Harrison Salisbury - Russia: Past, Present and Future

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Harrison Salisbury, retired associate editor of the New York Times, speaking at Southwest State University in Marshall, Minnesota. Salisbury talks about Soviet Russia and society; it's past and potential. Address is titled "Russia: Past Present and Future". At the Times, and since his retirement, Salisbury has developed considerable expertise and understanding of the Soviet Union, having traveled and written extensively about Soviet society.

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Well, thank you ever so much. It's always a very special pleasure for me to come back to my native Minnesota. I've spent a lifetime of traveling around the world and half a lifetime, I guess in the Soviet Union covering that country but there's always a very special pleasure in getting back to this state for I have my roots and a state for which I have enormous respect and a great deal of Pride. And of course, it's particularly Pleasant to be in southwest Minnesota in the Moment 4 and it has good snow cover and good low temperatures reminds me a little bit of the days. I spent in Moscow and some of the timeI spell in eastern Siberia. I have to admit. However that in eastern Siberia the temperature has you beat a little bit I ran into 60 drawer 60 degrees below zero out in irkutsk Siberia and even in my youthful days in Minnesota, I don't recall the temperature going very much below 30°, maybe 35 weeks or too crowded a little bit, but It's not that cold here as it is in Siberia. And that's one very strong point in the favor of this part of the world a great many other points. I really sincerely believe that you If you want to appreciate what a wonderful wonderful country are we live in and indeed want a great community and state the Minnesota is you just travel the world as I have spend as many years as I have behind the so-called Iron Curtain. I have been worked and lived and every communist country in the world with the single exception of Cuba and it is only in that way that you really got to appreciate the things that you and I are living here. I take perfectly regret it just like breathing the air and freedom of speech the ability to pick up a newspaper have all kinds of diverse opinions turn in their turn on the television and disagree with what's being sad. And I agree with the next thing is being said all that sort of thing free freedom to read freedom to think freedom to travel. Great blessings we taken for granted, but let's not always taken for granted. My mission savings to talk to you about Russia. Try and put it in a little perspective because I know being an American and being a newspaperman that we have a great tennis in this country too. Well, each crisis that arises in the world suddenly comes up over the horizon as though it was brand new and we never heard of the situation of the country before in our lives until we hear about it in the Today Show in the morning or maybe the evening news in the evening or a newspaper. If we indeed still are able to read newspapers out here in this part of the world light. I guess we are we don't know what happened before either. We have never heard. We never learned or if we did read about it in school. We forgot. So this great big crisis hits us right in the face. And we wonder where it came from would become tremendously engaged with it all our efforts. National it comes out of the airwaves we get Poland 24 hours a day and then all of a sudden advantages we don't hear of it again for some years. But when we stop to think we know perfectly well that these crises I didn't arise out of no where they all came from someplace. And while it seems to us perhaps in this generation that we have had nothing but one crisis after another with the Soviet Union. We don't remember. That it was very much the same with Russia. In fact, we don't remember because we've never paid much attention to it that most of the things which we hate which we oppose which we dislike which cause trouble in the world in the Soviet Union are precisely the things which caused trouble in the world one that country was called Imperial Russia and was run by Hazard instead of a lot of, Cyrus. Indeed. I have to keep reminding myself of that fact, although I have spent many years in the Soviet Union and its studied its history very deeply. I'm constantly being surprised by some parallel that rises in contemporary Soviet conduct, which I know now having done. My homework is exactly the sort of thing that we were hearing about a hundred years ago in Russia or 200 years ago or 300 years ago because the pattern of Conduct in countries specifically in Russia does not change that rapidly, even though they made trains are form of government. They may say they have a Communist Regime now, they will continue to do things in much the same manner and have much the same attitudes particularly beyond their own borders as they had before. thought so happens that we have never gotten along very well with Russia and I are you will notice that from now on I'll speak of Russia weather. I'm talking about present-day Soviet Union or passed Russia because it's a convenience. It means very much the same thing. It's all the same Empire the limits of that Empire may be extended a little bit here or contracted a little bit there are but it's the same entity. We have never gotten along very well with it. It's true that way back when we had our own Revolution. Catherine the Great was the Empress of Russia that time and she was enchanted with the American Revolution. She fancied herself as something of a philosopher. She carried on an extended correspondence