Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume I, Foundations of Foreign Policy, 1969–1972

71. Off-the-Record Remarks by President Nixon¹

Chicago, Illinois, September 16, 1970.

[Omitted here are Herbert Klein’s introduction of President Nixon and his admonition that the President’s remarks were on “deep background” and should be used without direct attribution. Nixon began by explaining that an off-the-record approach gave him the latitude to discuss matters he might not otherwise feel free to discuss. He then praised Henry Kissinger and Joseph Sisco, who had provided the group with a prior briefing on the administration’s foreign policy.]

If I could come to some other points, the greatest need that I felt we had in the field of foreign policy when we came into office was for perspective, for a long historical perspective.

What I say now is not intended to be critical of previous administrations, any of them. It is basically an observation about American foreign policy generally.

Throughout the years, American foreign policy has been basically one that reacts to events. That is why, as a matter of fact, when you see young people outside carrying signs, “Peace now, Peace now,” it should not be surprising. We are that kind of people. “Bring the boys home immediately after World War II” regardless of what was going to happen. “End the war,” do this and that and the other thing.

The United States people are people who are impatient people. We are a people who find it difficult to take the long view. There is a fundamental reason for that, which is very much to our credit, in my opinion.

We are the only world power that got to that position without intending to do so. We didn’t have a policy to become a world power. It happened that by the acts of World War II, the fact that all the other major powers in the free world, except the United States, were decimated by the war, all of the powers of Europe, the Japanese in Asia, and all the other industrial powers. Of course, none of them had the ability.

Here sat the United States. The action was all in our court. We had to act. Here we were. We didn’t plan it that way. We did not have a policy to reach that point.

Then, we suddenly found ourselves in the position where what happened in Asia, what happened in the Middle East, what happened in Latin America, what happened in Africa, what happened in Europe, all over the world, we in the United States some way—not because we wanted it, for most Americans didn’t want it as a matter of fact, and don’t want it, but because no one else was there to fill the vacuum of leadership—we in the United States had to have policies.

And that is why we, of course, developed a policy with regard to the defense of Europe. That is why we developed our policy in the field of economic assistance to Latin America and to all the other countries of the world.

That is why we had a policy in the Middle East. That is one of the major reasons why we developed a capability in our Armed Forces far beyond the necessity simply to defend the fortress of America. Because we had to have and we did have the responsibility, at least we felt we did, to look to other nations including even our defeated enemies—perhaps them more than others, Japan and Germany, because they, as a result of the war, were forced to complete disarmament and were denied the right to obtain the only armament that means anything for world power, nuclear power.

Here sits the United States with the responsibility on our hands.

With this kind of background, I have found and I would say this about all of our Administrations, I sat in the Eisenhower Administration for eight years. I know the discussions that were made there.

General Eisenhower had a longer view than most Americans. He had been through part of World War I at a very early age and he had seen, of course, much of World War II and had dealt with the great problems of the world. But even then there had not yet developed a long-term perspective. Then came the situation in the years after that.

I was not in government. But I think, as I look at the papers that were written at that time, a long-term perspective was not there.

So our first instruction to all of the people in our Administration when we came in—Joe Sisco knows this is what we said, not only with regard to the Middle East, but with regard to India, Pakistan, areas also under his control, and Henry Kissinger who had general charge of it all recognizes that, and I won’t go into all the areas we have tried to cover.

It is a mountain of work—we are re-examining every policy and trying to look ahead, not one year, two years, not even five years, not even to the end of this Administration, whether it is two years or six years or what have you, but ahead to the end of a century. That is about as far as we probably can look.

As we look ahead at the end of the century, that brings me, if I can for just a moment, come, to the subjects that Dr. Kissinger probably has covered in some perspective already, because his presentations are always in this vein.

But I would like for you to hear directly from me, to hear first very briefly about the war in Asia and what our plans are, and then if we could look at the Mediterranean and the trip we are planning there, and why it is really being taken. It really isn’t a junket, it is for very important reasons which I will not discuss publicly for reasons you will soon see.

Then, look at the relations between the two super powers and perhaps one brief look at what the world will be like 10 or 15 years from now if we do play a role.

