KISSINGER ON DISARMAMENT

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

Your front page story of October 5th dealing with my alleged views about disarmament reached a new low of irresponsibility and misrepresentation. The headline, "Kissinger Cautions Disarmament Might Lead to U.S.S.R. Victory" is a falsehood. The quotation in the first paragraph is incorrect. I did not say that disarmament might cause us to lose the arms race. What I said was exactly the opposite. I said that disarmament must be one of the highest priority goals of national policy. We have to make the most serious efforts to develop responsible disarmament plans. However, if it is not possible to reach agreement on even the most reasonable proposals we will have no alternative except to maintain the arms race. Any other course would eliminate the Soviet Union's incentive to agree to any responsible agreement in order to force us into surrender.

What makes your report absolutely inexcusable is that Mr. Paisner had before him a story from the Associated Press which correctly reported my views. Mr. Paisner called me in order to confirm this. The A.P. story read as follows:

"A delegate to the disarmament conference of U.S. and Russian scientists last month at Stowe, Vermont said Tuesday night the United States must have the courage to continue the arms race if a disarmament agreement is not reached.

"Dr. Henry Kissinger of Harvard University said, 'It is important for us to be very serious about disarmament. But if we cannot get a responsible agreement, then we must have the courage and conviction to stick with the arms race.'

"Otherwise, Dr. Kissinger said, the United States will be faced with some 'unilateral disarmament which is a form of surrender.'"

My only elaboration on this story was to tell Mr. Paisner that I agree with Tocsin's principle of unilateral initiatives towards disarmament provided they did not jeopardize our security, though I might disagree on specifics. This comment was not reported. For the rest, I urged Mr. Paisner to read the transcript of the Tuesday evening, October 3rd, WGBH program on the Stowe Conference.

I request that you publish this correction in as prominent a place as the original story. Henry A. Kissinger '50,   Assoc. Prof. of Government.

(The CRIMSON regrets its misleading headline but considers the story an accurate presentation of Mr. Kissinger's remarks, even as given in his letter.)