Janet Reno Confronted on Government-Sponsored Terrorism-- Home Grown & Abroad
Philly 9/11 Truth | April 10, 2008
___________________ Mike Wallace Interview with Aldous Huxley - 5/18/58 Harry Ransom Center - University of Texas at Austin | April 2008 The Mike Wallace Interview - Aldous Huxley - May 18, 1958 Aldous Huxley, social critic and author of Brave New World, talks to Wallace about threats to freedom in the United States, overpopulation, bureaucracy, propaganda, drugs, advertising, and television.
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Transcript:
WALLACE: This is Aldous Huxley, a man haunted by a vision of hell on earth. A searing social critic, Mr. Huxley 27 years ago, wrote Brave New World, a novel that predicted that some day the entire world would live under a frightful dictatorship. Today Mr. Huxley says that his fictional world of horror is probably just around the corner for all of us. We'll find out why, in a moment.
(OPENING CREDITS)
WALLACE: Good evening, I'm Mike Wallace. Tonight's guest, Aldous Huxley, is a man of letters, as disturbing as he is distinguished. Born in England, now a resident of California, Mr. Huxley has written some of the most electric novels and social criticism of this century.
He's just finished a series of essays called “Enemies of Freedom,” in which he outlines and defines some of the threats to our freedom in the United States; and Mr. Huxley, right of the bat, let me ask you this: as you see it, who and what are the enemies of freedom here in the United States?
HUXLEY: Well, I don't think you can say who in the United States, I don't think there are any sinister persons deliberately trying to rob people of their freedom, but I do think, first of all, that there are a number of impersonal forces which are pushing in the direction of less and less freedom, and I also think that there are a number of technological devices which anybody who wishes to use can use to accelerate this process of going away from freedom, of imposing control.
WALLACE: Well, what are these forces and these devices, Mr. Huxley?
HUXLEY: I should say that there are two main impersonal forces, er... the first of them is not exceedingly important in the United States at the present time, though very important in other countries. This is the force which in general terms can be called overpopulation, the mounting pressure of population pressing upon existing resources.
WALLACE: Uh-huh.
HUXLEY: Uh... this, of course, is an extraordinary thing; something is happening which has never happened in the world's history before, I mean, let's just take a simple fact that between the time of birth of Christ and the landing of the May Flower, the population of the earth doubled. It rose from two hundred and fifty million to probably five hundred million. Today, the population of the earth is rising at such a rate that it will double in half a century.
WALLACE: Well, why should overpopulation work to diminish our freedoms?
HUXLEY: Well, in a number of ways. I mean, the... the experts in the field like Harrison Brown, for example, pointed out that in the underdeveloped countries actually the standard of living is at present falling. The people have less to eat and less goods per capita than they had fifty years ago;
and as the position of these countries, the economic position, becomes more and more precarious, obviously the central government has to take over more and more responsibility for keeping the ship-of-state on an even keel, and then of course you are likely to get social unrest under such conditions, with again an intervention of the central government.
So that, I think that one sees here a pattern which seems to be pushing very strongly towards a totalitarian regime. And unfortunately, as in all these underdeveloped countries the only highly organized political party is the Communist Party, it looks rather as though they will be the heirs to this unfortunate process, that they will step into the power... the position of power.
WALLACE: Well then, ironically enough one of the greatest forces against communism in the world, the Catholic Church, according to your thesis would seem to be pushing us directly into the hands of the communists because they are against birth control.
HUXLEY: Well, I think this strange paradox probably is true. There is, er..., it's an extraordinary situation actually. I mean, one has to look at it, of course, from a biological point of view: the whole essence of biological life on earth is a question of balance and what we've done is to practice death control in the most intensive manner without balancing this with birth control at the other end. Consequently, the birth rates remain as high as they were and death rates have fallen substantially. (COUGHS)
WALLACE: All right then, so much, for the time being anyway, for overpopulation. Another force that is diminishing our freedoms?
HUXLEY: Well another force which I think is very strongly operative in this country is the force of what may be called of overorganization. Er... As technology becomes more and more complicated, it becomes necessary to have more and more elaborate organizations, more hierarchical organizations, and incidentally the advance of technology is being accompanied by an advance in the science of organization.
It's now possible to make organizations on a larger scale than it was ever possible before, and so that you have more and more people living their lives out as subordinates in these hierarchical systems controlled by bureaucracy, either the bureaucracies of big businesses or the bureaucracies of big government.
WALLACE: Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Now the devices that you were talking about, are there specific devices or er... methods of communication which diminish our freedoms in addition to overpopulation and overorganization?
HUXLEY: Well, there are certainly devices which can be used in this way. I mean, let us er... take after all, a piece of very recent and very painful history is the propaganda used by Hitler, which was incredibly effective.
I mean, what were Hitler's methods? Hitler used terror on the one kind, brute force on the one hand, but he also used a very efficient form of propaganda, which er... he was using every modern device at that time. He didn't have TV., but he had the radio which he used to the fullest extent, and was able to impose his will on an immense mass of people. I mean, the Germans were a highly educated people.