Many years ago, at the time of the Korean War, when it was a great debate as to whether Truman should or should not have gone into Korea, I was talking to a man who is a great expert on the World Communist Movement. He said something that stuck in my mind ever since that time. He said, “Truman had to go into Korea. We had to go into Korea, because what we must remember is that the war in Korea for the Communists is not about Korea. It is about Japan.” Of course, it was.

If you look back at it now and see the weak Japan at that time, if Korea had been overrun, and Japan with its very, very strong Socialist party leaning toward the Communists might have—even with the enormous dependence it had at that time upon the United States economically and with certainly even the power that we guaranteed in terms of their defense—Japan would have been pulled inevitably into orbit and toward that orbit. So Korea was about that.

I think we could say and we don’t need to talk about any common theory. We all argue whether or not that is right. But the point is that as far as the war in Vietnam is concerned, history will record that it was about Vietnam, yes, and the Vietnamese people and whether they survive and have the right to choose their form of government and so forth.

But in terms of its impact of how it is ended, that war is not just about Vietnam. It is about Southeast Asia, the Pacific, about Japan, and about, we think, peace in the world generally. Because, if it is ended in a way that encourages those who might embark on any kind of aggression in that part of the world, if it is ended in a way that is interpreted by the Japanese, for example, the Indonesians, even by our friends in India and Pakistan—that far away not to mention our friends in Europe—if it is interpreted as the failure of the United States in this part of the world in its very difficult but relatively small action, as our failure to achieve a minimum goal, not victory over North Vietnam, but simply the right of the South Vietnamese to choose their own way without having it imposed, the impact would be enormous and I think devastating.

That is why despite the great political temptation—and how great it really is—to get it over right now, pull them out, blame whoever started it, et cetera, despite all of that we, I think, have to take the position that we will end the war. We are ending it. It is winding down. It will continue to. But we are going to end it in a way which will discourage those who might engage in aggression, that will not in terms of our enemies and those who might be our enemies encourage those who are, shall we say, the hawks as against the doves, and also in a way that particularly will not dismay our friends in Asia and that part of the world.

That is why the long view requires not only ending the war, but then a plan after that, and that is why right at the present time, Mr. Shultz, Mr. Ehrlichman, two of our top domestic advisers, are in Japan and will shortly be going to South Vietnam for the purpose of taking the long view—what happens afterwards; the development of Southeast Asia, our relations with Japan, and so on.

Let me come to the Mediterranean and put it in the same context for a moment. This is a trip to the Sixth Fleet.² It could be looked upon as what Presidents do in political campaigns. You go and inspect the fleet or inspect a base. It has been done before. I didn’t bring it up for the first time, as you are all aware.

But when we look at the Mediterranean and the Sixth Fleet—let me try to put that in the context of history as I see it.

If there is one thing that can be said, over the past ten years the American position in the Mediterranean has been rapidly deteriorating and has deteriorated there more than any place in the world.

Look at the southern rim of the Mediterranean. Look at the eastern rim of the Mediterranean and the northern rim of the Mediterranean and see what has happened, and you will see why this is the case.

When you look at the southern rim of the Mediterranean, ever since the June war in 1967, while the United States still has a strong friend in Morocco, and also a strong friend in Tunisia, both of these countries are relatively weak, both economically and certainly militarily.

Next door is Algeria. Algeria is more hopeful at the moment, even though we don’t have diplomatic relations established on a formal basis. They have been making certainly rather generous comments, or at least more generous than you would normally expect. I think Mr. Sisco would agree.

Libya is a country which is enormously affected by the fact that about half of its population is Palestinian refugees. Libya with all of that oil, and with the kind of government it has—who knows what will happen there; the influence, whether the influence will be within Libya, whether it will be by Nasser hanging over them, or for that matter from the Soviet Union. I don’t need to talk about Nasser and his problems in Egypt. You are aware of that. It has been discussed earlier.

But looking further around, Lebanon always was shaky, and still is, of course.

Jordan, a country where you wonder why anybody would ever insure the king. I am sure nobody does. And there are reasons there that have already been discussed.

Iraq and Syria, countries that at the present time are, as far as we are concerned, ones we have very little information about, except that they are basically irrational and usually antagonistic towards our views.

Then we have to go clear over to Iran, which is not in the Middle East, to find a strong, effective support of the United States, or to Saudi Arabians. That is about it.

