d a v i d f. s c h m i t z a n d va n e s s a wa l k e r
Jimmy Carter and the Foreign Policy of
Human Rights:
The Development of a Post-Cold War Foreign Policy
I would hope that the nations of the world might say that we had built a
lasting peace, based not on weapons of war but on international policies
which reflect our own most precious values. These are not just my goals,
and they will not be my accomplishments, but the affirmation of our
nation’s continuing moral strength and our belief in an undiminished,
ever-expanding American dream.1
President Jimmy Carter, Inaugural Address, 20 January 20, 1977
From the first day of his presidency, Jimmy Carter set out to fundamentally
alter the direction of American foreign policy. Coming to office in the wake
of the disillusionment brought about by the Vietnam War, Watergate, and the
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (Church Committee) revelations on
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) covert activities abroad, Carter promised a
new direction to American foreign policy by shaping it around the principles
of human rights and nonintervention. Carter faced the challenge of developing
and implementing his new policy in opposition to the continuing Cold War
axiom of containment of the Soviet Union. His policy of human rights sought
to create a post-Cold War foreign policy that changed the fundamental nature
of American relations with the Third World while still protecting essential
American interests. The tension between the quest for a more humane foreign
policy and the old imperatives of security and stability has led most commentators
to criticize Carter’s foreign policy as simplistic and naive.
A close examination of the Carter administration’s development of a foreign
policy based on human rights, and the complexities it faced in implementing its
policy, demonstrates that this critique is wrong on both counts. The adminis-
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Diplomatic History, Vol. 28, No. 1 ( January 2004). © 2004 The Society for Historians of
American Foreign Relations (SHAFR). Published by Blackwell Publishing, Inc., 350 Main
Street, Malden, MA, 02148, USA and 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK.
1. Jimmy Carter, “Inaugural Address,” 20 January 1977, Public Papers of the Presidents:
Carter, 1977, 1–4.
tration’s commitment to human rights was not merely rhetorical or naive.
Carter’s policy built upon the changes various members of Congress and others
were advocating by the mid-1970s. The president and other top officials in his
administration were well aware of the difficulties, contradictions, and potential
inconsistencies and problems inherent in a foreign policy shaped around American
ideals and the principles of human rights. Despite these challenges, the
administration was committed to a new direction in foreign policy and in 1977
developed a comprehensive policy that met Carter’s desire to make human
rights a central tenet of American foreign policy while still protecting vital interests.
While Carter’s efforts may have been undercut by the continued attachments
to Cold War orthodoxy by others, and the crises in Iran and Nicaragua,
he did not abandon his policy or goals even as he returned to more traditional
Cold War policies in terms of relations with the Soviet Union. Moreover, in
making human rights a key element of all discussions and considerations
of American foreign policy, Carter succeeded in shifting the discourse on
American foreign policy away from the dominant concerns of the Cold War
and containment.
There are some who praise Carter’s overall record in foreign policy, notably
Douglas Brinkley. In a spirited defense of Carter’s record, Brinkley finds an
extensive number of significant successes, namely “the Panama Canal treaties,
the Camp David Accords, normalizing U.S. relations with China, [and]
promoting majority-rule in Africa.” Most importantly, he argues that “Carter’s
human rights policy gave the United States moral credibility around the
world—no small feat after Vietnam—while putting Moscow on the domestic
defensive.” It was these accomplishments, Brinkley concludes, that have allowed
Carter to become a highly respected international statesman and the most
successful ex-president.2
Robert Strong’s Working in the World is another positive account of the Carter
presidency intended to “challenge some of the initial accounts of Carter’s
conduct of American foreign policy that found him to be weak, indecisive,
inconsistent, and the victim of conflict among his advisors.” Based on exit interviews
and newly declassified materials from the handwriting files at the Carter
Library, Strong argues that Carter pursued a consistent foreign policy that dealt
with the issues at hand in a realistic manner. While acknowledging that Carter
shifted his policy toward the Soviet Union in mid-term from détente to confrontation,
he refutes the assertion that there was an abandonment of the human
rights policy and a change of course in Carter’s overall policy. Instead, he finds
Carter’s weakness in his failure to educate the public about his policy and objectives.
Similarly, the appearance of inconsistency came not from the conception
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2. Douglas Brinkley, “The Rising Stock of Jimmy Carter: The ‘Hands on’ Legacy of Our
Thirty-Ninth President,” Diplomatic History 20 (Fall 1996): 505–29.
of the policy, but from Carter’s overly ambitious agenda and unwillingness to
prioritize among his initiatives. Despite these problems, Strong concludes that
Carter was an “active, intelligent, and sincere individual in command of a complicate
foreign policy agenda that involved the conscious acceptance of substantial
political risk.”3
The overwhelming consensus on Carter’s foreign policy, however, remains
negative. The most complete examination of Carter’s record is Gaddis Smith’s
Morality, Reason and Power. Smith argues that Carter did attempt to think in
new ways about foreign policy, particularly concerning the threat of nuclear
weapons, and pursued a foreign policy that was based on long-term benefits
to the United States and the world rather than short-term calculations of
gaining an advantage over the Soviet Union. He found that the president’s
foreign policy, however, suffered from a public perception of weakness and a
fundamental inconsistency that was exacerbated by Soviet actions around the
world. The challenges from Moscow, in particular the Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan in 1979, led Carter, Smith contends, to radically shift his focus in
foreign policy away from human rights and a multilateral approach to the world
back to a return to orthodox Cold War positions. In the end, Smith concludes
that the critics’ skepticism about Carter’s ability and ideas, divisions within his
administration, the actions of the Soviet Union, and “the impossibility of seeing
clearly what needed to be done—all combined to make Carter’s vision appear
naïve.”4
Most other historians, albeit with different emphasis and for various reasons,
have echoed Smith’s findings. In a representative summary, Michael Hunt finds
Carter was “unprepared” to conduct the nation’s foreign policy, that his “thinking
on the issues was shallow and unsystematic,” and that his efforts to blend
the conflicting viewpoints of Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and National Security
Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski “further muddled Carter’s own outlook, left
policy adrift, and stimulated a cry for leadership and a return to the old foreignpolicy
verities.”5
Most damning is Burton Kaufman. In his overall examination
of the Carter presidency, Kaufman argues that the contemporary critics of
Carter were correct, and that “his four years in office projected an image to the
Jimmy Carter and the Foreign Policy of Human Rights : 115
3. Robert A. Strong, Working in the World: Jimmy Carter and the Making of American Foreign
Policy (Baton Rouge, LA, 2000), 274–75; for other positive appraisals of Carter’s diplomacy see
Erwin Hargrove, Jimmy Carter as President: Leadership and the Politics of the Public Good (Baton
Rouge, LA, 1988); and John Drumbell, The Carter Presidency: A Re-evaluation (Manchester:
1995). For more on the domestic political failure of Carter’s foreign policy see David Skidmore,
“Carter and the Failure of Foreign Policy Reform,” Political Science Quarterly, 108 (4):
699–729.
4. Gaddis Smith, Morality, Reason, and Power: American Diplomacy in the Carter Years (New
York, 1986), 247; see also David Skidmore, Reversing Course: Carter’s Foreign Policy, Domestic
Politics, and the Failure of Reform (Nashville, TN, 1996).
5. Michael Hunt, Ideology and U.S. Foreign Policy (New Haven, CT, 1987), 185–86.
American people of a hapless administration in disarray and of a presidency that
was increasingly divided, lacking in leadership, ineffective in dealing with Congress,
incapable of defending America’s honor abroad, and uncertain about its
purpose, priorities, and sense of direction.” He finds that Carter “tried to do
too much too quickly” in foreign affairs, and was “extremely naive” in the way
he dealt with the Soviet Union and tried to implement his human rights policy.6
Various scholars at the 1993 Hofstra University Conference on the Carter
presidency agreed with these evaluations. For example, Jerel Rosati argues that
Carter “attempted to implement the first post-Cold War foreign policy” based
on “a strategy of adjustment and preventive diplomacy, an image of complex
interdependence, and the promotion of human rights and global community.”
Yet, like Smith, he believes that Carter shifted his course of action in the middle
of his term in office in response to Soviet actions and domestic criticism, and
that all of this was made worse because “many of Carter’s foreign policy beliefs
were quite naive.”7
Vernon Vavrina, while crediting Carter with creating “an
explosion of interest in human rights” and giving “strength and audience to the
view that states are under a legal obligation to respect human rights,” still finds
that Carter’s policies were inconsistent and reflected Carter’s naivete.8
Even Tony Smith, who contends that the American commitment to promoting
democracy was “the central ambition of American foreign policy during
the twentieth century,” and argues that Carter’s “abiding concern for human
rights abroad” was his “finest legacy to the post-cold war world,” finds Carter
to be naive and his policy ineffective. The problem, Smith argues, stemmed
from the fact that “the campaign for human rights did not originally intend to
promote the entire panoply of democracy in world affairs.” What he calls
“Carter’s naive failure to understand” the realities of world politics, therefore,
came from his inability to move beyond moralism to implement his policy selectively,
and recognize the “limits to its appeal.”9
Finally, in a recent, comprehensive
overview of Carter’s foreign policy, William Stueck argues that despite
Carter’s efforts to “move the country in directions different from other presidents
in the post-World War II era,” there was more continuity, and failure,
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6. Burton I. Kaufman, The Presidency of James Earl Carter, Jr. (Lawrence, KS, 1993), 3, 37,
40; see also Donald S. Spencer, The Carter Implosion (New York, 1988).
