Henry Kissinger planned his latest global foray with the care of a man who might not soon be making another. He had already decided that unless a crisis should intervene (over SALT or southern Africa, for instance), he would not be traveling outside the U.S. again until after the November elections. Thus for the eight-day trip he began last week, the Secretary was obliged to pick places to which he could safely go—not for reasons of security but of domestic politics. That ruled out China, the Soviet Union or the Middle East, where Kissinger's presence might inadvertently have an adverse effect on President Ford's cliff-hanging struggle for the Republican nomination. So, however reluctantly, the Secretary picked an itinerary where the sailing should have been smooth: Britain, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, France and The Netherlands.
Nonetheless, Kissinger found himself embroiled in controversy on the eve of his departure. The main problem was Iran, where the Secretary was to spend two full days talking with the Shah and co-chairing a meeting of the Joint U.S.Iranian Commission, which oversees bilateral trade and economic matters. Two days before Kissinger left Washington, the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Foreign Assistance released a study asserting that U.S. arms sales to Iran were "out of control." The report charged that the Nixon Administration, during Kissinger's days as the President's National Security Adviser, had entered into a secret commitment to sell Iran "virtually any conventional weapons it wanted." As a result, concluded the subcommittee, "the U.S. cannot abandon, substantially diminish or even redirect its arms programs without precipitating a major crisis in U.S.-Iranian relations." * Indeed, said the subcommittee, there were so many Americans —24,000 at last count—in Iran as a result of these sales that in a crisis, they could virtually be held hostage by the Iranian government.
The Administration's position on the heavy commitment to Iran, based on the 1969 Nixon Doctrine recommending that regional leaders assume greater responsibility for security in their areas, is that it suits U.S. interests to have a strong Iran capable of defending itself. "Being surrounded by Iraq, Afghanistan, India and the Soviet Union is no minor defense problem," argues one high U.S. official. "Selling Iranians arms so they can defend themselves is better than having to do it for them." As for the subcommittee's charge that American employees could be held "hostage" by Tehran, the Shah last week declared that in the event of war, the Americans "will not be forced to render any services to Iran."