Kissinger: Portrait of a Mind
Kristol, William
"Kissinger: Portrait of a Mind" politics, Morton Blackwell, a long-time Washington-based activist in conservative politics, has designed a way to get them involved in major political campaigns. The acronym for his creation is...
...This return to infancy aims at releasing men from the constrictions of %ivilized" life...
...And if breaking out of the intellectuaI and moral horizons necessarily imposed by a culture or political community is the path to a fuller, more human existence...
...For the 1974 elections CRYP has expanded its budget and scheduled nine intensive weekend schools in Florida, Indiana, California, Minnesota, Montana, Washington D.C., New York, Lousiana, and Connecticut for youth coordinators arolind the country...
...The book is a fine summary and paraphrase of all of Kissinger's writings until 1969...
...Accepting his perspective, however, one can hardly object to pornography because it is a return to infantile sexuality...
...Therefore, their indulgence and display The Alternative March 1974 17...
...One can easily oppose specific details of how we are going about dbtente...
...The deepest problems of equilibrium are not physical but psychological or moral...
...A ~'stable international order" was not the primary or public goal of earlier American statesmen...
...Instead it reflects the need for greater interest and greater participation on the part of the American public...
...The recognition of the weakness of any American bargaining position should obviate some of the conservative criticism of Kissinger, but it does raise one important consideration...
...foreign policy (witness the attacks on him from both sides) makes Stephen Graubard's book worth reading...
...This implies a policy of d~tente rightly understood...
...The obligation to take foreign policy seriously since World War II has been seen by most Americans as a necessary evil, as was seen to be our entry into World War II...
...If basically we are going to accept the status quo, we might as well make it as pleasant and safe as possible...
...Secret diplomacy is all well and good, but if Kissinger is to have any lasting effect on American foreign policy, or at least any lasting beneficial effect, he must begin the task of educating not only the nation's President, but also the lasting enduring rulers in a democracy--the people at large, as well as the Congress and the press--so that Americans will begin to come to terms soberly, and, let us hope, successfully, with the responsibilities of doing what we can to see that liberty shall not perish where it exists on this earth...
...but '~eace" is far less inspiring than freedom, and the by Stephen H. Graubard W.W...
...Evans and Phillips see Public Monitor as only the beginning of what they call the "long-range battle to restore our free institutions to the control of the American people...
...The United States under Dulles, but also under later administrations, had "a policy which seemed incapable to articulate any purpose save that of preventing an expansion of the Soviet sphere...
...The United States has always been isolationist by geography and temperament...
...Each trainee will go through a total of twenty-three hours of intensive instruction...
...but the conservative often rejects dStente on principle while implicitly holding out an unacceptable alternative (unacceptable to the American people, if not in itself unacceptable)--an activist foreign policy which is willing to run risk of major war, a war caused by our rejection of the status quo...
...The art of the sixties included a deluge of '%appenings...
...Yet the resounding words of President Kennedy notwithstanding, American foreign policy has never been very daring...
...Richard Nixon occasionally declaims about coming "generations of peace...
...since we are not going to make the world safe for democracy, we should at least make it relatively safe...
...Such has clearly been Kissinger's conception of his efforts as national security advisor to and now as Secretary of State under Richard Nixon...
...But does the USSR accept the status quo...
...The departure such a foreign policy represents may be described as a new maturity in American foreign policy...
...Of com'se, one must avoid the danger of ascribing to Mr...
...And recent drama has brought us theater, '~living" and "liquid...
...then pornography might be one means of achieving this superior lifestyle...
...foreign policy in the 1950s and 1960s was entirely defensive: 'Wee possessed a doctrine to repel overt aggression, but we could not translate it into a strategy for achieving positive goals...
...And CRYP shows no sign of slowing down...
...William Kristol The Case Against Pornography O NE OF THE FIRST effects of reading David Holbrook's The Case Against Pornography is to compel the realization that there are those who make a case for pornography, who regard it as or imply that it is a positive good...
...That is, a mature policy of d~tente which does not simply transfer our excessive hopes of the past to the new policy of d$tente...
...In his Life Against Death, Norman O. Brown suggests that the role of art is to return us to the sources of pleasure prohibited by '~capitulation to the reality-principle which we call education or maturity--in other words, to regain the lost laughter of infancy...
...Napoleonic France is the prototype...
...For people like Blackwell, Evans, and Phillips it is quite clear that Watergate has provided no "excuse to "cop out...
...The logical next step from containment is dStente...
...another is daring...
...The shape of the future will depend ultimately on convictions which far transcend the physical balance of power...
