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o FIRinG Line

Guests: Peter Jenkins, journalist, Guardian Bernard Levin, journalist. London Times, Newsweek Peter Jay, economics editor. London Times Subj ect: "AMERICAN PRESTIGE IN EUROPE?"

SOUTHERN EDUCATIONAL COMMUNICATIONS ASSOCIATION SECA PRESENTS ® FIRinG Line

HOST: WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY, JR. Guests: Peter Jenkins, journalist, Guardian Bernard Levin, journalist, London Times, Newsweek Peter Jay, economics editor, London Times Subject: "AMERICAN PRESTIGE IN EUROPE?"

The FIR ING LI NE television series is a production of the Southern Educational Communications Association, 928 Woodrow St., P.O. Box 5966, Columbia, S.C., 29250 and is transmitted through the facilities of the Public Broadcasting Service. Production of these programs is made possible through a grant from the Corporation for PubIic Broadcasting. FIR ING LI NE can be seen and heard each FIRING LINE is produced and directed by WARREN STEIBEL week through public television and radio stations throughout the country. Check your local newspapers for channel and time in your area. This is a transcript of the FIRING LINE program taped in London on April 28, 1975, and originally telecast on PBS on May 4, 1975. SOUTHERN EDUCATIONAL COMMUNICATIONS ASSOCIATION

© Board of Trustees of the L land Stanford Jr. University. MR. BUCKLEY: In Europe as, of course, elsewhere much of the talk is of the image of the United States after the collapse of our policy in Indochina. There are, of course, other things crowding the minds of Englishmen, for instance, their own problems, mostly unrelated to the loss of South Vietnamese independence. But America's word is important, not only because it is Amer­ ica's word but because, for a generation, America has provided the umbrella under the protection of which sovereign European nations have felt free to act wisely or foolishly without, at any rate, risking the conclusive retaliation against foolishness which only superpowers are in a position to inflict. Accordingly, the standing of America is a voluble concern these days, occu­ pying significant sections of all the major newspapers in Europe. On the whole, journalists are more interesting than politicians on such subjects as this as on most others. We have here a dense collection of talent. Peter Jay is the economics editor of the Times. He is a Labourite, very well known to British television audiences as an anchorman of a highly successful series. He was educated at Winchester College and Christ Church, Oxford, where he achieved first-class honors and became president of the Oxford Union. Peter Jenkins, who was educated at Culford and Cambridge, is a tough­ minded and tough-talking critic of American foreign policy, especially under Mr. Kissinger, who has written for the Guardian for 15 years, perhaps the premier liberal English daily, and served as Washington correspondent during 1972 and 1973, and is back now in London calling for Mr. Kissinger's resigna­ tion. Bernard Levin, who appeared on this program a year ago, is generally regarded as among the most spectacular polemicists in England, which one would not have projected from his background as a theater and music critic. He is a graduate of London University and a regular columnist for the London Times and Newsweek, whose work is often reprinted in the United States. He has a very low threshhold of impatience for cant of any sort, particularly if it is squishy-soft, to quote a felicitous phrase, on communism. I should like to begin by asking Mr. Jenkins: Are there any obvious 1975 SOUTHERN EDUCATIONAL parallels between what we did to South Vietnam just now, and what you all © did to Poland a generation ago? COMMUNICATIONS ASSOCIATION MR. JENKINS: No, I don't think there are. I think what you have just done to South Vietnam is the sad, delayed outcome of the policy which began with good intention, a policy which I am prepared to say-- MR. BUCKLEY: So far there is a parallel then? Your policies toward Poland began with good intention. MR. JENKINS: Yes, but our policies--Which aspect of our policies toward Po­ land are you talking about? MR. BUCKLEY: The betrayal of it. MR. JENKINS: The betrayal of Poland ... MR. BUCKLEY: Yes. MR. JENKINS: The betrayal of Poland how and when? MR. BUCKLEY: By failure to achieve that freedom and sovereignty for Poland which was the proximate cause of your going to war. MR. JENKINS: Oh, I see. But we, the British, alone betrayed Poland after the war. I MR. BUCKLEY: Oh, no, no, we had a good hand in it, yes. We were very pro Br1tish. MR. JENKINS: Yes. You seemed as if you were pinning it on us because, I mean, here is the first and very important difference, that Poland, after the war, and the other countries of eastern Europe were the victim of policies which were being pursued jointly among allies. Vietnam was the victim of a policy which was being pursued with some allies but not jointly by the Western all ies. MR. BUCKLEY: Well, that's not completely true. New Zealand had troops there, Australia had troops there. We had your support in both parties. MR. JENKINS: Well, I said with some.