You look at all of that area, sitting in the heart of it is Israel. There is a tendency to look at the Mideast and say, “This conflict is about Israel and its neighbors.” Of course it is. It is about the survival of Israel. But we couldn’t make a greater mistake than to think of it in those terms even primarily. Certainly the United States stands for the survival of Israel and the survival of other countries in that area and for their independence and for their ability to defend themselves.

But on the other hand, if we look at the Arab-Israeli conflict, we have to remember they have hated each other for thousands of years and they are going to continue for another thousand years and nothing we do or they do is going to solve that—no cease fires, no agreements, no border guarantees, no U.N. guarantees, no U.S.-Soviet guarantees, nothing.

What is it all about then? What it is about in terms of historical perspective is this: A policy which will keep, if we can, this relationship of an uneasy ceasefire, fragile, as has already described, attempting to look down the road when Israel will be able to live with its neighbors in a relative period of live and let-live.

That is about all that they can hope for and all that we can hope for. It is putting it in the perspective of history for them and it is very difficult for them to think in this perspective, just as it is for us. They look down the road five years and they realize that they are going to be able to handle any of their neighbors without any question, even though their neighbors have many more planes, many more tanks, and everything else.

But looking down the road, 10, 15, 20 years, Egyptians supported enough by the Soviet Union or some other power, can learn to fight and Iraqis and Syrians and all the rest. They never have, but it can be done. We used to not think that Asians could fight. They have proved they could fight pretty well in Korea, and then in Vietnam. So it will be here.

So far as Israel is concerned, it has an interest, in my belief at least, it has an interest in making, at least attempting, attempting to bargain when its bargaining position is strong rather than waiting for the time when its bargaining position becomes much more equal with that of its neighbors. So be it.

I only indicate that as one of the factors that may eventually bring these nations to some kind of a live-and-let-live attitude.

But let us look further. Looking at the northern Mediterranean and some of the policies we have there, I know many in this room—I have seen a few editorials—that are concerned about our policy toward Greece; critical of the fact that we continue to provide military aid to the Greek government for its NATO forces, due to the fact that the Greeks have a government that we disapprove of. We do disapprove of their government. They are aware of that.

But Greece has 11 divisions in NATO. It is on the southern hinge of NATO. It is right next to Turkey, which also has a number of divisions. And as far as Greece is concerned, while we of course try to use our influence as effectively as we can, but not in a way that will put them on the spot publicly and create exactly the opposite effect that we want, it is essential that the United States continue to support NATO forces in Greece and we will do so.

You move on over. Italy has had problems ever since World War II; a divided government, too many parties and not one strong enough—not a really strong man since De Gasperi, except for Saragat, the President, who of course has never been head of the government. His party is too small; he has just been head of state.

We go on to Spain. Here again we have one of those tough ones. From an ideological standpoint, people in this country don’t like the idea of America supporting a man, Franco, who 35 years ago left the taste in the mouth of dictatorship. And we would, I think, in this room subscribe to our antipathy to the kind of rule that he imposed then and that he has now.

Yet here is Spain, the western hinge. And if Spain, is what we are involved in there, where our bases are involved, if we look at the whole Mediterranean policy and speak of it completely, shall we say, in the idealistic terms that I would like to always speak of, and that you would like to write about and speak of, we shouldn’t have any bases in Spain.

We should let the Greeks go.

The Turks, we don’t like their government too well either because it isn’t too democratic. As far as the southern hinge is concerned, the southern part of the Mediterranean is concerned, we just let that slip and slide.

That is what the short-range attitude would be. But we have to look at the whole Mediterranean. We are looking at the whole Mediterranean. And there are times we are going to have to make decisions that will have to put first things first. We are going to use our influence always to bring other people toward those kinds of principles that we believe people throughout the world, regardless of their background, have a right to have in their governments.

But we, on the other hand, feel that where American interests are involved, the interests of free nations generally, it is vitally important that the Mediterranean not be allowed to create the vacuum, to continue to deteriorate as it has been deteriorating.

Now comes the Sixth Fleet. What good do a few carriers and cruisers and the rest do down there? It has an enormous effect, an enormous effect because it is a presence. If we have any doubt about what good it does, we can look to see what our potential opponents in the world—when I say “potential opponents”, I don’t use the word “enemy” because we live in a world that is too dangerous for super powers to be enemies. We hope to work out with the Soviet Union a live-and-let-live attitude, even though their interests are very different.