7. Jerel Rosati, “The Rise and Fall of America’s First Post-Cold War Foreign Policy,” in
Jimmy Carter: Foreign Policy and Post-Presidential Years, eds. Herbert D. Rosenbaum and Alexej
Ugrinsky (Westport, CT, 1994), 44, 46.
8. Vernon J. Vavrina, “The Carter Human Rights Policy: Political Idealism and Realpolitik,”
in Rosenbaum and Ugrinsky, eds., Jimmy Carter, 110–11; for the most notable contemporary
critical assessment see Jeanne Kirkpatrick, “Dictatorships and Double Standards,”
Commentary, November 1979, 34–45, and “U.S. Security and Latin America,” Commentary,
January 1981, 29–40. See also Joshua Muravchik, The Uncertain Crusade: Jimmy Carter and the
Dilemmas of Human Rights Policy (Latham, 1986).
9. Tony Smith, America’s Mission: The United States and the Worldwide Struggle for Democracy
in the 20th
Century (Princeton, NJ, 1994), 3, 239, 241, 264–65.
than significant new directions and accomplishments during his four years in
office.10
None of these studies, with the exception of Kaufman, is based upon an
extensive use of the documents now available at the Carter Presidential Library.
Instead, they rely primarily on public documents and interviews. While the
archival record is by no means completely open, there is still a great deal of
material now available. This provides the basis for a new assessment of Jimmy
Carter’s foreign policy. Any reexamination of Carter’s diplomacy needs to begin
with his human rights policy, and the records at the Carter Library provide a
different picture concerning the questions of inconsistency and naivete in
Carter’s human rights policy. A close examination of the records from the first
year of the administration concerning the development and implementation of
the president’s human rights policy reveals that administration officials were
well aware of the difficulties, contradictions, and potential inconsistencies and
problems with their policy. Moreover, they show Carter and his administration’s
complete commitment to his human rights policy and how deeply embedded it
was in all aspects of the president’s foreign policy. While the main purpose of
this article is to set out the development of Carter’s human rights policy, it will
also provide a brief analysis of Carter’s response to the crisis in Nicaragua to
demonstrate that Carter, in the face of multiple pressures and crises at the end
of his term in office, did not abandon his policy or goals even as he made
changes in some areas of policy, most notably regarding relations with the Soviet
Union.
Carter’s foreign policy of human rights marked a break with Cold War
diplomacy. In the thirty years following World War II, the effort to contain
communism dominated American policy and overrode all other concerns.
Policymakers perceived a global struggle between the United States and the
inherently expansive and monolithic threat of Soviet communism. By the late
1960s and early 1970s, however, the Vietnam War prompted many to challenge
the basic premises of the foreign policy consensus around containment and the
bipolar worldview on which it rested. While Richard Nixon’s policy of détente
was one response to this crisis, it did not question the fundamental assumptions
of the containment policy, and many critics saw this as just a continuation of
the Cold War policy under a new guise. Meanwhile, an alternative basis for
foreign policy based on American values, human rights, and respect for selfdetermination
was emerging in Congress.11
Jimmy Carter and the Foreign Policy of Human Rights : 117
10. William Stueck, “Placing Jimmy Carter’s Foreign Policy” in The Carter Presidency:
Policy Choices in the Post-New Deal Era, eds. Gary M. Fink and Hugh Davis Graham (Lawrence,
KS, 1998), 247.
11. At the same time, the neo-conservative critique of American foreign policy that
emerged also made human rights a central issue and found a voice in the Carter administration
through National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski. However, it was focused mainly
on criticizing the Soviet Union and its allies, and furthering Cold War objectives. See John
Ehrman, The Rise of Neoconservatism: Intellectuals and Foreign Affairs, 1945–1994 (New Haven,
CT, 1995).
By the mid-1970s, various members of Congress were actively promoting
change in American foreign policy. In 1973, Representative Donald Fraser
began promoting human rights through hearings of his House Foreign Affairs
Subcommittee on International Organizations and Movements. The Senate
established the Church Committee in 1975 to investigate numerous allegations
of CIA covert operations against foreign governments. Senator Frank Church,
the Committee chair, saw the Vietnam War as a symptom of larger problems
that beset American foreign policy stemming from the lack of certain fundamental
moral and political values as guides for American diplomacy. The
investigations documented American covert involvement in the overthrow of
governments in Iran, Guatemala, and most recently Chile, attempts to oust
from power Sukarno in Indonesia and Castro in Cuba from power, and numerous
assassination plots by various administrations against foreign leaders. For
Church, the solution to the misguided American policy that led to these actions
and the Vietnam War was clear: “American foreign policy must be made to
conform once more to our historic ideals, the . . . fundamental belief in freedom
and popular government.”12
Congress also passed the Harkin Amendment in 1975, named after Congressman
Tom Harkin, and the International Security Assistance and Arms
Export Control Act in 1976. The Harkin Amendment banned the continuation
of economic assistance to nations found to consistently violate internationally
recognized standards of human rights. It called upon the Executive branch to
submit written reports to Congress on human rights, defined how American
assistance would be used in various nations to aid the people, and stipulated that
if either house of Congress found fault with the president’s position it could
cut off aid to that country through a concurrent resolution. The International
Security Assistance and Arms Export Control Act stated that the United States
should withhold assistance from any nation whose government consistently
violated human rights to avoid the identification of the United States with such
governments. The secretary of state was required “to provide ‘full and complete’
reports on the human rights practices of each country receiving security
assistance.”13
In December 1975, the Senate, reflecting the new perspectives in Congress,
voted to block continued military assistance to Angola. The Ford administration
claimed the money was necessary to resist Soviet expansion in Africa and
to maintain American credibility abroad. These arguments, the same ones that
had been used to justify the Vietnam War, failed now to persuade, and the
House joined the Senate in January 1976 in rejecting the Ford administration’s
request.14
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12. David F. Schmitz, “Senator Frank Church, the Ford Administration, and the Challenges
of Post-Vietnam Foreign Policy,” Peace and Change 21 (October 1996): 457.
13. ”Guidelines on U.S. Foreign Policy for Human Rights,” 2 February 1977, National
Security Advisor: Subject Files, Box 10–32, Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, Atlanta, GA
(hereafter JCL).
14. Schmitz, “Senator Frank Church,” 454–455.
In combination with the experience in Vietnam, the disclosures of illicit
covert actions and American support for brutal dictatorships legitimized alternative
views about America’s role in the world and made possible Jimmy Carter’s
emphasis on human rights and efforts to redirect American foreign policy away
from the logic and policy of containment. A central theme of Carter’s 1976 campaign
was a new direction in relations with the rest of the world. He believed
that the real strength of the United States rested in its ideals, promised to return
to the values of the Founding Fathers, and made morality one of the central
organizing tenets of his campaign. In his formal announcement that he was
running for president, Carter asserted that “our government can and must
represent the best and the highest values of those who voluntarily submit to
its authority.” He envisioned a world in which America would “set a standard
within the community of nations of courage, compassion, integrity, and dedication
to basic human rights and freedoms.”15
The central flaw in past American foreign policy, according to Carter, was
that it too narrowly focused on the Soviet Union, and did not encompass all of
the nation’s interests and values. He saw the United States as “strongest and
most effective when morality and a commitment to freedom and democracy
have been most clearly emphasized in our foreign policy.”16
In his first major
speech on foreign policy in 1976, Carter argued that the recent actions of the
United States weakened the moral standing of the nation. “Every successful
foreign policy we have had . . .,” Carter declared, “. . . was successful because it
reflected the best that was in us. And in every foreign policy that has failed—
whether it was Vietnam, Cambodia, Chile, Angola, or the excesses of the CIA—
our government forged ahead without consulting the American people, and did
things that were contrary to our basic character.”17
In accepting the Democratic nomination for president, Carter noted that it
was now time “for America to move and to speak not with boasting and belligerence
but with a quiet strength, to depend in world affairs not merely on
the size of an arsenal but on the nobility of ideas.” Carter promised new leadership
based on America’s historic values, cooperation with Congress, and more
openness with the American people. “Ours was the first nation,” Carter continued,
“to dedicate itself clearly to basic moral and philosophical principles:
that all people are created equal and endowed with inalienable rights to life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” and this “created a basis for a unique role
of America—that of a pioneer in shaping more decent and just relations among
people and among societies. Today, two hundred years later, we must address
ourselves to that role.”18
Demonstrating that his determination to change the fundamental basis of
American foreign policy was not merely campaign rhetoric, Carter announced
Jimmy Carter and the Foreign Policy of Human Rights : 119
15. Jimmy Carter, “Formal Announcement,” in The Presidential Campaign 1976 (Washington,
DC, 1978), 1:4.
