Daring to Talk About Human Rights

The opening signals from the Carter Administration on the tone of future U.S. relations with the Soviet Union were contradictory, if not downright confusing. On the one hand, the new Administration, responding to some warm overtures from Soviet Party Chief Leonid Brezhnev, announced plans for quick resumption of the long-stalled talks on U.S.-Soviet arms limitations (see following story). But at the same time, in line with Carter's conviction that U.S. foreign policy ought to show more concern for human rights, Washington seemed willing to strain what might yet be a honeymoon of sorts with Moscow. The Administration issued some harsh public criticism of the internal affairs of East bloc countries.

Early last week, the State Department publicly rapped Czechoslovakia for not living up to the human rights provisions of the 1975 Helsinki agreement. Specifically, State took the Czechs to task for harassing many of some 300 Czechoslovak intellectuals who had signed a petition called Charter 77 demanding various domestic reforms. Next day, there was another State blast on human rights, this time aimed at the Soviet Union and concerning its leading resident dissident, Andrei Sakharov, the nuclear physicist and winner of the 1975 Nobel Peace Prize.

At a press briefing, a newsman asked a State spokesman whether Washington had any position on Sakharov, who has been subjected to a threat of arrest and possible trial. The cause: Sakharov's charge that the Soviet secret police may have touched off a blast in a Moscow subway so as to have an excuse to crack down on dissidents. The following day the department released a statement not only defending Sakharov as "an outspoken champion of human rights" but also warning Moscow that any attempt to "intimidate" him "will conflict with accepted international standards of human rights."

Some evidence of the difficulties Soviet dissidents face was made plain last week in a letter by Sakharov himself to Carter, which was delivered to the State Department by an American civil liberties lawyer who had met Sakharov in Russia the week before. In the letter Sakharov said that dissidents have "a hard, almost unbearable situation" in the East bloc countries and argued that "our and your duty is to fight for them."

The State Department broadsides broke a longstanding taboo against strong comment on the internal policies of other countries. They also marked the first effort by Washington to take the Eastern regimes to task for not living up to the Helsinki provisions. When he learned of the statement about Sakharov, Anatoli Dobrynin, the Soviet Ambassador to the U.S., telephoned Secretary of State Cyrus Vance to protest. That prompted a curious diplomatic minuet that left an impression of some disarray in the State Department.

The Czech statement had been approved in advance by Secretary Vance. But when the Sakharov announcement hit the headlines, the Administration said that neither Vance nor Carter had known that it was coming--but that it had their approval nonetheless and was in the spirit of the new Administration's position on human rights. The message that the State Department released apparently came from a draft paper that had been prepared by the European section but had not yet reached Vance's desk for his consideration.

Western Meddling. That kind of impromptu diplomacy would not have been tolerated in the previous Administration. Henry Kissinger kept a tight rein on his State Department; he was also cautious about confrontations on human rights with the Soviet regime, believing--with reason--that they would accomplish little and that they might complicate negotiations with the Soviets in other areas. "You can't start winging criticism left and right," says an Administration official. "The objective is to ensure human rights, not make a lot. of high-sounding statements."

The Russians are keenly sensitive about what they regard as Western meddling in their internal affairs, and only last month Brezhnev warned in a speech that outside efforts to change Soviet domestic policy would be futile.

Nonetheless there is strong public sentiment in the U.S. for a foreign policy that is somehow more "moral," as Carter recognized during his campaign. While the Sakharov statement appears to have been to a degree accidental, the Administration seems to have timed its initiative on Czechoslovakia deliberately, as a message to Moscow--as well as the U.S. public--that while Carter wants progress on SALT, he is not about to sacrifice other goals or convictions in pursuit of a new agreement. The result, intended or not, may be to certify Carter's toughness toward Moscow and thus protect him from the U.S. right, should an eventual SALT agreement be attacked for making undue concessions to the Soviets.

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