Ideal Illusions Part 8

147. "Jimmy Carter, Human Rights, Cambodia," Diplomatic History, 258. Also see Edward S. Herman, "Pol Pot and Kissinger on War Criminality and Impunity," Third World Traveler, http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Kissinger/PolPotKissinger_Herman.html. Some officials did try to change U.S. policy, recommending that "we urgently reappraise the promises of US policy toward Hanoi ... to persuade Hanoi to open up the doors to saving the Khmer people.... We should squarely face the necessity of openly approving the eradication of the Pol Pot regime, which is utterly anathema on human rights and basic moral grounds. There can be no political, strategic, or other excuse for equivocation by the US government on this score ... any more than when Tanzania invaded and ousted the Idi Amin regime (or we invaded to end n.a.z.ism)." Lincoln P. Bloomfield, NSC memo to Zbigniew Brzezinski and Henry Owen, "Kampuchean Relief: Drastic New Approaches," December 3, 1979, DDRS. Next to this recommendation is handwritten the response: "Boo!"

148. J. William Fulbright, The Price of Empire, 127.

149. Carter, American Society of Newspaper Editors remarks, April 10, 1980, APP.

150. Jeri Laber, "Afghanistan's Other War," New York Review of Books, December 18, 1986, 20.

151. J. William Fulbright, The Price of Empire, 10.

152. James Baldwin, No Name in the Street (New York: Dell, 1973), 149.

CHAPTER 3: THE REAGAN ADMINISTRATION: DEMOCRATIZATION AND PROXY WARS.

1. Secretary Haig's news conference, January 28, 1981, in Department of State Bulletin 81, no. 2047 (February 1981).

2. Elliott Abrams, House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Review of U.S. Human Rights Policy: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Human Rights and International Organizations, 98th Cong., 1st sess., March 3, June 28, and September 21, 1983, H38131, 1984.

3. Ibid., 2.

4. David K. s.h.i.+pler, "Missionaries for Democracy: U.S. Aid for Global Pluralism" captures this missionary ethos in the National Endowment for Democracy, New York Times, June 1, 1986.

5. George Schultz, Turmoil and Triumph: My Years As Secretary of State (New York: Scribner's, 1993), 591.

6. Michael McClintock, The American Connection (London: Zed Books, 1985), 16, quoting Frank R. Barnett, "A Proposal for Political Warfare," Military Review (March 1961): 3.

7. "Insurgency and Instability in Central America," CIA estimate, April 9, 1981, 1, FOIA.

8. CIA, "Soviet Support for International Terrorism and Revolutionary Violence," May 29, 1981, Special National Intelligence Estimate, November 2, 1981, 3, FOIA.

9. Ibid., 15.

10. Ronald Reagan, "Remarks on Signing the Human Rights Day, Bill of Rights Day, and Human Rights Week Proclamation," December 10, 1986, http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1986/121086a.htm.

11. U.S. National Security Strategy, April 1982, 2, DDRS.

12. CIA Intelligence a.s.sessment, "Soviet Elite Concerns About Popular Discontent and Official Corruption," December 1, 1982, 1, FOIA.

13. Robert Gates, From the Shadows: The Ultimate Insider's Story of Five Presidents and How They Won the Cold War (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996), 188.

14. CIA, "Gorbachev and the Problems of Western Radio Broadcasting into the USSR," November 1, 1987, 15, FOIA.

15. Ibid., 27. The phrase is from a Soviet publication, Literaturnaya Gazeta, that the CIA was monitoring.

16. Herbert E. Meyer (Vice Chair, National Intelligence Council) to CIA Director, "What Should We Do About the Russians?" June 28, 1984, 2, FOIA.

17. Ibid., 7.

18. Robert Gates quoting Reagan, From the Shadows, 194.

19. Herbert E. Meyer, Vice Chair, NIC, to Deputy Director CIA, "Why Is the World So Dangerous?" November 30, 1983, FOIA.

20. Abrams interview, January 14, 1994, in Michael Hausenfleck, "The Reagan Doctrine: A Conceptual a.n.a.lysis of the Democracy Imperative in U.S. Foreign Policy, 19811988" (Ph.D. diss., Brandeis University, 1995), 183.

21. Ronald Reagan, "Address Before a Joint Session of Congress on the State of the Union," February 6, 1985, APP.

22. For further discussion see Michael McClintock, Instruments of Statecraft: U.S. Guerilla Warfare, Counter-Insurgency, and Counter-Terrorism, 19401990 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1992).

23. John Singlaub to William Casey, July 28, 1986, in National Security Archive, quoted in Lucy J. Mathiak, "American Jihad: The Reagan Doctrine as Policy and Practice" (Ph. D. diss., University of Wisconsin, 2000), 12.

24. Walter Raymond's Deposition, Memo from Walter Raymond to William Clark, Report of the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair, 100th Cong., 1st sess., 1987, Appendix B, vol. 22, 190196.

