Plain Talk About America's Global Role

Mondale was back from Europe, Young from Africa. Vance was home from Geneva but getting set to fly to Paris. Blumenthal was in Tokyo. Bergland was packing for the Far East. Rosalynn was off on a seven-nation swing through Latin America. The President was delivering his most comprehensive speech on foreign affairs, entertaining an important leader from abroad and holding a press conference at which all but four questions focused on foreign policy.

Plainly, Jimmy Carter has been quick to master a lesson learned by many of his predecessors: it is far easier for the occupant of the Oval Office to make a heady splash in world affairs than to steer domestic programs through the churning seas of special interests, congressional egos and conflicting political pressures. In foreign and military affairs, a President can snap out orders and, for good or ill, things happen; his envoys and messages race round the globe.

The evidence of an activist U.S. foreign policy could hardly have been more apparent than it was last week. Vice President Walter Mondale, having placed the U.S. foursquare behind black majority rule in Rhodesia and South Africa in a showdown with South African Prime Minister John Vorster in Vienna, announced on his return that Great Britain stood solidly behind America on that intricate issue. U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young pushed the same cause --in his inimitable fashion--during a 20,000-mile, eight-nation tour. (He also managed to outrage Russians, Swedes and residents of the New York borough of Queens with comments about their "racist" attitudes.) Secretary of State Cyrus Vance reported progress toward a new arms-limitation agreement after meeting Soviet negotiators in Geneva; this week he will present U.S. proposals for economic aid to developing nations at the Conference on International Economic Cooperation in Paris. After predicting that he would be a much less traveled Secretary than Kissinger, Vance has been surprised at how much flying he has been doing.

Family Exercise. Treasury Secretary W. Michael Blumenthal, meanwhile, told the International Monetary Conference in Tokyo that the U.S. faces a "temporary" trade deficit of $23 billion this year because of last winter's high energy demands. Agriculture Secretary Bob Bergland, heading for the World Food Conference in Manila, will pledge the Carter Administration's support for increased world food reserves but urge various nations to do whatever they can to increase their own storage capacity. Rosalynn Carter, at the same time, undertakes an unusual exercise in the use of a President's family to deal with substantive diplomatic issues (see story following page).

Even with all these emissaries winging to and fro, Carter's own diplomatic efforts last week were the most significant. He played host to Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Fahd, who brought the welcome message that his country would not use its oil leverage to influence U.S. policy in the Middle East. Carter also had soothing words for the Saudis. Emerging from White House talks with Fahd, Carter declared that he and his guest had "no disturbing differences at all" on mutual issues, including a Middle East settlement--a remark that must have jolted Israeli diplomats. Carter bruised the Israelis again by saying at his press conference that the Palestinians deserved not only to be given a homeland but also "to be compensated for losses that they have suffered."

Earlier, the President chose the University of Notre Dame to deliver a ringing, detailed statement of his emerging foreign policy. Awarded an honorary J.D. (for Jurum Doctor, or Doctor of Laws) Carter turned to Notre Dame's president, the Rev. Theodore Hesburgh. and praised him for speaking "more consistently and effectively in support of the rights of human beings than any American I know."

Before an audience of 12,500, Carter spoke for half an hour with obvious intensity and feeling. Said one listener afterward: "This is either a very important speech or a prayer." Carter plainly regarded it as most important; he had spent the better part of two days rewriting and polishing earlier drafts.

The President saw the speech as an opportunity to help restore America's pride, so severely tested by Viet Nam and Watergate. To do so, he reminded Americans of their virtues and strengths, declaring that they are drawn together by "a belief in human freedom," and that "we want the world to know that our nation stands for more than financial prosperity." Said he: "I believe we can have a foreign policy that is democratic, that is based on our fundamental values and that uses power and influence for humane purposes."

Carter conceded that foreign policy cannot be conducted "by rigid moral maxims. We live in a world that is imperfect." In effect, he was replying to critics who claim that he has not applied his fervor for human rights universally, since he has soft-pedaled violations committed by U.S. allies such as South Korea, the Philippines and Iran. Carter's implied response was that in some instances, U.S. interests might properly call for downplaying the rights issue. Yet Carter insisted that "America's commitment to human rights is a fundamental tenet of our foreign policy."

Good Sense. Defending his openness in the conduct of U.S. foreign policy. Carter argued: "We are confident of the good sense of our own people, and so we let them share the process of making foreign policy decisions." He criticized the "secret deals" of previous Administrations and insisted that foreign policy cannot be fashioned by "manipulation." This was widely interpreted as a rejection of Henry Kissinger's style of personal and secretive diplomacy. In another rejection of the Kissinger legacy, Carter complained that "the covert pessimism of some of our leaders" had helped to erode U.S. confidence; Kissinger had .been quoted as saying privately that Western democracies were on the verge of a Spenglerian decline.

In one of the most striking passages of his speech. Carter proclaimed: "We are now free of that inordinate fear of Communism which once led us to embrace any dictator who joined us in our fear." The U.S., he indicated, will ally itself less often with such totalitarian regimes of the past as those of Spain's Franco. Portugal's Salazar and Nationalist China's Chiang Kaishek. Carter argued that the danger of armed conflict with the Soviet Union had declined, but that competition between the two superpowers was now centered on the contrasting examples that their societies set Said the President: "We can no longer separate the traditional issues of war and peace from the new global questions of justice, equity and human rights."

More specifically, Carter promised that the U.S. will work to end the strategic arms race. "That race is not only dangerous, it is morally deplorable." (But old sailor Carter seized an opportunity at week's end to see at first hand how the race was going in at least one area; he boarded the nuclear submarine Los Angeles at Cape Canaveral for a daylong orientation cruise.) Carter also vowed to help stop the spread of nuclear arms to other nations and reduce the sales of conventional weapons. He said the U.S. will do whatever it can to promote peace in the Middle East ("To let this opportunity pass could mean disaster, not only for the Middle East, but perhaps for the international political and economic order as well"). Emphasizing the urgency of "a peaceful resolution of the crisis in southern Africa," he argued that majority rule must come swiftly and that minority rights must also be respected.

Carter's Notre Dame declaration did not embody a fundamental reorientation of U.S. foreign policy, but instead summed up a shift in approach and emphasis, especially in areas like human rights, cooperation among the industrial democracies, North-South relations, Africa, nuclear proliferation. The President put his stress on promoting democracy and justice, not on seeking a strategic balance among world powers. Under Kissinger, regional conflicts were seen as significant mainly as they affected the rivalry between Moscow and Washington. As National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski told TIME after the speech, Carter was saying that "we need a wider set of relationships in a world in which traditional concerns of war and peace are now being matched by new problems of social justice and development." Critics of the President's policies complained that he is not paying enough heed to the North-South question, that he is not sufficiently committed to working with the industrial democracies, that he is too preoccupied with the human rights issue. Other detractors were alarmed that the Carter Administration has almost totally ignored China--an omission that Brzezinski insists will soon be corrected. Still others wrote off the Notre Dame speech as an insubstantial sermon--PIETY STRIKES AGAIN, said Britain's conservative Daily Express, while even the liberal Guardian described the speech as shot through with "obscurities, ambiguities and plain cotton wool."

Yet to Christoph Bertram, director of London's International Institute of Strategic Studies, the address was "a very important statement of long-term intent." Whether that intent can be translated into a less dangerous world, one in which human liberties will be enhanced, is not at all certain.

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