© Board of Trustees of the L Iland Stanford Jr. University. MR. BUCKLEY: With the exception of France, I should think it was a collective saying. endeavor even as South Korea was, though we were unquestionably the leaders of MR. JENKINS: Well, I'll stick by my second statement. . that policy, but it does seem to me that in 1945 it was generally assume that M~. BUCKL~Y: Ok~y, okay. So, therefore, tracing your progress or the evo1u­ England was the spokesman historically and in virtue of its precedent and tlon, let s put lt that way, of your ~os~tion, do I understand you to say that sort of ex officio interest for Polish independence. Now, something along the when you.conc1~ded that ~he cost of wlnnlng the war was too high, you assumed way happened and England didn't sort of relapse into historical ob1iquy. Will that an lntel1lgent forelgn policy in the United States would correspond with we? the evolution of that-- MR. JENKINS: No, I don't think so at all, because what I was going on to say MR. JENKINS: No, I wouldn't accept that characterization because I think that to you was that I'm quite willing to admit that until, I suppose, about 1967, af~er ~he elec~ion of 1968--President Nixon and Dr. Henry Kissinger--that their I, on the whoJe, supported United States policy in South Vietnam. It seemed obJectl~e was In.some w~y to end the war, was to disengage, and my criticisms to me that, at least from 1968 onwards, that policy had become insupportable of Amerlcan forelgn P011CY from that point on are concerned with what I would if only because the people of the United States were not going to support it. contend was the unnecessary prolongation of the agony, the unnecessary killing MR. BUCKLEY: How did you get those figures, by the way? of hundreds upon thousands of people, for what? For what was proclaimed at MR. JENKINS: Those years? the time as peace with honor, and what we now all see not to have been either MR. BUCKLEY: No, no. What is it--I noticed you said in a very impressive peace or very honorable. column that you wrote that the American people turned against our policies ~R. BUCKLE:: Co~rect, but you yourself said in that ringing denunciation and in Vietnam in 1967. I'm a minor student of the subject, and I don't know ln your relteratlon of the important way stations on the way to catastrophe what figures you're referring to. that as late as 1969, when Mr. Nixon declared Vietnamization, on over to the MR. JENKINS: It began to fall apart, didn't it, in 1968; the peace movement 27th of Janua~y, 1973, he.said, "We have achieved it." So your brief, it got very big-- seems to me, lS over the lnterna1 betrayal of South Vietnam rather than over MR. BUCKLEY: That's different from saying that the American people rejected any objective prosecution of the war. it. The American people wholeheartedly voted for Nixon in 1968 and whole­ MR. JENKINS: No, first of all, I wouldn't accept your word catastrophe. heartedly backed Humphrey against McCarthy in 1968, when Humphrey firmly said I mean, catastrophe for whom? Not-- that he was not in favor of pulling out of South Vietnam unless we had first MR. BUCKLEY: For the South Vietnamese. of all guaranteed its independence. MR: JENKINS: Oh,.catastrophe for the Vietnamese people, certainly; not, I MR. JENKINS: Your President Johnson took the view that he would not be thlnk, for the Unlted States. But, no, the Vietnamization was the delusion reelected in 1968 over Vietnam; his judgment at that time of a political runn~ng throughou~ this affair; but, certainly, the Paris accords represented, situation appeared to be that ·pub1ic support had been withdrawn to the point I thlnk, the pu11lng of the rug from under the South Vietnamese regime from that he was not prepared to seek reelection. Would you disagree that that was under the feet of President Thieu, although we shall never know for ce;tain the turning point? whether, as is now being reported, President Nixon, had it not been for Water­ MR. BUCKLEY: Oh, absolutely. If I may remind you, Mr. Jenkins, in 1968 there gate, would have resumed the bombing in April of 1973. Maybe he would. was a protracted debate in Chicago between what we might loosely call the But I think that if he had done so, there would have been a tremendous hawks and the doves on Vietnam among the Democrats which was won five to political convulsion in the United States at that stage. So, to all intents three by the hawks, the hawks then being identified as, "We, the Democrats, and purpo~es, I think that it was o~er. The United States was disengaged with will not back anybody who wants to pullout of South Vietnam until we have t~ose Par~s accords. But the deceptlon was not only of Thieu in South assured its independence." So that it is not too early in the game to nip Vletnam; lt wa~ also a dec~ption of the American people who were led by their this illusion that the American people turned against the Vietnam war in leaders to be1leve that thlS peace would stick. President Nixon appeared on 1967. In point of fact, as you may also be aware, a lot of the psepho10gists tele~ision and said words to the effect that we can be proud that we have not who sort of foraged around in 1968 discovered that the heavy vote for Eugene extrlcated ourselves from this war leaving the Vietnamese to fight on. "We McCarthy, as the heavy vote for Bobby Kennedy in Indiana a couple of months have made a peace which will apply to them as much as to us " or something later, came from people who interpreted their saying that we've got to con­ of that kind. ' clude the war in Vietnam as calling for an. intensified prosecution of that MR. BUCKLEY: Mr. Levin, do you believe that he meant that when he said that war. and do you think the British care? ' MR. JENKINS: I think if you take the European perception of the United MR. LEVIN: Let me answer the second question first. As far as I can see the States, which is what you're interested in here, and which affects the credi­ British don't care, and what is more, as far as I can see, the British ne~er bility of the United States in the eyes of her friends and allies, the year have cared about what was going on in Vietnam. There's, as always, of course, 1968 was the turning point. I said '67 in the first place because I believe a very vocal number of people, a minority of people, who cared very much and that it was in August of 1967 that bombs were dropped on petrol dumps very made their caring very loudly clear, but I don't think that the British close to Hanoi and this was an act which shocked a lot of people and they peop~e !e~t, have ever felt seriously, I mean in general, obvious1y--there realized that this war seemed to be escalating without limit. Civilian are lndlvldua1s natura11y--In general I don't think the British people have casualties were becoming very high. So this was an event which stands out, eve~ cared because, I think, and this is the only way you can take such an in my recollection of it, in '67. attltude, th~y had never supposed that what was going on in Vietnam, and But the year '68 was the year in which the world, looking in at the United Southeast ASla generally, had any direct or even indirect connection with States, saw massive demonstrations against the war, saw a president uniquely Britain, with what was going to happen to Britain, with Britain's life, with in our times who had decided that he wouldn't run again, the whole country Europe. convulsed with the agony of this war. And at that point I think many of us MR. BUCKLEY: Are you distinguishing between the British people and British concluded that the price of continuing the war would be greater than the statesmen? price of the United States losing the war. MR. LEVIN: I think, first, I was speaking of the British people. I think MR. BUCKLEY: Which is a little bit different from what you started out by that, to some extent, perhaps a large extent, that was also true of British

