European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - May 3, 1987, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page to columns the stars and stripes sunday. May 3,1987 James res7on Nixon Kissinger advice an ungenerous gesture a letter to Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger gentlemen i set by the pipers that you be gone into the column writing business together and venture As an old Geezer at this Dodge 1p give you a wont of advice about the dangers of giving advice. I there s one thing officials Hale More than criticism from columnists in eneral it s Public advice from their predecessor in office. It s True let the worst me often give the Best advice but those who need it most like it least and the better the advice is the More it Likely to be ignored and resented. Consider your first column. It Breaks the first Rule Ofa Good column which ii Brevity and it Breaks the second Rule which is modesty and the third Rule which it generosity. Whal twi re saying in Short is thai president Reagan is on the verge of making a reckless nuclear arms Deal that favors the soviet Union threatens the Security of the United states and that could create the Moat profound crisis of the Natal Lance in its 40-year history. Even a Mencken would have blushed a such a sweeping indictment. It would be bad enough coming from a casual scribbler but from a former president and former Secretary of stale it sends a shudder through every Allied  say the United Stales must demand All sorts of tilings it is not Likely to get we must demand the elimination of All intermediate Range missiles worldwide we must insist on a balance of All conventional forces before agreeing to the withdrawal of nuclear weapons. Pur negotiators most hold heir ground on these Points you say. No Deal is belter than a bad Deal. We can reach a Good Deal for both sides if we always keep i mind that Gorbachev needs a Deal As much As we  you say it was a mistake for nato to have offered the Zero option in the Laic 1970s, and now that Gorbachev has finally accepted it that we should not Lake his yes for an answer but insist on the further concessions you propose. In addition to arms control you write in is Vita that a Summit convened to sign a missile agreement Deal with the major political u .5,-soviet issues. If sum Mitry it to promote the chances of peace the super Powers must address the potential causes of War. In is not weapons that cause War but rather the political differences that Lead 10 the use of Hose weapons. Therefore when Reagan and Gorbachev meet there must be significant Progress toward resolving key political issues such As the soviet occupation or Afghanistan soviet arms shipments to Nicaragua and soviet sponsored subversion in Central  this u not in a that your conclusions Are wrong or Hal your objectives Are not desirable. But they Are William f. Buckley based on the worst possible assumptions of Moscow stupidity and Washington s stupidity and it takes a Lively imagination of Gorbachev s generosity to thin they Are attainable. You Henry Are forever saying that officials have to think Aboul the consequences of their proposals and in your column you Are applying this principle to the president s proposals but not to your own. What would happen at the Summit if the president went Back on his proposals and adopted yours. Maybe you la Tell As in your next column. Meanwhile the president or. Shultz and , unlike you and or. Nixon Are not attempting to Settle this whole complicated problem in a single spectacular agreement. They Are trying to break a stalemate that has go Neon for More than a generation. Like the Early Steps toward the unification of Europe they Are concentrating on the attainable rather than on tie desirable and hoping to build Confidence in slow verifiable stages. For the first time since the invention of the atom bomb both sides Are talking seriously about major Cutsin the alarming stockpiles of nuclear weapons and you dismiss Ilas worse than nothing. Another Point has to do not Only with judgments but manners. If your proposals had been made to the presi Dent and the Secretary of suite in private an option always open to you nobody could object but to make them in Public at a critical Point in the talks is a least an act of discourtesy. One has to wonder what you two would have thought when you were sitting in the Oval office to Gether if former president Lyndon Johnson had launched this kind of Public attack on your policies and suggested that you were helping the russians an hurting your own country. You would undoubtedly have rejected and resented their advice and of course you Are free to reject and resent mine. Nixon Kissinger column raises vital questions James Resto Northc new York times makes a bizarre but interesting Point Worth pondering if Only because he made in. Union is to political fashion what Bill Blass is to dress fashion. Expect in the Days ahead to see flared nostrils Over the subject of Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger and their column raising questions about the proposed inf treaty. Here is the sequence. Nixon and Kissinger conferred after Secretary of stale George Shultz returned from Moscow and broadcast the tentative terms of the understanding reached. They were alarmed by what they read. Since Kissinger writes a regular monthly column they decided to Issue a joint column express ing their common concerns. James Reston begins his column by expressing his disagreement with Nixon Kissinger s conclusion which is not the paint at hand. It read another Point has to do not Only with judgments but manners. If your Revlon s column is in the form of an open letter to Nixon and Kissinger proposals had been made to the president and the Secretary of state in private an option always open to you nobody could object but to make them in Public at a critical Point in the talks is Al least an act of discourtesy. One has to wonder Whai you two would have though when you were silting in the Oval office together if former president Lyndon Johnson had launched a Public attack like this on your policies and suggested that you were helping the russians and Hurt ing your own country now this would appear to be saying Hal retired presidents and secretaries of state ought not to make Public their views on foreign policy if such views differ from those of their successors. Such counsel is not apart of the american tradition and ought nol to be welcomed. On the contrary a More Active role for former presi dents is now and again suggested and it has even been proposed that a constitutional amendment provide Allex president with a seat in the Senate in order to permit them to communicate More readily their in sights gained from top executive experience. President John Quincy Adams we should remind ourselves Ranfor d seat in the House of representatives where he gave distinguished service for 17 years after leaving the White House. Kissinger writes books gives speeches appears on television programs gives interviews and writes a column in All of which he makes his View known. He has written several columns since the sum Mit conference Al Reykjavik Iceland in which he expressed his misgivings Aboul the direction in which we Are heading. Nixon has written a half dozen books since leaving office has travelled widely and like kiss Inger has conferred widely with foreign leaders. It is not yet Clear whether we Are faced in respect of inf with an executive agreement or with a treaty. If in is to be a treaty we accept the inevitable debate. If it Islo be an executive agreement then there will be a Genera debate and whatever agreements president Reagan executes will not be binding under constitutional practice on his successor. Now Nixon and Kissinger have a special responsibility in this debate since in was they who conclude the very firs disarmament treaty with the soviet Union. Salt i whatever might have been said in it favor in the perspective of 1972, ended up together with its corollary the abm treaty a colossal failurei.e., it did not result in a diminution of strategic weapons or in a strengthening of the Western position. Such seasoned hands As Nixon and Kissinger Are much needed to give the country the Benefit of their perspective and to suggest that they should confine their counsel to private sessions with the president an the Secretary of state is to reveal a quite astonishing innocence of How major figures Deal with one another. If Nixon s counsel or Hal of Kissinger had Bee sought by Reagan and Schuliz it would have been Given. In the absence of such solicitation a former president or Secretary of state needs to ask himself whether grave reservations about an important Pend ing agreement should remain bottled up in his mind or whether they should be introduced into the analytical and forensic bloodstream it is really quite silly to say How would you have liked it if Lyndon Johnson had criticized you policies the answer is they would not have liked it at All for the simple reason that nobody especially superstar likes criticisms least of All from superstars out of office. But the imperatives Here Aren t to guard Reagan and Shultz from criticism but to consider the Points that prompted Nixon and Kissinger to adopt this unusual and Welcome course. Happily Revlon de votes much of his column to describing their reservations