The Politics of Foreign Policy

...But it is essential that the public clearly understand, and support, such foreign policy-domestic policy tradeoffs...

...The power the Secretary now wields has few parallels in American history...

...It is not difficult to see why this has happened...

...Consequently, an unconfident and unknowledgeable President has surrendered an enormous part of his authority to the most confident, most knowledgeable member of his entourage...

...Clearly, too, there is not enough political support in Congress to pass the Administration approach...

...With general public support weakening and congressional opposition rising, Kissinger has been able to maintain and perhaps even tighten his grip for only one reason: the backing of the President...

...No one has better stated the dilemma-and the potential tragedy-facing this country in the area of international affairs...

...As new concerns have come to dominate the government, Kissinger has been drawn ineluctably toward them...

...In shaping the fiscal '76 budget, it sought to reduce spending by pruning out some $2 billion from funds requested for national security...

...Since Gerald Ford was not elected to the office he occupies, he has no national constituency to fall back on, nor has he acquired the national political instincts that come from surviving the ordeal of a Presidential campaign...

...All this is not to suggest that it was necessarily wrong for foreign policy considerations to be given an important, perhaps even a dominant, role in the debate...

...When a misunderstanding snapped that thread, it will be recalled, Otto von Bismarck was forced to resign...

...as a result, the essential bond between foreign policy and the political process is becoming dangerously attenuated...

...For at a time when Kissinger has consolidated his position within the Executive branch to an unprecedented degree, his support in Congress, and probably in the country as a whole, is withering...

...From 1969-72, Kissinger and Nixon made a redoubtable team because the combination yoked dipplomatic skill and political savvy...

...Sooner or later, the balance between this country's democratic political process and Kissinger's secret, free-wheeling diplomacy is going to have to be restored-with or without Kissinger...

...In addition to taking up an issue normally considered to be in the province of the Treasury Department, he was delivering a State Department created position that President Ford had apparently approved, and that became government policy without any significant input from others concerned with energy and economics...

...To begin with, Kissinger's dual role as head of the State Department and the National Security Council staff has made him undisputed boss of not only foreign policy but of a number of connected yet formerly semi-autonomous worlds as well-including the intelligence community, military sales, long-range strategic planning, and a wide spectrum of economic activities...

...Senators Henry M. Jackson of Washington, Lloyd M. Bentsen of Texas and Adlai E. Stevenson III of Illinois-three Democrats with three quite different approaches to foreign policy-all delivered broadsides against him in a single week...

...His policies for places like Cambodia, Vietnam and Turkey no longer command widespread respect...

...The figure, said OMB's international affairs section, represented so-called soft spots...

...Technically allocated on the books to the Agency for International Development, the Commodity Credit Corporation, arms credits, the CIA, or whatever, in fact it constituted a gigantic slush fund that Kissinger could use as carrots in his diplomacy...

...The concept of reducing American dependence on Arab oil by imposing an import levy, and then easing the impact on the domestic economy by recycling part of the tax, was intended to strengthen the Secretary of State's bargaining hand with the Arabs and the Europeans, who presumably would be impressed with America's determination to get its own house in order...

...Moreover, economists, energy experts and others who have examined the technical aspects of the plan have concluded that it simply would not work...

...despite all his undisputed brilliance on the diplomatic circuit, his sensitivity to American politics is limited...

...There is good reason to believe that it does not...

...In short, the program has been a disaster for the President, and because we are therefore wandering rudderless through the energy minefield, it is similarly a disaster for the country...

...Indeed, the same forces that catapulted the Secretary to his present preeminence are today acting to vitiate his power...

...Both the statements of other participants and analyses of the program itself support the thesis that the final plan was largely the work of Kissinger and designed more for foreign than domestic purposes...

...But Henry Kissinger is not a politician...

...But that is precisely why Kissinger wanted it so badly...

...During the Nixon resignation crisis, he was one of the two key men maneuvering behind the scenes...

...When international food programs became a worry, he preempted the Department of Agriculture...

...Whatever Nixon's faults, he was able to sell the Kissinger foreign policy to Congress and the public, and there is considerable evidence that he made sure Kissinger was aware of the political realities limiting possible actions...

...And other international trouble spots, such as Portugal, on which the Secretary of State does not see eye to eye with many Americans, contain the seeds of further contention...

...Washington-USA THE POLITICS OF FOREIGN POLICY BY WALTER R. GORDON Washington A democratic nation's foreign policy cannot thrive "if it exists only in the minds of a few and the hearts of none,' Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger philosophized during the darkest days of the Watergate affair...

...Three specific examples suffice to illustrate the weight of Kissinger's power...

...Kissinger fought back and won on virtually every issue of importance...

...A still more sweeping example is the role the Secretary played in the discussions devoted to putting together the economic-energy package for President Ford's State of the Union Address...

...The second example relates to Kissinger's early February appearance before the National Press Club, where he proposed an international price floor for petroleum to keep prices high and thus encourage the development of alternative sources of energy...

...The former Harvard professor's reach, however, also extends far beyond such matters...

...Ford does not seem capable of doing either, and in political terms the result is that Kissinger is a kind of unaimed bullet...

...Mayors, governors, legislators, businessmen, oil executives, and the people polled by Gallup and Harris have repeatedly rebuffed him...

...During his selling trips around the country, the President has found virtually no support for his program...

...economy-as it has developed, far more severe than originally estimated...

...and when the international financial difficulties became a major issue, Kissinger moved in on an unhappy Treasury Department...

...The $2 billion, it turned out, looked soft because it was not locked into the budget through specific agreements, laws, or contracts...

...when the energy crisis erupted, he entered step by step into this traditional domain of the Interior Department and several independent and White House agencies...

...In other words, here was a classic confrontation between the demands of foreign and domestic policy, and foreign policy won...

...The last time a single statesman tried simultaneously to run his own country and manage a complex international system, he progressively alienated the politicians until he became dependent entirely on his monarch...

...Although one thinks of Alexander Hamilton freewheeling in the Washington Cabinet and of John Foster Dulles globetrotting in the 1950s, it is doubtful that either had so much untrammeled, disposable strength...

...Even in the area where his supremacy is acknowledged, diplomacy, he has recently found himself under attack from a bewildering number of directions...

...The first involves the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), probably the most intimidating institution within the Executive branch...

...Of course, the program would have severe effects on the U.S...

...Yet within the Executive branch, too, an increasing number of people are after his head, and unattributable hopes that he will resign are heard with surprising frequency...