Human Rights and American Foreign Policy: The Carter and Reagan Experiences (review)

244 SAIS REVIEW the interests shared by the Soviet Union and many Third World regimes. However , he treats the Third World as if their minds were putty in the hands of the Soviet propaganda machine. Paul A. Smith describes the Soviet propaganda apparatus as a good ifsomewhat dated mechanism. Peter Kenez's analysis of the lessons to be taken from the Soviet response to Western outrage after a Korean airliner was shot down in 1983 usefully outlines some of the problems in the Soviet system. David Hertzberg notes the differences between official Soviet broadcasts and those of clandestine radio stations transmitting to China, Iran, and Turkey. Joseph Gordon's description of an East German propaganda campaign in 1965 is an illuminating study of what can be done to try to influence opinion. Human Rights and American Foreign Policy: The Carter and Reagan Experiences . ByA. Glenn Mower, Jr. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1987. 167 pp. $37.50/cloth. Reviewed byJeffrey Allen Zuckerberg, M.A. candidate, SAIS. "The question of human rights has come to occupy a prominent place in the field of international relations." Numerous human rights treaties and conventions attest to this fact, as does the proliferation of intergovernmental and private organizations committed to the promotion and protection ofhuman rights. Although the United Nations adopted its Universal Declaration of Human Rights forty years ago, the issue's enduring relevance is demonstrated by the many other bodies that have added the question of human rights to their agendas—in particular, the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, which resulted in the Helsinki Accords. In Human Rights and American Foreign Policy: The Carter and Reagan Experiences, A. Glenn Mower, Jr., focuses on the role human rights issues have played in the foreign policy ofthe two most recent U.S. administrations. Jimmy Carter entered the White House with a deep commitment to human rights, a commitment Mower attributes to Carter's religious beliefs as well as to his reaction against Kissinger's realpolitik policy under presidents Nixon and Ford. Although it may seem to many that President Carter broke from the traditional, "realist" approach to foreign policy, Mower argues that Carter's emphasis on human rights was not new to U.S. policy. Rather, it was rooted in "a combination of political and legal principles inherited from the Greeks and Romans and the ethical precepts of theJudeo-Christian tradition," the essence ofwhich was set forth in the preamble to the Declaration of Independence. Supporters of this "moralistic" interpretation of U.S. foreign policy argue that it "provide[s] an attractive alternative to the ideologies of its rivals in the world arena" and more accurately reflects the basis of U.S. policy. The moral dimensions of President Carter's policy were represented in its embrace of all the basic human rights protected under international law, including both economic and social concerns. Despite a struggle, Carter was ultimately successful in establishing the Human Rights Bureau at the Department of State BOOK REVIEWS 245 under the leadership of Patricia Derian, thus assuring a place for human rights considerations in the foreign policy decisionmaking process. In pursuing its human rights agenda, the Carter administration relied both on quiet diplomacy and on public criticism of governments that abused human rights. Mower also commends the administration for its success in avoiding the politicization of human rights, contending that its approach to left-wing and right-wing regimes was evenhanded. Although security issues took priority toward the end of the Carter administration, the president was always careful to justify any exemptions from human rights legislation for security reasons, thus demonstrating his respect for the law. President Reagan came to office without a strong commitment to human rights, according to Mower, who believes Reagan's early actions in office were often in direct opposition to human rights legislation. Mower says that "nomination of Ernest W. Lefever as assistant secretary of state for human rights and humanitarian affairs was seen as a clear signal of the Reagan administration's contempt for human rights." In contrast with President Carter's definition of human rights, President Reagan's did not include economic and social concerns , writes Mower. Moreover, Mower states, it was based...