16. Jimmy Carter, Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President (New York, 1982), 142.
17. Jimmy Carter, “Our Foreign Relations,” Presidential Campaign, 1:111.
18. Jimmy Carter, “Our Nation’s Past and Future,” Presidential Campaigns, 1:349, 351.
in his inaugural address that the nation’s “commitment to human rights must
be absolute.” He called upon the American people to “take on those moral
duties which, when assumed, seem inevitably to be in our own best interest,”
and to let the “recent mistakes bring a resurgent commitment to the basic principles
of our Nation.” The best means to defend freedom and advance the
national interest, Carter asserted, was to “demonstrate here that our democratic
system is worthy of emulation. . . . We will not behave in foreign places so as
to violate our rules and standards here at home.” The United States was “a
proudly idealistic nation” whose “moral sense dictates a clearcut preference for
those societies which share with us an abiding respect for individual human
rights.”19
That same day, the United States Information Agency broadcast a
speech to the rest of the world that Carter had videotaped. The president took
this unusual step in order to reaffirm his commitment to human rights, selfdetermination,
and nonintervention. He noted that he wished to assure other
nations that the United States had “acquired a more mature perspective on the
problems of the world,” that “recognizes that we alone do not have all the
answers to the world’s problems.” Still, Washington would take the lead in promoting
human rights and peaceful resolutions to problems.20
The president provided his most complete statement of his new policy in a
22 May 1977 commencement address at the University of Notre Dame. Carter
declared that the United States should have a foreign policy “that is democratic,
that is based on fundamental values, and that uses power and influence . . . for
humane purposes. We can also have a foreign policy that the American people
both support and, for a change, know about and understand.” Carter was convinced
that continued support for repressive dictatorships was not only against
American ideals but harmed the nation’s self-interest. The United States needed
to overcome its “inordinate fear of communism which once led us to embrace
any dictator who joined us in that fear,” and place its faith in its democratic
system and principles. The basic problem with the containment policy, the president
announced, was that “for too many years we’ve been willing to adopt the
flawed and erroneous principles and tactics of our adversary, sometimes abandoning
our own values for theirs. We’ve fought fire with fire, never thinking
that fire is better quenched with water. This approach,” he noted, “failed, with
Vietnam the best example of its intellectual and moral poverty.” The United
States, he believed, had to return to its belief in self-determination and democracy.
Carter called for a policy now based upon a commitment to “human rights
as a fundamental tenet of our foreign policy.” The old policy, according to
Carter, was based on an inaccurate reading of history and a flawed understanding
of the development of democracies. “The great democracies are not free
because we are strong and prosperous.” Rather, Carter argued, “we are strong
120 : d i p l o m a t i c h i s t o r y
19. Jimmy Carter, “Inaugural Address,” 20 January 1977, Public Papers: Carter, 1977, 1–4.
20. Carter, “Remarks to People of Other Nations on Assuming Office,” Public Papers:
Carter, 1977, 4–5.
and influential and prosperous because we are free.” Following a foreign policy
based on human rights did not dictate a policy conducted by “rigid moral
maxims.” But it did demand a belief in the power of ideas and a toleration of
change and diversity internationally. American policy was to be based on “a
larger view of global change” rather than the bipolar Cold War prism. It also
needed to be “rooted in our moral values, which never change.”21
National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski saw this as a “landmark
speech because while it recommitted the United States to our allies, it dedicated
this country to a policy of global involvement. It proclaimed human rights
as a basic tenet of U.S. foreign policy and identified this country with the aspirations
of the politically awakening world,” all concerns that had been marginalized
by Cold War objectives. No longer would U.S.-Soviet relations dictate
policy. Brzezinski explained that the move away from a bipolar worldview did
not mean the administration was unaware of the continuing conflict with the
Soviet Union. The call to overcome the nation’s “inordinate fear of communism”
was not, he wrote, “a dismissal of the reality of Soviet power but an optimistic
recognition of the greater appeal of liberty and of the superiority of the
democratic system.”22
Vice President Walter Mondale stated that the administration
was “for human rights not because we are against Communism, but
because we believe in human rights.” In the past, the United States “had gotten
these two objectives—anti-communism and human rights—confused,” leading
to intervention in the Third World.23
While Carter believed that “words are action,” he also acknowledged that
“we live in a world that is imperfect and will always be imperfect,” and that he
“fully understood the limits of moral suasion.”24
Ideas need to be supported by
a coherent policy designed to implement them. The administration, therefore,
immediately began developing the necessary guidelines and framework to turn
Carter’s views into a workable policy. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance sent a
memorandum to all assistant secretaries noting that the president “has stressed
this Administration’s strong commitment to the promotion of human rights,”
and that to carry out this policy the department needed “an overall human rights
strategy and internal mechanisms for helping assure balanced decisions in this
area.” To this end, he asked Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher to
establish a committee, the Interagency Group on Human Rights and Foreign
Assistance, to coordinate policy, and requested the State Department Policy
Planning Staff “to formulate a broad human rights policy for my review.”25
Jimmy Carter and the Foreign Policy of Human Rights : 121
21. Carter, “University of Notre Dame: Address at Commencement Exercises at University,”
22 May 1977, Public Papers: Carter, 1977, 954–62.
22. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Power and Principle: Memoirs of the National Security Advisor,
1977–1981 (New York, 1983), 56, 460.
23. Memorandum of Conversation, 25 May 1977, Chile Declassification Project, Carter
Library, Box 1, National Archives.
24. Ibid.
25. Cyrus Vance: Memorandum for All Assistant Secretaries, “Human Rights,” 2 February
1977, National Security Advisor: Subject Files, Box 10–32, JCL.
Vance’s memo was accompanied by a preliminary outline for a human rights
strategy and guidelines for developing a policy. The State Department recognized
that the numerous differences among nations made it difficult to develop
only one set of human rights positions and responses. Still, the department
believed that all members should “at least ask the same questions and proceed
as consistently as possible on the basis of comparable data and standards.” It,
therefore, set out general principles to be followed and a series of questions to
be used in determining if there were violations of internationally recognized
human rights as defined by the United Nations Universal Declaration of
Human Rights of 1948. It was essential that the policy be developed with the
long-range objective of a “gradual raising of world standards” that “recognized
the complexities of issues involved” and the “impossibility of uniform, automatic
responses to specific violations and consequent need for case-by-case
responses.” In formulating policy, the United States had to consider the nature
and extent of the violations in a particular country, the “level of political development”
in that nation, and the “direction of human rights trend[s]” there.
Specifically, it was essential to ask if the abuses were part of a greater pattern,
what role the government played in perpetrating these actions, and whether
there were any “special circumstances” that needed to be taken into consideration
in “formulating policies for achieving progress on human rights.” These
considerations included other U.S. interests in the area, American influence
in the region, the expected reaction of the government in question, possible
responses by other nations, and the legal and cultural factors of the nation in
question. A range of potential responses by the United States to human rights
abuses were set out, starting with quiet diplomacy and symbolic acts or statements
of disapproval to punitive actions such as withholding aid and other
means of assistance. These would be determined by the specific violations in
each case. That is, whether the action to be taken was designed to help an individual
victim, “raise general human rights standards in a country,” disassociate
the United States from a particular regime, or some mixture of these.26
The potential risks of such a policy were fully noted and broken down into
three categories. First, there was the risk of being accused of impinging upon
the sovereignty of other nations. This could have possible negative consequences
for other American interests, and allow leaders to rally nationalist sentiment
to oppose U.S. actions or provide an excuse for more severe repression.
The second risk was the danger of setting back general human rights efforts if
expectations were raised too high without concrete results, leading to a “loss of
faith in human rights efforts.” Moreover, there was the danger of a backlash if
there was a major fiasco “such as replacement of authoritarian regime by one
more repressive following US criticism.” Third, a policy based on human rights
122 : d i p l o m a t i c h i s t o r y
26. “Draft Outline for A Human Rights Strategy for the United States,” and “Guidelines
for US Foreign Policy for Human Rights,” 2 February 1977, National Security Advisor:
Subject File, Box 10–32, JCL.
opened the United States up to being criticized for inconsistency in the application
of the policy, and as well as to charges of a “lack of balance” or “double
standard.” Yet, the risks of inaction were seen as greater. These dangers included
the continued erosion of the political image of the United States as a supporter
of freedom; injury to American interests and influence abroad, particularly with
future democratic leadership in nations now ruled by dictators; and a loss of
public support for foreign policy.27
Finally, it was recommended that the United States start implementing the
policy by selecting “a limited number of ‘worst’ cases—perhaps one or two in
a region—on which to focus in the hope of gathering the largest possible
number of allies, including milder authoritarian regimes in the ‘Third World’
in a common attempt to raise international standards gradually from the current
‘bottom’ of official murder and torture.” This should begin with quiet diplomacy
to point out areas that needed improvement and minimum steps necessary
to avoid sanctions and move to public criticism to add pressure and “to
disassociate [the] US clearly from a repressive regime.”28
Vance had provided interim measures and a temporary framework to address
the issue of human rights. The next step would be the development of a systematic
and comprehensive “strategy and detailed plans to implement a more
vigorous national policy to advance human rights around the world, including
special implementing strategies for each geographic region to take common
regional factors into account.” Simultaneously, there needed to be speeches
made to clarify the United States position and to “establish a general US posture
of concern for human rights, but which present some of the complexities
involved, which avoid raising unrealistic expectations and which allay fears that
we are embarked on a crusade to drastically alter or topple 100-odd governments
around the world.”29
While the Presidential Review Memorandum (PRM) was being drafted,
Christopher and his staff began preparing speeches for the deputy secretary and
the secretary of state to deliver on human rights. Speaking to the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee on 7 March 1977, Christopher explained that human
rights would no longer be a separate issue from the rest of foreign policy, considered
only after other objectives had been met. Rather, it would be “woven
into the fabric of our foreign policy. If we are to do justice to our goals, we must
always act with a concern to achieve practical results and with an awareness of
the other demands of our diplomacy.” The challenge was to reconcile the goal
of a foreign policy based upon human rights with the more pragmatic aspects
of international relations. This meant that the administration had to do more
than just focus on gross violations of the rights of individuals—torture, murder,
and imprisonment of political dissenters—but extend its concern to basic human
Jimmy Carter and the Foreign Policy of Human Rights : 123
27. Ibid.
28. Ibid.
29. Ibid.
needs and civil and political liberties. The policy, therefore, would have to be
flexible and based on a “country by country basis, in each case balancing a
political concern for human rights against economic or security goals.”30
Secretary of State Vance spoke at the University of Georgia Law School on
30 April 1977. His speech was designed to meet the objective of setting out the
general parameters of the human rights policy while demonstrating the complexities
of the issue and lowering expectations for its goals and achievements.
