Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977–1980, Volume II, Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs

160. Paper Prepared by the Global Issues Cluster of the National Security Council Staff¹

Washington, undated

For Dr. Brzezinski Only

Since your remarks to me² a week ago about how our human rights policy has ruined our relations with Chile, Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay, I’ve been ruminating on how we got where we are now. I don’t think that the policy has ruined these relations, or even that they are ruined, but I do think that we have a very serious problem.

Most of it arises from trying to implement ill-advised Congressional directives, particularly, the human rights provisions that have been attached to OPIC and Ex-Im legislation. (As you may remember, I argued that we should oppose each of these as strongly as we could, and in the OPIC case, I later urged that NSC take the lead in directing State to use the most limited interpretation of the law in implementing the human rights amendment.) The crux of the problem is that we have been consistently unsuccessful in defeating these Harkin amendments on the Hill, and I think the reason for that is that you cannot lead from behind.

The only way for the Administration to influence Congress towards more responsible action is for Congress to perceive the Administration as exercising leadership on this issue. Instead Congress sees itself as the promoter and defender of human rights concerns. They believe that if they were to stop pushing, the Administration would assign a drastically lower priority to human rights or abandon the policy altogether. Recent examples such as the Uganda trade embargo and the Human Rights Institute only serve to illustrate the general pattern that in most cases Congress has led and the Administration has followed. The statement on Cambodia is the only small exception I can think of.³

I don’t see much hope that we can influence Congress in a more constructive direction until we’ve taken some initiatives ourselves. Certainly however it does seem as though abandoning or weakening the policy is not the answer. We have always recognized that human rights is a high risk policy because it can so easily be used as a tool by both political extremes, and we are finding our expectations on this to be then fulfilled. We don’t yet have many of the substantive or political answers to the difficulties, but I think we can conclude that the blame for some bad statutes now on the books lies with the Congress, but the blame for allowing the Congress to get into its present frame of mind on this issue lies with the Executive Branch.

1. Source: Carter Library, National Security Affairs, Staff Material, Global Issues—Oplinger/Bloomfield Subject File, Box 36, Evening Reports: 7–8/78. Secret. Brzezinski added the following notation in the upper right-hand corner of the page: “Credits were not a Congressional decision.” Attached to the NSC Global Issues Cluster’s August 22 evening report to Brzezinski. (Ibid.)
2. Reference is to Tuchman Mathews.
3. Presumable reference to the President’s April 21 statement on human rights abuses in Cambodia, which reads, in part, “The American Government again condemns the abuses of human rights which have occurred in Cambodia. It is an obligation of every member of the international community to protest the policies of this or any nation which cruelly and systematically violates the right of its people to enjoy life and basic human dignities.” (Department of State Bulletin, August 1978, p. 38)