127. Memorandum From the Global Issues Cluster of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Brzezinski)1

SUBJECT

  • Evening Report

Daily Activities

[Omitted here is information unrelated to human rights.]

Mathews attended a lunch sponsored by UNA where State-Treasury-NSC representatives were to brief representatives of the human rights NGOs on our efforts to broaden international acceptance for implementing human rights policy through the IFIs. This group is usually united in its criticism of the Administration’s human rights policy. After a long discussion of the issues, Nachmanoff asked those present to say how they would have voted on a recent loan to Chile which supported basic human needs. The results were little short of astounding. About half said they would have voted for that loan, and about half against. Even among those who voted the same way, the reasons were completely different. We then went around the table twice more—once on a loan for agricultural aid to Laos, and then on a non-basic human needs loan for Romania—with the same results. Everyone was sobered by this experiment. I made the plea that they would take the message to the Hill—that the Christopher Group faces a fiendishly difficult task, and that much of the recent criticism of it has been wildly inflated and irresponsible. This discussion demonstrated again that whenever outsiders sit down and force themselves to address the issues in a detailed, case-by-case fashion, they are immediately hit by the difficulties. The message certainly got through. For my part, I have never felt so good about the efforts of the Christopher Group.2

[Omitted here is information unrelated to human rights.]

  1. Source: Carter Library, National Security Affairs, Staff Material, Global Issues—Oplinger/Bloomfield Subject File, Box 36, Evening Reports: 1–3/78. Top Secret.
  2. Brzezinski placed a line in the right-hand margin next to the last two sentences and wrote “good.”