WALLACE: Well, we're aware of all this, but how do we equate Hitler's use of propaganda with the way that propaganda, if you will, is used let us say here in the United States. Are you suggesting that there is a parallel?
HUXLEY: Needless to say it is not being used this way now, but, er... the point is, it seems to me, that there are methods at present available, methods superior in some respects to Hitler's method, which could be used in a bad situation. I mean, what I feel very strongly is that we mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology.
This has happened again and again in history with technology's advance and this changes social condition, and suddenly people have found themselves in a situation which they didn't foresee and doing all sorts of things they really didn't want to do.
WALLACE: And well, what... what do you mean? We develop our television but we don't know how to use it correctly, is that the point that you're making?
HUXLEY: Well, at the present the television, I think, is being used quite harmlessly; it's being used, I think, I would feel, it's being used too much to distract everybody all the time. But, I mean, imagine which must be the situation in all communist countries where the television, where it exists, is always saying the same things the whole time; it's always driving along.
It's not creating a wide front of distraction it's creating a one-pointed, er... drumming in of a single idea, all the time. It's obviously an immensely powerful instrument.
WALLACE: Uh-huh. So you're talking about the potential misuse of the instrument.
HUXLEY: Exactly. We have, of course... all technology is in itself moral and neutral. These are just powers which can either be used well or ill; it is the same thing with atomic energy, we can either use it to blow ourselves up or we can use it as a substitute for the coal and the oil which are running out.
WALLACE: You've even written about the use of drugs in this light.
HUXLEY: Well now, this is a very interesting subject. I mean, in this book that you mentioned, this book of mine, “Brave New World,” er... I postulated it a substance called 'soma,' which was a very versatile drug. It would make people feel happy in small doses, it would make them see visions in medium doses, and it would send them to sleep in large doses.
Well, I don't think such a drug exists now, nor do I think it will ever exist. But we do have drugs which will do some of these things, and I think it's quite on the cards that we may have drugs which will profoundly change our mental states without doing us any harm.
I mean, this is the... the pharmacological revolution which is taking place, that we have now powerful mind-changing drugs which physiologically speaking are almost costless. I mean they are not like opium or like coca... cocaine, which do change the state of mind but leave terrible results physiologically and morally.
WALLACE: Mr. Huxley, in your new essays you state that these various enemies of freedom are pushing us to a real-life “Brave New World,” and you say that it's awaiting us just around the corner. First of all, can you detail for us, what life in this Brave New World would you fear so much, or what life might be like?
HUXLEY: Well, to start with, I think this kind of dictatorship of the future, I think will be very unlike the dictatorships which we've been familiar with in the immediate past. I mean, take another book prophesying the future, which was a very remarkable book, George Orwell's “1984.”
Well, this book was written at the height of the Stalinist regime, and just after the Hitler regime, and there he foresaw a dictatorship using entirely the methods of terror, the methods of physical violence. Now, I think what is going to happen in the future is that dictators will find, as the old saying goes, that you can do everything with bayonets except sit on them!
WALLACE: (LAUGHS)
HUXLEY: But, if you want to preserve your power indefinitely, you have to get the consent of the ruled, and this they will do partly by drugs as I foresaw in “Brave New World,” partly by these new techniques of propaganda.
They will do it by bypassing the sort of rational side of man and appealing to his subconscious and his deeper emotions, and his physiology even, and so, making him actually love his slavery.
I mean, I think, this is the danger that actually people may be, in some ways, happy under the new regime, but that they will be happy in situations where they oughtn't to be happy.
WALLACE: Well, let me ask you this. You're talking about a world that could take place within the confines of a totalitarian state. Let's become more immediate, more urgent about it. We believe, anyway, that we live in democracy here in the United States. Do you believe that this Brave New World that you talk about, er... could, let's say in the next quarter century, the next century, could come here to our shores?
HUXLEY: I think it could. I mean, er... that's why I feel it so extremely important here and now, to start thinking about these problems. Not to let ourselves be taken by surprise by the... the new advances in technology. I mean the... for example, in the regard to the use of the... of the drugs.
We know, there is enough evidence now for us to be able, on the basis of this evidence and using certain amount of creative imagination, to foresee the kind of uses which could be made by people of bad will with these things and to attempt to forestall this, and in the same way,
I think with these other methods of propaganda we can foresee and we can do a good deal to forestall. I mean, after all, the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
WALLACE: You write in Enemies of Freedom, you write specifically about the United States. You say this, writing about American political campaigns you say, "All that is needed is money and a candidate who can be coached to look sincere; political principles and plans for specific action have come to lose most of their importance. The personality of the candidate, the way he is projected by the advertising experts, are the things that really matter."
HUXLEY: Well, this is the... during the last campaign, there was a great deal of this kind of statement by the advertising managers of the campaign parties. This idea that the candidates had to be merchandised as though they were so-called two-faced and that you had to depend entirely on the personality.