As Vance noted at the outset, “our human rights policy must be understood in
order to be effective.” There were, Vance declared, three main categories of
human rights that concerned the United States: “the right to be free from governmental
violation of the integrity of the person,” such as torture or political
imprisonment; the right to fulfill one’s vital needs, such as for “food, shelter,
health care, and education”; and “civil and political liberties,” including freedom
of thought, religion, speech, press, and assembly. Vance stated that the administration’s
policy was “to promote all these rights,” which were recognized by
all nations through the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human
Rights.31
Vance cautioned, however, that in pursuing a policy based on human rights
it was necessary to remember “the limits of our power and of our wisdom. A
sure formula for defeat of our goals would be a rigid, hubristic attempt to
impose our values on others.” It would be necessary to evaluate the “nature of
the case that confronts us,” to discern the “prospects for effective action,” and
to balance these concerns against other interests. Moreover, the United States
would need to work within the U.N. system, and in cooperation with regional
organizations and international financial institutions. Still, it was justifiable to
expect positive results. Most immediately, Vance believed the United States
could help bring “a rapid end to such gross violations” as torture or prolonged
incarceration without charges. Other “results may be slower in coming but are
no less worth pursuing. And we intend to let other countries know where we
stand.”32
The administration, Vance noted, realized that the process would be “a long
journey” and that there were no illusions “that a call to the banner of human
rights will bring sudden transformations in authoritarian societies.” Still, “our
faith in the dignity of the individual encourages us to believe that people in
every society, according to their own traditions, will in time give their own
expression to this fundamental aspiration.” This new direction in American
foreign policy was necessary, Vance concluded, because it was right, because (as
the recent past indicated) the United States always risked, as the recent past
indicated, paying a serious price when it sided with repression, and because
124 : d i p l o m a t i c h i s t o r y
30. Warren Christopher, “Human Rights: An Important Concern of U.S. Foreign Policy,”
7 March 1977, Department of State Bulletin 76, 289–291.
31. Cyrus Vance, “Human Rights and Foreign Policy,” 30 April 1977, Department of State
Bulletin 76:505–508.
32. Ibid.
American interests and security were “enhanced in a world that shares common
freedoms.” Other parts of the world had been inspired by the American Revolution
and its “message of individual human freedom. That message has been
our great national asset in times past. So it should be again.”33
The Interagency Group on Human Rights and Foreign Assistance (Christopher
Group) held its first meeting on 6 May 6 with representatives from various
bureaus of the State Department, the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce,
Defense, and Labor, the National Security Council, and the Export-Import
Bank. In all, over forty people from various offices were in attendance. Without
a formal policy on human rights yet adopted to guide the deliberations, the
Christopher Group’s main function was to carry out the appropriate reviews of
specific aid proposals for nations as called for in Congressional legislation, but
not to attempt to formulate a general policy or long-term policies to promote
human rights in specific nations. For various reasons, security assistance, food
aid, development assistance, and actions by the International Monetary Fund
and the International Fund for Agricultural Development were placed outside
the review of the Christopher Group, but not from overall human rights policy.
This left the group to oversee the extension of loans and aid through Multilateral
Development Banks, and the questions of overall policy and authority
open.34
By early July, a final draft of the “Presidential Review Memorandum/NSC-
28: Human Rights” was completed. Eighty-five pages long, it was distributed
throughout the administration on July 8 by Warren Christopher. Because PRM
28 was the most thorough analysis of the question, and the basis of Carter’s
Presidential Directive on human rights in February 1978, it requires a lengthy
examination. It stated that the primary objective of United States “human rights
policy is to encourage the respect that governments accord to human rights.”
The reasons for adopting a human rights policy were numerous. It was “based
in national interest as well as our moral tradition and legal obligation.” Most
notably, it would fulfill the nation’s moral obligations stemming from its history,
heritage, and values; promote cooperation with Congress and strengthen
domestic support “for our foreign policy by permitting the moral and ethical
values of our people to be reflected in that policy”; carry out the laws of Congress
“authorizing foreign assistance that our foreign policy promote increased
observance of internationally recognized human rights by all countries”;
strengthen the rule of law and the upholding of international agreements such
as the Helsinki Final Act; protect American interests through the promotion of
American values of individual freedom and human dignity in contrast to totalitarianism;
mark an effective means to combat communism and promote demJimmy
Carter and the Foreign Policy of Human Rights : 125
33. Ibid.
34. Memorandum, Cyrus Vance and William Christopher to the President, 27 March
1978, White House Central Files (hereafter WHCF): Human Rights (hereafter HR), Box
HU-1, JCL; Caleb Rossiter and Anne-Marie Smith, “Human Rights: The Carter Record, the
Reagan Reaction,” International Policy Report (September 1984); Smith, Morality, 51.
ocratic forces in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe and the development of
more open societies; and “substitute[s], in our dealing with non-communist
countries, a standard based on governmental behavior toward people for an
increasingly outmoded Marxist-non-Marxist standard.” All of this would
“demonstrate that countries which violate basic human rights do so at a cost
and, conversely, that countries with positive records or improving performance
benefit tangibly and intangible [sic] from their efforts.” Human rights objectives,
therefore, “cannot be viewed in the abstract, and it should be obvious that
pursuing them can be useful in achieving other broad or particular goals, such
as greater credibility in the Third World.”35
Consistent with all earlier documents and statements by the administration,
the Presidential Review Memorandum on Human Rights derived its definitions
from the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and set out
the three main categories of human rights as: “the right to be free from governmental
violations of the integrity of the person”; the “economic and social
rights” of the individual to “food, shelter, health care, and education”; and “the
right to enjoy civil and political liberties,” notably freedom of thought, religion,
assembly, press, and speech. The first group of violations, which included
torture and cruel and inhuman treatment and punishment, arbitrary arrests, and
denial of fair trail, was included in the definition without debate. The universal
applicability of the second and third groups was challenged by some in the
debate over policy, but were expressly included by President Carter and at the
center of his new policy. As the PRM noted, “a policy which subordinated these
rights would not only be inconsistent with our humanitarian ideals and efforts,
but would also be unacceptable in the Third World where the tendency is to
view basic economic and social rights as the most important human rights of
all.” Any policy that ignored these “would be untrue to our heritage and basic
values.”36
The third group—civil and political rights—opened the policy up to criticism
that it would be an effort to impose Western values and ideas on the nonWestern
world “where they have no roots and relevance,” and a continuation
of previous paternalistic policies toward the Third World. This was rejected
because “these rights have been formally espoused by virtually all governments
and are of worldwide significance as a matter of practice.” Moreover, there was
no “inconsistency between political and civil rights on the one hand and economic
development on the other.” There was a need, however, “for caution to
avoid giving our policy a parochial cast that appears to export American-style
democracy.” The PRM noted that the recent experiences “in Vietnam and elsewhere
have taught us the limits of our power to influence the internal workings
of other nations.” The goal was the “enhancement of basic human rights in
126 : d i p l o m a t i c h i s t o r y
35. Presidential Review Memorandum/NSC-28: Human Rights, 7 July 1977 (hereafter
PRM: Human Rights), 1, 8–11, Robert J. Lipshutz Files, Box 19, JCL.
36. Ibid., 1–3.
diverse societies; we do not seek to change governments” or to remake other
countries in the image of the United States.37
A key debate was whether to give each group equal weight and consideration
or to accord priority to the first group over the other two. There were
good reasons to give all three equal status. Most notably, “if a priority is established
it would represent a judgment that violations of the second and third
groups are not as serious as those of the first group.” This would be a difficult
position to justify in many parts of the world, would be exploited by some
regimes to their advantage, and would diminish the incentives for foreign governments
to cooperate with the United States and “face up to basic economic,
social and political issues represented by the second and third groups.”38
Despite the validity of these concerns, the administration decided to give priority
to the first group because it included the “most egregious and horrible
abuses of authority” deserving immediate attention and would “help direct and
concentrate our efforts.” Since violations of human rights in the first group were
subject to “immediate curtailment—whereas violations of the second and third
groups generally require more time to remedy—the opportunity to achieve tangible
results in the short run may be greater with respect to the first group.”