with volt. I will tear and many of the French philosophers the encyclopedias that correspondence has been reserved. She fancied herself as being that kind of a cultured an educated person and she enjoyed conversation on such subjects is liberty and freedom and conscience and things of that kind. Show that won the American Revolution came along and all of the French were excited about it. She shared in that excitement, although she was at that time and absolute desperate with total power over her people and wasn't a Vestige of democracy in the Russia of that day. But lasted however only a short. Of time when the French Revolution followed right after the American Revolution and that. Catharines wind up and she began to take a second. Look at this dangerous philosophy coming out of the United States. And when one of her subjects a poor guy who was working in the customs house had the temerity to write a poem dedicated to freedom in America. She became so frightened and so angry that she had him arrested. And put into custody for a. Of 12 Years. Were you perhaps have heard in recent times with the Russians put their political prisoners their dissidents and some of their writers it do Insane asylums the idea that anybody could have ject to the regime in Russia. Obviously means are insane. What Catherine had much the same idea because she put this man into an insane asylum. His name is trudel and he stayed there for many many years. so that when the present regime treats its dissidents in what we regard. Is this terrible Manner and puts them into insane asylums. There's simply following what was a president and a common practice that was followed by their predecessors the czarist regime. And again and again you fine, but that is the sort of pattern. Which is been following United States all during the 19th century, and this went right on up. the time of World War 1 had a very strong negative attitude toward Russia because of the way they treated their people. There was no freedom in Russia. They sent their people to Siberia by the thousand and they were compelled to work out there as we used to say in the salt mines. Actually. I don't believe there are any salt mines in Siberia, but they're all kinds of other minds and these people did work in those mines. They were they they were the counterpart of what Stalin created in his time. The concentration camps the labor camps of Siberian. He didn't invent anything at all. He simply picked up and carried on this terrible custom. What's the Russians have had for centuries of taking people for either genuine criminals or more often who are Political Criminals very often not criminals and sending them out to do forced labor on the frontier in these terrible areas of Siberia. So then when Alexander solzhenitsyn came to ride his great works the first circle on the gulag archipelago he could just as well. Have you been a Russian living in the nineteenth Century written works was slightly different titles. Talking about almost exactly the same conditions indeed. The great uncle of the present-day George Kennan who is one of our greatest experts on Russian Soviet Union his great-uncle. Went to Siberia back in the 1870s and the early 1880s and wrote a two-volume work called Siberia and Exile system which in its day was as big a sensation as soldier need since the gulag archipelago and have the same kind of an effect on world opinion to turn it against the cruel repression of the czarist regime. I don't want to Labour this comparison of the old with the Contemporary too much but it is very useful for us to know if we're trying to think of what contemporary Russia is or what the future Russia is going to be to know that it hasn't changed that much even though it's political system supposedly has changed a great deal desires of the 19th century were terribly concerned about ideas coming into their empire from the outside and they had an iron tight censorship which was almost exactly like the censorship which the Soviet regime has. Perhaps in some ways it was even stronger. Bazaars in the middle. Of the 19th century were so fearful. As subversive thoughts would be smuggled into their country and to customs authorities had orders not to admit any sheet music in the Russia because they were sure that there might be concealed behind those notes of Beethoven some secret and subversive mention. I don't know what effect this had on Soviet composers. It doesn't seem too harder than very much because Russia had some of the great 19th century composers, but the sensors were very busy Manning the walls and keeping out alien thoughts from what was not called country behind the Iron Curtain, but which might just as well have been called that because it worked in the same way. It's true that in that. Of time the sensors made mistakes just as a sensors make mistakes today just a sensors will always make mistakes because they're basically quite stupid people one of the works. Which came to the centers for approval was a Russian translation of a work by a rather obscure German Economist whose name was Karl Marx? This work was called at dusk capital. It was carefully examined by the censors who approved it for publication in Russia with a notation saying that while is work clearly has a certain subversive influence. It is written in such a dry scientific and theoretical terms that is not possible that it would appeal to any widespread audience. A lot of course is Mark's classic work on Capitol the foundation Bible of the Communists around the world and this book was not only permitted to come into Russia, but it was permitted to be translated and sold in addition to 5000 copies of the very time. They were keeping Beethoven sheet