I mean, personality is important, but there are certainly people with an extremely amiable personality, particularly on TV, who might not necessarily be very good in political... positions of political trust.
WALLACE: Well, do you feel that men like Eisenhower, Stevenson, Nixon, with knowledge aforethought were trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the American public?
HUXLEY: No, but they were being advised by powerful advertising agencies who were making campaigns of a quite different kind from what had been made before. and I think we shall see probably, er... all kinds of new devices coming into the picture. I mean, for example, this thing which got a good deal of publicity last autumn, subliminal projection.
I mean, as it stands, this thing, I think is of no menace to us at the moment, but I was talking the other day to one of the people who has done most experimental work in the... psychological laboratory with this, was saying precisely this, that it is not at the moment a danger, but once you've established the principle that something works, you can be absolutely sure that the technology of it is going to improve steadily.
And I mean his view of the subject was that, well, maybe they will use it up to some extent in the 1960 campaign, but they will probably use it a good deal and much more effectively in the 1964 campaign because this is the kind of rate at which technology advances.
WALLACE: And we'll be persuaded to vote for a candidate that we do not know that we are being persuaded to vote for.
HUXLEY: Exactly, I mean this is the rather alarming picture that you’re being persuaded below the level of choice and reason.
WALLACE: In regard to advertising, which you mentioned just a little ago, in your writing, particularly in “Enemies of Freedom,” you attack Madison Avenue, which controls most of our television and radio advertising, newspaper advertising and so forth. Why do you consistently attack the advertising agencies...
HUXLEY: Well, no I... I think that, er... advertisement plays a very necessary role, but the danger it seems to me in a democracy is this... I mean what does a democracy depend on? A democracy depends on the individual voter making an intelligent and rational choice for what he regards as his enlightened self-interest, in any given circumstance.
But what these people are doing, I mean what both, for their particular purposes, for selling goods and the dictatorial propagandists are for doing, is to try to bypass the rational side of man and to appeal directly to these unconscious forces below the surfaces so that you are, in a way, making nonsense of the whole democratic procedure, which is based on conscious choice on rational ground.
WALLACE: Of course, well, maybe... I... you have just answered this next question because in your essay you write about television commercials, not just political commercials, but television commercials as such and how, as you put it, "Today's children walk around singing beer commercials and toothpaste commercials." And then you link this phenomenon in some way with the dangers of a dictatorship. Now, could you spell out the connection or, have... or do you feel you've done so sufficiently?
HUXLEY: Well, I mean, here, this whole question of children, I think, is a terribly important one because children are quite clearly much more suggestible than the average grownup; and again, suppose that, er... that for one reason or another all the propaganda was in the hands of one or very few agencies, you would have an extraordinarily powerful force playing on these children, who after all are going to grow up and be adults quite soon. I do think that this is not an immediate threat, but it remains a possible threat, and...
WALLACE: You said something to the effect in your essay that the children of Europe used to be called 'cannon fodder' and here in the United States they are 'television and radio fodder.'
HUXLEY: Well, after all, you can read in the trade journals the most lyrical accounts of how necessary it is, to get hold of the children because then they will be loyal brand buyers later on. But I mean, again you just translate this into political terms, the dictator says they all will be ideology buyers when they are grownup.
WALLACE: We hear so much about brainwashing as used by the communists. Do you see any brainwashing other than that which we’ve just been talking about, that is used here in the United States, other forms of brainwashing?
HUXLEY: Not in the form that has been used in China and in Russia because this is, essentially, the application of propaganda methods, the most violent kind to individuals; it is not a shotgun method, like the... the advertising method. It's a way of getting hold of the person and playing both on his physiology and his psychology until he really breaks down and then you can implant a new idea in his head.
I mean the descriptions of the methods are really blood curdling when you read them, and not only methods applied to political prisoners but the methods applied, for example, to the training of the young communist administrators and missionaries. They receive an incredibly tough kind of training which may cause maybe twenty-five percent of them to break down or commit suicide, but produces seventy-five percent of completely one-pointed fanatics.
WALLACE: The question, of course, that keeps coming back to my mind is this: obviously politics in themselves are not evil, television is not in itself evil, atomic energy is not evil, and yet you seem to fear that it will be used in an evil way. Why is it that the right people will not, in your estimation, use them? Why is it that the wrong people will use these various devices and for the wrong motives?
HUXLEY: Well, I think one of the reasons is that these are all instruments for obtaining power, and obviously the passion for power is one of the most moving passions that exists in man; and after all, all democracies are based on the proposition that power is very dangerous and that it is extremely important not to let any one man or any one small group have too much power for too long a time.
After all what are the British and American Constitution except devices for limiting power, and all these new devices are extremely efficient instruments for the imposition of power by small groups over larger masses.
WALLACE: Well, you ask this question yourself in “Enemies of Freedom.” I'll put your own question back to you. You ask this, "In an age of accelerating overpopulation, of accelerating overorganization, and ever more efficient means of mass communication, how can we preserve the integrity and reassert the value of the human individual?" You put the question, now here's your chance to answer it Mr. Huxley.