Moreover, this would help to avoid some of the potential criticisms already
noted, and make it easier to gain acceptance of the policy. Finally, this made
sense because “in countries where the first group of rights is denied or threatened,
the protection of those rights has obvious priority, since human life and
fundamental human dignity is threatened.” In nations where the first group of
rights was generally observed, “but political and civil rights are abridged or nonexistent,
our policy should emphasize the promotion of those rights.”39
Turning to the implementation of human rights policy, the PRM again noted
the limits of the American ability to change human rights practices in other
countries, even with substantial efforts on Washington’s part. “Thus, our expectations
must be realistic, and we must concentrate on encouraging the maximum
possible evolutionary improvement.” Although there might be exceptional cases
where drastic improvements were made in a short period of time, and “certain
exceptional circumstances in which we will affirmatively seek drastic improvements,
e.g., our efforts to promote majority rule in Rhodesia,” these should not
be expected. The human rights policy would not be a failure if violations continued,
“or are reduced in intensity or frequency very slowly or unevenly despite
our best efforts.” The objective was one that had “to be pursued over the long
term.”40
Still, the administration believed it could achieve success. Securing stability
was a slow, developing process and real changes took time. It was believed that
within the next few years “our efforts will render many governments increasJimmy
Carter and the Foreign Policy of Human Rights : 127
37. Ibid., 3–4.
38. Ibid., 5–6.
39. Ibid., 4–6.
40. Ibid., 7–8 (emphasis in the original).
ingly conscious of human rights considerations to the extent that they will, in
a meaningful way, take such considerations into account in their policies.”
Indeed, the report claimed, “a number of governments have already begun to
do so.” The amount of time it would take for change would vary by country
and the nature of the human rights violations to be addressed, but the time
frame within which to expect improvements in group one would be shorter than
those in the other two.41
In addition, it had to be kept in mind that there were “other major objectives
of U.S. foreign policy that are of equal—and in some situations greater—
importance” than human rights. These included the fundamental security of the
nation, NATO solidarity, strategic arms limitation and other aspects of improving
relations with the Soviet Union, peace in the Middle East, and normalization
of relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Hence, there would
be “situations in which efforts to achieve our human rights goals will have to
be modified, delayed or curtailed in deference to other important objectives.”
Still, it was stressed that “the clear implication of making the promotion of
human rights a fundamental tenet of our foreign policy is that there will henceforth
be fewer instances when promotion of human rights will be viewed as a
marginal objective.”42
There were other important considerations and potential costs besides these
trade-offs in implementing a human rights policy. The administration feared
that its policy could create a backlash from other governments, thereby straining
relations and worsening human rights conditions. There was also the
concern that the inconsistencies inherent in any effort to implement a policy
based on an abstract concept such as human rights would provoke criticism.
Furthermore, unique cultural and social elements had to be distinguished from
human rights violations. “Failure to recognize cultural conflicts,” the document
cautioned, “can damage our human rights and other objectives. We must constantly
reassess our own standards to ensure that we are not confusing truly
objectionable conduct with unfamiliar traditional patterns of relationship or
conduct.” Finally, a human rights policy dictated that military assistance to and
cooperation with repressive governments be reduced or terminated. As this was
done, it was expected that relations with those nations would deteriorate, and
that this might “adversely affect U.S. security interests.” Yet, there were greater
costs from a failure to take action. If the human rights policy was not fully implemented,
there was sure to be “a backlash of public cynicism and Congressional
impatience and distrust, which may have an inhibiting or detrimental effect on
the whole range of the Administration’s foreign policy.”43
The administration was aware that all of these concerns had to be balanced
in each scenario, and, as noted above, no single program, goals, or standard
128 : d i p l o m a t i c h i s t o r y
41. Ibid.
42. Ibid., 12–13.
43. Ibid., 13–16.
would be effective in promoting human rights throughout the world. There
were too many factors to take into consideration to effectively legislate a mandated
response to each, making a flexible policy within certain guidelines the
best option. As the report noted, “there are vast differences among human rights
conditions in various countries, and what may rise to the level of highly egregious
in one country may not be properly so characterized in the setting of
another country with different circumstances.” American policy must, therefore,
take such differences into account. It would be a problem if the United
States was “required to take the same action . . . with respect to different countries,
even though our own best assessment of the circumstances . . . might indicate
that the mandated action would be inappropriate or that other actions
should be taken instead.”44
Although the same approach would not be effective in every situation, countries
were grouped together into four categories designed to assist in analyzing
and discussing policy with regards to human rights: Western Democracies;
Communist States; Third World Nations; and Gross Violators of Human
Rights. In terms of the Western democracies, the administration would seek
their support for its human rights policy in order to add weight to American
efforts and to reinforce democratic tendencies in nations such as Greece, Portugal,
and Spain that had only recently established or reestablished democratic
governments. Concerning communist countries, it was necessary to “recognize
that major changes in communist regimes and their human rights practices will
not take place in the short-term; they are only likely to occur, if at all, gradually
as the basic political and social structures of these countries change.” Still,
the administration believed that the United States could “positively influence
trends in the long-term and encourage improvements in limited but important
areas in the short-term,” and that it should “emphasize implementation of the
Helsinki Final Act.”45
Due to its “pivotal importance,” the Soviet Union merited separate consideration
from the other communist states. The administration acknowledged
that the Soviet response to American human rights initiatives was “uniformly
negative and increasingly sharp, explicitly suggesting that détente is threatened
by our policy.” Yet, the administration believed that the objective of Soviet complaints
was to reduce American public advocacy of human rights in order to
decrease the “most embarrassing aspects for them,” and did not pose a threat
to other interests. Rather, Moscow would “continue to pursue its perceived
interests in arms control, trade, scientific and cultural exchanges and other areas
of our bilateral relations, regardless of our advocacy of human rights,” because
of the numerous gains and materials it received. Soviet leaders, under the
“inevitable strain of a massive arms race” and “a need to take increasing consumer
demands into account and potential unrest in Eastern Europe,” could
Jimmy Carter and the Foreign Policy of Human Rights : 129
44. Ibid., 25 (emphasis in the original).
45. Ibid., 17–18.
not easily abandon détente “because of U.S. human rights advocacy.” Ironically,
the main problem in carrying out this policy came from domestic sources. Congressional
and public demands for immediate changes in Soviet policy, particularly
regarding Jewish emigration, made carrying out a policy focused on the
long-term objectives of Carter’s policy difficult to implement. There would be
continued pressure, and possibly more legislation, such as the Jackson-Vanik
Amendment, that was designed to set rigid standards of human rights behavior
by the Soviet Union with automatic penalties. In the end, however, the administration
believed that “security interests and human rights concerns can both
be accommodated” in relations with the Soviet Union, and that it could manage
the problem. Indeed, it had no choice because a “failure to execute an appropriate
human rights strategy with proper balance will detract from the political
value of our human rights policy elsewhere in the world.”46
Conversely, with regard to relations with the People’s Republic of China and
the normalization of relations, considerations other than human rights would
take priority. There could be human rights initiatives, mainly concerning family
reunification, after formal relations were established. Until then, the administration
decided not to focus on human rights in conducting relations with
China. As the PRM declared, “we should recognize that with respect to human
rights we will have little if any leverage with the PRC at this stage in its
development.”47
Turning to the Third World, the overall concern of the policy was to “reinforce
positive human rights and democratic tendencies in the Third World,
particularly in states that already have demonstrated good or improving human
rights performance,” and to “discourage the arbitrary use of power and promote
a more equitable and humane social and economic order” in states where human
rights values have yet to take root. American “relations with countries that
systematically violate human rights” should be correct and in line with other
interests, but not close. “The tone we set in our relations is important to the
credibility and thus to the success of our overall policy objectives.” To achieve
success, the focus would be on the “promotion of economic and social rights.”
The administration believed it would evoke the most positive responses from
the various governments and people and demonstrate “a responsiveness, in
human rights terms, to their most immediate goals.”48
It was the last group of nations, the Gross Violators of Human Rights, that
presented the most problems. They required a flexible strategy to first identify
them and then to address the governments that showed “a consistent pattern
of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights.” On the one
hand, the Harkin Amendment and the International Security Assistance and
Arms Export Control Act both called for a cessation of assistance to any con-
130 : d i p l o m a t i c h i s t o r y
46. Ibid., 18–20.
47. Ibid., 20.
48. Ibid., 21–22.
sistent violators of human rights, but provided no guidelines for assessing which
nations fell into this category. Trying to develop a single measure pointed up
“the limitations in the human rights context of requiring uniform actions pursuant
to a statutorily-prescribed standard of conduct.” Again, the PRM emphasized
that policy had to take into account the “vast differences among human
rights conditions in various countries, and what may rise to the level of highly
egregious conduct in one country may not be properly so characterized in
the setting of another country with different circumstance[s] and a different
history.” That is, the determination that human rights violations were taking
place did not necessarily answer the question of what action to take. On the
other hand, there was the danger of the perception of inconsistency that
demanded some uniform questions and manner of evaluating the conditions in
different nations. These were divided into three groups: the nature of the case,
the potential effectiveness of any actions considered, and the impact of any
actions on the other aspects of American policy. While these criteria did not
provide an absolute formula for determining the appropriate action, they would
serve as a guide to the implementation of effective measures to improve the
human rights situation in different nations.49
To facilitate this, “an evaluation of the particular types of action . . . must be
made in light of, and the action must be tailored to fit, the exigencies of the
particular case at hand, consistent with the aims of the overall strategy for the
country involved.” Actions should begin with quiet diplomacy of a diplomatic
demarche. “There would appear to be no point in starting with more drastic
action that would catch an offending government by surprise.” From there, it
was emphasized that rewards, as well as penalties, would be an important and
effective component of the policy. When used in conjunction with one another,
the “carrot” and the “stick” could entice otherwise unyielding opponents into
improving conditions. A wide range of tactics were available beyond quiet diplomacy,
including public statements, withholding of various forms of aid, and the
use of international agencies to support American policy.50
A more specific dilemma was posed by how to develop a policy toward
friendly and allied nations guilty of various and consistent human rights problems.