music out because it might have a server submission positive morale in that. I think that the sensors don't always know what the hell they're doing. And in this case they brought in to rush for the most subversive piece of literature of the nineteenth century and permitted it to circulate freely. It's true that later on some years later. They discovered that quite a few people are reading Marx and indeed his ideas were fighting politics in Russia as they were in many other places. Another one of the BoRics on the czarist regime unfortunately was the encouragement of antisemitism. Eddie semitism in persecution of the Jews now. We've heard a great deal about that in the Russia of today and indeed a great many contemporary Jews have left the Soviet Union have been permitted in recent years several hundred thousand of them to leave their country and come to other countries is real but most of them to United States and make their homes here because of the anti-semitic policies of the present Soviet government will probably not so many of you know, but antisemitism actually was invented in the Imperial Russia. It was a calculated instrument of policy. It was designed to give a scapegoat for the people so they could vent their wrath on the Jews and that way the regime felt it would Escape some of the anger. And so what we called pogroms were encouraged by the official police programs being a and officially inspired riot in which the police and gangs are what they call the black hundreds with your really antisymmetric gangs were given permission to go into the Jewish quarters of the cities and and Rec the shops and beat up in the off and kill the Jews in very large numbers go gray. Naturally, the Jewish population of Russia did not consider that this was exactly a friendly way for the government to behave especially when at the same time they were beating up and telling them they were oppressing them into the czarist army. They were drafting him and the draft was for a 25 year term of service in the army. I think many of you know that this encourage Jews by the million to leave Russia and come to this country. And in fact a very high percentage of our Jewish population United States left Russia in exactly those I might just make a side note to say that between them the Imperial government in the Soviet government does Russia have inadvertently and without intending to I'm sure given us one of the greatest contributions that any country ever gave to another they have driven off of their country and compelled actually. A population not only Jewish population. But of many many kinds of Electro scientific artist musician dancers, you name it their most talented people have been driven out of their country one regime after another and many of them come to the United States and settled here and contribute anonymously to our own culture to our science or industry to our scholarship to all of very very most remarkable things which give us such a vital vital American National Life and we all that all to the oppressive and continue to press it policies have been followed in that country over a. Of 300 years or more. So at least those policies have contributed to some good even if it's alright good and their loss. That's something we should think about 2. I don't want to belabor this business of History because there are the Virgin season. It is true that the Communists brought some special nuances into a Soviet life and Soviet relationship and world affairs. But if we turn for example to a current crisis one, which all of us have been very much aroused by one of one which is frustrated is awesome us all and I don't mean only we as American citizens but I mean our government and our political people have been frustrated frustrated by as well. I'm talking about the Polish crisis. And this is a pre-eminently the kind of thing that comes up out of nowhere as it were and seems to flash over a horizon like a comment and then finally disappear. We never really know where it came from. but of course if you look into the history at all the polling, you know that the Polish crisis unfortunately is one which is been with the world in particular has been with Poland over a. Of hundreds of years. There's nothing terribly new. There's something very tragic about today's polish situation, but the situation of pole in the last has been tragic almost as far back as you want to go now. It's also true that coming out of mediaeval times coming into the 17th century, but not very much beyond the 17th century. Poland was a viable independent Kingdom. It was a powerful Kingdom it often engaged Russia and successful Wars Russia being than a rather small and not very powerful State. The polls are on their own or sometimes an alliance with the lithuanians are the times with the threes made war against the Russians and For a dominant power in that area which lies between the great Slavic peoples and the great German peoples. A great power But as time went by and particularly as Russia began to reassemble itself after some three hundred years of Mongol invasion Andrew and the Russian State the Contemporary Russian state began to grow and the German can sit contemporary State begin to grow the polls begin to be squeezed in. They were smaller people while they had a fine record of patriotism High culture bravery. They began to be up against opponents which had more clout than they they did and so they're begin to be periods of time when instead of the polls dominating a great deal of Russia. The Russians came to dominate more or less large areas of Poland then finally, 100 well nearly a hundred and seventy-five years ago a Poulan just vanished off the map entirely. It was it was a