Congress, Kissinger, and the Origins of Human Rights Diplomacy

Diplomatic History

Volumn 34, Issue 5, 2010, Pages 823-851

  Keys, barbara ^a  

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EID: 77957889270     PISSN: 01452096     EISSN: 14677709     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-7709.2010.00897.x     Document Type: Article

References (178)

1. Kissinger to Chilean Foreign Minister Patricio Carvajal, 1975, quoted in Peter Kornbluh, The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability (New York, 2003), 228.
2. Interview with Patricia Derian, quoted in Jeffrey D. Merritt, "Unilateral Human Rights Intercession: American Practice under Nixon, Ford, and Carter," in The Diplomacy of Human Rights ed. David D. Newson (Lanham, MD,1986), 58n7.
3. Derian was a former civil rights activist and Democratic party organizer who was first the Bureau coordinator and, after Congress upgraded the position, assistant secretary of state. On her role, see, for example, Kathryn Sikkink, Mixed Signals: U.S. Human Rights Policy and Latin America (Ithaca, NY, More generally on the Bureau's role in the Carter years2004),123.
4. see Howard Warshawsky, "The Department of State and Human Rights Policy: A Case Study of the Human Rights Bureau," World Affairs 142 (1980): 188-215
5. Edwin S. Maynard, "The Bureaucracy and Implementation of U.S. Human Rights Policy," Human Rights Quarterly 11 (1989): 175-248;
6. David Earl Morrison, "Human Rights Foreign Policy Decision Making in the U.S. State Department and Bureau of Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs: Process and Perception" (Ph.D. diss., University of Maryland, 1987);
7. Victor Kaufman, "The Bureau of Human Rights During the Carter Administration," Historian 61 no. 1 (1998): 51-66;
8. Daniel Drezner, "Ideas, Bureaucratic Politics, and the Crafting of Foreign Policy," American Journal of Political Science44 no. 4 (2000): 744
9. On this point, see also Sikkink, Mixed Signals xvii, 70.
10. After the final version of this manuscript was accepted in February 2009, related documents appeared in a new online volume of Foreign Relations of the United States References to the most pertinent of these documents have been added below in the footnotes. See U.S. Department of State, Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969-1976, Volume E-3, Documents on Global Issues, 1973-1976 (Washington, DC, (accessed May 10, 2010) (hereafter cited as FRUS 1969-1976 E-3). 2009), http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments
11. The early years of the Bureau have received relatively little attention. The best accounts of the Ford years are Lars Schoultz, Human Rights and United States Policy toward Latin America (Princeton, NJ, 250-71981), 123-26;
12. Roberta Cohen, "Human Rights Decision-Making in the Executive Branch: Some Proposals for a Coordinated Strategy," in Human Rights and American Foreign Policy
13. Donald P. Kommers and Gilburt D. Loescher (Notre Dame, IN, 1979), 217-21.
14. See also Clare Apodaca, Understanding U.S. Human Rights Policy: A Paradoxical Legacy (New York, 2006), 29-52;
15. the broad survey of Congress's role in David P. Forsythe, Human Rights and U.S. Foreign Policy: Congress Reconsidered (Gainesville, FL1988); and
16. Robert A. Pastor, Congress and the Politics of U.S. Foreign Economic Policy, 1929-1976 (Berkeley, CA, 1980), 301-21.
17. See also Sikkink, Mixed Signals 106-7. Clare Apodaca's useful account argues that "human rights policy [in the Nixon and Ford administrations] was the unintended consequence of the clash between Congress and the executive branch" - unintended in the sense that Congress used human rights as a vehicle to restrain executive power. Apodaca, Understanding U.S. Human Rights Policy 30. As I see it, however, the human rights framework established in this period was very much the one Congress intended, and it elicited a significant degree of compliance and sympathy within the State Department except at the highest level.
18. Compare legal scholar Stephen B. Cohen, who writes, "During Kissinger's tenure Congress was almost entirely unsuccessful in influencing the Executive to change its behavior." Stephen B. Cohen "Conditioning U.S. Security Assistance on Human Rights Practices," American Journal of International Law April76 no. 2 (1982): 250
19. Daniel J. Sargent, "From Internationalism to Globalism: The United States and the Transformation of International Politics in the 1970s," 398 (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 2008).
