Remarks at the Swearing In of Henry A. Kissinger as Secretary of State.

Ladies and gentlemen:

We welcome you today to this ceremony in which Dr. Henry A. Kissinger will be sworn in as Secretary of State.

The Chief Justice of the United States will now administer the oath of office.

[At this point, Warren E. Burger, Chief Justice of the United States, administered the oath of office. The President then resumed speaking.]

Mr. Chief Justice, Mr. Secretary of State, Members of the Cabinet, Members of the House and the Senate, and all of our other distinguished guests:

I know all of you will want to hear from the new Secretary of State, speaking for the first time in that capacity, and my remarks, therefore, will be brief before presenting him to you.

First, I am aware of the fact that during the process of his hearings that you have learned much about him that perhaps you had not known before, but certainly during the process of his hearings you learned that here is a man who has the poise, the strength, the character to serve in this great position, and that he can handle himself under considerable fire. As a matter of fact, Dr. Kissinger used to come in my office during the days of the heatings. He had not been through such an experience before, and I said, "You are going to go through it for a long time; do you still want the job?" But I kept reassuring him, and I told him the vote would be very, very good, and it was.

And I am sure he must have felt like Winston Churchill, who once wrote that the most exhilarating thing in life is to be shot at without result.

Now, much has been written about Dr. Kissinger's background and the significance of his appointment. All of you know and members of the press are aware of the fact that I like to refer to things which happen to be first in this Administration. I suppose that is the right of every President.

But in Dr. Kissinger's case, we are very proud and it is very significant in these days when we must think of America as part of a whole world community, it is very significant that for the first time in our long history, a naturalized citizen is the Secretary of State of the United States.

It is also significant to note that this is the first Secretary of State, who, before assuming that office, had traveled on official business both to Peking and to Moscow. I was trying to think of something else that had not been written, and nothing occurred to me until yesterday, when very late in the day, I thought I had better get a haircut before appearing on television again. And so my barber, who is also Dr. Kissinger's barber, said he had been looking at some pictures of Secretaries of State, and he said, "I bet I know something about this man that you don't know."

I said, "I am sure you do. What is it?" He said, "He is the first Secretary of State since World War II who doesn't part his hair."

So, I began to think back and I said, "Secretary Acheson, yes, that is tight, he parted his hair; Secretary Dulles parted his hair; Secretary Rogers parted his hair."

But then my barber, who is a very wise man and seldom wrong--I said, "But what about Secretary Rusk?" And he said, "Well, Mr. President, he didn't have much hair, but what he had, he parted."

That little story about the parting of hair has no relevance to the functions of Secretary of State. I would say on a serious vein simply that Dr. Kissinger assumes this office at a watershed time in American foreign policy, at a time when America is at peace for the first time in I e years, at a time when we recognize that the only thing more difficult than getting peace is keeping it, at a time, therefore, when building the structure of peace is so important.

And he also recognizes another fundamental fact. There is a tendency these days to personalize every activity in, particularly, foreign policy: the exciting secret trips of Dr. Kissinger to Peking, to Moscow, to Paris; what a President does, what a Secretary of State does, what his advisers do.

But Dr. Kissinger knows, as I know. and as everybody in this audience knows that successes in any area, and particularly in foreign policy, do not come simply from the activities of one person. It requires a dedicated team of people, men and women working together. And in now having achieved peace, in keeping the peace and building the structure of peace, he has the function and, I am sure, will meet that responsibility of getting the cooperation of the people in the State Department and the other agencies of Government so that, working together and working with the Congress of the United States, we will not miss this historic opportunity to build a lasting peace for America and the world. This is certainly his charge. It is one that he welcomes, and it is one for which he is superbly qualified.

Ladies and gentlemen, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.