The buck stops with Kissinger
President Nixon has taken a wise decision, not merely in appointing Dr Kissinger to succeed Mr Rogers as Secretary of State, but in allowing him at the same time to retain his position as Special Adviser to the President on national security matters and Chairman of the National Security Agency. Since Christian Herter succeeded John Foster Dulles there has been a steady decline in the authority and prestige of the Department of State, and a distinct tendency to concentrate not merely the creative, but the administrative, functions connected with American foreign policy in the White House. It is not clear that this policy Will now be reversed — and, indeed, the State Department is Probably one of the most cumbersome and inefficient foreign ministries anywhere in the world — but it seems certain that there will be a more effective relationship between the Presidency and the agencies of government in the making and execution of foreign policy. Any section of the Presidential Office, 'however brilliant — and Dr Kissinger's was at least that — is not by itself capable numerically or administratively of guiding and directing the diplomacy of a huge power like the United States; and it makes sense to give Kissinger charge of the diplomatists as well, partly in the hope that he will be able to re-structure his new empire as intelligently as he did his much smaller fief in the White House.
There is another potential advantage, of probably even greater importance, in Dr Kissinger's new appointment. For many years now the tendency in all powerful countries has been to concentrate foreign policy control almost exclusively in the hands of a President or Prime Minister. It is difficult even to remember the name of the Russian Foreign Minister; Mr Chou En-Lai speaks for China in international relations, and he is Prime Minister; M. Couve de Murville was for many years a brilliant foreign Minister, but only as tactical exponent of General de Gaulle's ideas; Lord Avon was the last British Foreign Secretary to enjoy anything like independent powers, and the fact that Sir Alec Douglas-Home has a more than ordinary authority is at least as Much to be put down to his past in British politics as to his Position as the head of the Foreign Office. This process is not necessarily undesirable, and anyway is probably irreversible: but it could be extremely dangerous in relation to the United States at a time when the President's own authority has been so far eroded. Most great foreign ministers of the past have enjoyed influence and authority not merely in so far as they are trusted bY their own governments, but in proportion to the personal and intellectual ascendancy which they gain in international relations as well. Dr Kissinger's remarkable successes, his considerable Mental powers and deep understanding of how diplomacy and the balance of power work, have all contributed to his attaining of a unique position in international politics from a fairly humble office. But it has recently seemed as though his career needed a new fillip, which it has now been given. As long as the President's authority is to a degree uncertain, American foreign Policy could not be in better hands — those of a statesman who has won universal respect, not merely because he is the spokes man of the most powerful country in the world, but because of the acuity of his judgements and the skill of his diplomacy.
There are three particularly difficult problem areas which Dr Kissinger must now tackle. He has to try to take Sino-American relations into their next phase, beyond mutual recognition into functioning diplomatic partnership. He must look again at the problems of South-East Asia — where the dominoes of Cambodia and Laos seem about to fall — and see what can be done to stabilise the situation in the interests of pro-American powers without the sanction of military might. And he must see what can be rescued of the European policy from which he and Mr Nixon have expected so much. Up to now he has proved himself i a specialist n the coup de thattre school of diplomacy: what lies ahead is a hard slog.
Fog has again begun to descend over China. Dr Kissinger's own planned trip there has been postponed, probably partly because of events in the United States but also, it seems, because of new doubts and hesitancies within the Chinese leadership, perhaps provoked by the new Chinese Communist Party Congress. Wholly to open up their country to international relations, with all that that might imply of danger to their own monolithic and isolated control of their own people, is an exceptionally difficult .development for Chinese leaders to attempt — far more difficult than the simple detente of the last few years with the United States. It also seems clear that the Chinese are not interested in going any farther in using their good offices to help the Americans out of their difficulties in South-East Asia. There the situation has become increasingly complex: not only do the Communists appear to be gaining the upper hand in Laos and Cambodia, but Thailand has been again sheltering dissident Laotian elements — an act which may yet call down on her the wrath of the communist forces, if these are eventually victorious.
In Europe Dr Kissinger, in advance of the President's visit this Autumn, must renew his attempts to overcome the suspicions France entertains of his plans for a new Atlantic Charter, which President Pompidou evidently suspects contains the outline of a Russo-American condominium. These suspicions are increasingly shared in Britain; Franco-German relations have entered a new and cooler phase; and the energies of the EEC powers are likely to be taken up throughout the winter with their own quarrels: if they can spare time to look towards America at all it will be while considering their attitude towards a reform of the international monetary system. It follows from all this that the problems confronting President Nixon for his remaining three and a half years are much more difficult, and much less susceptible to constructive drama, than any he has so far faced. And with ' Watergate ' still running it appears that the second and more crucial phase of the Nixon-Kissinger attempt to create a new and more pragmatic system of international relations will have to depend very largely on the new Secretary of State. Dr Kissinger faces the challenge of a lifetime; and the opportunity of joining the immortals among foreign ministers.
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