HUXLEY: Well, this is obviously... first of all, it is a question of education. Er... I think it's terribly important to insist on individual values, I mean, what is a... there is a tendency as a... you probably read a book by White, the organization man, a very interesting, valuable book I think, where he speaks about the new type of group morality, group ethic, which speaks about the group as though the group were somehow more important than the individual.
But this seems, as far as I'm concerned, to be in contradiction with what we know about the genetical makeup of human beings, that every human being is unique. And it is, of course, on this genetical basis that the whole idea of the value of freedom is based.
And I think it's extremely important for us to stress this in all our educational life, and I would say it's also very important to teach people to be on their guard against the sort of verbal booby traps into which they are always being led, to analyze the kind of things that are said to them.
Well, I think there is this whole educational side of... and I think there are many more things that one could do to strengthen people, and to make them more aware of what's being done.
WALLACE: You're a prophet of decentralization?
HUXLEY: Well, the... yes... if it... it's feasible. It's one of the tragedies, it seems to me. I mean, many people have been talking about the importance of decentralization in order to give back to the voter a sense of direct power. I mean... the voter in an enormous electorate field is quite impotent, and his vote seems to count for nothing.
This is not true where the electorate is small, and where he is dealing with a... with a group which he can manage and understand... and if one can, as Jefferson after all suggested, break up the units, er... into smaller and smaller units and so, get a real, self-governing democracy.
WALLACE: Well, that was all very well in Jefferson's day, but how can we revamp our economic system and decentralize, and at the same time meet militarily and economically the tough challenge of a country like Soviet Russia?
HUXLEY: Well, I think the answer to that is that there are... it seems to me that you... that production, industrial production is of two kinds. I mean, there are some kinds of industrial production which obviously need the most tremendously high centralization, like the making of automobiles for example.
But there are many other kinds where you could decentralize quite easily and probably quite economically, and that you would then have this kind of decentralized, like after all you begin to see it now, if you travel through the south, this decentralized textile industry which is springing up there.
WALLACE: Mr. Huxley, let me ask you this, quite seriously, is freedom necessary?
HUXLEY: As far as I am concerned it is.
WALLACE: Why? Is it necessary for a productive society?
HUXLEY: Yes, I should say it is. I mean, a genuinely productive society. I mean you could produce plenty of goods without much freedom, but I think the whole sort of creative life of man is ultimately impossible without a considerable measure of individual freedom, of initiative, creation, all these things which we value, and I think value properly, are impossible without a large measure of freedom.
WALLACE: Well, Mr. Huxley, take a look again at the country which is in the stance of our opponent anyway, it would seem, anyway it would seem to be there, Soviet Russia. It is strong, and getting stronger, economically, militarily, at the same time it's developing its art forms pretty well, er... it seems not unnecessarily to squelch the creative urge among its people. And yet it is not a free society.
HUXLEY: It's not a free society, but here is something very interesting that those members of the society, like the scientists, who are doing the creative work, are given far more freedom than anybody else. I mean, it is a privileged aristocratic society in which, provided they don't poke their noses into political affairs, these people are given a great deal of prestige, a considerable amount of freedom, and a lot money.
I mean, this is a very interesting fact about the new Soviet regime, and I think what we are going to see is er... a people on the whole with very little freedom but with an oligarchy on top enjoying a considerable measure of freedom and a very high standard of living.
WALLACE: And the people down below, the 'epsilons' down below...
HUXLEY: Enjoying very little.
WALLACE: And you think that that kind of situation can long endure?
HUXLEY: I think it can certainly endure much longer than the situation in which everybody is kept out; I mean, they can certainly get their technological and scientific results on such a basis.
WALLACE: Well, the next time that I talk to you then, perhaps we should investigate further the possibility of the establishment of that kind of a society, where the drones work for the queen bees up above.
HUXLEY: Well, but yes, but I must say, I still believe in democracy, if we can make the best of the creative activities of the people on top plus those of the people on the bottom, so much the better.
WALLACE: Mr. Huxley, I surely thank you for spending this half hour with us, and I wish you God speed sir.
HUXLEY: Thank you.
WALLACE: Aldous Huxley finds himself these days in a peculiar and disturbing position: a quarter of a century after prophesying an authoritarian state in which people were reduced to cyphers, he can point at Soviet Russia and say, "I told you so!" The crucial question, as he sees it now, is whether the so-called Free World is shortly going to give Mr. Huxley the further dubious satisfaction of saying the same thing about us.
Stay tuned for a preview of next weeks interview. Till then, Mike Wallace. Good night.
Closing credits
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Henry Kissinger Advocates Limited War as 'a Tool of Foreign Policy' in 1958
Harry Ransom Center - University of Texas at Austin | April 2008
The Mike Wallace Interview with Henry Kissinger, July 13, 1958
Dr. Henry Kissinger, Associate Director of the Center for International Affairs at Harvard University, talks to Wallace about the United States' foreign and military policies, limited nuclear war, the Soviet Union, Algeria, the Middle East, and Republicans, including Richard Nixon.
