13. Minutes of the Acting Secretary of State’s Staff Meeting, Washington, May 7, 1975, 8 a.m.1 2
The Secretary’s 8:00 a.m. Staff Meeting
Wednesday, May 7, 1975
PRESENT:
- THE SECRETARY OF STATE — HENRY A. KISSINGER
- D - Mr. Ingersoll
- P - Mr. Sisco
- D - M - Mr. Eagleburger, Acting
- D - Mr. Sonnenfeldt
- AF - Ambassador Mulcahy, Acting
- ARA - Mr. Rogers
- EA - Mr. Habib
- EUR - Mr. Lowenstein
- NEA - Mr. Atherton
- INR - Mr. Hyland
- S/P - Mr. Lord
- EB - Mr. Enders
- S/PRS - Mr. Funseth
- PM - Mr. Vest
- IO - Ambassador Buffum
- H - Ambassador McCloskey
- L - Mr. Leigh
- IATF - Ambassador Brown
- S/S - Mr. Springsteen
- S - Mr. Bremer
[Omitted is material unrelated to the East Asian reaction to events in Indochina.]
SECRETARY KISSINGER: The commitment part is the relatively easier part. I wouldn’t bet my bottom dollar when Korea gets invaded, whether Congress will pass a war resolution or an evacuation resolution.
MR. LOWENSTEIN: I think the most pointed reactions on points you are making have been in France.
SECRETARY KISSINGER: But there it is public and serves their national purposes.
MR. LOWENSTEIN: In other places, there just hasn’t been any reporting.
SECRETARY KISSINGER: I see more intelligence reports that indicate undercurrents of concern than these oral reports indicate, infinitely more. And I am much more concerned with what they think when we tell them we want something done, how they think we will stick to it; quite apart from Indochina. What about it, Joe?
MR. SISCO: The only thing I was going to say is, I just think it is not a question of anybody really basically feeling that our power has diminished in any way. It is a question of will and intent. And here I think there [Page 3] is real doubt in the minds of a number of these countries, and therefore I think there is a danger of miscalculation in a place such as Korea, in terms of what our will might be in those circumstances.
MR. LORD: It goes much further than Vietnam. I think Vietnam has been magnified by what has happened — namely, the legislative paralysis, what has happened in this country in the last twelve years, the general mood. I think we have to separate out Vietnam per se from what has gone just before it in the last few years. This is what makes it more difficult.
MR. SISCO: We are giving the image of people who are ready to wash our hands of the situation. You cannot look at this refugee situation in the context only of the whole history of Vietnam. I think this in part is a manifestation of people kind of throwing up their hands.
MR. LORD: I don’t think that is the basic reaction. I don’t think that is the America reaction. That is a temporary limited phenomenon. I cannot believe that of the American people.
MR. SISCO: If you are talking about the refugees, I would agree. If you are talking about the broader question, in terms of commitments overseas and doing something [Page 4] about it, I don’t know.
MR. HABIB: For twenty years a lot of countries, including Asian countries, have looked up the U.S. shield as impenetrable, behind which they could develop economically and nationally. They now see the shield as full of holes, and they are all concerned that the U.S. shield does not provide the protection that they think is necessary for their own development. They will move in one of two directions. Either they will attempt to adjust their own policies with respect to the other major powers and build up some kind of protection, or they are going to look to themselves. They are going to look to themselves and a reestablishment of some kind of relationship with us which gives them some degree of protection.
SECRETARY KISSINGER: Or both.
MR. HABIB: Or both. But I think so far what is happening is you are getting one or the other. For example, the Thais are looking to some new kind of relationship. The Koreans are looking to a firming up of the relationship with us and a dependence and self-reliance on themselves. The Filipinos are foundering, but in the end I guess the Filipinos will come out, if Marcos has his way, to continued dependency upon us. The Indonesians would like to [Page 5] come out with dependence on us, but they are uncertain. They don’t want to make the accommodations.
MR. SISCO: Where do the Chinese and the Soviets fit into this as far as Asia is concerned? Are we going to see a resurgence of diplomatic activity on the part of the Chinese in this area?
SECRETARY KISSINGER: The Chinese don’t want us out of Asia right now.