During the campaign and at the University of Notre Dame, Carter had
criticized previous administrations for supporting authoritarian regimes in the
name of national security and forming alliances with any anti-communist government.
The president was determined to “combine support for our more
authoritarian allies and friends with the effective promotion of human rights
within their countries. By inducing them to change their repressive policies,”
the United States “would enhance freedom and democracy, and help those
who suffer from persecution.” That could be accomplished “without replacing
a rightist totalitarian regime with a leftist one of the same oppressive characJimmy
Carter and the Foreign Policy of Human Rights : 131
49. Ibid., 23–31.
50. Ibid., 31–38.
ter.”51
In these states, the report noted, “we have considerable influence, especially
where the regime does not feel overwhelmingly threatened by internal
security problems,” and the human rights policy “will offer reform-minded elements
a viable alternative to communist rhetoric.” It was also critical to remember
that a “failure to express human rights concerns would give real support to
the continuation of repressive regimes.” Yet, when these nations were linked to
American security interests, there was a conflict of priorities that raised a whole
new set of questions.52
This difficulty was combined with a further frustration noted in the conclusion
of the PRM. “In inaugurating our human rights policy,” the report
observed, “we have been faced with the anomaly that the human rights advocates
on the Hill who should be our greatest supporters have been frustrated
because our actions fail to meet their optimistic expectations.” They were joined
by those who sought to use human rights only as a means to hamper détente
with the Soviet Union. As a result, the inevitable inconsistencies of the policy
would bring criticism from both the Right and the Left. Notably, an “insistence
on military assistance for offending regimes in which we have little security
interest, especially in Latin America, will bring us under increasing fire from
Congress as the year goes on unless we can produce visible results.” Simultaneously,
the administration expected others in Congress to use human rights
“for publicly pillorying the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries.”
This meant that the administration, as it fully implemented its policy, needed
to review the military aid programs and make sure that the administration bolstered
its policy “with examples of the positive results” achieved.53
Given the complexity of the human rights policy, it was difficult to effectively
explain all its nuance to the public. Still, it was seen as a necessary undertaking.
Brzezinski, often categorized as an opponent of the policy, believed
Carter’s new direction was essential. While he “put a stronger emphasis . . . on
the notion that strengthening American power was the necessary point of departure”
for American policy than Carter or Vance, Brzezinski fully supported the
human rights policy. He was “convinced that the idea of basic human rights had
a powerful appeal in the emerging world of emancipated but usually nondemocratic
nation states.” Moreover, Brzezinski thought that the previous
administration’s “lack of attention to this issue had undermined international
support for the United States.” The national security advisor, therefore, “felt
strongly that a major emphasis on human rights as a component of U.S. foreign
policy would advance America’s global interests by demonstrating to the emerging
nations of the Third World the reality of our democratic system, in sharp
contrast to the political system and practices of our adversaries.”54
132 : d i p l o m a t i c h i s t o r y
51. Carter, Keeping Faith, 143.
52. PRM: Human Rights, 76–77.
53. Ibid., 82–85.
54. Brzezinski, Power and Principle, 49, 124.
The beginning of 1978 provided an opportune time for the administration
to assess its human rights policy after one year. Overall, it found progress along
the lines set out in the Presidential Review Memorandum on Human Rights.
Jessica Tuchman of the National Security Council asserted on 5 January 1978
that the “major accomplishment . . . has been to raise this issue to the forefront
of world consciousness. Virtually all world leaders are now concerned with
human rights. They know that now their human rights image is a significant
factor in their standing in the international community—as well as in their relations
to the U.S.” Similar to the way that “Earth Day added new words and concepts
to the language . . . Carter’s human rights policy, just as dramatically, [has]
added a new aspect to international relations.” Tuchman continued by noting
that while foreign governments, for obvious reasons, rarely attributed changes
to U.S. pressure, nonetheless a careful analysis showed “the change of attitude
of the U.S. government toward freedom” to be among the contributing factors
in the improvement of human rights conditions in numerous countries, particularly
in Latin America. And while in many instances the “liberalizing changes
have been slight, and to an extent cosmetic . . . for a released political prisoner
or a writer who feels freer to write again, cosmetics are reality.”55
In a more comprehensive evaluation prepared by Anthony Lake of the Policy
Planning Staff of the State Department later that month, the overall conclusion
reached was that the “human rights policy is off to a good start” but that to no
one’s surprise “problems remain.” In terms of accomplishments, Lake found
that given the human rights policy “our post-Vietnam, post-Watergate image
has been greatly improved,” that the United States had taken the ideological
initiative back from the Soviet Union, and that people who lived under oppressive
regimes found the policy “especially appealing.” The last point “underscores
what many of us frequently forget—the U.S. is a model for many
countries; our influence transcends our political, economic, and military power
and is strikingly important in ethical, cultural, and value areas” United States
leadership was encouraging others to take up the issue of human rights, and this
increased international pressure had already led to the release of political prisoners
in a dozen nations and other improvements around the world. Due to
this, the report concluded that “a trend seems to have begun which could gather
momentum and which already is improving the plight of individuals—including
those under some still authoritarian regimes. And since individuals are what
the human rights policy is primarily about, even the scattered and partial successes
registered to date are important.”56
The assessment found that there had been very little cost in pursuing the
human rights policy up to this point. There always needed to be concern that
Jimmy Carter and the Foreign Policy of Human Rights : 133
55. Jessica Tuchman to David Aaron, “Assessment of Human Rights Accomplishments,”
5 January 1978, White House Central Files (hereafter WHCF), Human Rights (hereafter HR),
Box HU-1, JCL.
56. Anthony Lake to Cyrus Vance, “The Human Rights Policy: An Interim Assessment,”
16 January 1978, 1, 5–6, WHCF:HR, Box HU-1, JCL.
“the ‘destabilizing’ effect of international attention to human rights may lead
some authoritarian regimes to tighten domestic screws.” Yet, in the nations
where this was a possibility, “those most affected seem to want us to continue
our efforts: they apparently believe that the near-term risk is in their own longterm
interest.” Moreover, it was noted that the pursuit of human rights objectives,
while they had yet to damage other U.S. aims, could still create conflicts
with other foreign policy objectives and lead to conflicts with international
organizations and allies. The greatest area of concern was in East Asia, where
tensions between security issues and human rights concerns in South Korea and
the Philippines needed to be closely watched. Lake observed that this “survey
of all the damage our human rights advocacy might have caused to other U.S.
interests—but hasn’t—is a useful reminder that other governments’ concrete
interest in cooperation with us is often as great as ours with them, and sometimes
greater.” Their needs in terms of security or economic aid allows the
United States “considerable room for human rights advocacy, without serious
damage to other U.S. interests.”57
In implementing its policy, however, Washington still had to avoid the
danger of being perceived as “the self-appointed guardian of the world’s morals,
having shifted from an anti-communist crusade to one equally sanctimonious.
If our human rights policy should come to be seen as designed to further some
definition of US geopolitical interest, it would not only damage our ability to
press the human rights cause, but also make us suspect on other issues.” This
was not yet the case. Indeed, “the human rights policy has gone far to reverse
the situation where cooperation with us was based more on need than respect.”
But the “perception of moral arrogance” could still alter the balance.58
That there were inconsistencies in the application of the policy was neither
surprising nor a problem. As Lake noted, “there are times when security consideration,
or broader political factors, lead us to be ‘softer’ on some countries’
human rights performance than others.” Indeed, “it often is a close call just what
action is most likely to produce improvement in a human rights situation.” That
meant that “one of the most difficult questions in the human rights business is
what actions on our part are most likely to encourage a government to believe
that further progress is worthwhile, without leading it to think we believe its
human rights problem is solved.” This was further complicated by the fact that
the United States had “a good deal more leverage in Latin America” than other
regions of the world and, therefore, appeared to be more active there than elsewhere.
Moreover, while the administration publicly stated “that all three aspects
of human rights (integrity of the person; economic rights; political rights) are
equally important,” Washington’s loan decisions, consistent with the PRM on
Human Rights, were “much tougher on governments which practice torture,
arbitrary arrest and detention and other violations of the person.” An effective
134 : d i p l o m a t i c h i s t o r y
57. Ibid., 6–10.
58. Ibid., 10.
policy, Lake concluded, could only be implemented on a case-by-case basis that
took specific and unique factors in each nation into consideration, and avoided
trying to use clear guidelines where “certain human rights violations will always
receive certain treatment.”59
In summary, Lake concluded that “the human rights policy may be the
best thing this Administration has going for it. It has enormously improved
America’s international standing and our claim to moral leadership,” helped
countless numbers of individuals, and improved the political situation in many
nations. Yet, “any serious human rights policy will be subject to conflicting criticisms.
Limiting ourselves to rhetoric and quiet diplomacy would produce (and
deserve) charges of superficiality and hypocrisy,” while “using material pressure
(i.e., economic and military assistance) produces charges of moral arrogance.”
