Office of the Historian

138. Briefing Memorandum From the Director of the Policy Planning Staff (Lake) to the Deputy Secretary of State (Christopher)1

Washington, April 29, 1978

SUBJECT

  • The Fraser Amendments

I believe we should express serious reservations2 about the three Fraser amendments which would put further restrictions on our security assistance.

Following the proposed injunctions might not change our specific decisions. But having to respond to Congressional queries about why we had permitted assistance to certain countries, including whether we considered their governments to be engaged in a consistent pattern of gross violations, would further complicate our dealings both with foreign governments, and with Congress. In general, I think we should try to avoid any new legislative restrictions on the human rights policy. But our expression of reservation should stop short of strong opposition to bills which are deemed likely to pass anyway.3

If we cannot prevent the amendments, we should try hard to get “extraordinary circumstance” language added to the proposed IMET amendment and that on security assistance to police, intelligence, and other security services. We also should try to get the following language added to the “extraordinary circumstance” clause in all three amendments: “including when designed to promote fundamental improvements in a human rights situation.”4

  1. Source: National Archives, RG 59, Office of the Deputy Secretary: Records of Warren Christopher, 1977–1980, Lot 81D113, Box 16, Human Rights—Don Fraser. Limited Official Use. Lake’s Special Assistant Ronald Neitzke initialed the memorandum on Lake’s behalf. Drafted by Jenonne Walker on April 28. Wisner initialed the memorandum on April 29. Attached but not printed are copies of the three security assistance related amendments that were also attached as tabs to Document 136.↩
  2. An unknown hand underlined “serious reservations.”↩
  3. An unknown hand bracketed the last two sentences of this paragraph.↩
  4. An unknown hand bracketed this paragraph. Zablocki and 12 co-sponsors introduced H.R. 12514 in the House on May 3. Ultimately, the Senate version of the bill (S. 3075) was passed in lieu of H.R. 12514. The President signed the International Security Assistance Act of 1978 (P.L. 95–384; 92 Stat. 730–748) into law on September 26. The act provided that security aid could be denied to any nation that violated human rights unless the Secretary of State could certify that extraordinary circumstances existed that required a continuation of aid and demonstrated that it was in the interest of the United States to maintain such aid. (Congress and the Nation, Volume V, 1977–1980, pp. 58–59)↩