Brzezinski on the Record

Zbigniew Brzezinski spent three hours with TIME Correspondent Christopher Ogden before Jimmy Carter's election, discussing the problems that will soon become his daily concern.

ON HENRY KISSINGER'S POLICIES: I don't think he has been overly soft on the Soviets. I think he has overemphasized the bilateral Soviet-American relationship to the point of slighting other relationships, creating uneasiness and overselling detente."

U.S.-SOVIET RELATIONS: "We should develop closer East-West relations, but our public must be told that this relationship is competitive by history's dictates and cooperative by contemporary necessities. I don't think we can use the limited leverage we have to obtain profoundly significant systemic change in the Soviet Union."

U.S.-CHINESE TIES: "We could do more to upgrade the U.S.-Chinese relationship to minimize the possibility of a swing in China toward greater normalization with the Soviet Union. [But] I don't think the U.S. can simply abandon the security treaty with Taiwan ... The U.S. cannot be a viable guarantor of anyone's existence if we welsh on a commitment to maintain the survival of a particular party."

ARMS TALKS: "It is a big mistake to tie in the strategic arms limitation talks with summits. Given the fact that our political system is truly democratic, the premium for obtaining an agreement is much higher for the President than for the Soviet General Secretary." Still, he adds, because "the asymmetries between them and us are so favorable to us in every aspect, we can afford to be patient. The scalingdown of the levels [of atomic warheads] is the most urgent business of SALT."

EUROCOMMUNISM: "We should not favor Communists in power [in Western Europe]. But to the extent that Euro-Communism is moving toward de-Stalinization and then to de-Leninization, it is something we should welcome. In the long run, it will affect Soviet control, but it's a slow process. If a West European party comes to power too soon, it could set this process back."

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