divided amongst the austro-hungarian Empire the prussians and the Russians and there was no more Poland. It just went away. Now, of course, it didn't go away and you know the polls were still they still live where they always had. They still had their national pride their language their culture their Traditions our history and perhaps most important their religion. But so far as the geography was concerned, it was no pole Poland became part. Essentially of the Russian Empire in the Czar of Russia was also the king of Poland. He was also the king of Finland and the Baltic states are in his domain is well, at least the Emperor of Russia was a very powerful man, and he had vast lands at his disposal, but Poland was not an independent entity. the Russian to have always had I think it can fairly be sad a sense that they know better. What is good for you? Then perhaps you do kept trying to educate the poles and make them understand that they the Russians knew what was better for the polls for the polls. Perhaps being very thick skull or perhaps simply being independent and proud never seem to get the lesson through their heads the result of this was that the Russians had to send in their troops again, and again and again in the poem to teach those poles what was really good for them and what the Russians thought was good for them was. Well one thing it would be very good for them would be if they would abandon their rather crude language and accept that marvelous beautiful Russian tongue and well, of course along with it, they would have to throw out their Latin alphabet and they have to accept the Cyrillic alphabet, which is everyone knows is far superior to the Latin alphabet. Another idea, which the Russians felt would improve the polls know and would be if they would give up that new and rather radical of religion, which they had which was the Roman Catholic religion and accept the true face, which was the Orthodox Faith which the Russians happened to profess. Well, would you believe it the poles didn't see it that way they like their own language. They likes being poles are like the Latin alphabet and then like the Roman Catholic Church. Bizarre or success is ours. Because they were filled with hope that they might eventually reclaim these recalcitrant and ignorant people devised a rather interesting system, which they thought might solve the church. It would solve some other questions as well to discourage the polls from going to their Roman Catholic churches. Now, I am not going to recount the whole history of Poland and it includes many episodes beside the unfortunate relations with Russia. I mention this merely to show that the enmity between Poland and Russia is very long and very deep-seated and I might say quite honestly that in my long years of contact with both of these peoples. I have seldom found a Russian who really had any warm feelings for the poles or a pole who could speak of the Russians without genuine hatred and it's understandable considering what each people did to the others over. creative time it's also understandable that at the end of World War 1. In which not only Germany was defeated but also czarist Russia which had been practically knocked out of the war before then and then his timing is came along took it over and Russia suffered a further defeat at the end of World War 1. A whole new order was imposed upon Eastern Europe and this new order was basically imposed by France and England. Although they use the protective Banner of Woodrow Wilson's great thesis for the self-determination of Nations and all of that arose out of the ashes of the austro-hungarian Empire and of the Russian Empire arose a new free and independent Poland Poland. Once again, reborn independent nation still, unfortunately located geographically where it always had them. which was between powerful Nations Czechoslovakia rose out of that an independent hungry and all the rest the Baltic states got their independence and fill them also broke off of the Russian Empire and has managed to stay out of it ever since The poles were a keystone in the post-world war Oedipus erected basically is I say by France the French we're doing is not for the good of the polls. Although there's always been a very strong love affair between poles in the French. They were doing it for two reasons one. They were desperately afraid the bolshevism as communism was unusually call which sweep West into Europe. They wanted a cordon sanitaire against the Russians which the poles with a centerpiece and they also wanted an alliance circling Germany so that if the Germans attempted to have revenge on France, which they talk they probably would rats would have a ring of allies around Germany. You can see that this device of The Cordon sanitaire was a very powerful part. of the post-world War 1 System and that it was half directed against Germany and half directed against Russia. When you know that. It is probably not too surprising. Do know that World War II was kicked off by a new Partition of Poland between the two Powers against which the French structure had been designed. That is to say Nazi Germany and Stalin's Russia join hands and they sliced Poland up again in the good old way. And once again Poland vanished from the maps of the world, but not from the mines and not from the hearts of the world and not from the problems of the Statesman. Because of course it was the attack and the division of Poland which caused World War II to break out because the British and French came in honoring their commitments and we were Off to the Races, okay. We've come to the end of that war. Becomes a 1944 not 1945 the famous Yalta Conference and all the rest of it the red. I am a pushing