In addition, “softening our human rights advocacy in some cases to protect
other American interests produces accusations of double standards,” while
“adjusting our tactics in order to try to be effective in different situations produces
accusations of inconsistency.” Some justification could be found in most
of these criticisms because “any policy as difficult and complex as this inevitably
has a debit side. The balance, however, is decidedly positive, and we do not
believe a major change is called for.” The administration has “done a lot in a
short time to inject new considerations into American foreign policy—to move
beyond formal relations with other governments to a concern with how our
actions affect people living under those governments. We have done so with
encouraging success, and with little if any cost.”60
Still, the assessment concluded, the administration needed to do a better job
of explaining its policy to the public “and the possibilities and limits of what we
can hope to accomplish. Both the policy and its execution are far more complex
than we have managed to convey.” It was, of course, “in the nature of the
problem that our performance will not become ‘perfect.’” The State Department,
therefore, “should go on the offensive to convey that message, and especially
a sophisticated understanding of the obstacles we confront.” To that end,
Lake recommended that a Presidential Directive be issued “to clarify to the
bureaucracy how the President views the policy, its application, and the range
of instruments being used.”61
On 17 February 1978, the Presidential Directive on Human Rights, NSC-
30, was issued by Carter. It declared that “it shall be the major objective of U.S.
foreign policy to promote the observance of human rights throughout the
world. The policy shall be applied globally, but with due consideration to the
cultural, political and historical characteristics of each nation, and to other
fundamental U.S. interests with respect to the nation in question.” Specifically,
NSC-30 noted that it “shall be the objective of the U.S. human rights policy
Jimmy Carter and the Foreign Policy of Human Rights : 135
59. Ibid., 11–15.
60. Ibid., 20–21.
61. Ibid., 21, 16.
to reduce worldwide governmental violations of the integrity of the person (e.g.,
torture; cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment; arbitrary arrest or imprisonment;
lengthy detention without trial; and assassination) and to enhance civil
and political liberties (e.g., freedom of speech, of religion, of assembly, of movement
and of the press; and the right to basic judicial protections).” It would also
be a continuing United States objective to “promote basic economic and social
rights (e.g., adequate food, education, shelter and health).” The promotion of
human rights was to be carried out by using all of the available diplomatic
tools and international organizations available to the administration. Positive
inducements would be employed over sanctions to encourage change, and those
nations that improved their human rights conditions would receive preferential
treatment and “special consideration in the allocation of U.S. foreign
assistance.”62
By the beginning of 1978, the Carter administration had successfully developed
and institutionalized its policy of human rights and made it a central factor
in American foreign policy decisions. Yet, as Vance and Christopher pointed
out to the president, the administration had “acted with moderation in these
136 : d i p l o m a t i c h i s t o r y
62. Presidential Directive/NSC-30, Human Rights, 17 February 1978, Vertical File: Presidential
Directives, JCL.
Figure 1: National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter, Secretary
of State Cyrus Vance, 14 August 1977. ( Jimmy Carter Presidential Library)
matters.” Out of over four hundred votes on loans by International Financial
Institutions, the administration voted against nine and abstained on fourteen
loans on human rights grounds. In terms of bilateral aid, the record was equally
moderate as the administration deferred on twenty-two cases of assistance, out
of hundreds of requests, due to human rights considerations. Together, these
decisions concerned a total of only thirteen countries (Argentina, Benin, Central
African Empire, Chile, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Guinea, Nicaragua, Paraguay,
Philippines, South Korea, South Yemen, and Uruguay). All of this reflected the
effort to place a “greater emphasis on ‘rewards’ rather than ‘sanctions.’” As
Carter pointed out in a letter to congressional critics, this record reflected the
administration’s desire to first use “positive actions and normal diplomatic
channels in pursuing our human rights objectives,” and to direct “a greater share
of our bilateral and multilateral assistance to governments that respect human
rights.”63
Throughout the rest of his time in office, Carter maintained his commitment
to this policy even as the years 1979 and 1980 saw a series of crises for
the administration. Domestically, the administration struggled with tremendous
economic problems, including double-digit inflation and soaring interest rates.
Overseas, 1979 began with the abdication of America’s long-time ally, the shah
of Iran, followed by the coming to power of the anti-American regime of the
Ayatollah Khomeini. In July, Anastasio Somoza was forced out of office in
Nicaragua and replaced by the Sandinistas. Simultaneously, Carter was forced
to back off from his pledge to remove American troops from South Korea. That
fall, radical Islamic students overran the U.S. embassy in Tehran, an event
soon followed by Moscow’s sending troops into neighboring Afghanistan.
While there was a shift back toward the verities of the Cold War if one focuses
on U.S.-Soviet relations, that was not true for all areas. Using Nicaragua as a
case study, it is clear that, in the face of criticism and pressure from many
sources, and foreign policy reversals in other areas, Carter maintained his commitment
to the essence of his human rights policy and rejected pleas for American
intervention that had previously marked relations with Central America.
There was constant tension, and always a need to balance human rights against
other demands, but the policy was not naive, nor was it abandoned. The key
was that human rights provided an alternative to the previous policies of military
intervention and support for dictatorships that marred much of the U.S.
relations with Latin America and created the crisis in Nicaragua.
By Carter’s second year in office, the Sandinista challenge to Somoza’s rule
in Nicaragua reached the point of crisis and tested the administration’s commitment
to human rights. The president had made a special point of changing
American policy toward Latin America by promoting human rights, a policy
that now conflicted with American security interests and support of a friendly
Jimmy Carter and the Foreign Policy of Human Rights : 137
63. Vance and Christopher to Carter, 27 March 1978; and Carter to Moorhead, 12 April
1978, WHCF:HR, Box HU-1, JCL.
dictator. In Nicaragua, Carter faced the central dilemma of his foreign policy:
the desire to distance the United States from the Somoza dictatorship and
base American policy on human rights without aiding a communist revolution.
Carter, however, saw the dichotomy of Somoza or communism as false, and
sought to find a third way based on human rights and non-intervention. Developing
such a policy was complicated by the division within his administration
and the political pressures from Somoza’s supporters in the United States.
Brzezinski saw the Sandinista revolution as a “challenge thrown down by the
Soviet bloc” that demanded the United States provide aid to Somoza.64
Vance,
however, argued that the roots of the revolution were domestic in origin and
stemmed from the abuses of the Somoza regime. The problem of reconciling
these positions was further complicated by the domestic division within the
United States between the strong pro-Somoza lobby in Congress and growing
public awareness and opposition to Somoza’s brutal rule. While this article is
not the place for an exhaustive analysis of the president’s actions toward
Nicaragua, it is clear that Carter followed the guidelines set out by his administration
to implement his policy. The president combined public praise for
improvements by the Somoza regime with private pressure for reform as he
sought a middle ground that would protect American interests, promote human
rights, and prevent the Sandinistas from seizing power. As he implemented his
policy, Carter had to defend his actions against charges that he was abandoning
an ally and opening the door to communism in Central America while
simultaneously being criticized for supporting a flagrant perpetrator of human
rights violations.
Somoza initially acquiesced to Carter’s pressure for reform in 1977, lifting
press censorship and curtailing the activities of the National Guard. In return,
the administration praised the dictator, encouraged further action, and, in
response to increased attacks by the Sandinistas in the spring of 1978, sent additional
aid to Nicaragua. On 30 June 1978, Carter sent the Nicaraguan dictator
a private, personal letter praising the recent promises Somoza made to curtail
human rights abuses and reiterating American support for the regime. Carter
wrote that the “steps toward respecting human rights you are considering are
important and heartening signs; and, as they are translated into actions, will
mark a major advance in answering some of the criticisms recently aimed at the
Nicaraguan government.”65
As Robert Strong has demonstrated, the sending of
the letter backfired on Carter. Somoza, after initially accepting the letter as a
sign of support, came to see it as “designed to give us a false sense of security,”
as Carter “was stepping up his attack against me and the government of
Nicaragua.”66
138 : d i p l o m a t i c h i s t o r y
64. Brzezinski, Power and Principle, 210.
65. Carter to Somoza, 30 June 1978, WHCF:HR, Box HU-1, JCL.
66. Strong, Working in the World, 90.
With the Sandinista attack on the National Legislative Palace in September,
however, events quickly outpaced Carter’s efforts at slowly pushing Somoza to
reform his government while maintaining American support. The president was
forced to choose between his policy or supporting the dictator. The administration
now concluded that the only solution was the removal of Somoza and
the establishment of a moderate government to prevent a Sandinista takeover.
As Brzezinski told Carter, both the State Department and the National Security
Council agreed that the situation was “deteriorating rapidly and that
Somoza had decided to take steps to suppress the moderate opposition, thus
trying to force us to choose between him and the Sandinistas.”67
The administration,
however, concluded that “ultimately Somoza would have to go.”68
As
Vance noted, the “unique history of our association with the Somozas, puts US
prestige on the line,” and made it critical that Washington distance itself from
the dictator. Moreover, the secretary of state believed that the Sandinistas would
lose support if Somoza was replaced, allowing time for a peaceful transition of
power. “Support of the status quo through Somoza,” Vance concluded, “will
simply not serve our interests.”69
What is significant is that the administration did not support Somoza and
instead upheld its policy of human rights and non-intervention. Unlike
previous administrations, it did not see only two alternatives, the dictator or
communism. Rather, it continued to pressure Somoza and worked toward a
moderate solution to the crisis. In September 1978, the administration concluded
that any further support of Somoza would only increase the violence in
the nation and further polarize the country, “with the moderates in the middle
the big losers.” It was critical that the United States give the broad opposition
in Nicaragua what it wanted, the departure of Somoza. This would allow for a
better chance that “a moderate compromise . . . will have the time and elements
necessary to take root and grow as a viable democratic alternative to Somoza
rule or Marxist encroachments.”70
At the same time, the administration was facing enormous criticism at home
from conservative supporters of Somoza who cast the crisis in Nicaragua in
Cold War terms. Led by Congressman John Murphy of New York, they
sought full American support, including the use of the military, to save Somoza’s
regime. Murphy and fifty-nine of his colleagues in the House of Representatives
wrote Carter urging the president to take all steps “to demonstrate the
support of the United States Government for the Government of Nicaragua
and President Anastasio Somoza, a long and consistent ally of the United
Jimmy Carter and the Foreign Policy of Human Rights : 139
67. Memorandum, Brzezinski to Carter, 4 September 1978, Zbigniew Brzezinski Papers
(hereafter ZBP), Box 36, JCL.