20. Robert A. Pastor, "Coping with Congress's Foreign Policy," Foreign Service Journal, December, 2352 (1975): 15-16
21. Jussi Hahnhimaki, Flawed Architect: Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy (New York,2004), 357.
22. Robert David Johnson, Congress and the Cold War (New York, 2006), xiv.
23. To offer but one example, in the six weeks after the 1973 military coup in Chile, which provoked a very strong public reaction in the United States and Europe, the House Subcommittee on Inter-American Affairs received letters, telegrams, and petitions from 2,695 people, of whom all but two expressed serious concern about the coup and/or subsequent violations of human rights. (Interestingly, the overwhelming majority came from California.) Memorandum, R. Michael Finlay to Dante Fascell, "Correspondence on Chile," October 301973
24. Record Group (RG) 233, 93rd Congress, International Relations Committee, Subcommittee on Inter-American Affairs, Center for Legislative Archives, National Archives and Records Administration (hereafter NARA), Washington, DC.
25. Interest in international human rights was on the upswing before the congressional insurgency of the 1970s, as evidenced by public concern over torture in Greece and Brazil in the late 1960s. On Greece, see Barbara Keys, "Anti-Torture Politics: Amnesty International, the Greek Junta, and the Origins of the U.S. Human Rights Boom," in Human Rights in the Twentieth Century: An International History ed. Akira Iriye, Petra Goedde, and William Hitchcock (New York, forthcoming); on Brazil, see James Green, "We Cannot Remain Silent": Opposition to the Brazilian Military Dictatorship in the United States, 1964-85 (Durham, NC, forthcoming); Pastor, Congress302-03.
26. Daniel Sargent also shows that human rights concerns were evident in the late 1960s. He argues that in the case of Biafra, which fell cleanly outside of Cold War parameters, Nixon and to a lesser extent Kissinger were willing to engage in humanitarian activism, whereas in the case of Bangladesh, Cold War concerns thoroughly trounced humanitarianism. Sargent, "From Internationalism to Globalism,"279-80.
27. Johnson, Congress and the Cold War xxiii.
28. Sandra Vogelgesang, "What Price Principle? U.S. Policy on Human Rights," Foreign Affairs, Spring, 83056 (1978): 825.
29. Neoconservative scholar Joshua Muravchik offers the sharpest critique of Carter's punitive approach to human rights as ineffective. Muravchik cites as an example of a better approach Congressman Dante Fascell's failed proposal to create an Institute for Human Rights and Freedom that would have funded foreign human rights groups and aided victims of political repression. Joshua Muravchik, The Uncertain Crusade: Jimmy Carter and the Dilemmas of Human Rights Policy (Lanham, MD,1986), 168-70.
30. For a useful introduction to the debates over Carter's human rights policies, see David F. Schmitz and Vanessa Walker "Jimmy Carter and the Foreign Policy of Human Rights: The Development of a Post-Cold War Foreign Policy," Diplomatic History, January 28 no. 1 (2004): 113-43
31. A briefing paper on human rights prepared by the outgoing Ford administration provides a useful summary of policy options, debates, and developments up to that time: Transition Paper on Human Rights, n.d., doc. 264 in FRUS 1969-1976 E-3
32. Vogelgesang, "What Price Principle?"838.
33. Jussi Hanhimäki, "' They Can Write It in Swahili ': Kissinger, the Soviets, and the Helsinki Accords, 1973-5," Journal of Transatlantic Studies, 551 no. 1 (2003): 37-38
34. Jeremi Suri, "Détente and Human Rights: American and West European Perspectives on International Change," Cold War History, November8 no. 4 (2008): 527-45
35. Suri argues elsewhere that Kissinger was a deeply moral man guided by "basic principles," who embraced a more "complex" worldview than could be subsumed under the rhetoric of human rights. Henry Kissinger and the American Century (Cambridge, England, 241-462007), 186
36. Kissinger's reply to Indian complaints about Congressman Donald Fraser's hearings on India was: "As I have said publicly, I am in total disagreement with Fraser. He would make us the world's policeman. There are certain human rights which are important." He did not go on to say which rights were important, but he implicitly disagreed with Fraser's emphasis on political imprisonment and torture. Memorandum of Conversation, The Secretary's 8 October 1976 Meeting with Indian Foreign Minister Chavan, October 12, 1976, U.S. Department of State, Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969-1976, Volume E-8, Documents on South Asia, 1973-1976 (Washington, DC., accessed June 20, 20082007)http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/frus/nixon/e8/97094.htm().
