Kissinger Video Interview
2. Why was it that you and the President decided to keep the whole initiative within the precincts of the White House and the NSC?
Henry Kissinger: Initially we didn't keep it entirely within the White House. First of all this was during the height of the Vietnam protest and almost everything that was done through the bureaucracy leaked. Secondly, many of the bureaucracy really thought that Nixon was illegitimate. Here was a President who didn't follow the New York Times editorial direction. And that was considered against nature. So, thirdly, the bureaucracy and many of the professional foreign service officers thought that opening to China was extremely dangerous. And when we finally made some move like permitting the purchase of a hundred dollars worth of Chinese goods in Hong Kong, four senior ambassadors called on the President to warn him that he was running unacceptable risks of conflict with the Soviet Union. So for all these reasons we tried to keep it relatively within the White House. At first.
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