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© Board of Trustees of the L land Stanford Jr. University. statesmen. Both parties, of course, did give formal support, not physical the ~uscular reach of the United States but that there was a deficient will, support of any kind, but formal verbal support-- and 1f so, what do you draw from our failure to use those resources? MR. BUCKLEY: Yes. MR. LEVIN:. There was, I think,. a f~ilure of will. It was partly, I think-­ MR. LEVIN: --to the American action, almost throughout. to de!end 1t, so ~o ~pea~--I ~h1nk 1t was partly induced by the conclusion MR. BUCKLEY: Sort of collegiate support. that 1n fact Amer1ca s v1tal 1nterests were not engaged in South Vietnam and MR. LEVIN: Yes. to.some exten~, so~e people certainly argued, having previously support~d th~ MR. BUCKLEY: Now, you have that wonderful institution where every 30 years U~lted.States act1on, that they not only were not but never had been--the they give you the secret minutes of what happened 30 years earlier, and I v1tal 1nterest~ of America never had been involved there. remember the one last year in which it was divulged, and so far as I know No~, th~t v~ew seeme~ to grow; of course, to some extent, it must have been has not been challenged, that at a meeting with Stalin, Mr. Churchill said a rat1onal1z~t1on of fa1lure and defeat. Still, it did grow. Now, there was that if Mr. Stalin would not extend any claims to Hong Kong, he, Churchill, that. Th~re was also a weariness, which was apparent throughout a great deal would simply let the matter of Poland sort of rest, i.e., grant Soviet hegemony of the Un1t~d States, a great many levels, a weariness with the unending battle. over Poland. Now, surely at that point, Hong Kong being as remote from After all, 1t was the longest war there has been in this world since I think England as South Vietnam is, surely at that time one would say that British you know, for centuri es. ', statesmen cared very much what the balance of power was in Southeast Asia. M~. BUCKLEY: How did you all handle the Hundred Years' War, in those days? MR. LEVIN: Well, there are two elements in this. I ve often wondered about that. MR. BUCKLEY: Yes. ~R. LEVIN: Well, I managed, but a lot of people found it very troublesome MR. LEVIN: One, as I put it, that they didn't care, because there's a separate 1ndeed, and this one was seen similarly; it seemed as though it would never strand in that which I would define like this, that however much you may care, come to an end, and I can well understand America thinking--First of all however keenly you may see the connection between what is happening in Southeast of.course, for a long time the argument was, "We can't leave now, we can~t Asia and your own situation, there may well be a feeling, and undoubtedly qU1t now; look what we've committed in American lives and treasure and dispute there was a strong feeling, that however important it was, there was nothing and so on. To waste all that would be impossible." Then that seemed to tilt that could be done about it. And, after all, that must have been a very ~he ?ther w~y and the attitude began to be, "How much more can we go on pour­ powerful element in the thinking of the Allied statesmen at the end of the 1ng 1nto th1S apparently bottomless drain?" war as far as Eastern Europe was concerned, though they knew very well what You.see, the ~rony is that to some extent what happened was--despite the was happening and they knew very well what an abominable fra~d the Yalta appa~llng barbar1ty of that war, it was nonetheless to some extent prolonged agreement was. They felt, at the same time, there was nothing they could prec1sely because of the American restraint in use of what was after all do about it, so that they might as well make the best deal they could, knowing total overwhelming extinction-possibility firepower. ', very well that they had nothing to insist on to get a better deal. Now, for a number of reasons-­ MR. BUCKLEY: Why was there a greater sense of futility when they were tri­ MR. BUCKLEY: You admired that? umphant than there was when they were utterly impoverished and shouted back MR. LEVIN: I did. I think it's an extraordinary instance of a country so at the Nazi gale with really quite galvanizing effect in 1939? overwh~lmingly sup~rior in fireP9wer using it--although with the most MR. LEVIN: Because, I think, in 1939, Britain in general, people and appall1ng results 1n human suffer1ng--nevertheless, despite that statement politicians alike, realized rightfully that our very existence was at stake. far, far less overwhelmingly than she, in fact, could. And after all ' Now, at the end of the war, when Europe was being carved up, that didn't pre­ the bombing of the north is a perfect example. We all know that America' sent itself in the same form. You see, the threat was removed. It was not possessed ten thousand ti~s over--without talking about nuclear weapons, immediate. Bombs were not falling out of the sky in 1945; they'd stopped, of.course--ten thousand t1mes over the ability to extinguish every single right? Similarly, I think, in that sense there is a very close parallel in th1ng, person, and structure in North Vietnam. It wasn't actually used. Vietnam. The threat, whatever it is, was not immediate, just as in the MR. BUCKLEY: Yes. United States the threat was not immediate. Nobody was planning to invade MR. LEVIN:. There are those in the United States, as you know, who said that the United States. So that it is easy and indeed natural to say, "There is that was m1stake, that in fact they shoul~have used far greater strength. no. immediate threat here. There is no immediate threat from the extinction MR. BU~KLEY: So your net feeling is that the United States has not let you of the independence of South Vietnam to Europe or the United States, therefore down, ~.e., you are perfectly comfortable with the leadership of the United since there is, in any case, in our opinion, nothing we can do about it, let States that conducted itself in the way it did conduct itself. us stop wringing our hands over it and let it go." Now, that is a kind of MR. LEVIN: No, I'm not, because, as you put it, I do not think the United crude, reaZpoZitik attitude, if you like; still, there is a certain reality ~tates let me down. I'm not a Southeast Asian. What I think now may happen imbedded in it if the premises are correct, if in fact there was nothing 1S that-- we could do about it. I have felt throughout--and I, after all, for many MR. BUCKLEY: No, you as a defender of the United States and as a friend of years was a vociferous if not notable defender of the American posltion in the United States. Vietnam. I felt throughout that almost worse than the hypocrisy of those MR. LEVIN: I think this is a decision that-­ denouncing America or some of those denouncing America, some only, was the MR. BUCKLEY: And as a partner. hypocrisy of our leaders who said, "Yes, good, we're right behind you, MR. LEVIN: --ill-behooves those of us who defended the United States through­ fe 11 ows," and thought that that was a contri buti on. out the years of the Vietnam war. I think it ill-behooves us now to say the MR. BUCKLEY: Yes. Well, would you say this, that the British statesmen who Americans let us down, they behaved wrongly, they should have fought on. retreated from any sense of obligation to crank up again and fight the MR. BUCKLEY: Well, if you don't mind, I don't mind. I mean feel perfectly Soviet Union for the defense of Poland, having depleted themselves to liberate free to criticize. ' France, feel that in any similar sense the United States was exhausted in MR. LEVIN: I don't. I think that this was a decision which no country not Vietnam, that we, too, faced force majeure, or did you simply feel that it itself involved should-- was a failure of will, that the subduing of North Vietnam was easily within MR. BUCKLEY: Well, this is really an exercise in paralipsis because you're