MR. HABIB: I think we are going to see more of a resurgence of Soviet activity. What do you think, Bill? I think the Soviets are the ones who are going to try to move in.
MR. HYLAND: In Asia.
MR. HABIB: Yes. They will try.
MR. INGERSOLL: Henry, this started before the fall of Vietnam. There was a reappraisal going on in Asia since the Nixon Doctrine started. It has been accelerating.
SECRETARY KISSINGER: But the Nixon Doctrine meant we will help countries to help themselves. And we must not forget if South Vietnam had not collapsed this year, it would have collapsed next year as a result of an aid cutoff. There is no doubt that military aid to Vietnam would have been [Page 6] absolutely emasculated by this Congress if it had been voted at all. The $300 million supplemental would never have been voted, and the new bill, it is inconceivable to me that they would have voted a bill.
MR. McCLOSKEY: I think it is one thing to hope and expect that by our own conduct we can convince these countries to stay with the United States. But what I fear is less that they will stay with us than we will be able to manifest the conduct that would convince them to do it. I believe if a dust-up occurred in Korea, that you would actually lose in the Congress right now in carrying out that treaty commitment.
SECRETARY KISSINGER: Well, in the Senate Relations Committee yesterday they wanted us to resubmit the treaty. If we do that, we will be dead. We will have to resubmit every treaty.
MR. BUFFUM: Mr. Secretary, I do think that this reaction is concentrated largely in Asia, for obvious reasons. But from the contacts I have had, mostly UN circles admittedly, I think the reports that have been given this morning do reflect, if there is any common denominator, a perception on the part of most people that Vietnam has loomed overly large [Page 7] in our own eyes. They have never viewed it with the same degree of seriousness we have, particularly the third world. And what they are looking for is the conclusion we draw in terms of our future foreign policy; are we going to withdraw into ourselves, or are we going to re-engage in problems of development particularly. And I do think this means what happens in the General Assembly next fall is going to take on exceptional significance, because of the image and posture we project, in terms of the direct commitment we are ready to make of the problems of the future, putting the past behind us.
SECRETARY KISSINGER: You know we cannot make any major commitments to development right now.
MR. BUFFUM: I don’t mean new aid programs, but a sense of concern and involvement, and even minimal independent constructive proposals. I think this reflects both what Bill said —
SECRETARY KISSINGER: Are you working on any?
MR. BUFFUM: Yes.
SECRETARY KISSINGER: I don’t happen to believe it will make any difference, but I am strongly in making them. I just think the third world trends are much more powerful and more political, and much less economic [Page 8] and much less influenced by do-good American speeches. But I am strongly in favor of making them.
MR. McCLOSKEY: Mr. Secretary, I thought a point you made at lunch yesterday was both educational and necessary, because I’m afraid there is a little confusion developing publicly and, I think, on the Hill, by talking about a reassessment beginning with the Middle East, arid now the possibility of assessing the consequences in the Far East of what happened in Vietnam — that this is now being misunderstood as a total re-evaluations of all American policy. And I thought the point you were making at lunch yesterday is valid. So that the two things are not confused.
SECRETARY KISSINGER Which is what?
MR. McCLOSKEY: That there are main lines to American foreign policy which are traditional, which are sound, and which will continue, and that the consequences that we are looking at as a result of Vietnam should not be confused with the desire or a need now to transform or re-evaluate the totality of American foreign policy. Some of this is getting confused on the Hill. Lester Wolff has now said he is going to conduct hearings because there ought to be a reassessment of American foreign policy. And I [Page 9] think —
SECRETARY KISSINGER: Unfortunately, fascinating as this discussion is, let’s continue it on Friday, because I have to go over some speech drafts. I agree, it is an important topic. But if I don’t go into those now and do the speech drafts, I won’t have anything to talk about next week.
(Whereupon at 8:50 a.m. the meeting was adjourned.)
- Source: National Archives, RG 59, Transcripts of Secretary of State Kissinger’s Staff Meetings, 1973–1977, E5177, Box 7. Secret. The discussion of East Asian perceptions of U.S. foreign policy was not resumed at the next staff meeting, which occurred on May 9, 1975. (Ibid.)↩
- Kissinger and his staff discussed East Asian reactions to the fall of South Vietnam.↩