68. Memorandum of Conversation, “U.S. Policy to Nicaragua,” 4 September 1978, ZBP,
Box 36, JCL.
69. Memorandum, Vance to Carter, 4 September 1978, ZBP, Box 36, JCL.
70. Memorandum, “Nicaragua—Factors and Figures in the Process Leading to a Transitional
Government,” 7 September 1978, ZBP, Box 36, JCL.
States.” They claimed that the “campaign of violence, urban terrorism and near
civil war in Nicaragua is being carried out by a revolutionary group whose
leaders have been trained in Havana and Moscow and whose goal is to make
Nicaragua the new Cuba of the Western Hemisphere.” If Somoza fell, “the
Marxist terrorists forces would be the chief beneficiaries.” The representatives,
therefore, asked Carter “to take immediate steps to correct the misguided
application of your policies by the Department of State, particularly regarding
unsubstantiated and erroneous allegations against the government of
Nicaragua,” and to publicly express support for Somoza.71
The administration, however, continued to urge negotiations for a transition
in government while stepping up the pressure on Somoza to both make concessions
and leave office. Washington urged the Nicaraguan dictator to lift the
state of siege he declared, grant an amnesty bill for opponents of the regime,
and end the censorship of the press. Somoza finally agreed to these concessions
in December, but continued to hold on to power. He told the American embassy
in Managua that he could “resist both internal and international pressures.”72
He was confident in early 1979 that the changes urged by the United States
140 : d i p l o m a t i c h i s t o r y
71. Murphy, et al., to Carter, 25 September 1978, WHCF:CO, Box CO-46, JCL.
72. United States Embassy, Nicaragua to Department of State, 23 December 1978,
Nicaragua, Box 2, National Security Archives, George Washington University, Washington,
DC (hereafter NSA).
Figure 2: Jimmy Carter addresses the United Nations, 4 October 1977. (Jimmy Carter Presidential
Library)
“did not reflect the general wishes of the large mass of Nicaraguans of more
modest means who were comfortable with the way things had been done in the
past fifty years.”73
As the Carter administration struggled to find a moderate course in
Nicaragua in early 1979, the Bureau of Human Rights cautioned that any continued
support of Somoza would “undermine our capacity to work for other
foreign policy goals in the hemisphere, and raise fundamental and disturbing
questions about our strength of purpose internationally,” and destroy the possibility
of “opening political institutions and promoting human rights” in the
hemisphere. Indeed, a failure to force Somoza to change or leave office would
“encourage just those forces likely to promote hardline military and repressive
responses to the inevitably unsettled social and political conditions” of the
region.74
The administration, therefore, continued its efforts to find a moderate
alternative to Somoza, convinced that a failure to do so would result in either
“leftist governments in the region or the necessity of US intervention.”75
At the end of June 1979, the United States made its final attempt to force
Somoza to leave office peacefully without creating a power vacuum, seeking
to remove the dictator while maintaining the power of a restructured National
Guard to provide protection to the transitional government. Carter wrote
Somoza again, reminding him that he had rejected all earlier compromises that
would have avoided the current fighting and apparent Sandinista victory. “The
only chance that remains,” the president stated, “to achieve an enduring and
democratic solution is to establish a transition process . . . which will permit
moderate elements to survive and compete with extremists.”76
Realizing he
could no longer hold onto power, and finally convinced that the United States
would not save him, Somoza resigned on 17 July 1979. It was, however, too late
for an alternative to the Sandinistas, who took power three days later.
Initially, relations between the United States and the Sandinista government
were cordial and there was some hope on both sides that friendly relations could
be established. The administration reported to Congress that despite some
surface similarities between the Nicaraguan and Cuban revolutions, the Sandinistas
were an “authentic Nicaraguan phenomenon,” and that “the Sandinista
movement represents a societal consensus that radical change was needed in
Nicaragua.” After years of repression and civil war, Nicaragua was in great need
of aid, and the administration indicated it would be “generous in its assistance
and supportive of the democratic aims of the Sandinista revolution.”77
ConJimmy
Carter and the Foreign Policy of Human Rights : 141
73. United States Embassy, Nicaragua to Department of State, 13 January 1979,
Nicaragua, Box 2, NSA.
74. Memorandum, Bureau of Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs to Bowdler, 19
January 1979, Nicaragua, Box 2, NSA.
75. Memorandum, Pastor to Brzezinski, Aaron, and Owen, 8 June 1979, ZBP, Box 25, JCL.
76. Department of State to United States Embassy, Nicaragua, “Somoza’s Departure,” 14
July 1979, Nicaragua, Box 2, NSA.
77. Embassy, Nicaragua to Department of State, 23 August 1979, Nicaragua, Box 2, NSA.
gressman Murphy, however, led a successful effort in Congress to block any aid
to the Sandinistas and relations between Managua and Washington quickly
began to deteriorate as each side suspected the worst in the other. By 1980, the
administration’s belief in the new government’s commitment to democracy was
shaken when the Sandinistas delayed promised elections. For their part,
the Sandinistas feared a coup led by former National Guard soldiers who were
organizing in neighboring countries, and tightened their control over the
nation. Still, this increasing tension did not mean Carter had abandoned his
policy for traditional Cold War policies. He continued to use human rights as
a yardstick and rejected American intervention.
Carter would face accusations from conservatives that his human rights
policy had destabilized and undermined a critical ally and led to a Communist
takeover in Nicaragua. The revolt in Nicaragua, however, was well under way
by the time Carter entered office and, barring direct American intervention,
beyond his control. The president sought a middle course that he believed
would allow him to uphold his human rights policy while also protecting American
economic and strategic interests. Somoza’s intransigence caused the search
for a moderate solution to fail. Liberals, failing to account for Carter’s attempts
to find a solution that would balance security interests with the principles of
human rights, claimed Carter had stood by Somoza and his repressive regime
too long. While the administration was unhappy with the outcome, Carter
maintained his commitment to both non-intervention and human rights in the
face of enormous pressures and did not attempt to rescue Somoza’s regime.
If the Carter administration appeared to its critics inconsistent or indecisive
at certain times, it was due to the depth of its understanding of the complexity
of the problems, its moderation and desire to work through diplomatic channels
whenever possible, and efforts to protect what it understood as vital American
interests while conducting a foreign policy centered on human rights. An
evaluation of Carter’s human rights policy by the National Security Council
in January 1981 noted that the administration’s promotion of human rights
through private pressure and public support led to charges of weakness and
inconsistency, and was “satisfactory neither to human rights advocates or
critics.”78
Similarly, Brzezinski wrote in his memoir that the charge “that the
Carter administration had no central strategy” was incorrect. While policy disagreements
over how to respond to Soviet actions “did deflect the Administration
from some of its original goals” and “created the impression of an
Administration whose objectives were not coherent,” these criticisms missed the
mark. The problem with the administration’s foreign policy, in Brzezinski’s estimation,
was that it was “overly ambitious and that we failed in our efforts to
142 : d i p l o m a t i c h i s t o r y
78. Lincoln Bloomfield, “The Carter Human Rights Policy: A Provisional Appraisal,” 11
January 1981, 20, ZBP, Box 34, JCL.
project effectively to the public the degree to which we were motivated by a
coherent and well-thought out viewpoint.”79
There is still plenty of room for debate on whether or not that policy was a
success, and the conclusions might well vary from case to case. Based on the
above examination of the Carter administration’s development of a human
rights policy, however, the nature of the debate on Carter’s foreign policy needs
to change. It must move beyond the charges that it was weak and naive to an
examination of the actual implementation of the policy and its impact on American
interests, and it should be judged on the basis of how the administration
set out to conduct its policy and not the criteria of its critics.
Moreover, for all of its complexities and difficulties, the effort to develop a
post-Cold War foreign policy based on human rights significantly changed the
discourse on American foreign policy and made it a central concern of American
diplomacy. Human rights was now a fixture on the policy agenda and part
of both American and world discussions of international relations. It provided
support to those abroad struggling against abusive and dictatorial governments,
led to the release of political prisoners in nations in Africa, Asia, Europe, and
Latin America, and forced governments to modify their behavior or risk losing
American support and aid. The burden now rested on the critics of human
rights to make the case for supporting certain dictatorships while opposing
others, and rejecting human rights as part of foreign policy considerations. In
the end, this change is the most significant of the efforts Jimmy Carter made
to forge a post-Cold War foreign policy for the United States that rejected
the bipolar worldview of the containment doctrine and sought to introduce
American ideals into the making of the nation’s foreign policy.
Jimmy Carter and the Foreign Policy of Human Rights : 143
79. Brzezinski, Power and Principle, 56–57.
144