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© Board of Trustees of the L land Stanford Jr. University. If you'r~ i~ that sit~ation, if you're ultimately the president of the United inducing us by rhetorical finery to conclude what, in fact, is your personal States sltt1ng there 1n the war room having finally to make the decision feeling, without saying it. "W~ll, d~n't MR. LEVIN: My personal feeling is that, in the end, given the situation in now',all else has,failed and we're faced with this decision," I t~l~k that ~t ~ou1d be e1ther honest or realistic for me, sitting in a te1e­ the United States and in the rest of the non-Communist world, the United V1S10n StUd10 1n London, to say confidently this is what I would do or that's States had no serious alternative to doing what she did in fact do. what I would do: It.wou1d be the.mos~ psychologically and politically, morally MR. BUCKLEY: Mr. Jay, may I ask you this? Am I correct in my recollection the most appa111ng d11emma I can 1mag1ne anybody finding themselves in. that when Mr. Att1ee went to confer with Truman, I guess about the time you MR. B~CKLEY: You're making it a 1~tt1e bit more difficult for yourself by as were achieving all of those distinctions in college, during a crisis point in assum~ng th~t you are the hypothet1ca1 party to be victimized. I want to the Korean War, he reached the following agreement with Truman, which was not make 1t a 11tt1e tougher. for you by saying I'm not talking about the defense disclosed until after Churchill defeated him a few months later? It was an of London or the defense of New York or Washington. I am talking, as Att1ee agreement as follows: that if a ceasefire should in fact be effected between was,.about the defense of an arbitrary para11e1--was it the 37th parallel-­ the North Koreans and the South Koreans or the United Nations forces, and it and 1n the case of Southeast Asia, the 17th parallel. What I'm asking is: should thereupon be violated, the government of England would defend the use Are you categorically opposed to the use of nuclear weapons to defend carefully by the United States of nuclear weapons in retaliation. This news was broad­ ~orked out ~easefire.agreements in other parts of the world, or do you say, cast in the House of Commons along around January or February, 1952, and there No, there 1S a chem1stry there that I dare not fool with, and, under the cir­ was a certain amount of shock from the usual people, but much less of a shock cumstances, I would rather the treaties collapse than that they should be en­ than one would have expected now if all of a sudden we had found that the forced b~ the use of nuclear weapons," which would suggest a considerable British prime minister, having traveled to see Nixon, had come back and said, change, 1f my recollection is correct, in the change of mood in the last 20 "It's okay to use atom bombs in case they violate the terms of the treaty years. of Paris." MR. JAY: It's not just a change of mood. You've got to remember that in My questions: Number one, do you take a position on the atom bomb that 1~50, when they were ~aving that conversation, nuclear weapons were a very excludes its use for the purpose of enforcing the terms of a ceasefire? d1fferent kettle of f1Sh from what they now are in terms of their destructive MR. JAY: Well, you've in fact prefaced your long first-- power, and secondly you have to-- MR. BUCKLEY: Yes, I'm sorry it was so long. MR. BUCKLEY: Well, they wouldn't have needed to use more powerful ones than MR. JAY: --question which was: Is your recollection correct? they-- MR. BUCKLEY: Yes. MR. JAY: Well, seco~d1y, ~ou have to remember that the world has changed in MR. JAY: The answer is I don't know whether your recollection is correct. that there are two sldes--1n fact there are more than two sides--but there MR. BUCKLEY: In other words, you don't remember. are principally two sides, both of which have nuclear weapons and that there MR. JAY: The memory, the folk memory that most of us have of Att1ee's visit is the belief, whi~h there then ~a~ not, that any use of nuclear weapons, even to Truman was that he went there to prevent the imminent use of an atom bomb-- so-called modest slzed ones,or 11m1ted or tactical ones, can lead very easily, MR. BUCKLEY: That's correct, that's correct. . by a process not very beaut1fu11y known as escalation to a situation in which MR. JAY: --and that in some broad sense he succeeded. If he entered into the you are destroying, as it were, the whole of your own'country or the whole agreement which you've just described and which you say was reported in the of somebody else's country and very large areas in-between. House of Commons in 1952, you've added something to my knowledge of British­ MR. BUC~LEY: If you're asking me am I aware of the dangers of nuclear war the American history, because I didn't know that. answer 1s yes. ' MR. BUCKLEY: Do you all remember it? MR. JAY: Well, now, you see, you ask me, "Am I categorically opposed?" MR. JENKINS: I don't remember it, but you presumably looked it up, and we MR. BUCKLEY: Yes. didn't know that you were going to ask us. M~. JAY: :hen you cite me.an ~xamp1e in 1950. The situation was very, very MR. BUCKLEY: Yes, but I didn't look it up until a few years ago, but I still d~fferent 1n 1950. I can 1mag1ne myself much more easily in 1950 taking the remember it. V1ew then that it-- MR. JAY: But, to your second question, do I preclude in all circumstances MR: BU~KLEY: No, t~a~'s ~hy I used the word categorically, to extend my in­ the use of nuclear weapons to enforce a ceasefire or treaty or international qU1ry 1nto your pos1t10n 1n 1975. Suppose Nixon--We've done an awful 10t--Mr understanding that has come about. Jenkins, for instance, made as scornful a use as I've ever seen made of the . MR. BUCKLEY: Yes. word hon?r to describe what Mr. Kissinger did. Now, had he appended to his MR. JAY: Well, this raises the absolute fundamental question to which I don't dec1arat1?n on the 27~h of ~anuary of this year, "What's more, the president think anybody has direct, easy, definable answers, because, of course, we all o~ ~he Un1ted States. 1S ask1ng Congress for permission to use atom bombs on live in the faith that the threat that such weapons would be used is the thing m111tary targets in Hanoi and Haiphong in the event that there is substantive which guarantees some kind of stability, the best stability we can get in a breach of these accords," I am asking you would you consider this civilized very unstable and very dangerous world. And we also believe that the actual and commendable, or uncivilized and barbaric. . use of these weapons is next to being the most appalling catastrophe that one MR. JAY: ~ have no difficulty answering that question, if you asked me can imagine, and therefore the choice between saying would you, as it were, that quest10n. I would have considered it uncivilized, barbaric, and those give up all the things that you stand for in the world or would you use phrases-- • nuclear weapons is the ultimate Hobson's choice. I mean, if it comes to that MR. BUCKLEY: Why? point, then really everything has failed. The whole art of international MR. JAY: Those,epithe~s don't seem to me to be quite adequate. I mean, I diplomacy and statesmanship is to avoid that situation being-- would have cons1dered 1t an extremely foolish and dangerous thing to have MR. BUCKLEY: Well, not if it works. Not if it works. done ..Why.wou1d ~ ha~e so cons~dered it? Well, two reasons: (a) that MR. JAY: Well, exactly, exactly. the obJect1ves Wh1Ch 1t was des1gned to achieve did not seem to me to be MR. BUCKLEY: If it works-- remotely commensur.ate with the risks taken, and secondly that the-- MR. JAY: The whole art of the thing is to avoid gettin0 into that situation.