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Transcript:
WALLACE: This is Professor Henry Kissinger, a military and political analyst with a revolutionary concept of nuclear war and a constructive concept for peace. He's a man whose ideas have prompted the highest officials of our government to re-evaluate our defense policies. We'll get his criticisms of our current strategies in war and peace in just a moment.
(OPENING CREDITS)
WALLACE: Good evening, I'm Mike Wallace. Tonight we'll tackle the immediate issue that will decide the fate of our freedom, certainly, and possibly even of our survival. We'll discuss the conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union, and the chances of war. Our guest, Professor Henry Kissinger, Associate Director of the Center for International Affairs at Harvard University, and the man whose recent proposals substantially influenced President Eisenhower's plan for military reorganization.
Dr. Kissinger, last year your attack on our foreign and military policies was apparently found so disturbing that the New York Times carried this front-page story: they said, "For the first time since President Eisenhower took office, officials at the highest government levels are displaying interest in the theory of the 'little', or 'limited', war. The theory of massive retaliation is being re-examined." That was a year ago. What has come of the re-examination?
KISSINGER: I think the theory has been re-examined; the practice has not been.
WALLACE: The theory has been found wanting, then?
KISSINGER: The theory has been found wanting, but I don't think we have made the effort, or spent the money, or made the sacrifices necessary for... to get a capability for limited war.
WALLACE: Well now, in order to better understand your proposal for limited war, perhaps it would be well for you to define what you understand to be our current United States' military policy. What is our military policy?
KISSINGER: Well, our current military policy is based on the doctrine of massive retaliation: that we threaten an all-out attack on the Soviet Union in case the Soviet Union engages in aggression anywhere. This means that, against almost any form of attack, we base our policy on the threat that will involve the destruction of all mankind; and this is too risky, and I think too expensive.
WALLACE: You obviously think it's wrong, dangerous to our security. I wonder if you would expand on that. Just because of, what you say, the risk and just because of the expense, it is not worthwhile?
KISSINGER: No, it is... what it will mean is that in every crisis, an American president will have to make the choice whether a given objective is worth the destruction of American cities. The American president will have to decide whether Beirut, or whatever the issue may be, is worth about 30,000,000 American lives. In practice, I'm afraid the American president will have to decide that it is not worth it, and it will therefore encourage the piecemeal taking-over of the world by Soviet aggression.
WALLACE: Because you believe the Soviets understand our unwillingness or inability, certainly our unwillingness, to wage an all-out war?
KISSINGER: The Soviets will understand our increasing unwillingness to engage in this kind of war, and therefore their task will be to present us with the challenge which doesn't ever seem worth taking the final jump, but which the accumulation of which is going to lead to the destruction of the free world.
WALLACE: In place of that policy, what do you believe our military and political policies should be?
KISSINGER: Well, the first thing I'd like to say is that military policy can't be a substitute for other measures. It can only be the screen behind which other measures are possible. Now with this qualification, I think that we must have a military capability that permits us to react to Soviet threats at the same level of intensity at which they present it, so that we don't always have to choose between the destruction of the United States and the defense of the countries that may be threatened; but rather that we can defend the areas which are threatened at the place where the threat occurs.
WALLACE: How is that actually translated into... if I may, into more simple language? Is this... are you simply talking now about a policy which includes limited war?
KISSINGER: ...It's a policy that... yes, that we are ready to engage in limited war, that we have troop transports, air transport that gets... enables us to get into position quickly, and that we have the forces to engage in limited war, which we do not now have.
WALLACE: Can you give me an example of how this might actually work out?
KISSINGER: Well, at the moment we have thirteen divisions. It is clear that with thirteen divisions we are incapable of resisting Soviet attacks when the Soviet Union has 175 divisions. If we had more divisions, and if we had air transport, then in case of a Soviet attack, say on Iraq, we could air-lift a few divisions into the area and, together with local forces, attempt a defense.
WALLACE: Uh-hum. President Eisenhower... You advise limited war, or you suggest the use of limited war, limited nuclear war, indeed. President Eisenhower said about two years ago, he said, "War in our time has become an anachronism. Whatever the case in the past, war in the future," he said, "can serve no useful purpose.
A war which became general, as any limited action might," he said, "could only result in the virtual destruction of mankind." Now that's the rub, it would seem: that any limited nuclear war might boil over into a total war; and so the question we must put to ourselves is, dare we take the chance?
KISSINGER: Well, let me answer this question in two parts. You say I advise a policy of limited nuclear war. I do not advise that we initiate war. The question of war will arise only if the Soviet Union attacks; then, if the Soviet Union attacks, and in fact, we are very much more afraid of total war than they are, they will gradually blackmail the free-world into surrender. Everything that I say is based on the assumption that we are as willing to run risks as the Soviet Union. If this is not the case, we are lost; and I think we ought to face that fact.