37. See, e.g., Hanhimäki, Flawed Architect, 477-78, Hanhimäki emphasizes the pressures and limitations that constrained Kissinger's choices and worldview, arguing that Kissinger's "mistaken and simplistic foreign policy architecture" led him to disregard the fate of real people, whom he regarded as mere pawns. 438
38. Congressional rebellion against Cold War foreign policy began even before the Vietnam War. The "foreign aid revolt" of 1963, in particular, was an important precedent for Congressional action in the 1970s. Johnson, Congress and the Cold War105.
39. Quoted (in order) in Suri, "Détente and Human Rights,"529;
40. Hugh M. Arnold, "Henry Kissinger and Human Rights," Universal Human Rights2 no. 4 (1980): 63
41. Sargent, "From Internationalism to Globalism," 420; Suri, Henry Kissinger 251.
42. Richard M. Nixon, U.S. Foreign Policy for the 1970's: Building for Peace; A Report to the Congress by Richard Nixon, February 25, 1971 (Washington, DC,1971), 18.
43. Quoted in Cohen, "Human Rights Decision-Making," 217.
44. Arnold, "Henry Kissinger," 69. Arnold charts a sharp increase in Kissinger's use of the term "human rights" in 1976 (ibid., 61). See also Jeremi Suri, Henry Kissinger,244-45.
45. On Kissinger's remarks to his own staff, see James Wilson, "Diplomatic Theology - An Early Chronicle of Human Rights at State," [August1977], 36-37
46. James Wilson Papers, 1958-77, Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, Gerald R. Ford Library, Ann Arbor, Michigan. On Kissinger's remarks to Pinochet, see Memorandum of Conversation, "U.S.-Chilean Relations," June 8,1976
47. Chile Declassification Project, Department of State, Freedom of Information Act Electronic Reading Room, accessed January 10, (hereafter DOS FOIA ERR). Wilson also notes that some geographic bureaus interpreted Kissinger's 1975 speech in Minneapolis on "The Moral Basis of U.S. Foreign Policy" to mean that human rights issues were not to be raised. Wilson, "Diplomatic Theology," http://foia.state.gov(2008)21.
48. See, e.g., Sikkink, Mixed Signals 107-20.
49. Interview with Winston Lord, 1998, The Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Washington, DC, accessed January 10,http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/mfdip.2004lor02(2008).
50. "Human Rights Today," undated [1975], Human Rights Subject File, 1975, box 1, "General" folder, Bureau of Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, State Department, RG 59, NARA, College Park, Maryland (hereafter HA, NARA).
51. Schoultz, Human Rights, On Congressional interest in human rights in the late 1960s and early 1970s, see, for example, Green, "We Cannot Remain Silent," chap. 8 253.
52. Johnson, Congress and the Cold War 179-80;
53. James M. McCormick, "Decision Making in the Foreign Affairs and Foreign Relations Committees," in Congress Resurgent: Foreign and Defense Policy on Capitol Hill ed. Randall B. Ripley and James M. Lindsay (Ann Arbor, MI, 1381993), 127
54. As staffer Clifford Hackett later put it, from Morgan's point of view, "wild people working for Fraser [were] creating problems." Quoted in Giles Scott-Smith "Mending the 'Unhinged Alliance' in the 1970s: Transatlantic Relations, Public Diplomacy, and the Origins of the European Union Visitors Program," Diplomacy and Statecraft 16 (2005): 754
55. William Korey, NGOS and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: A Curious Grapevine (New York,1998), 186.
56. Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, Human Rights in the World Community: A Call for U.S. Leadership: Report of the Subcommittee on International Organizations and Movements, March 27, 1974 (Washington, DC,1974), 9.
57. William Korey argues that the report had "a very significant and, to an extent, revolutionary impact." Korey, NGOs181.
58. Schoultz, Human Rights 124n34.
59. Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights in the World Community 124
60. Ibid., 12-13.
61. Ibid.
62. Fraser had introduced in 1973 a House resolution to create a Bureau of Humanitarian Affairs, which failed. In July 1974, he wrote to Deputy Secretary Robert Ingersoll to push the idea again. This letter was apparently the trigger for Ingersoll's move.
