Henry's Seven Deadly Sins

When he joined the Nixon Administration in November 1968, Henry Kissinger was regarded in foreign policy circles as a neophyte on the subjects of China and the Middle East but an expert on Europe and NATO problems. And yet nowhere has Kissinger's diplomatic touch proved to be less sure than in the countries of his native continent.

What went wrong? Did the Europeans expect too much from Kissinger simply because he was born in Germany? Did he feel that he had to be "more American than the Americans," as one Dutch official put it, to prove that he was not "soft on Europe"?

In his remarks to the congressional wives in Washington this month, Kissinger declared that America's biggest problem was not its enemies but its "self-assertive" allies. But many European leaders feel that the U.S., and Kissinger in particular, deserve most of the blame for any deterioration in the Atlantic Alliance. The complaints can perhaps be summed up in a listing of what they regard, rightly or wrongly, as Kissinger's seven deadly sins:

I. He hath denied us any world role.

Many officials see the current imbroglio as a Kissinger tactic to stop Europe from playing any role at all in international affairs, outside of being simply an extension of U.S. foreign policy. Said one French diplomat: "Kissinger is attempting to bring the Nine into an Atlantic system whereby they will be able to take only decisions that are approved in Washington." Kissinger irritated European leaders in his Atlantic Charter speech last April when he stated that the nations of the Continent had only "regional" interests while the U.S. had "global" ones. He now seems to be denying them even a regional policy. If Europe cannot have a separate policy in the Middle East, where it has historical, geographical and economic ties, where can it ever have a separate policy?

II. He alone determineth the "common" interest.

Since the end of World War II, U.S. and European leaders alike have advocated a united Western Europe in the conviction that there would never be any transatlantic rupture on major policy issues. The theory was fine so long as the dominant issue was the Soviet threat to peace. But first detente and then the oil crisis have exposed the fallacy of that assumption. The Middle East is the strongest case in point. Europe is dependent on the Arabs for 80% of its oil; before the embargo, the U.S. imported only 11% from the Middle East. As a Bonn official puts it: "For the U.S., the Middle East is one conflict among others, all of which are equally far away from Washington. But for Europe, the Middle East conflict is on its doorstep and a direct threat to its security."

III. He hath interfered in our decisionmaking.

To the Europeans, Kissinger's complaints that there has been "insufficient" consultation look like an attempt to interfere in an already difficult decision-making process. The political situation in NATO and the Common Market is rather similar to what the U.S. would have to endure if it had a Cabinet that included, say, Edward Kennedy, Barry Goldwater, George McGovern and George Wallace, each with his own constituency, sitting down and trying to reach a consensus. If they allow the U.S. to take part in major decisions, Europeans contend, the Americans would divide them. Says West German Foreign Minister Walter Scheel: "We cannot have Americans at the table. No European sits in the State Department."

IV. He doth form a condominium with the Soviet Union.

This is a familiar argument on the part of the French: East's is East's and West's is West's; the Soviet Union and the U.S. are seeking, as did Napoleon and Russian Emperor Alexander III, to divide up Europe into spheres of influence. The French fear is widely shared.

Many diplomats worry that Kissinger is using the European nations as pawns in what French Foreign Minister Michel Jobert calls the U.S. "adversary-partnership" relationship with the Soviet Union. Indeed, some Europeans are now convinced that the latest diplomatic crisis was deliberately staged by Kissinger to forestall the creation of a potential rival to the U.S.-U.S.S.R. condominium--namely a united Europe.

V. He doth distort the military situation.

Europeans are tired of listening to first the pleas and now the threats of Washington to pull out its troops, while the U.S. ignores the fact that 300,000 Americans are in Europe primarily to act as an advance guard for U.S. defense. American forces are not in Europe out of charity: the Pentagon would clearly prefer that Berlin be the battleground in a potential encounter with the Soviet Union rather than Boston. Says Jobert: "In all frankness, if it is in the interest of the U.S. to remain in Europe, it will remain here. If it is not in its interest, it will leave."

VI. He hath fabricated this political crisis.

Kissinger's outburst against the European decision to go ahead with a conference with the Arabs on the plane flying back from the NATO meeting in Brussels, and his follow-up statements, are seen as deliberate provocations. What makes the Europeans so sure that it is staged is that the theatrics are out of all proportion to the problem. As a French official put it: "Why is it so vital for the U.S. if Europe takes a [separate] position in the Middle East?" Europeans argue that any conference with the Arab nations on the oil crisis is most unlikely to upset Kissinger's peace negotiations. Besides, the conference is tentative at best and far in the future. So how, then, could it threaten to unravel Kissinger's foreign policy?

VII. He hath demonstrated to us our weakness.

The sin that the Europeans will never forgive, and rarely admit, is that by demanding so much of Europe Kissinger has shown how weak it really is. After all the flowery rhetoric about European unity by 1980, the nine nations of the Common Market have failed the test of their first serious external challenge and fallen back to squabbling among themselves. Former French Premier Maurice Couve de Murville believes that the end result of the Nixon-Kissinger salvo will be more disarray for Europe in the years to come. "But it's most probably what Kissinger wants," he said. "We never seriously believed that the U.S. was interested in a united Europe anyway."

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