WALLACE: Uh-hum. Let's look at some of the measures... let's look at some of the measures which you propose for keeping a limited war limited. You say, for instance, that in the midst of a limited war, each side could be required to list its strategic air bases, which would then he immune from attack. All cities within 500 miles of the battle zone would be immune from nuclear attack if they were declared open and certified so to be.
It could be proposed that no weapon larger than 500 kilotons will be employed unless the enemy uses it first, and so forth. Now, two nations, which up until now have been unable to agree on armament control during peacetime, according to Dr. Kissinger, are expected to engage in fairly complex Marquis of Queensberry rules in the midst of a nuclear war. It... it doesn't sound sensible, sir.
KISSINGER: I know it doesn't sound sensible, and nor does the destructiveness of modern weapons sound very sensible. What is required here is a completely new order of thinking. I hold no particular brief with the specific limitations, which I recommended. What I am saying is this: both sides, if they know one thing, they know that an all-out war will mean the destruction of civilization, of their own as well as of the other.
They also know they will therefore have an interest in keeping any war that does break out to the smallest possible proportions. If they're looking for an excuse to expand it, they will expand it; I am assuming they're looking for an excuse to limit it. What we have to do is to bend our ingenuity into finding... toward finding means to limit any war that might break out, either through accident or through design.
Whether these particular limitations are absolutely the right ones, I wouldn't maintain; but the great difficulty has been the traditional military thinkers, trained with conventional strategy, have simply dismissed all new forms of thought, and have not addressed themselves to what seems to me to be a very real and serious problem.
WALLACE: Then you think American strategy should be re-evaluated to restore war as a usable instrument of policy.
KISSINGER: American strategy has to face the fact that it may be confronted with war, and that if Soviet aggression confronts us with war, and we are unwilling to resist, it will mean the end of our freedom. We will... this is it boils down, then, to a value choice. In these terms, yes, I think war must be made a usable instrument of policy.
WALLACE: Let me throw another argument at you, if I may, Dr. Kissinger. I'd like to quote from a study that has been released just a few hours ago called Foreign Policy in the Free Society, written by Walter Millis and Father John Courtney Murray. In it, analyst Walter Millis writes as follows: he says, "The concept of limited war presents a simple fallacy in logic.
We can resort to limited war," he says, "only when the objective is not vital to either side; in which case, we would be unlikely to resort to war in any event. This happened in Indo-China, Suez, and Hungary." He's obviously talking about the United States when he says 'we.' What about that?
KISSINGER: I... I'm a great admirer of Mr. Millis’s; I cannot agree with him there. Every one of these instances were instances where the Western position was eroded. If it is really true that we can never engage in limited war, while the Soviet Union can engage in limited war, I can only repeat that our expulsion, the collapse of the free world, is inevitable. Moreover, to say that limited war is a logical fallacy doesn't mean very much if you look at the period from 1945 to 1958, which has had the Berlin blockade, the Korean war, Indo-China, Suez, Hungary, constant threats of nuclear attacks on other countries. The fact cannot be explained away on simply logical grounds.
WALLACE: Tell me this, sir. Suppose the communists were to march into West Berlin next week, would you, personally, and do you think the majority of the American people would want to take a chance on protecting West Berlin with a limited nuclear war?
KISSINGER: I am not saying that every Soviet attack must be answered with nuclear war. In an attack on West Berlin, I would certainly react in some manner, and in some manner that involves the use of force. Er... If we do not, no one will ever believe in our protection again, or in our word again. Whether the American people would support this or not would depend to some extent on their leadership. If you had taken a public-opinion poll on, say, June 20th, 1950, whether the American people would support the defense of Korea, you might have gotten an entirely different answer than the one you had a week later when the President decided that it was essential to our interests to defend it.
WALLACE: Then I take it what you envision is, if the Government were to follow your point of view, they should announce publicly that from now on the possibility of limited nuclear war should be seriously considered by all Americans and by all of our potential enemies.
KISSINGER: I would announce that our primary purpose is to avoid war; but if we are forced into war through Soviet aggression, we would attempt to keep it to the smallest proportions necessary, that we would not use more force than was absolutely necessary to defend the safety of the free world, but that we would use the amount of force that was necessary to defend the free world.
WALLACE: As long as we're in the realm of speculation here, let's speculate a little further. What do you think the reaction of the Soviet government would be to an announcement of that kind?
KISSINGER: Well, they would be very likely to deny that a war can be limited because atomic blackmail is one of their most effective means of expansion. If they can create the impression that any resistance to Soviet aggression inevitably leads to the destruction of the country concerned, then many countries will prefer surrender to defending themselves. If they were faced with the real situation, however, all past experience indicates that this is not a regime that gambles everything on one throw of the dice.
WALLACE: In the field of foreign policy and military affairs, Dr. Kissinger, you're acknowledged to be one of the most penetrating minds in the country. Last year, as I've mentioned, you published a military analysis, which rocked Washington. Yet, you devoted it almost exclusively to framing a war policy rather than a peace policy. Could this be indicative of what is happening to our thinking here in America? Isn't this indeed what many of our allies criticize us for?