63. John P. Salzberg, "A View from the Hill: U.S. Legislation and Human Rights," in The Diplomacy of Human Rights ed. David Newsom (Lanhan, MD, 1986), 17;
64. Patrick Breslin, "Human Rights: Rhetoric or Action?" Washington Post February 27,1977, 33.
65. On early proposals for a Bureau, see Schoultz, Human Rights 123. On discussions within the State Department, see Minutes of the Acting Secretary's Functional Staff Meeting, Washington, June 12, doc. 2361974;
66. Memorandum, Ranard to Sneider, July 17, 1974, doc. 239; Briefing Memorandum, Brown to Kissinger, August 8, 1974, doc. 241, all in FRUS 1969-1976 E-3.
67. Wilson, "Diplomatic Theology," 3. Wilson's appointment had been delayed by Frank Kellogg, a political appointee and incumbent special assistant to the secretary for refugees, whose job was to be subsumed by the new coordinator. He delayed Wilson's appointment by taking his case to friends in the Senate, who "deluged the Department with letters and calls." Ibid., 5. The Bureau went through various iterations, best summarized on the Web site of its current incarnation, the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor: "On Apr 21, 1975
68. in response to growing Congressional interest in human rights issues in foreign policy, the Department of State established the position of Coordinator for Humanitarian Affairs. The International Security Assistance and Arms Export Control Act of 1976 made the Coordinator a Presidential appointee, subject to the advice and consent of the Senate, and changed the title to Coordinator for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs. The Foreign Relations Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1978 changed the Coordinator's title to Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs. The Department of State, by administrative action, established the Bureau of Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs on Oct 27, 1977. Section 162 of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act for Fiscal Years 1994 and 1995 authorized the appointment of an Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor.
69. Benjamin Welles, "State Department Turns to Human Rights Concern," Christian Science Monitor April 221975, 16.
70. Wilson, "Diplomatic Theology," 1.
71. Letter, Donald Fraser to Henry Kissinger, June 27, 1974, and Memorandum, George Lister to Bill Rogers, October 9, 1974, Papers of George Lister, Human Rights Bureau, University of Texas, Austin, accessed February 17, 2008). Ronald Palmer characterized Runyon as "deeply committed to human rights" but "relatively ineffective." Memorandum, Confidential, March 17, http://www.utexas.edu/law/academics/centers/humanrights/lister/bureau/bu reau.php(1976
72. "Ronald Palmer," Ivan Morris Papers, box 4, Center for Human Rights Documentation and Research, Columbia University, New York, New York (hereafter Morris Papers).
73. Wilson, "Diplomatic Theology," 30; Memorandum, Confidential, March 17, 1976, "Ronald Palmer," Morris Papers, box 4.
74. Interviewer's comment in "Interview with James M. Wilson, Jr.," March 31, 1999, Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, accessed January 10, http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/mfdip.2004wil14(2008).
75. International law specialist Tom Farer, testifying before Fraser's subcommittee in 1973, quoted in Schoultz, Human Rights,109.
76. Ibid., 125 n37.
77. "Interview with Ronald D. Palmer," 1990, The Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Washington, DC, accessed January 10,http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/mfdip.2004pal03(2008).
78. Wilson, "Diplomatic Theology," 4. Lars Schoultz writes, "[Wilson] spent much of his time attempting to convince Congress not to pass human rights legislation." Schoultz, Human Rights, Wilson summarized his views upon leaving office in Memorandum, Wilson to Robinson, November 8, 1976, doc. 262 in FRUS 1969-1976 E-3 125.
79. Schoultz, Human Rights 125.
80. Wilson, "Diplomatic Theology,"7.
81. Ibid., 9-10, passim; Drezner, "Ideas, Bureaucratic Politics," 744. Palmer had most recently served as political and military officer in Manila.
82. "Pat M. Holt, Chief of Staff, Foreign Relations Committee," Oral History Interviews, Senate Historical Office, Washington, DC,245.
83. Sikkink, Mixed Signals, 72.
84. Lars Schoultz, "U.S. Foreign Policy and Human Rights Violations in Latin America: A Comparative Analysis of Foreign Aid Distributions," Comparative Politics, 16913 no. 2 (1981): 155-56
85. Michael Stohl David Carleton and Steven E. Johnson "Human Rights and U.S. Foreign Assistance from Nixon to Carter," Journal of Peace Research 21 no. 3 (1984): 215-26
86. Donald M. Fraser, "Human Rights and U.S. Foreign Policy," International Studies Quarterly23 no. 2 (1979): 179
87. David F. Schmitz, The United States and Right-Wing Dictatorship s (Cambridge, UK, 2006), 72-73;
88. Schoultz, Human Right s, 212-21. Schoultz notes, with regard to Latin America, that the decline of communist subversion as a threat in the 1970s reduced the rationale for U.S. military aid to the goal of retaining access and influence.