The way to work out that attitude, live-and-let-live policy, is to recognize once and for all that we aren’t going to agree on everything, we aren’t going to like each other too well as far as our systems are concerned, they are going to be different, our interests are going to conflict. They have a different attitude about Europe, about Asia, about Africa, about Latin America, and they are still expansionists.

We are, on the other hand, thinking in terms of defense all around the world. But when we look at the situation—what are they doing about the Mediterranean? If you have any doubts about sea power, you will see. It grows. It is still far short of ours. It will not catch ours, not in the foreseeable future.

I am speaking not of its nuclear submarine power where they will catch us in 1974 nuclear missile-carrying submarines, but I am speaking in terms of sea power generally.

And if that sea power is allowed to grow to the point which it could, with our doing nothing—where it is superior to ours in the Mediterranean, you can see the effect that is going to have on the American presence in the Mediterranean.

When we speak of the Mediterranean, the Mideast and the rest, you have got to put it in the larger context. We all know the Mideast is the gateway to Africa. We all know that the Mideast is the source of 80 percent of Europe’s oil and 90 percent of Japan’s oil. We all know too that it is the southern hinge of NATO.

That is why we try to think not in terms simply of the hijackers on four planes: Arabs versus Israeli, of what we do about the Italian Government today, and Spanish bases, we have to look at the whole picture and see what kind of a situation we are going to be faced with five or ten years from now.

How can we improve the American and free-world position in the Mediterranean? We don’t do it alone. That is why we are helping the British, the Italians, to the extent they can, the Spanish, the French and everybody else to play their role.

So much for that bit of analysis, a case history.

Now, I would go on to a couple of other points, and I will be through, to illustrate. In the perspective of history, let me talk briefly about ABM.

ABM can be looked upon as a new defensive weapons system, of very doubtful efficiency, doubtful until it is tried, and nobody knows. I hope we never find out, or have to find out, whether or not it will be useful.

We think it might. Certainly the Soviet Union thinks it might.

But as we look today at the power balance and Henry Kissinger has covered this already with you I am sure, we find that the enormous advantage that the United States had in 1961 has gone down. This is not said critically of the Administrations of the past. It was inevitable to go down, because the United States maintained its level, the Soviet Union came up.

Whereas, there was at least a ten to one advantage of the United States over the Soviet Union at the time of the Cuban missile crisis in terms of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. Today it is even, with the throw weight, three to one in their favor.

That doesn’t mean that at this point the United States is behind, because we have been doing some things, too, that are effective. The development of our MIRV program, moving on certain areas, and we still have enormous advantages in air power. We have enormous advantages on the sea still at this point.

But looking to the future, what the United States must remember is this: Take, for example, the field of nuclear submarines. If we decided now that we had to do something to maintain an adequate number of nuclear submarines vis-à-vis the Soviet Union, we couldn’t have the first one until eight years from now. That is why decisions have to be made in the long term, rather than the short term. That is why again we look at the Sixth Fleet, not just in terms of its mission in the Mediterranean today, but where is it going to be six, eight years from now and what should we do in this country having that in mind.

Again, getting back to ABM, so we decide at this point that we will go for a defensive system in order to maintain what we describe as sufficiency for the United States, and not to allow the balance to get out.

Let me talk very candidly about why I think that is important. An argument can be made, I have heard it made quite eloquently often around our Cabinet tables from time to time, particularly by outside experts, to the effect that enough is enough. It doesn’t make any difference if the Soviet Union has ten times as much as we have, or Communist China 25 years from now might have that much.

The answer is maybe. But on the other hand, try to tell that to your European allies. Tell it to a Germany, or a Japan, with no nuclear power.

The point that I make is this: I do not suggest that the United States for some jingoistic reason, because of cold war rhetoric, as it is described, has to be number one in the world in every respect, but I do say that as far as that when the time comes, when those who depend upon the umbrella of U.S. power, when they reach the conclusion that the United States has settled for an inferior position on the sea, or in terms overall roughly of the balance between missiles, offensive and defensive, then the United States no longer can play the role which unfortunately—I say unfortunately because it would be so much easier to concentrate on all of these domestic problems that start crying out for a solution—we could not play the role that history has cast upon us to play of being the nation that makes it possible for other nations to grow up in freedom and independence, without having a Soviet or Chinese and Communist system imposed upon them.