25. Ibid.

26. "Exporting Democracy," Was.h.i.+ngton Post, June 28, 1983, A14.

27. "Why Not Aid Friends Openly?" New York Times, March 23, 1982, A26.

28. Ronald Reagan, "Speech to British Parliament," June 8, 1982, http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/reagan-parliament.htm.

29. Ibid.

30. National Security Decision Directive 75, "Management of Public Diplomacy Relative to National Security," January 14, 1983, http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nsdd/nsdd-075.htm.

31. Ronald Reagan, "Speech to British Parliament," June 8, 1982, http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/reagan-parliament.htm.

32. NSC, "Fundamental Policy Issues a.s.sociated with U.S. International Information Programs," 1718, DDRS.

33. Aryeh Neier, Taking Liberties (New York: PublicAffairs, 2003), x.x.xi.

34. The "project democracy" group included CIA director William Casey, White House speechwriter Anthony Dolan, USIA deputy director W. Scott Thomson, and Heritage Foundation director Edwin Feulner. The other group, which drafted Reagan's Westminster speech, included Mark Palmer (deputy undersecretary to Lawrence Eagleburger and a former speechwriter of Henry Kissinger), Walter Raymond (senior staff officer in the Operations Directorate at the CIA and soon to oversee democratization efforts at the NSC), Michael Samuels (international vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce), and William Brock III (Republican National committee chair and later U.S. trade representative). Elizabeth Cohn, "Idealpolitik in U.S. Foreign Policy: The Reagan Administration and the U.S. Promotion of Democracy" (Ph. D. diss., American University, 1995), 160161.

35. Lucy J. Mathiak, "American Jihad: The Reagan Doctrine as Policy and Practice," 27.

36. Quoted from Carnes Lord, who served in the Reagan years as the national security advisor to the vice president and as the director of international information and communications policy on the National Security Council Staff at the White House. See Lord's "In Defense of Public Diplomacy," Commentary 77, no. 4 (April 1984): 42.

37. National Endowment for Democracy, "Annual Report," 1986, 3. To closely interweave government and private, covert and overt, see National Security Council, "International Political Information Activity," DDRS, which explores steps for the establishment of an effective interagency process to manage foreign public diplomacy.

38. David K. s.h.i.+pler, "Missionaries for Democracy," 16.

39. Paul Bremer to William P. Clark, "Strategy for Building Democracy in Communist and Non-Communist Countries," April 13, 1982, 2, DDRS.

40. William Colby, "Political Action-in the Open," Was.h.i.+ngton Post, March 14, 1982, D8.

41. David K. s.h.i.+pler, "Missionaries for Democracy," 16.

42. Aryeh Neier, Taking Liberties, 159.

43. Ibid.

44. GAO/NSAID-9483, 1994, 10. For just how much continuity existed from the Clinton to the Bush years (and the centrality of human rights language), see USAID, "At Freedom's Frontiers: A Democracy and Governance Strategic Framework," December 2005, PD-ACF-999.

45. Aryeh Neier, Taking Liberties, 193, 188, 169.

46. Aryeh Neier, "Human Rights in the Reagan Era: Acceptance in Principle," The Annals 506 (November 1989): 40.

47. Ibid.

48. William F. Schulz, In Our Own Best Interest: How Defending Human Rights Benefits Us All (Boston: Beacon Press, 2001), 9.

49. Stephen Hopgood, Keepers of the Flame: Understanding Amnesty International (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2006), 211.

50. Aryeh Neier, "Human Rights in the Reagan Era," 38.

51. Aryeh Neier, "How Not to Promote Democracy and Human Rights," University of Connecticut, 2006, 6, http://humanrights.uconn.edu/doc.u.ments/papers/DemocracyHumanRightsANeier.pdf.

52. Holly Burkhalter, "The Reagan Administration's Human Rights Record (1988)," http://www.thirdworldtraveler.

53. Ibid.

54. Ibid.

55. Aryeh Neier, "Human Rights in the Reagan Era," 31.

56. Neier, Taking Liberties, 156.

57. Jeri Laber and Alice H. Henkin, op-ed, "In Turkey: a Gain for Rights," New York Times, December 25, 1985, 17.

58. Elliott Abrams, letter, New York Times, August 10, 1984, A25.

59. New York Times, August 16, 1984, A22.

60. Ronald Reagan, "Remarks on Signing the Human Rights Day, Bill of Rights Day, and Human Rights Week Proclamation," December 10, 1986, APP.

61. Cynthia Brown, With Friends Like These (New York: Pantheon, 1985).

62. Ibid., 133.

63. Richard Holbrooke, Foreign a.s.sistance Legislation for FY84-FY85 (Part 5): Economic and Security a.s.sistance in Asia and the Pacific, CIS-NO: 84-H38119. Source: House Committee on Foreign Affairs, February 25, l983.

64. Aryeh Neier, Taking Liberties, 193.

65. Ibid., 191.

66. Cynthia J. Arnson, "Congress and Central America: The Search for Consensus" (Ph. D. diss., Johns Hopkins University, 1988), 573.

67. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Hearings on Certification Concerning Military Aid to El Salvador, February 8 and March 11, 1982, 97th Cong., 2nd sess., 18.

68. Robert Gates, From the Shadows, 314 and 302.

69. Elliott Abrams, "Intervention in Latin America: Cuba Si, Yanqui No?" The National Interest (Summer 1986).

70. "We Support Military a.s.sistance to the Nicaraguans Fighting for Democracy," New York Times, March 16, 1986, 217.

71. Cynthia Brown, With Friends Like These, 162.

72. Ibid., 119.

73. The commission included Elie Abel (USA); Hubert Beuve-Mery (France); Elebe Ma Ekonzo (Zaire); Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Colombia); Sergey Losev (Soviet Union); Mochtar Lubis (Indonesia); Mustapha Masmoudi (Tunisia); Michio Nagai (j.a.pan); Fred Isaac Akporuaro Omu (Nigeria); Bogdan Osolnik (Yugoslavia); Gamal El Oteifi (Egypt); Johannes Pieter p.r.o.nk (Netherlands); Juan Somavia (Chile); b.o.o.bli George Verghese (India); Betty Zimmerman (Canada).

74. National Security Council, "The Fundamental Policy Issues a.s.sociated with U.S. International Information Programs and Activities in the Context of the U.S. National Security Policy," 5 (n.d., Reagan administration), DDRS.

75. The MacBride Report, Many Voices, One World: Towards a New More Just and More Efficient World Information and Communication Order (London: Kegan Paul, 1980), 90, 254 (hereafter MacBride 1). Also http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0004/000400/040066eb.pdf.

76. The MacBride Report, Many Voices, One World: Towards a New More Just and More Efficient World Information and Communication Order, abridged version (New York: UNESCO, 1980), 45 (hereafter MacBride 2).

77. MacBride 1, 59, 160.

78. MacBride 1, 145, 79.

79. MacBride 1, 144.

80. NSC, "The Fundamental Policy Issues a.s.sociated with U.S. International Information Programs and Activities in the Context of the U.S. National Security Policy," 6, DDRS.

81. MacBride 1, 136. Bold in original.

82. The Group of 77, a bloc of more than one hundred developing countries, had come with a detailed description of a "New World Information Order." After strenuous negotiations, the sections that were most offensive to the West were removed. These included "the right of peoples ... to comprehensive and true information," "the right of each nation" to inform the world about its affairs, and "the right of each nation to protect its cultural and social ident.i.ty against the false or distorted information which may cause harm."

83. Bernard Nossiter, "U.N. Report on Press Is Causing Concern," New York Times, January 8, 1981, A11. Also "The Debate Sharpens on a New World Information Order," New York Times, February 15, 1981, E3, and Herbert I. Schiller, "Breaking the West's Media Monopoly," The Nation, September 21, 1985.

84. New York Times, May 10, 1979, A11.

85. Elliott Abrams testimony, House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Review of U.S. Partic.i.p.ation in UNESCO: Hearings and Markup Before the Subcommittee on International Operations, and on Human Rights and International Organizations, 97th Cong., 1st sess., on H. Res. 142, March 10, 1982, 82.

86. MacBride 1, 146.

87. Aryeh Neier, Taking Liberties, 167, 194.

88. For a detailed, yet typical approach to NLF "terror," see Ariah Project, "A Study of the Use of Terror by the Viet Cong, Prepared by Military a.s.sistance Command, Special Operations Group (MAC/SOG) Headquarters 5th Special Forces Group (ABN) Nha Trang R.V.N. for United States Missions in VI," May 1966, http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/star/images/044/0440416006.pdf.

89. Amnesty International, Guatemala: The Human Rights Record (London: Amnesty International Publications, 1987), 96.

90. The phrase is Jeane Kirkpatrick's.

91. Elliott Abrams, "El Salvador: Are We Asking the Right Questions," New York Times, July 29, 1982, A23.

92. Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, "Establis.h.i.+ng a Viable Human Rights Policy," Kenyon College's Human Rights Conference, April 4, 1981, 327. Also see Jeane Kirkpatrick, "The Myth of Moral Equivalence," January 1986, from Imprimis, in Congressional Record. As Kirkpatrick concluded: "It is necessary only to look at the sober discussion of human rights in such places as the Amnesty International Reports or the Helsinki Watch discussions to see that those organizations and most of the people who discuss the subject today are using skewed vocabulary which guarantees the outcome of the investigation by definition. The 'newspeak' of human rights morally invalidates the governments by definition and morally exculpates the guerrillas by definition," http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Human%20Rights%20Doc.u.ments/Kirkpatrick_HRPolicy.html.

93. Jeane Kirkpatrick, "Legitimacy and Force," Human Rights in El Salvador, Address to the Third Committee of the 36th UN General a.s.sembly, December 1, 1981, 118.