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© Board of Trustees of the L land Stanford Jr. University. MR. LEVIN: --said, "Now, I'm going to do it. You put it on the line, now I'm MR. BUCKLEY: What was the objective of Polish freedom commensurate with a going to do it." Now, I think that the rel ipf which spread through the United world war in which 35 million people were killed? States at the signing, the mere signing ~ the accords, including among those MR. JAY: I think that the objectives of Polish freedom were indeed commensurate people who had a very good idea how long that was going to last and what it in with what was then believed to be at stake, in a situation in which it was fact was going to mean for Vietnam, was such that within a very short space widely believed, and correctly as is proved--and, after all, this was after of time, whatever guarantees had been given, formal guarantees in public, many attempts had been made to appease Hitler. After all, we'd had five years with Congress, shall we say, would, in the end, still have been scarcely worth or more of appeasement, and I would have thought in many ways Czechoslovakia the paper they were written on or the breath they were spoken with. was a much better analogy, if you want one, to what went on in Vietnam than MR. BUCKLEY: You mean you think--Let me see if I understand you. You feel Poland, in which again and again people had said, "The line must be drawn that the initial burst of enthusiasm could have got whatever congressional somewhere," and finally the latest one was Poland, and when that, too, was guarantees Nixon needed in January, but that the normal attrition would have violated and it was seen that yet again every single thing that Hitler had made those worthless three or four months later. said was a pack of lies and that his appetite was limitless, not to have MR. LEVIN: Not so much normal attrition. I think the feeling of relief that intervened in that situation would have been foolish, not merely because that was, at any rate as far as the United States was concerned, now over and one had a moral obligation to defend Poland's independence but because strate­ done with and the door was closed, and the suggestion to reopen the door and gically you would have contributed to the development of a situation in which reopen it in such a fashion as we are discussing I think could have run into it was much more difficult to defend yourselves, which is what all countries the kind of something along the lines, despite Nixon's overwhelming victory ultimately and properly are concerned with. so recent, could have run into something much like what President Ford faced MR. BUCKLEY: Oh, yes, you mustn't do this kind of thing unless you can get just recently. away with it, I agree. But, now, what kind of guarantees, if you were an MR. BUCKLEY: Well, have you thought of the opposite possibility, which is official in the government of Israel, by the United States would you consider that the American people's resentment at a clear betrayal at that point might to be such as would leave you serene? have led to a dissipation of that sense of restraint which had created the MR. JAY: None. There are no guarantees that the government of the United longest war in American history, and they said-- States can give that would have that result. MR. LEVIN: That is indeed a possibility, but I think--Yes. MR. BUCKLEY: Well, I should think atomic. Would you just disagree? I mean, MR. BUCKLEY: "Okay, okay. You've had your chance, the hell with it," and atomic guarantees-- smashed the hell out of them. Make it as definitive as the Soviet Union's MR. JAY: Well, the question of the credibility of the guarantees arises. march against Czechoslovakia. MR. JENKINS: With one very important difference, which is guarantees which MR. LEVIN: That was certainly a possibility and it would certainly obviously were publicly given, written, supported by the Congress of the United States, have been in the minds of some Americans. I find it impossible to believe would be worth a lot more than guarantees which were given privately to that it would have become the dominant feeling in the United States. South Vietnam-- MR. BUCKLEY: Well, supposing they had succeeded, because, remember, if Congress MR. BUCKLEY: Ri ght. Well, sure, I agree. in January had given standby authority to the President as commander in chief MR. JENKINS: --without Congress knowing. he would not have needed to ask for a renewal of the mandate in April. He MR. BUCKLEY: I agree. could have plastered them with atom bombs if he'd wanted to, exercising his MR. JENKINS: Well, that's a big difference, isn't it? constitutional powers. At that point, there would have been no organized MR. BUCKLEY: A tremendous difference, yes. North Vietnamese resistance and one would have faced a very clear historical MR. JENKINS: Right. record, a very clear, documented case of aggression. MR. BUCKLEY: But, incidentally, may I interject this, and I'd be interested Now, would America's prestige have risen or fallen? What hurts Soviet in whether Mr. Levin would disagree with me. It is absolutely true that prestige? Does anything hurt Soviet prestige? I mean, they overrun what Mr. Nixon might have contemplated in April would have been much more Czechoslovakia; every now and then they announce the Brezhnev doctrine; difficult to do on account of Watergate, and it in fact appears in this they subvert Portugal, they do everthing in the world, and nothing seems morning's newspaper that Nixon actually sched~led a devastating air attack to hurt them. And. yet anything that the United States does in the direction on North Vietnam, whtch he called off because John Dean chose that particular of maintaining a CIA or in the direction of attempting to force a treaty, moment to present himself to the Justice Department and start singing. But the purpose of which is to insure sovereignty rather than American imperialism, in January of 1973, Mr. Nixon was very powerful. He had just won the most seems to hurt us. smashing election in American history. I can only compare his downfall over MR. JENKINS: The Soviet prestige was hurt in the-­ 18 months with that of Harold Macmillan. Nobody would have thought that MR. BUCKLEY: For about 10 days. Super Mac would have been what happened to him 18 months later and nobody MR. JENKINS: --Middle East when Sadat threw them out. Soviet prestige was would have thought as much about Mr. Nixon. If he had gone to Congress in hurt very badly in the Congo some years ago. But, you know, you seem to be January of 1973 and said, "Here, here's the paper. Now, provide convincing inviting all of us to be very black and white, which is the color of dominoes, guarantees of it," I cannot imagine that Congress would have been reluctant I' about what I think is a rather simpliste view of this matter. You see-- to do so. A few would. MR. BUCKLEY: God knows, you were black and white in your denunciation of MR. LEVIN: Not at all. Kissinger. MR. BUCKLEY: Do you agree? MR. JENKINS: Yes, but-- MR. LEVIN: I do agree, except that I think you should also consider what MR. BUCKLEY: I never saw something so black and white in my life. would then have happened--Let's leave Watergate out of this. If Watergate· MR. JENKINS: But within a context which I'm prepared to be very precise hadn't happened, what would then have happened had he, faced with the about. I mean, it's interesting enough to compare this as a moral problem violations of the treaty by North Vietnamese, come back and-- with Poland, which you have done several times. But the situation in Vietnam MR. BUCKLEY: Proceeded to act. has always been immensely confused as to who is fighting who about what, and