KISSINGER: Well, I... I would reject this description of my book. I did not frame a war policy; I framed a policy which I think is the only one that is going to preserve the peace. I am afraid that weakness is certainly going to lead us into a position where finally we will be forced to engage in very extreme measures to defend ourselves. I would therefore reject the description of my recommendations as a war policy. Our problems abroad are more complicated than this because on the one hand we are accused of an over-emphasis on military factors; on the other hand, the fact of the matter is that we are not strong enough to defend most of our allies. And one of... I would at least suggest that one of the difficulties is that our allies are both worried about our general political posture, and at the same time feel that we are not capable of protecting them if a showdown comes.
WALLACE: Uh-hum. What policies...? Let's move from war policies to positive peace policies. What policies do you believe generally that we should adopt to help keep the peace, and at the same time contain communism?
KISSINGER: Well, I hate again to differ with you but I cannot accept the distinction between war and peace policies. Defense policies are essential to maintain the peace. Er... They are not, however, going to solve the political problems of the world. They are only going to give us a shield behind which we can engage in constructive measures. What is essential right now is that we identify ourselves with the tremendous revolution, which is sweeping across the world, that we have some image for the construction of the free world which is based on other motives than simply defending the world against communism. We must make clear what we are for rather than what we are against. If we were clearer about the kind of world we want to bring about, if we could project this concern to other people, then we wouldn't always seem so intransigently militant, then we would be identified with positive measures rather than with simply military alliances.
WALLACE: Well, let's talk about some specifics. How do you regard our conduct in regard to the Algerian situation of the past few years?
KISSINGER: I think the Algerian situation is an extremely complicated and difficult one. In general, we should stand for the freedom of people. In general, we should oppose colonial regimes. On the other hand, we should come up with ideas which... Independent Algeria cannot survive as a purely independent state. The great paradox of this period is that on the one hand you have a drive toward more and more sovereign states; on the other hand, there is no such thing as a purely independent state any more. The thing that has always attracted me, therefore, would be that we would advocate a North African federation, which would be tied together economically and for other development projects, and that Algeria would find its place as part of that rather than as a purely independent state.
WALLACE: Do you look to the inclusion of Nasser and his peoples in this North African federation?
KISSINGER: Well, initially I would group... I would recommend grouping Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco. There might be another grouping of powers in the Middle East which includes Egypt and some of the states which have had a somewhat different history than the... than Algeria.
WALLACE: Would you say that our posture vis-Ã -vis Egypt has been a realistic one? Do you not agree that the peoples of Africa would seem to respond to Nasser, and that we seem to support governments in the Middle East which do not always have the support of their actual inhabitants, and that perhaps Nasser has more support than some of the other governments from the people themselves?
KISSINGER: Well, our policy vis-Ã -vis Nasser has suffered from indecisiveness. We have neither been conciliatory enough when we were conciliatory, nor intransigent enough when we were intransigent. We're not friendly enough to make him a friend, and we were not hostile enough really to bring him down, with the result that we have suffered from the worst of both worlds.
WALLACE: What you're saying is we have no policy.
KISSINGER: That we've been governed by events rather than attempt to shape them. I would think, however, that Ibn Saud does not represent the force with which we should be identified in the Middle East.
WALLACE: Let me come back again to the study called Foreign Policy in the Free Society. In it, philosopher Scott Buchanan says, "Our problem here in the United States is to exist as a capitalist society in, possibly, a completely socialist, revolutionary world." Now it would seem, to a certain extent anyway, that that's the way the world is going. Is it possible that we cannot exist in such a world?
KISSINGER: Well, you know, you could argue that the identification of 'socialist' and 'revolutionary' is not a very good identification. You could well argue that a capitalist society, or, what is more interesting to me, a free society, is a more revolutionary phenomenon than nineteenth-century socialism; and this illustrates precisely one of our problems. I think we should go on the spiritual offensive in the world. We should identify ourselves with the revolution. We should say that freedom, if it is liberated, can achieve many of these things.
WALLACE: Well, what is keeping us from going on the spiritual offensive, as you see it?
KISSINGER: Er... Because we've suddenly been projected into a situation for which very little in our history has prepared us and because, I'm afraid, many of the leadership groups that are engaged in foreign policy have had a set of experience... which make... experiences which make it rather difficult for them to come to grips with a really revolutionary situation.
WALLACE: Well, now, in that regard, earlier this week, you told our reporter that as far as current leaders are concerned, you said, "We have an administration of old men, happy with the life they have led." And you considered this dangerous. Uh... You smile now. What did you mean, and why is it dangerous, and why are you smiling?
KISSINGER: Well, I made this statement. I think that the groups I was referring to are very well meaning, very sincere, very patriotic people. The difficulty they have is that they think that the world in which they grew up is the 'normal' world. Er... Their tendency is, when a crisis arises, to try to smooth it over, and then to wait and then to expect that the 'normal' forces would re-assert themselves. Therefore they conduct policy a little bit like... er... maybe small-town bankers, who think one can always draw interest on a good situation. They conduct very often our policy as if Adenauer would live forever, despite the fact that he's 82 years old. When there's no crisis it's always very difficult to get agreement on a constructive step; conversely, it often requires a crisis to make us engage in any action.