...Secretaries of State before World War II on the whole saw their task as the avoidance of too great an American entanglement in world affairs...
...isolationism...
...Besides lobbying Phillips intends to inform th public through a Citizen's News Service of bureaucratic misdeeds...
...The problematic nature of American willingness to continue to take an active role in world affairs forces any American administration to play from weakness...
...But a country's foreign policy should not be faithful or immature if that country is not going to act on its youthful ambitions...
...Public Monitor will also include a National Committee of Correspondence (through which the public at large can channel into Washington local examples of bureaucratic abuse), a Committee of Volunteer Lawyers (who will initiate taxpayer suits against improper bureaucratic activity), and a Speaker's Bureau (which will provide speakers to local groups to talk about some of the bureaucratic horror stories and explain the purpose of Public Monitor...
...Such an intelligent policy was one that recognized whether or not it was possible to achieve a "generally accepted legitimacy," an international agreement "about the nature of workable ar= rangements and about the permissible aims and methods of foreign policy...
...his duty is to '%ridge the gap between a people's experience and his vision, between a nation's tradition and its future...
...As Whittaker Chambers pointed out fifteen years ago, the American conservative position on foreign policy has often been curious...
...The logic of the Right's opposition to d~tente on principle leads logically to a demand for a major attempt to change the status quo and thus the risk of war...
...But more disturbing were the articles in which it was asked: "~N]mt's so bad about the stuff anyway...
...on the contrary, dStente requires considerably more skill and even toughness than a policy of containment...
...It is true that the policy of d~tente is, in a way, a policy of weakness...
...I t must be said that President Nixon, if not Secretary Kissinger, has not always made this clear...
...On the House side successful races included Dave Treen (I~uisiana), Ken Robinson (Virginia), Trent I ~ t t (Mississippi), Steve Symms (Idaho), and Ed Young (South Carolina...
...But if America was unwilling--even when, under Dulles, we were far stronger than the USSR---seriously to risk war for the sake of Hungarians or Czechoslovaks, then opposition to d~tente is merely willful posturing...
...This does" not mean that we should not maintain at least military parity with the USSR, help our allies, and help citizens under tyrannical rule as much as possible...
...A revolutionary regime is one that does not accept the established international order...
...The reasoning behind this view is simple: Sexual fantasies are an intense, personal human experience...
...Hope is one feature of youth...
...We can ask if Kissinger has performed this task as assiduously as he might have...
...In fact, we are almost obliged, having followed a policy of containment since World War II, to drop our unfulfillable aspirations and become mature...
...This is probably for the best, since daring in the real world is often indistinguishable from recklessness, and great powers should not be reckless...
...And d~tente rightly understood does not mean an "easier" foreign policy...
...Education has become a series of ~educational experiences...
...it is precisely America's weakness, in fact, that may make d~tente necessary, Lacking the military superiority over the Soviet Union we once had, it seems that our best lever over Soviet actions is no longer so much the threat of force but that of breaking off the economic benefits of d~tente the Russians genuinely seem to want...
...In his Kissinger: Portrait of a Mind, Stephen Graubard paraphrases Kissinger's assertion of twenty years ago tha~ '~eace could not be made the objective of foreign policy _9 . . it was the bonus that followed from a properly conceived and intelligently executed policy...
...But Public Monitor promises to be much more...
...Following the recent Supreme Court pornography decision, the death knell, as usual, was sounded for the First Amendment...
...This new maturity is, I think, on the whole but not unambiguously for the better...
...Therefore, the artist must primarily be a subverter of civilization...
...The acronym for his creation is CRYP, the Committee for Responsible Youth Politics, a training program for youth coordinators in congressional campaigns...
...thus, John Foster Dulles...
...But the American weakness is not just military...
...President Kennedy's inaugural address was a striking expression of that commitment...
...According to Blackwell, these training seminars will cover all aspects of youth campaigning, from membership tables to election-day activities...
...Kissinger wrote in 1957 that the threat of massive retaliation did nothing to 'r the Korean war, the loss of northern Indo-China, the Soviet-Egyptian arm deal, or the Suez crisis...
...The program needs money and volunteers and there is, the possibility of a summer intern program beginning in 1974...
...but that is a useful function, especially if Graubard is correct, as I think he is, in his 'every simple preposition that there is a l i n k . . , between what Kissinger wrote in the 1950s and 1960s and what he has been doing since January 20, 1969...
...CRYP did not get under way until late in 1972, but it was furiously active by election time...
...further, it is one that is willing to take considerable risks in pursuing its-revolutionary goals, to risk even its existence on foreign "adventures...