89. Sikkink, Mixed Signals 71. A useful summary of the legislation is provided in Patricia Weiss Fagen, "U.S. Foreign Policy and Human Rights: The Role of Congress," in Parliamentary Control over Foreign Policy: Legal Essays ed. Antonio Cassese (Germantown, MD, 1980), 109-21.
90. On conservative opposition to foreign aid, see Johnson, Congress and the Cold War and the analysis of human rights voting in Forsythe, Human Rights and U.S. Foreign Policy, 24-50.
91. Cohen, "Conditioning U.S. Security Assistance," 250; David Weissbrodt "Human Rights Legislation and U.S. Foreign Policy," Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law 231 (1977): 241.
92. The State Department Office of the Legal Adviser agreed that the principles of sovereignty and noninterference did not protect a state that failed to meet international human rights obligations. Statement from the Office of the Legal Adviser concerning international law and human rights, August 26, doc. 242 in FRUS 1969-1976 E-3 1974
93. Cohen, "Conditioning U.S. Security Assistance," 252; Fraser's remarks in Congressional Record 120 H11,597 (daily ed. December 11, 1974)
94. as quoted in Weissbrodt, "Human Rights," 259; the text of the section is quoted in Weissbrodt, "Human Rights,"242 n41;
95. Sikkink, Mixed Signals, 69-70.
96. The phrase "consistent pattern of gross violations of human rights" was borrowed from UN Economic and Social Council Resolution 1503, which governed the handling of human rights complaints.
97. John Salzberg and Donald D. Young, "The Parliamentary Role in Implementing International Human Rights: A U.S. Example," Texas International Law Journal, Spring-Summer 12 (1977): 271
98. Section 502B covered "security assistance" (unlike Section 32, which had covered "military assistance") and thus included sales of arms for cash as well as military aid. Cohen, "Conditioning U.S. Security Assistance,"252
99. Fraser later said of the "extraordinary circumstances" exception written into Section 502B, "We might as well have opened the barn door and let the horses out right there!" Fraser, "Human Rights,"179.
100. Weissbrodt, "Human Rights," 243.
101. Interview with John Salzberg, Washington, DC, November 6,2008.
102. Korey, NGOs 187.
103. Ibid., 261-62. For a complete list of country-specific legislation in these years, see Cohen, "Conditioning U.S. Security Assistance," 254-55
104. He adopted a similar position toward congressional investigations of covert actions in 1975: "strategic stonewalling" and obstruction, as Peter Kornbluh calls it. See Kornbluh, Pinochet File220-21.
105. Wilson, "Diplomatic Theology," 4.
106. Policy Planning Staff, "U.S. Policies on Human Rights and Authoritarian Regimes," undated [October 1974], RG 59, Policy Planning Staff, Director's Files (Winston Lord), box 348, NARA, College Park, MD. I thank Daniel Sargent for a copy of this document. For a summary, see "Summary of Paper on Policies on Human Rights and Authoritarian Regimes," October 1974, doc. 243 in FRUS 1969-1976 E-3
107. See, e.g., Schmitz, United States and Right-Wing Dictatorships 106.
108. Wilson, "Diplomatic Theology," 20-21; Memorandum of Conversation, Secretary's Meeting with Foreign Minister Carvajal, September 29, 1975, National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 110, "The Pinochet File,", accessed June 10, (hereafter NSA EBB 110). http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB110/index.htm#doc8(2008)
109. Quoted in "Kissinger Said to Rebuke U.S. Ambassador to Chile," New York Times September 27, Pastor, Congress, 1974, 18; 308.
110. "Kissinger Said to Rebuke U.S. Ambassador to Chile," 18. Fraser called Kissinger's remark "outrageous" and demanded a meeting. "Kissinger is Challenged on Chile Policy," New York Times September 28,1974, 9.
111. See, for example, Department of State, The Secretary's Principals and Regionals Staff Meeting, December 23, 1974, NSA EBB 110.