WALLACE: Do you see any political leaders in the United States who, you believe, have a clear grasp of America's current place in history?
KISSINGER: I think one of the very worrisome features of the situation is that I don't find any great moral dynamism on either side.
WALLACE: When you say 'on either side,' you mean either on the democratic or on...
KISSINGER: Er... Either in the Democratic or in the Republican Party.
WALLACE: Well how... how do you account for that, Dr. Kissinger?
KISSINGER: (CLEARS THROAT) I think we've been assuming for too long that all we had to do... First of all, we are a nation of specialists. We tend to think that a problem is either economic or political or military. Many of your questions earlier in the program seem to me to indicate this when you said, "This is a policy of war, and that is a policy of peace."
It is hard for us to understand that we have to be able to do military, political, economic and psychological things all simultaneously. Then, we have been rather satisfied with the situation in our country as it is and with the world in which we have lived. Our response to the world has usually been to an overpowering threat from abroad.
Therefore, even when we have engaged in constructive steps like the Marshall Plan, the Greek-Turkish aid program, which were very great efforts, nevertheless we've always justified them on the basis of a communist threat, very rarely on the basis of things we wanted to do because of our intrinsic dynamism. I believe, for example, that we reacted very wrongly to the riots in Latin America. Rather than saying, "These are communist-inspired, and we must react to... we must keep Latin America from going Communist," we should have said, "This recalls us to our duty; these are things we want to do because of the values we stand for, not because we want to beat the communists."
WALLACE: But the question... the question is, why are we as unaware, why are we as unavailing? Is it because we have been projected into world leadership in too much of a hurry, unprepared for it? Is that one of the reasons?
KISSINGER: It... This is... one of our very basic reasons is that we've been projected too much in a hurry. And it also must be said in fairness that we have done rather well considering all the challenges that have been thrown at us. It is too bad that 'rather well' isn't good enough. Another problem is that the people who emerge in leadership positions in this country usually come from a lifetime of experience, which doesn't prepare them for the conduct of foreign policy; they may come from business or from law, or even from the universities.
WALLACE: We're certainly not in the case of John Foster Dulles. How would you evaluate the overall impact of Mr. Dulles on the world position of the United States?
KISSINGER: I think that Mr. Dulles is a very skillful tactician, that he shows extraordinary ingenuity in escaping from specific crisis situations. Unhappily, the real problem in the world at the moment is to prevent the crises from arising; it is to project an image of American concern and of American purpose. This... he is much less successful in doing. He often gives the impression of being so infatuated with the mechanics of foreign policy and with the negotiation aspect of foreign policy that he has not succeeded in projecting the deeper things we stand for, and often has created great distrust abroad.
WALLACE: Who, if any, are the men in public life whom you admire, you personally admire and look to for leadership for the United States, Dr. Kissinger?
KISSINGER: Well, I must say first of all that I'm here as a non-partisan, that I'm an independent.
WALLACE: Understood.
KISSINGER: I... I don't stand for either party in this. This depends. I've respected Mr. Stevenson in many of his utterances, respected Mr. Acheson in many of his utterances, although I've disagreed with him very much on other things. Er... It's very difficult for a party out of power to prove what it can do.
WALLACE: But there's no... There is no Republican who comes readily to your mind, in whom you have that... that confidence that that man has an understanding, the understanding that we need to lead us at this time?
KISSINGER: I hate to engage in personalities. I think that Mr. Nixon in his public utterances recently has shown awareness of the situation, but... I’d rather not deal in personalities, if you ask me...
WALLACE: Of course... Yes. Of course, we're going to have to. We're going to have to deal in personalities because personalities are leaders, and personalities are the people who eventually have to enunciate the issues. I'm sorry, sir, but our time has run out, and I'm very grateful to you for coming here from Cambridge to spend this half-hour with us, Dr. Kissinger.
Our survival and freedom, a thorny undertaking at best, has become even more difficult to hold onto in the nuclear age. For this reason, we run the danger of seeking easy answers or of despairing that there are any answers at all. Dr. Kissinger has suggested a tough, challenging answer, part of the answer, in limited war. But as he himself has put it, "History will not excuse the inadequacy of our response because of the enormity of the challenge."
Next week is the last program on our scheduled Survival and Freedom series, and on it we shall come to grips with what's been said on this entire series by such guests as Reinhold Niebuhr, Justice Douglas, Aldous Huxley, Adlai Stevenson, Pat Weaver, Cyrus Eaton, and Henry Kissinger. Our guest next week, you see him behind me, will be Dr. Robert Hutchins, a stormy petrel on the American scene, formerly Dean of the Yale Law School and President of the University of Chicago, now President of the Fund for the Republic. That's Robert Hutchins next week. Till then, Mike Wallace. Good night.
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