That finally brings me to the last point I would like to make. I often get the question, “As you look way ahead, what is the most difficult the United States has?” And I could say, of course, “Well, it is ending the war in Vietnam, the policy in the Mid East, a new policy in Europe, maintaining the weapons balance,” and the rest. All of those things are important, not the most difficult, because they are soluble in the long run either by diplomacy or money or some other method.

But the real problem basically goes much deeper than that. And it basically is something that I particularly convey to you. I know that in this room there are very honest men who disagree with some of our policies, our Cambodian decision, our decision to continue the war in Vietnam to what we believe is a just peace, rather than ending it more precipitately, people who disagree with our decision to go on ABM, who may disagree with some of the things I have said in other areas.

That I understand, I appreciate, I respect. I hope we always have it in this country.

But one thing I would say very strongly at this point is as I look down the road, the next 25 years, I am convinced that there isn’t any question about the ability of the United States to continue to play a helpful and constructive role in the world. I say thank God the United States is the nation that has the responsibility of leadership. The United States isn’t going to attack anybody else. The United States isn’t trying to get anything from anybody else. We are not trying to extend or impose our system on anybody else.

All we want is peace for ourselves, freedom for ourselves, and we hope peace and freedom, if we can, for other nations in the world.

That is the kind of a leader that the free world, I think, desperately needs and would want and would trust.

The question is, whether we in this country—our young people, for that matter, older people with all of our tremendous domestic problems—whether we have the stamina and the character and basically I come back to the fundamental point, whether we have the wisdom to take the long view, to see what the world would be like if the United States did draw into itself and say, “Who else, who is left?” Not the Germans, not the Japanese, not the British, not the French, no one else in the world can assume this responsibility of leadership.

So, as we look at that world and what it is going to be like, I am convinced that this Administration will do the best it can for the balance of the time we are there.

But I am convinced that you gentlemen have in your hands, through your editorials, through your television commentary, over the period of time, that you have an even greater responsibility and one that can have an ever greater impact to develop within this country the sense of perspective and sense of judgment.

I could even say a sense of destiny which a nation like ours needs—which we need, not because we want to be number one or Mr. Big or anything like that, but because at this time we happen to live in a world where unless we do, the situation as far as the rest of the world is concerned would be that most of the nations of the world, except for the other two great super powers, the Soviet Union and China, would simply be living in terror of what would happen.

So, we appreciated a chance to come here and share some thoughts with you at this media briefing. We have now had three of them, we are going to have another one in the Northeast shortly, and I am sorry that I have gone over the time that I expected to talk.

But I did want to share with you, not simply the decisions that we make and why we make them—that has been done better than I can by the experts who work on it day to day—but I did want you to know some of the things that sometimes you wonder, “What does he think about when he goes in the Lincoln sitting room and sits up late at night? What does he think about when he goes to Camp David and the rest”?

I don’t think always simply about subjects as heavy as this. But I can assure you that at this time, above everything else, I try not to become enmeshed in the details that someone else can handle, not to become bogged down in making decisions like what is going to be the bombing run tomorrow, here, there and everyplace.

But I try constantly to bring to these discussions the sense of perspective that America has never had because we didn’t need it, but now that we have got to have because not only we need it, but the world needs it.

Thank you.

1. Source: Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Kissinger Papers, Box CL 426, Subject File, Background Briefings, September-October 1970. No classification marking. The President spoke from 4:47 to 5:25 p.m. in the Embassy Room of the Blackstone Hotel in Chicago. He addressed 60 editors and broadcasters from Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, and Wisconsin. (National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, White House Central Files, Staff Members and Office Files, Office of Presidential Papers and Archives, Daily Diary)
2. Reference is to the President’s impending trip to the Mediterranean, which included a visit to the Sixth Fleet. The trip began on September 27, concluded on October 5, and included stops in Italy, Yugoslavia, Spain, England, and Ireland. The Sixth Fleet, however, has implications far beyond simply a routine Presidential inspection. I have gone to carriers before and I have looked at them. I have no reason to want to see how a carrier operates and how the Navy with its marvelous flyers are able to land in a small space and so forth and so on.