Foreign Relations of the United States, 1981–1988, Volume XXXVIII, International Economic Development; International Debt; Foreign Assistance

57. Memorandum From the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Allen) to President Reagan¹

Washington, October 3, 1981

Mr. President:

I hesitate to inflict an additional ten pages of reading on you for the weekend, but the time you will invest in looking at these three articles will be amply repaid.

Several years ago, you will recall, I sent you Jeane Kirkpatrick’s article in Commentary magazine.² It was a significant piece, and it had an impact.

Now I am sending you a piece I consider to be of equal importance, especially in light of your preparations for the Cancun Summit. In “Speaking to the Third World” (from the October Commentary), Peter Berger summarizes both the problems and the opportunities in the “North–South Dialogue.”³

The problem:

The most frequent “obstacles to development” are internal to the societies in quest of development. Among such obstacles are economic systems that stultify growth and impede productivity; political corruption; oppression of people to the point where they cease to be economically active; persecution of economically productive minorities (such as the Asians in eastern Africa and the Chinese in southeast Asia); and, in some cases, indigenous social patterns and cultural values that are not conducive to economic activity. The fixation on external villains is a convenient stratagem for Third World elites who are either unable or unwilling to face up to internal obstacles. There is no reason, however, why we should fortify them in this evasion.

The opportunity:

Americans must have the confidence to present a positive model of development that is properly their own—to present, that is, an American ideology of development. Americans had such confidence before the recent period of national self-criticism, and some of it, let it be conceded, was overconfidence. . . . What we must rather do (and this is by no means an easy task) is to isolate certain key elements of the American experience which are not necessarily dependent on the peculiar historical and cultural features of our society, and define the manner and degree to which they can be transplanted to different societies.

Two such elements stand out: democracy and capitalism. At the heart of any American ideology of development must lie the concept of democratic capitalism. . . . Specifically, what needs to be shown is that the human benefits associated with the democratic ideal are linked empirically (and perhaps linked necessarily) with societal arrangements that, minimally, leave important sectors of the economy to the free operation of market forces.

Two other short pieces by Lisle Widman and Bill Safire on the same subjects are also included.⁴

You will spend a great deal of time in preparation for the Cancun Summit, but these ten pages state the problem in a way that no briefing paper can: they get to the heart of the matter, and lay out a positive response.

Your speech to the World Bank laid down the first principles of a realistic approach. Cancun will test our ability to stick with that excellent first step.

Dick

1. Source: Reagan Library, Douglas McMinn Files, Economic Summit Files, Mexico—Policy. No classification marking. Copies were sent to Bush, Meese, Baker, Deaver, Anderson, and Weidenbaum.
2. See Jeane Kirkpatrick, “Dictatorships and Double Standards,” Commentary Magazine, November 1979. For excerpts of the article, see Foreign Relations, 1981–1988, vol. I, Foundations of Foreign Policy, Document 2.
3. Not attached.
4. The articles, “US Should Say ‘No’ to Global Negotiations,” by F. Lisle Widman and “‘Can-Do’ at Cancun,” by William Safire, are not attached.