Ms. Tang: In Newsweek magazine.
Secretary Kissinger: Newsweek is my favorite fiction magazine.
Vice Premier Teng: The third is military intervention.
Secretary Kissinger: That's all nonsense. [Laughter]
Vice Premier Teng: Anyway, we feel the method of waving a big baton and the method of confrontation may not be conducive to a solution, but will only sharpen the contradiction between the consumers and the producers. So when we talk to our friends coming from Europe, we tell them we are in favor of dialogue.
Secretary Kissinger: Are you finished?
Vice Premier Teng: Yes.
Secretary Kissinger: Let me make two observations. First, concerning the Chinese attitude favoring the use of the oil weapon, I recognize the People's Republic stands for certain principles and these have to be followed. But at some point a contradiction develops between all-out support for this and the necessity of achieving a common front against the threats to international security. It is up to the People's Republic to decide where this point is reached. But if objectively Europe and Japan are reduced to a sense of impotence, this is something to which one cannot be indifferent from the point of view of international security. But this is a question for the People's Republic, and I will leave it.
Let me turn to U.S. relations with the producers. Newsweek is not distinguished for its support of the Administration, and it is the last magazine we would tell what our strategy is. Of the three methods they mention, military intervention on the question of oil prices is out of the question. In the case of a total embargo, that would be another matter, but on the question of oil prices, it is out of the question. Psychological warfare against the Arabs is something I'd like to see. I can't imagine what it would be like. Anyway, we have no capability for it.
Our policy is quite different.
Vice Premier Teng: Well, if we give another term to psychological warfare, it would be "threats."
TOP SECRET/SENSITIVE/EXCLUSIVELY EYES ONLY