...A "stable international order" is now the main goal of American foreign policy, and this is a significant departure from the goals of the previous twenty-five years...
...This is an admirable objective, but the utterly defensive nature of the U.S...
...If not, is it not foolish to pursue d~tente while the USSR has hostile intentions...
...This underlies what Kissinger wrote twenty years ago, that a statesman is an educator...
...Under Nixon-Kissinger, the United States has begun to try to do what Kissinger has long argued for, to pursue a positive foreign policy of making what gains are available and reducing tensions as much as possible...
...Our new-found maturity is ambiguously for the better because maturity represents a loss of youth, and youth has certain very appealing characteristics, which can impart to it a certain nobility...
...Successful CRYP Senate campaigns included Dewey Bartlett (Oklahoma), Carl Curtis (Nebraska), Jesse Helms (North Carolina), Jim McLure (Idaho), and William Scott (Virginia...
...Brown views by David Holbrook Library $8.95 that he does not hold...
...Thirtyone people went through Blackwell's program and CRYP gave significant help to sixteen campaigns (providing beth money and youth coordinators...
...America's interventions from noble motives--in Korea and Vietnam were reluctant...
...It is clear that the case for pornography now has a place in the new culture...
...In 1973's off-year elections CRYP contributed $1500 and a trained youth coordinator to Don Young's successful House race in Alaska, as well as $3500 and a youth coordinator for the successful congressional election of Robert Bauman in Maryland...
...but one can retain a wariness and dislike of the USSR and an appreciation of their baseness without precluding mutually advantageous dealings with them, and agreements which serve to such a vague but real purpose as lessening world tension...
...That hope, at least within any reasonable time frame, seems under Kissinger no longer to be the central goal or promise, or even hope of American foreign policy...
...Norton $7.95 movement from one to the other tells a good deal about the changes in our view of our international role...
...Tge are immersed in an unending process, not in a quest for a final destination...
...To the extent that detente is a policy based on weakness, that is a reflection of the fact that the United States is to a significant degree "naturally" isolationist, and that it might pay the Soviet Union to await a revival of U.S...
...If such an agreement were possible, then a wise and responsible statesman would act so as to achieve a stable international order, which alone guarantees peace...
...That Kissinger's foreign policy does not fit neatly into the traditional splits over U.S...
...One characteristic of youth is the hope of significantly changing the world, and the condition of our fellow men in it, for the better...
...it does mean that we have come to recognize the importance of trying to build a "stable international order," one that is" relatively secure and peaceful...
...As the Middle East war has shown, it will make trouble wherever it can, in a thoroughly despicable way...
...And at some point pretesting such ambitions and failing to act can even become a bit despicable...
...During the past decade we have witnessed the consecration of %xperience" as the ultimate human value...
...After World War II, Secretaries of State described our task as either the containment or "rollback" of Communism, and the promotion of freedom and democracy throughout the world...
...stance offered the Soviet Union no incentive to negotiate, and no incentive for Soviet concessions...
...It is on the whole for the better because it promises a more sober and responsible foreign policy, one that may approach Kissinger's hopes expressed fifteen years ago for a foreign policy that was adept at "the art of weighing probabilities . . . . grasping the nuances of possibilities...
...Public Monitor" Another program which is just getting off the _gTound is Public Monitor_9 OEO's former Acting Director, Howard Phillips, will head this new American Conservative Union program...
...Whatever the USSR's ultimate or long-range goals, it clearly is not (and has not been) "revolutionary" in the sense that it is willing to take serious risks to increase its borders or its ideological sway...
...In a recent mailing M. Stanton Evans, the Chairman of the American Conservative Union, wrote that the Public Monitor will lobby in Congress against the "waste and misuse of the taxpayer's dollar...
...Reading this book, one is struck above all by Kissinger's repeated argument that U.S...
...Kissinger wrote in 1968 that ~'the most profound challenge to American p o l i c y . . . (would be) philosophical" in the years ahead...
...For dedicated and able young people, insists Blackwell, this can be a first step in a political career...
...I)6tente rightly understood 16 The Alternative March 1974 holds limited hopes for d~tente---simply to make the world a little safer, and perhaps a little better...
...they were part of what was seen as a necessary policy of containment...
...It is no more than that...
...Kissinger: Portrait of a Mind A MERICAN FOREIGN policy under Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger seems above all to have been concerned with the search for a stable international order...
...In this vein, conservatives have made much of Kissinger's contention that the USSR is no longer a "revolutionary" power...
...This point of view has had an undeniable impact on many contemporary American intellectuals...
Vol. 7 • March 1974 • No. 6