112. The "insane" remark appears in Department of State, The Secretary's Principals and Regionals Staff Meeting, December 23, 1974, 26
113. the "principle" remark appears in Department of State, Secret, The Secretary's Principals and Regionals Staff Meeting, December 20, NSA EBB 110.1974, 27
114. Department of State, The Secretary's Principals and Regionals Staff Meeting, 20 December 20, 1974, 29
115. NSA EBB 110. On the more conciliatory reaction by the Agency for International Development, see Pastor, Congress306-7.
116. Transcript, The Secretary's 8:00 a.m. Regional Staff Meeting, December 3,1974,25-36
117. National Security Archive, Electronic Briefing Book No. 212, "Pinochet: A Declassified Documentary Obit,", accessed June 2 http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB212/19741205%20Kissinger%20Sta ff%20Meeting.pdf(2008).
118. Official opinion was divided on the question of whether military governments cut off from U.S. aid would turn to other suppliers; see Schoultz, Human Rights248.
119. See also a similar, slightly earlier conversation in which aides tried to convince an extremely reluctant Kissinger to meet with Fraser in order to prevent Congress from "get[ting] out of hand." Kissinger said that Fraser and his colleagues were interested only in "grandstand plays" and "public humiliation of other countries" about matters that amounted to "sentimental nonsense." The State Department could not become "a reform school for allies," he declared. "They want us to be anti-Philippine, anti-Korean, anti-Chilean - pro what? Castro? I don't know what they want us to be pro. Nor do they explain how other countries can in any way deal with us." Minutes of the Secretary's Staff Meeting, October 22, 1974, doc. 244 in FRUS 1969-1976 E-3 (For the record of the meeting with Fraser, see ibid., doc. 245.)
120. Department of State, Secret, The Secretary's Principals and Regionals Staff Meeting, December 23, NSA EBB 110.1974
121. Memorandum of Conversation, Ambassador Popper's Meeting with The Secretary, July 18, 1975, Department of State, Chile Declassification Project, DOS FOIA ERR.
122. Pat M. Holt Interview, 253-54.
123. One former Carter official states that although no determination of "gross violator" status was made formally, such determinations were made implicitly. Cohen, "Conditioning U.S. Security Assistance," 269. Note that the reporting requirements of Section 502B were binding.
124. "Interview with James M. Wilson, Jr."
125. "Interview with Ronald D. Palmer."
126. David D. Newsom, "Release in Indonesia," in Diplomacy of Human Rights ed. Newsom74-77.
127. On the kind of meetings held, see, for example, Telegram, Newsom to Washington, March 17, "Presentation of Latest U.S. Human Rights Legislation to GOI," Central Foreign Policy Files, Electronic Telegrams, Access to Archival Databases, National Archives and Records Administration, (accessed June 10, 2008) (hereafter AAD). 1975, http://aad.archives.gov
128. Telegram, Embassy Montevideo to Washington, "Human Rights in Uruguay: An Update," October 8, 1975, AAD. The telegram also reveals massive ignorance of the extent of human rights violations in Uruguay. Indeed, at congressional hearings in 1975, the State Department's apparent ignorance of the situation in Uruguay elicited scorn. Sikkink, Mixed Signals xvi73.
129. Interview with Jessica Tuchman, quoted in Muravchik, Uncertain Crusade41-42.
130. Drezner, "Ideas, Bureaucratic Politics," 746.
131. Kenneth Cmiel, "The Emergence of Human Rights Politics in the United States," Journal of American History, December86 no. 3 (1999): 1231-50.
132. Lawrence Pezzullo, quoted in Sikkink, Mixed Signals, xvi.
133. Telegram 182813, Ingersoll to All Diplomatic and Consular Posts, August 2, 1975, "Human Rights: Use of 12320 Reports and Promotion Human Rights," AAD [emphasis removed]. The telegram also appears as doc. 253 in FRUS 1969-1976 E-3.
134. Telegram, Washington to Madrid, April 17, 1975, "Human Rights in Spain," AAD.
135. See, for example, Memorandum, Ginger to Rick Wright, October 6, 1976, "Meeting with Charles Runyon," series II.1, box 5, Amnesty International USA Archives, Center for Human Rights Documentation and Research, Columbia University, New York, New York, (hereafter AIUSA).
