by the home screening of a movie.
The Secretary's two children, Elizabeth, 15, and David, 12--he was divorced in 1964--live with their mother in Belmont, Mass. This week while they are on spring vacation, they will get a treat that any school child would envy.
Kissinger is taking them to Moscow.
Lately, most of the Secretary's meals have been either on the road or in his private State Department dining room, where he has played host to such official guests as Israel's Eban or Jordan's King Hussein. At least once a week he will have breakfast with Defense Secretary James Schlesinger. Both men insist that they have a healthy working relationship based on mutual respect. "Schlesinger and I are closer together on strategic policy than any other Secretaries of State and Defense since Dean Acheson and Robert Lovett," Kissinger insists. "We have no basic differences on strategic policy, although we may have some tactical differences."
Kissinger's grueling workday begins shortly before 8 o'clock, when he leaves his town house overlooking Rock Creek Park for the White House. Normally, he spends the morning there and the rest of the day, which often does not end until midnight, at his State Department office. When he is not traveling, Saturdays and many Sundays are workdays, not only for Kissinger, but for much of his staff as well. "It takes a hyperthyroid condition, an iron will and, somewhere down the list, intelligence," says one assistant. "Fortunately, Henry has all three." His aides are not quite so well endowed with stamina. They can hardly wait until early April, when the boss plans a ten-day vacation in Acapulco.
One reason for Kissinger's exhausting routine is that he still serves as presidential adviser for national security affairs and National Security Council chairman as well as Secretary of State. Another reason is that since moving to Foggy Bottom, Kissinger, between overseas trips, has been attempting to overhaul the creaky machinery of the U.S. State Department. Some staffers complain that Kissinger is too aloof and fails to delegate enough authority. On the other hand, notes Ambassador-at-Large
Robert McCloskey, 51, "there is a sense of excitement among the professionals.
Kissinger's coming has made them feel not only on center stage but also part of the decision-making process."
Answering Cables. Kissinger has gathered an energetic, able team of aides and advisers, including Winston Lord, 36, head of his planning and coordination staff, Department Counselor Helmut Sonnenfeldt, 47, Executive Assistant Lawrence Eagleburger, 43, and Press Aide George Vest, 55. He has be gun to pluck more talent out of the State Department to augment this group. Assistant Secretary of State Joseph J. Sisco, 54, the longtime Middle East expert, was persuaded to back out of a college presidency (Hamilton College in upstate New York) and was promoted to the No. 3 spot, Under Secretary for Political Affairs. The No. 2 job of Deputy Secretary is held by an able former Ambassador to Bonn, Kenneth Rush, 64, who oversees administration.
At the regional level, Arthur Hartman, 48, a Kissinger favorite, was recruited from the U.S. Mission to the European Community to oversee European affairs as Assistant Secretary. Sisco's old job of Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs was last week given to his capable longtime assistant, Alfred ("Roy") Atherton, 52. Jack Kubisch, 52, who was in the Paris embassy during Kissinger's secret sessions with Le Due Tho, now runs Inter-American Affairs. Robert Ingersoll, 60, who tried conscientiously to patch up U.S.-Japanese relations as best he could as Ambassador to Japan, was called home from Tokyo five months ago to become Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs.
A few years ago, Kissinger deprecatingly noted that the most impressive function of the State Department was answering cables. Receptivity is not enough, and no longer is the department allowed to wait for things to happen and then figure the best way out. All of State's bureau heads have been given the same mandate from Kissinger: to define precisely the foreign policy options in their areas. One sign of Kissinger's progress in trying to vitalize the department: ambassadors who formerly went to the White House for information on foreign policymaking are calling again at State.
The foreign service has so far not shown as much Kissinger imprint, partly because Kissinger does not always have the final say in the selection of ambassadors. Two important posts, however, have been filled during Kissinger's tenure as Secretary with promising results. In Egypt, where President Sadat has resumed diplomatic relations that were broken off by the 1967 war, Careerman and Arabist Hermann Eilts, 52, like Kissinger an emigrant from Germany in his youth, has assumed the re-established ambassador's post.
Last December, Walter Stoessel, 54, formerly Ambassador to Warsaw, was named Ambassador to Moscow. Secretary Kissinger is not permitted to do to Stoessel what Presidential Adviser Kissinger did to Stoessel's predecessor, Jacob Beam: in 1972, while he was negotiating detente with the Kremlin, Kissinger sneaked into Moscow without even telling Beam that he was coming, or why.
Open Target. Kissinger's passionate concern for secrecy, indeed, is one of the things for which he is most often faulted by his critics. Kissinger's treatment of Beam in Moscow may have been humiliating, but at least it had no adverse effect on U.S.-Soviet relations. On the other hand, relations between Washington and Tokyo have gone awry ever since Kissinger went to Peking in 1971 without telling former Japanese Premier TASS Eisaku Sato what was afoot with HI Sato's Chinese neighbors. Even if rumors of Nixon's proposed visit had leaked, some critics say, it would have been less damaging in the long run than Japan's subsequent loss of face. One specific complaint of U.S. intelligence experts who resent Kissinger's excessive sense of secrecy: the fact that information about his talks in Peking with Chinese Chairman Mao Tse-tung have never been allowed to circulate beyond the White House.
Kissinger's eminence and visibility as a ranking world statesman make him a fairly open and obvious target for criticism, some of it valid, some not. One complaint is that he gets along better with dictators than democrats.
Kissinger replies, "Our initial negotiations were directed to authoritarian governments because that was where we faced the danger of war. Negotiations with allies are more complex in this phase of the development of Western democracies but in the long run more important."
The most trenchant criticism, however, comes from old academic colleagues who question his intensive use of personal diplomacy. The University of Chicago's Hans Morgenthau worries that Kissinger will be constricted in whatever else he does by an obsession with preserving detente. Harvard Professor of Government Nadav Safran, who otherwise gives Kissinger's performance high marks, suggests that "perhaps a less interesting Secretary of State might delegate authority so that various people would be running various problem areas simultaneously."
More than one critic recalls that it was Kissinger himself, in the spring 1966 issue of the quarterly magazine Daedalus, who wrote: "The statesman is suspicious of those who personalize foreign policy, for history teaches him the fragility of structures dependent upon individuals."
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