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© Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Jr. University. which powers are involved. entirely in the light of the understanding which I gained when I was living MR. BUCKLEY: That's always true. in Washington in 1969 and I remember--I'll tell a little story because I think MR. JENKINS: If you see this as the advance of international communism, as it's directly relevant to this--Stewart Alsop, a very fine columnist, writing people have asked many times, which communism? Chinese communism? Russian a very powerful column in which he'd had the first interview with the Presi­ communism? North Vietnamese communism? And take the situation in early dent of any journalist. And he recorded the President quoting to him the 1973. Now, had Nixon resumed the bombing in mid-April and had it not been words of Winston Churchill, "I didn't become prime minister of Britain to for John Dean, what facts would people have had to judge this act upon? preside over the dissolution of the British Empire," and so on. First of all, as Bernard Levin said, and I'm sure he's right, people assumed, MR. BUCKLEY: Which was historically inaccurate. and they were led to believe by Nixon, by Kissinger, that the Paris accords (laughter) marked the end of the war and the end of American involvement. Now, then, MR. JAY: Which was historically inaccurate, but politicians' license. And what were they to be told had the bombing been resumed in that April? That that Nixon had applied this to himself in relation to Vietnam. And I was according to the Pentagon at that time, the North Vietnamese had infiltrated spending time with Stewart and I cross-examined him a~ut thi~ and I s~id, something like 40,000 replacements into what was disputed territory in South "Do you really believe that's what he means?" And thlS was ln 1969, 1t Vietnam. really looked very implausible. And in the course of discussion it emerged MR. BUCKLEY: That they had bombed civilian populations, that they were con­ that what the President meant by this was that it was necessary to have an structing a road down the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the purpose of which was interval of two years after American withdrawal, which he certainly accepted obvious. was inevitable for domestic political reasons, before Saigon fell, because MR. JENKINS: Yes, they were doing these things. The United States at that if that didn't happen there would be a right-wing backlash in the United time had stoked up South Vietnamese war supplies, had, after the Paris States. accords, introduced a new war plane which was in breach of article whatever­ And I remember Stewart giving a brilliant imitation of the speeches George it-was which said straight one-for-one replacement of the same stuff. And Wallace would make up and down the country, in the event of such a catastrophe. President Thieu had made it perfectly clear that he had no intention whatso­ I mean it seems to me the whole Nixon and Kissinger strategy, quite intelli­ ever of carrying out the political side of the agreement. So what would the gently: whether or not it was moral is another mat~er, w~s gea~ed to this world have said if bombing, on the basis of those facts, had been resumed in perception of the matter. Indeed, the fate of Sa1g~n, 1n my Judgment, was. April of 1973? sealed the moment Lyndon Johnson decided not to run ln 1968. The only quest10n MR. BUCKLEY: Well, I don't know whether you are the world for purposes of was--two: (a) How would you limit the repercussions in the United States of this rhetorical diagram. If you are the world, I know what it would have this recognition by the policymakers that this course was inevitable, and said--"A pox on both their houses." If I were the world, I would say, "It secondly how would you limit the international ~epercussions to prevent t~e is obvious that in the case of South Vietnam there is an aggressor and an Soviet Union drawing the conclusion that the Un1ted States had gone soft ln aggressee. I don't see South Vietnam wanting to march into Hanoi and carrying on with its time-honored policy of peripheral pressures in Berlin and Haiphong and, under the circumstances, it seems to me plain that that all sorts of other parts of the world. I see nothing dishonorable or wrong international covenant in law that says that the status quo ante takes place in anything that Kissinger has done. It seems to me that he's followed this in the event of a major violation of the treaty would be in effect." The policy perfectly consistently, extremely intelligently and that it has fact of the matter is that none of those highfaluting phrases that you quoted essentially worked. And if anything's gone wrong, it's only gone wrong so ironically in your column was observed by anybody for instance. It was in the last few months because of the way in which the Congress has behaved, actually written like a soap opera. Everybody was to go out in the streets for which I greatly blame that Congress. . and the lilies were to come up through the foxholes and they were going to MR. BUCKLEY: Well, Mr. Kissinger himself happens to believe that what he dld embrace each other. Well, this isn't the stuff that true diplomacy is made of. in January was wrong. Dishonorable is not quite the word I think that he . MR. LEVIN: I think we have to ask one other question, which is to what extent would use, for one very simple reason, which is that he acted without suffl­ did America in general really understand what the accords amounted to, namely, cient foresight. He would not, in fact, have initialed the ceasefire agree­ getting America out of Southeast Asia, out of Vietnam. ment if he had had any suspicion at all that Congress would have been MR. BUCKLEY: What was your position on that? refractory in living up to what he understood to be the implied terms of it. MR. LEVIN: And that--But in fact then it was thereafter only a matter of MR. JAY: Yes, well, that's what I said. time before an America~less South Vietnam fell. Now, that was the situation as MR. BUCKLEY: Now, his lack of knowledge of American politics plus his we could, and as can now, see. I suspect this is something that nobody can failure to foresee the overwhelming, the miasmic effect of the whole Water­ answer finally one way or the other, but, on the whole, America did feel that; gate