136. See also Action Memorandum, James Wilson to Carlyle Maw, July 7, 1975, "Report to Congress on Section 502 B," box 1, "General" folder, HA, NARA. Wilson was referring to Brazil, Indonesia, Uruguay, Chile, and Korea
137. "Human Rights Today"; Wilson, "Diplomatic Theology," 7-8. Kissinger "took no action on the recommendations in the memo" but wrote on page 1, "Can we do it in briefings in executive session?" Telegram, U.S. Delegation Secretary Brussels to Washington, For Bremer and Eagleburger from Gompert and Adams, "Actions Taken on Items Outside S/S System," May 30, 1975, AAD.
138. Winston Lord to Henry Kissinger, September 20, 1975, "Security Assistance and the Human Rights Reports to Congress," Confidential/Exdis, Human Rights Subject File, box 5, HA, NARA. When Kissinger met with Ford, he complained that the State Department wanted to list Chile as a rights violator. "I think we should put Chile back on [the list of military aid recipients] and let Congress knock it off." "I agree," said Ford. Memorandum of Conversation, White House, October 6, Chile Declassification Project, Pinochet File, Gerald Ford Library, Ann Arbor, Michigan. 1975
139. "Security Assistance and the Human Rights Report to the Congress" [n.d., 19 September 1975], Confidential/Exdis, Human Rights Subject File, box 5, HA, NARA.
140. "Interview with Winston Lord."
141. "Human Rights Today"; Wilson, "Diplomatic Theology," 8.
142. Letter, Alan Cranston to Henry Kissinger, November 5, 1975, Human Rights Subject File, 1975, box 5, HA, NARA; Wilson, "Diplomatic Theology,"17.
143. Briefing Memorandum, Carlyle Maw to Kissinger, July 16, 1975, "Report to Congress on Human Rights," Human Rights Subject File, box 1, HA, NARA; Memorandum, Charles Runyon to All Assistant Legal Advisers for Geographic Bureaus, July 18, 1975, "502B Reporting," Human Rights Subject File, box 1, HA, NARA; Wilson, "Diplomatic Theology,"18.
144. See also Briefing Memorandum, Maw to Kissinger, September 8, 1975, doc. 254 in FRUS 1969-1976 E-3
145. Action Memorandum, James Wilson to Carlyle Maw, July 7, 1975, "Report to Congress on Section 502 B," box 1, "General" folder, HA, NARA; Wilson, "Diplomatic Theology," 19. The memo also appears as doc. 252 in FRUS 1969-1976 E-3.
146. Wilson, "Diplomatic Theology,", Ibid., 21., Runyon to All Assistant Legal Advisers, 2., "Korea," L/HR 3-page draft, Human Rights Subject File, box 1, HA, NARA.7.
147. The Korea report presented a condensed version of Deputy Assistant Secretary in the East Asian Bureau Philip Habib's testimony to Fraser's subcommittee and the country study done earlier for the Security Assistance review. See Wilson, "Diplomatic Theology,"18-21.
148. For the characterization of the Korea report as good and frank, see Memorandum, Morton J. Holbrook to James Wilson, "Comments on Human Rights Papers," August 7, 1975, Human Rights Subject File, box 4: 502B Report-Runyon, HA, NARA., "Korea" [country report], undated [1975], Human Rights Subject File, 1975, box 5, HA, NARA.
149. Ibid. On the AI report on Korea, see Statement of William P. Thompson to the Fraser Subcommittee, June 10, 1975, Human Rights Subject File, box 3, HA, NARA., Memorandum, Morton J. Holbrook to James Wilson, "Comments on Human Rights Papers," August 7, 1975, Human Rights Subject File, box 4: 502B Report-Runyon, HA, NARA.
150. Bernard Gwertzman, "U.S. Blocks Rights Data on Nations Getting Arms," New York Times November 19, 1975, Quoted in ibid, Untitled excerpt of transcript typescript, 82, in Human Rights Subject File, 1975, box 5, HA, NARA. 1.
151. Gwertzman, "U.S. Blocks Rights Data,"1.
152. "Interview with James M. Wilson, Jr."
153. Gwertzman, "U.S. Blocks Rights Data,"1.
154. Quoted in Wilson, "Diplomatic Theology," 24.
155. Gwertzman, "U.S. Blocks Rights Data,"1.
156. Letter, William H. Lewis to Marilyn Berger of the Washington Post December 6, 1975, in Human Rights Subject File, 1975, box 5, HA, NARA. See also Briefing Memorandum, Maw to Kissinger, November 28, 1975, doc. 256 in FRUS 1969-1976 E-3.