pushing Westward pushing across Poland pushing into Czechoslovakia pushing it a hungry in the Austrian East Prussia driving for Berlin of powerful remarkable fighting force by this time, they've defeated Hitler and they're in full rain and they conquer all of Eastern Europe. At this moment when all of this touring Europe in Stalin's hands with the greatest land Army the world has ever seen Churchill and Roosevelt attempt to make a deal with Stalin to get an independent Polo. Well, I don't have to tell you they didn't get very far salad. Simply had all the cards. We've heard a lot of talk lately about we lost polling that y'all too old boy. We didn't have any part of Poland to lose Stalin had it. All right there. And he was absolutely determined and you can understand his position if you take Russia having been Trice in a. Of a stork number of years having been twice invaded by Germany and the first war literally defeated by Germany. This second war comes that close for the total rushing to feet and nobody was going to take that Eastern quarter away from Stalin. He was going to order me a wrecked the Cordon sanitaire. It was going to be the Bastion to protect Russia not against the United States. They were not thinking in terms of United States at that time nor was it didn't make any sense for the United States, but I guess Germany Statesmen and Generals always at the end of a war divides means which protect them against the war. That's just been fought. I don't know about the war that's going to be fought in the future, but they are sure good on what happened before and so they take the Russians took the French Cordon sanitaire, which has been directed against them going against Germany and now it all faces West and it's a it's a good solid hunk of territory that begins with East Germany and it comes down to Poland and Czechoslovakia and Hungary and Romania the whole works. So Skyland feels confident. Germany is not going to jump him again that didn't happen to be the great conflict of the world. The great conflict in the world is going to be between the United States and Russia. You know that history then you know perfectly well as any reasonable intelligence person can see that you're not going to get pull them out of that security system. As long as the Russians believe that it's the linchpin of one protects them against the pack and if you are a Russian And here is where geography plays a grape. Role in the psychology of Russia. If you are a Russian, you have grown up looking over your shoulder for an enemy who is going to jump you the reason for that being a simple thing. If you look at the map if you look at a relief map and you see why that is, there are no natural barriers on Russia's Frontiers. To the east we often hear of the urals mountains. I assure you you could fly over them. You could drive over them. You could go across the Euro mountains in a railroad train and you never know you gone over the mountain. Euros mountains are not the Rockies hardly even the Black Hills. There are a little worn range would you can cross over and I've crossed over the many times you can fly over then. You don't even see them. They are no barrier. They never been a very against Invasion from the East and one Invasion after the other. Until the 14th or 15th century swept over Russia from the East. At the same time on the west. There are no mountains. There are no Great Rivers, which is why Poland used to invade Russia with impunity in the old days in the sleeves in the lithuanians and everyone else and there are no barriers today. It's true. There are some swamps and some porous but nothing very much. Nothing that I that I Hitler nothing that the Kaiser couldn't crash right through with his with his excellent troops. And so if you've lived for centuries in this kind of an atmosphere without any barriers A great historian once said that the Russians all their lives are always looking over their shoulders for which direction the attack is going to come it gets into your psychology. You become somewhat paranoid about it and you create this kind of a barrier which the Russians did to try and protect yourself against that attack. I could project that even further into the present-day quarrel between the Russians and the Chinese. The Russians are there paranoid about the Chinese? I don't believe there's anyone in this room and certainty that includes me who believes that the Chinese are going to jump the Russians, but try to convince a Russian of that you said why why do you believe that the Chinese will do that? And in the moment they look at the Mongols. Look what they did and you got the impression that the Mongol invasion was a hundred years ago, you know when it happened the 13th century for Lord's sake but it is in the minds of the Russians as though it was yesterday a good friend of mine the poet Yucca Shankle when the last big crisis with China was on hand and there was fighting out on the ussuri river. He probably has a poem Front page 1 of prom. And what is it about? It's about the Battle. In which the Russians defeated the Mongols in the AR-15 one of the one of the Box 1550 the great Russian Victory against the Mongols the Chinese but they'll do it again in the mind of that educated little Orchard Russian. There's no difference between Mongols and Chinese, you know, there has to be something very much under the fingernails to get that sort of response and the ribs. So this is the kind of thing that you're dealing with when you're dealing with a great country of European country or talk about the Chinese country these countries with enormous National heritages of history of culture and a built-in pavlovian responses. And what you do with that