imbroglio led him to think that it was unnecessary. Perhaps a more whether she was meant to feel it or not being another question still, but prudent secretary of state would have said, "Well, I just don't ~n?w what:s that on the whole Americans thought in the end South Vietnam cannot stand up going to happen in April, this being January. Let's get a~ expl~clt co~mlt­ without American forces, without American help--I mean, military help, not ment from Congress." But I do find that your Alsop story lS a httle blt just supplies--and if they are withdrawn, in the end, perhaps not tomorrow, difficult, internally implausible, for one very simple reason, namely, that a year, two years, three years, South Vietnam will be taken over. But, at if that had been as early as 1969 the unique objective ~f Mr. Nixon~ it could any rate, we're out of it, America is out of it. And for this relief, much have been effected much earlier. You see, as many Amerlcans were kllled after thanks. Nixon became president as before he became president, so that it's an awfully Now, I rather suspect, and I put it like that because, as I say, nobody creaky way out to effect what in fact has be~n effected, and--. can answer this question definitely--I rather suspect that was what America MR. JAY: No, it's obviously the sort of pOllCy you could publlCly declar~. understood and appreciated. MR. BUCKLEY: It was incredibly--After all, Mr. Nixon expected to be presl­ MR. JAY: There is direct evidence that the American pol icymakers , in the dent right today, so that when he got up and made all t~at honor stuff to sense of President Nixon and Dr. Kissinger, believed exactly that right from which he made such devastating effect, he must have belleved that there was the very beginning. I mean, indeed, I've understood and followed these events a pretty good chance, right?

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© Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Jr. University. MR. JAY: I don't think he needed to believe that there was going to be more than Nixon and you had been asked on the first of April to deliver to Mr. Nixon, the decent two-year interval, and I think he believed it, and rightly believed, for him in turn to deliver on television, three speeches describing the that after two years the world would have lost interest in it. intensification of North Vietnamese activities in direct violation of the MR. BUCKLEY: Incidentally, this decent interval has shrunk. Four years-­ treaty, your skills would have been easily sufficient to dramatize that MR. JAY: The figure of two years was given in 1969. situation so as to equal in the dramatic imagination of the American people MR. BUCKLEY: To you. a very straightforward, blitzkrieg type of situation. MR. JAY: Yes. MR. LEVIN: I don't think anybody's skill would have been great enough for MR. BUCKLEY: Four years is the standard ... that, because that's the point. I could have dramatized it, I could have MR. JENKINS: But it's a case, isn't it, of a price which it is reasonable made it appear very black and very terrible, but I do not believe that any­ to pay for a calculation like this. I mean, I can quite see that American body, at that point, which is what I am talking about, at that point, could politicians should have been sensitive to the consequences of a sudden reversal have made it appear to the United States worth going back like that. I of policy in Vietnam. I think that the policy of Vietnamization and the think; that's what I think. I think at that point the United States was out gradual ending of the draft did prepare public opinion for this, but then we and damned well determined to be out. had a situation--and this is where I really find myself becoming outraged-­ Now, this is not a question of whether I think that was right or wrong. because one had a situation, by Kissinger's own account, where the agreement I'm talking about the practical situation that faced them. could have been signed on October 31 of 1972, a few days before President MR. BUCKLEY: Okay, and as far as England is concerned, in which you gentlemen Nixon's reelection. We now know, and I think it's been demonstrated pretty are obviously authorities, you think that there would have been very little conclusively, that the chief reason for the prolongation of the negotiations sympathy for draconian activity by the American military. and for the resumed and more terrible than ever bombing in December, 1972, MR. JAY: Subject to what Bernard has rightly said, the British are was to get President Thieu to agree to a set of agreements which he had no basically not very interested in what goes on in Vietnam. confidence in. This was the object of that bombing, and to further-- MR. BUCKLEY: Okay. MR. BUCKLEY: As the result of false reassurances. MR. JAY: I mean, so the politically conscious nation would have reacted MR. JENKINS: Yes, and further reinforce them by false reassurances, Thieu very-- was brought to accept. MR. BUCKLEY: Okay, since we have only a few minutes left, may I ask you this, MR. BUCKLEY: Yes, but how did they know they were false, r1r. Jenkins? This Mr. Jay. There has--You know, there is a lot of concern in America and there's is what I'm asking you. If, in fact, Nixon himself was surprised, if in fact a lot of concern here, and there's a lot of concern allover Europe on the Nixon and Kissinger ordered the fleet, ordered the Air Force, to pulverize very simple question of American reliability. People are almost tired of North Vietnam in April, then did. they not in fact intend to fulfill their asking the question. Do I understand you to say that American reliability commitment to Thieu? Is it therefore fair to say that in October and January has not, in your judgment, suffered from the history of our conduct in they were intentionally deceiving this man? Watergate was nothing, even as this engagement? late as January. MR. JAY: No, you don't understand me to say that. American reliability MR. JENKINS: Well, if they were not intending to deceive them, they were has suffered and is at issue and is causing, I would say, serious, though intending a massive deception of the American people. When the last prisoner not yet deep, concern that the conduct of these events by Dr. Kissinger of war came home on March 28-- on the premise, or what only I have taken to be the premise, that it was MR. BUCKLEY: Yes. indeed necessary and right to withdraw United States from this involvement MR. JENKINS: --if 10 days after that bombing had been resumed, do you not but to do it in a way which did not upset the balance between the United think that there would have been a great moral revulsion in the United States? States and the Soviet Union and to do it in a way which did not cause a MR. BUCKLEY: No, no. right-wing backlash, as it was called, in the United States seemed to me MR. JENKINS: If massive bombing, B-52 bombing of North Vietnam had been re­ an intelligent and correct and legitimate policy. This is no way implied that sumed 10 days after the last prisoner was home-- the