157. Gwertzman, "U.S. Blocks Rights Data"; Marilyn Berger, "Aid Ban Urged for Nations Violating Human Rights, Lands," Washington Post November 20, A31975
158. Salzberg and Young, "Parliamentary Role," 273.
159. Interview with Lawrence Pezzullo, quoted in Sikkink, Mixed Signals 106.
160. Cranston had pushed for a semi-independent Director of Human Rights to act as a kind of watchdog on the Department, but the end result was a position subordinate to the Secretary of State. Wilson, "Diplomatic Theology,"27-28.
161. "Interview with James M. Wilson, Jr."
162. Wilson, "Diplomatic Theology," 30-32; David Weissbrodt, "The Influence of Interest Groups on the Development of United States Human Rights Policies," in The Dynamics of Human Rights in U.S. Foreign Policy ed. Natalie Kaufman Hevener (New Brunswick, NJ, 1981), 266123.
163. On the 1976 reports, see also Briefing Memorandum, Maw to Kissinger, April 13, 1976, doc. 258 in FRUS 1969-1976 E-3.
164. Cmiel, "Emergence of Human Rights,"1238-39;
165. Memorandum, "Ronald Palmer," Confidential, March 17, 1976, Morris Papers, box 4, 3. The tactic seems to have been used; see, e.g., the letter conveying information from the State Department about Guatemala, Congressman Lester Wolff to Arthur Michaelson, Great Neck Amnesty International Group, April 8, 1976, Morris Papers, box 4.
166. A month after the coup in Chile, for example, Fraser and Dante Fascell, chairman of the Subcommittee on Inter-American Affairs, held an informal discussion on human rights in Chile for members of their subcommittees, with representatives from the International Association of Democratic Jurists, the International Federation of Human Rights, and the International Movement of Catholic Jurists. Memorandum, Committee on Foreign Affairs, October 15, 1973, RG 233, 93rd Congress, International Relations Committee, Subcommittee on Inter-American Affairs, Center for Legislative Archives, NARA.
167. "Report of the Amnesty International (U.S.A.) Washington Committee," n.d. [1976]; Memorandum, Rick Sloan to Rick Wright, "AI's Role in the 502B Process," October 7,1976;
168. Memorandum, Rick Sloan to Rick Wright, AI Washington Office, "Americans for Democratic Action and the Center for International Policy's Role in the 502B Process," October 8, series II.1, box 5, AIUSA.1976
169. In full, Kissinger said, "It is inevitable that the Fraser Committee hears witnesses who are violently opposed to the government in power. You are not the only case. Every time I see a Foreign Minister, he has some complaint. We certainly would not take kindly to India's holding hearings on civil rights in the U.S. These hearings are superficial. It is an outrageous procedure." Memorandum of Conversation, The Secretary's 8 October 1976 Meeting with Indian Foreign Minister Chavan, October 121976
170. U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969-1976, Volume E-8, Documents on South Asia, 1973-1976 (Washington, DC, accessed June 20, 20082007), http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/frus/nixon/e8/97094.htm().
171. For a good overview of recent literature on the effects of international human rights pressure, see Sonia
172. Cardenas "Norm Collision: Explaining the Effects of International Human Rights Pressure on State Behavior,"
173. International Studies Review 6 (2004): 213-31.
174. Human rights activists from countries with large populations of exiles and networks with U.S. academics, churches, and NGOs, who delivered complaints about repression in the right kind of language, were more likely to have their voices heard. See Brad Simpson, "'The First Right': The Carter Administration, Indonesia, and the Transnational Human Rights Politics of the 1970s," unpublished manuscript.
175. Scott Kaufman, Plans Unraveled: The Foreign Policy of the Carter Administration (DeKalb, IL, Many of Carter's human rights staff also had worked in Congress. I am indebted to Carl Bon Tempo for this point.2008), 13.
176. Airgram, Santiago to Washington, May 17,1975, "FY 1976-77 CASP for Chile," in Kornbluh, Pinochet File306.
177. Judith Innes de Neufville "Human Rights Reporting as a Policy Tool: An Examination of the State Department Country Reports," Human Rights Quarterly 8 no. 4 (1986): 681;
178. Muravchik, Uncertain Crusade 41, 231-32. Although de Neufville cites surprisingly high levels of satisfaction among diplomatic officials with the reporting process, it continued to be controversial.