Nation: Who Helped the Shah How Much?

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Pinning down the roles of Kissinger and Rockefeller

As the Administration struggled to extricate the hostages—and the U.S. —from the Iranian blackmail abroad, a bitter, backbiting controversy arose at home. It revolved around three questions: 1) Had the deposed Shah's two most prominent American friends, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Chase Manhattan Bank Chairman David Rockefeller, exerted excessive pressure to get the Shah into the U.S.? 2) After long advocating that the Shah be given sanctuary in the U.S., had Kissinger then tried to score political points by publicly criticizing the Administration for appearing weak in a crisis that he had helped to create? 3) Had the Administration been duped into believing that the Shah was more gravely ill than in fact he was?

What especially angered Kissinger's critics was a speech he made on Nov. 20 in Austin to a conference of the Republican Governors Association. He had concluded in a conciliatory spirit by saying: "I think all anyone can do is support the Administration and present the picture of a united America in the face of that challenge." But what caused resentment were other remarks that seemed to question the Administration's wisdom and will. "The biggest foreign policy debacle for the United States in a generation was the collapse of the government and of the Shah of Iran without support or even understanding by the United States of what was involved." Kissinger derided the use of "impotence" as "the ruling principle of our foreign policy" and said that the response of Americans to the seizure of the embassy showed that "they are sick and tired of getting pushed around and they're sick and tired of seeing America forever on the defensive."

Harsh words, and they drew harsh words in reply. The Chicago Tribune accused Kissinger of "Machiavellian self-promotion" and of making "use of the crisis for political purposes." The New York Times termed Kissinger's speechmaking "reckless" and "repellent." On NBC'S Meet the Press, former Under Secretary of State George Ball claimed that the pressure on the Administration to permit the Shah to enter the U.S. had come from "Mr. Kissinger and a few others" and had been "enormously obnoxious."

The White House also bridled at Kissinger's statements. "He is a devious and dishonorable man," one top Carter aide told reporters. "He'll go off and make cheap political statements and then call up privately and assure us that he supports the way the President is handling the crisis."

Feelings grew so hot that Kissinger and Secretary of State Vance met on Monday last week for an extraordinary 70-min. conversation. Both men got their grievances off their chests—Vance complaining that Kissinger was gratuitously running down the Administration and Kissinger accusing the White House of unfairly impugning his character. The two men struck a truce: the Administration would stop criticizing Kissinger to newsmen, and Kissinger would tell his side of the story, once and for all.