kind of psychology, you know, there's not going to be any way of proponent. one of the things which has depressed me more in recent months has been the fact that I have not seen anyone american-statesman European Statesman polish Statesman Russian Statesman people who have no direct connection with this beauty Bay kind who is come up with even the beginning of a solution to this problem. And this is something which is extremely depressing to Americans were the kind of people who believe and I believe this along with everybody in this room that there's always a solution to the problem that we Americans can find it and impose it or put it over if we only got her act together. I honestly don't believe there is a solution for the Polish problem. I think the geography and history have given us. It's like an impacted tooth. It's true that there's sometimes a dentist. Can yank out that impacted tooth? You can't yank pulled out of Eastern Europe. There's no way of doing it. It's there. And that's what is at the root of this problem. The Russians are not going to dismantle their defensive system, which they call the Warsaw Pact or Poland in Poland blows up there come in. I don't think they're at all happy about this situation. I don't think oppose or happy. I don't think polish generals are happy. I don't know anybody was happy, but I don't know anybody who's got a sure now. There is a cure of course because ultimately there is a cure for almost anything. It is possible to get the Russians out of Polo. They're not actually as you know, they're not actually there now they have holes are doing this act all on their own not the Russians having some ideas that they can whisper in their ears, but basically there why should the Russians are as a force or not operating their Nicole's are doing it. How do you get the Russians out of Poland or far enough away from Poland? So Poland can be independent? Well, you could have a nuclear war and why Prussia out course the fact is we be wiped out to but may Depot in Woodbridge would survive. I doubt it, but they might I don't regard that is a very viable solution. There's another way you can have a conference with Russia and you could persuade the Russians. It was in their best interest to let Eastern Europe become independent. Well, that's a lot of attention. But are you going to sell that to the grandma? Well, I'd say no, there is no way you can tell that to the crown unless you have an overall situation of total peace and serenity in the world and the Russian say all since we in the Americans and the Chinese and everybody are such wonderful friends is not going to be any War ever again. Okay, in that case, we don't need the Warsaw Pact the poles can turn themselves into whatever they want have their own church their own language their own democracy if they're so silly if you want democracy, let him have it we don't care because there are no longer security threat to us. If you bleed that day is coming in this Century. You better go and see a psychiatrist. It's not coming. We're not going to have the the Lions and the Lambs lying down together. There's nobody who believes it the Russians don't believe it and we don't we and so if neither of those Solutions are open to us, we're going to have to limp along with something which is totally unsatisfactory to all the parties and that's what I think is a case as far as pulling just concerned. And if we seriously whole to negotiate with the Russians, we have to know a good deal about this kind of psychology. What makes those little pointy mine's operator. Why is it that the men in the Kremlin are frightened? Maybe you thought they weren't frightened. I assure you they are frightened. They're frightened because we have a great deal of power. You shouldn't read in the papers that they're getting more power. The truth is we're still so far ahead of them that they are very scared of this situation and they know that if we insist on a new arms race at anything like the pace that mystery Reagan is suggesting of these hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars that we're going to get further hip. They're only out in that would be that they would hope that we might go bankrupt or at least our country would go into another depression which of course it might but they can't match that kind of money. You might say well, but aren't they building up their arms? And have they been building up their arms at a very rapid rate. Well, yes, they have built them up at a rapid rate. But not very much more rapidly than they have been building all along. Are comparative advantage over the Soviet Union is still so formidable it if we were in their position. We would be having a great many fears. I don't think there's anybody in this room who would want blindfolded to trade our armaments for the Soviet arms. Certainly nobody in our Joint Chiefs of Staff would do it because we have the advantage. And we have the gross national product unless we knock ourselves out completely to go on taping the edge in the overall arms race. You see another little thing about Russia which we don't keeping our minds very closely is that they're totally kind of me is about 1/2 the size of ours that is to say their gross national product is about one-half of ours. This means that if we spend money comparatively we can afford to spend twice as much money on arms as they can with no more sacrifice now, I think that is not an absolute Edge because we are not ready to make the kind of sacrifices the Russians make normally they're not used to our kind of living but none the less just gives us a fantastic Edge. And I have no doubt of our ability to keep that so is it from that standpoint one would have