United States was generally going to return to a fortress America MR. BUCKLEY: Certainly not, not if the provocation was as it was, I don't isolationist policy in which it would wash its hands of the rest of the world believe that-- and vote, as it has in a recent opinion poll, that the only country that it MR. JENKINS: You see, the provocation was no't so great because I cannot would certainly fight for is Canada. believe that Kissinger, in his professional judgment, believed that those MR. BUCKLEY: Yes. accords could possibly work, can you? MR. JAY: I think that the conduct of the-~that Watergate has generated a MR. LEVIN: That's the point, isn't it? You see, you talk about the provoca­ political and, let me say, media atmosphere in the United States which has tion, but then there was never going to be, indeed in a sense there never has gone way beyond that limited objective of withdrawal from Vietnam, which been from the beginning of the Vietnam war to the end, a moment like the third now does, at least as perceived by people outside, begin to call into question of September, 1939, when the German army marched across the Polish border. I the degree of United States commitment to the stability of other areas of mean, there was no argument about that. That happened. Now, what was hap­ the world, that this does concern us, that the way in which the Congress is pening after the accords were signed now behaving is a real concern. Now, concern is the word. It may well be as that. It was the further infiltration down the Trail and so on. that in 1976 a new president will be--It certainly will be, indeed, a new MR. BUCKLEY: It's the same kind of thing, only intensified. president--directly elected. He will have the authority that direct election MR. LEVIN: Well, but the point about it is that the same kind of thing gives him ..He will find a secretary of state as good and intelligent and has been happening all the time, only intensified. It's very difficult, sophisticated and operationally successful as Henry Kissinger and that some­ perhaps it shouldn't be, but it undoubtedly is and emphatically would have­ thing nearer normality will be restored, minus Vietnam. In that case, we shall been at that point to present that to the American people as a aasus belli shall all heave a sigh of relief. on that scale. MR. BUCKLEY: Well, the legitimization of the president, you know, has very MR. BUCKLEY: But, Mr. Levin, if you had been the speech writer for Mr. little to do with his power.

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© Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Jr. University. MR. JAY: It has something to do with his political authority. her armed forces, but in the broader sense of the word--to meet renewed MR. BUCKLEY: Yes. No, not much. Herbert Hoover was legitimately elected and threats in Europe. Incidentally, I may say that if that feeling leads to a had no power after 1930. more realistic appraisal of their own defense efforts by the countries of MR. JAY: You yourself were saying just now what authority President Nixon had Western Europe, it will also have done some good, because, God knows, that's in 1972 after his smashing victory. long overdue and has been these many years. And that's a thing that now MR. BUCKLEY: No, I'm talking about constitutional authority, and you're concerns me very greatly, that the doubts about American commitment are now t~lking about legislative authority. based, one, on doubts about America's intentions and, two, doubts about MR. JAY: But that's the whole issue, that we now ask ourselves the question, thei r abil ity. who is running American foreign policy. Is it the Congress or is it the MR. BUCKLEY: Capability, yes. Thank you very much, Mr. Levin, and thank President? In this situation in which the President's political authority is you, Mr. Jay, and thank you very much, Mr. Jenkins. weak, the Congress seems to be stronger and that does create a doubt about what American foreign policy is. MR. BUCKLEY: Yes, right now we're playing with forms with which we are unfamiliar, to wit, parliamentary democracy. There's a lot to be said for parliamentary democracy, but we haven't had experience with it since FOR decided that he was king, you know, back in 1933, and only very rarely vouchsafed to the American people any notion of what he was up to in foreign affairs. This was a very popular position for American intellectuals until all of a sudden they found out it could be used to the advantage of goals that they were not enticed with having-- MR: JAY: Well, maybe if you're going to have parliamentary democracy, you're gOlng to have to have some mechanism that guarantees that the prime minister is of the same party as the majority in the legislature. MR. BUCKLEY: I know-- MR. JAY: You have no such mechanism. MR. BUCKLEY: Yes, but meanwhile, when you people are talking about· European security, and when you people are wondering what, if anything, is going to be done if the Soviet Union decides to apply the Brezhnev doctrine in Yugoslavia, in Albania, what kind of help are you expecting from us? MR. JENKINS: You see, these perceptions are very fleeting, because, you know, the last few weeks~ with the collapse of first Cambodia and now South Vietnam, people are naturally-- MR. BUCKLEY: That makes it sound like a domino, doesn't it? MR. JENKINS: Well, I think maybe the two sides of the same domino. No, well, we don't want to get into Cambodia, do we, because-- MR. BUCKLEY: Or South Korea. MR. JENKINS: --it seemed to me that Cambodia was the most innocent victim of all of the United States policy in that part of the world. But, be that as it may, we look at these collapses now so people do naturally think on what is the United States commitment worth. But I would say that this type of thinking was much more alarming and more serious and widespread in Europe two or three years ago when people were looking at the continuing war in South Vietnam and saying, "How can the United States maintain its other commitments with this drain, with this division at home, with the divisions at home being caused by this war?" It was then that people were more worried. It was then that Senator Mansfield was coming nearer to passing resolutions to bring out the troops than now. MR. BUCKLEY: Well, not because he thought we needed them in Southeast Asia. (laughter) MR. JENKINS: No. MR. BUCKLEY: What do you think, Mr. Levin? Do you feel that there is this sense of fear or inconstancy? MR. LEVIN: Well, there is, but I think there's another element to it, which is more surprising and, in a sense, more disturbing, which is that what we have seen is not mere1y--wel1, you can argue about the inconstancy or the failure of will. There has actually been, also, in a sense, a failure of capacity, an impotence of American power. Now, that is something that the rest of the world, and Europe in particular, has got to start thinking about; it's how can America now marsh~ll her forces--I don't mean literally

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