to ask oneself why are we frightened of negotiating with the Russians? We've got the lead on them. We have a hammer lock on them. So why don't we sit down and build this into a permanent structure? The answer to that lies in National psychology and many other things National politics to some extent and Mr. Nixon the doctor Kissinger made a great start at negotiating the Soviet Union. They did it by it a good deal of personal knowledge. Mr. Nixon was not a stranger to Soviet Russia. He had been there a number of times. He had negotiated a great many times Mr. Khashoggi new the Soviet leadership. He knew the leaders of all the Eastern European countries are the leaders of polling and do them in your them in Romania. He'd been over there. It was in the same kind of situation. They knew it firsthand. A great deal about the national psychology of the countries. With whom they were they had to deal with Ira. Well, remember mr. Nixon telling me before he was elected late in the campaign of 68 about how we was going to approach the Russian question because we had to negotiate with the Russians. Otherwise, we were going to blow ourselves and the Russians the two of us would blow ourselves right off the map of the world and his idea was a simple one he was going to try and get Unity amongst the Western allies something which he succeeded in doing and something which I if I may be prejudiced I couldn't see it doesn't look as though President Reagan has done very well in that department. There's never been more disarray in the Western Alliance. But Mr. Nixon a very astute politician knew that to get American strength to deal with the Russians. We had to have Unity what are Europeans and it couldn't be a one-way deal. We don't impose Unity on them. We have to agree on things and then he had another idea which was was very bright commonsensical. He knew that there was nothing that frightened the Russians more than China the China and Russia were at all. And that if we could get the Chinese on our side if we opened up a relationship with them it would give us an enormously Rich over the Russians. The Leverage would be required not to by establishing an alliance with a Chinese but by frightening the Russians and getting them to pay us with conditions in negotiation not to have an alliance with the Chinese. It's common sense. It's the kind of weapons you need in negotiation. If you want to achieve something, you must have the liveries to achieve it. You cannot simply threatened with a super power. You've got to have the actual components which enables you to negotiate their strategy was excellent and made great progress in that direction. I'm sorry to say that mr. Carter didn't understand. Doesn't seem to have understood the China card. He thought that you played the China carthy the essence of the game as you don't play it, but you told it up here and make the Russians pay you not to play. I don't know what mr. Reagan strategy in that department is he seems to be thinking of an alliance with Taiwan? I'm sure that was really fighting the Russians. But there's no really strong evidence that he understands that the only way you can solve the arms race is through negotiation. It is possible. Of course that by piling these mountains of new islands 200 300 400 billions of RMS up. He thinks that they will be such a weight. They will compel the Russians to negotiate. Maybe he's right if I don't think that it works exactly that way. I think they're many other things that can be done and I've suggested some which is his predecessors used with great. Skip the only thing the only point I really want to make sure tonight is good when we got into her into an international prices when we have serious problems with the Soviet Union, it behooves us to study every atom of background of a country that we can lay our hands on and we should compel we should insist on our national leadership and I mean by At the men who are in Congress the men who are in the executive branch of the government and doing their homework and knowing what kind of countries are up against and not taking the cheap easy phrases as answers because the world is a serious place today. We're all tied in closely together. I know for the last 20 or 25 years the Russians who used to run their diplomacy on the basis of headlines on a problem have made a serious continuing very responsible effort to try and understand what this country's about. It's not easy not easy for Russians. It isn't easy for us very often do understand what we're about but I do think that unless the effort is made it's not very likely. But either side is going to come through a very successful negotiation, but negotiation there must be I don't care what you call it there. Only two choices in the world today one is negotiation of one sort and another and I would hope negotiation done in a skillful manner with an understanding of national antipathies with understanding of deep National fears ours as well as they close understanding of the of the various weights of various component parts of the world. There's only that alternate where the other one which is nuclear war and total disaster for ourselves. And for the world. I'd I'm not a believer of limited War. I don't think it can happen. I think it can happen with small countries that could happen in the Middle East that has happened in the Middle East. I don't believe in women limited war between ourselves and the Soviet Union. I think they did it goes through like that right up to that nuclear level and what it gets there so long even this beautiful beautiful part of the world, which we call Southwest Minnesota. Thank you.

Funders

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