Can Jimmy Carterize Foreign Policy?

Even as they prepare to receive the U.S. Secretary of State on his first official visit to Moscow, Kremlin leaders fume as they hear yet another rhetorical outpouring about human rights from Washington. West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, angered by a hard new U.S. stand on economic, nuclear and defense issues, struggles to understand the complex personality of the evangelist in the White House. Israelis and Arabs wonder what the President means by his seemingly offhand use of heavily freighted Middle Eastern code words. Brazil's prickly military leaders--along with other authoritarian regimes in Latin America's southern cone--bristle at Washington's finger pointing. Even the studiously cautious Japanese raise a diplomatic eyebrow or two as their Premier embarks on a visit to Washington amid growing worries about protectionist pressure in the U.S. and political problems at home. Washington takes a newly tough line against the white regimes of southern Africa, while fearing a possible post-Angola confrontation with the Soviet Union or its proxies in Zaire. (These and other developments in an extraordinarily eventful week are reported in detail on the following pages.)

One cause of the near global bewilderment--and fascination--with Carter's approach to world affairs is what New York Times Columnist James Reston calls Carter's "open mouth" foreign policy. As the President put it in his speech to the U.N. last week: "I have brought to office a firm commitment to a more open foreign policy. I believe the American people expect me to speak frankly about the policies we intend to pursue." Some of the havoc created by this approach is simply the result of the new Administration's not having had time to explain and demonstrate its policies. Notes a Western diplomat in Moscow: "We're all certainly in the learning process."

Unusual Candor. But a deeper source of confusion is Carter's approach to the human rights issue, which many countries feel is preachy as well as impractical. To them it is not clear what Carter hopes to achieve, especially because only a handful of the world's countries could ever qualify for the U.S. human rights seal of approval. The policy also seems inconsistent to many because U.S. officials have explained that security considerations could prompt Washington to exempt some human rights offenders from penalties.

A major target of Carter's extraordinary public diplomacy is the Soviet Union. The President continues to champion civil and political rights of Russian dissidents. At the same time, he publicly proposed possible compromises designed to break the deadlock in U.S.-Soviet strategic arms talks. In his U.N. speech, he called for "strict controls or even a freeze on new types and new generations of weaponry and a deep reduction in the strategic arms of both sides." Then, with a candor unusual in a foreign policy address, he disclosed a possible negotiating fallback position, suggesting "a limited agreement based on those elements of the Vladivostok accord on which we can find complete consensus, [setting aside] the more contentious issues."

Listening to these SALT proposals at the U.N. was Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, who late this week will take them to Moscow. Although Vance will be huddling with Soviet Communist Party Boss Leonid Brezhnev and Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko to talk about the Middle East, Africa, the European arms balance and other timely issues, the paramount topic on the agenda will be SALT.

In their exchanges with the Russians, members of the U.S. delegation anticipate a bit of a roasting. Explains one U.S. official: "Brezhnev is the host, and he'll open by grousing and being blustery about our not showing respect for Soviet sovereignty because of the U.S.'s human rights policy. He'll say he's had high hopes for this Administration but has been disappointed, and will add that the Soviet people are concerned about the U.S. or any country interfering in their internal affairs." At this point, Vance may well answer that detente's spirit would surely benefit from a quick conclusion to the SALT II negotiations along the lines of Carter's U.N. address--using the Vladivostok formula, but deferring the issues of how to deal with the Soviet Backfire bomber and U.S. cruise missile.

Brezhnev has turned thumbs down on this kind of proposal three times before, and will probably do so again. If that happens, according to U.S. experts, the Secretary is prepared to counter with a new formula: a sharp cut in the Vladivostok ceilings (2,400 nuclear delivery systems permitted to each side) and a limit on the U.S. cruise missile, in exchange for restrictions on the Backfire and reductions in the Soviet inventory of monster-sized rockets, for which the U.S. has no counterparts. The chances are high that this proposal will draw still one more nyet, but Brezhnev is aware that the Carter Administration is getting ready to decide whether to proceed with three powerful new weapons systems--cruise missile, B-l bomber and the M-X mobile, land-based missile. Some of these may be delayed if SALT II is successfully concluded.

Rights Report. Vance will be arriving in Moscow at a time when U.S.-Soviet relations are chillier than they have been since the Nixon Administration in May 1972 enraged (and humiliated) the Kremlin by mining North Viet Nam's Haiphong Harbor. In recent weeks Russian leaders have done little to mask their mounting irritation at Carter's unrelenting advocacy of human rights, and Soviet papers lately have been edging close to attacking the President by name. The Russians have also become more explicit in warning that progress on issues like arms control are linked to Washington's toning down the human rights drive. Last week, for example, Pravda argued: "Washington assures that detente and Strategic Arms Limitation Talks are one thing and that attempts to interfere in our internal affairs under the false flag of 'the protection of human rights' are quite another thing... The illogic of the argument is evident. Detente and the normal conduct of talks presuppose the establishment of trust between the negotiating parties."

In answer, Carter asserted at the U.N. that the human rights issue "is important in itself. It should not block progress on other important matters." He also pointedly reminded the Kremlin that "all the signatories of the U.N. Charter have pledged themselves to observe and to respect basic human rights. Thus no member of the U.N. can claim that mistreatment of its citizens is solely its own business." Calling upon the U.N. to play a stronger role in policing human rights, Carter urged that the organization's Human Rights Commission "meet more often" and that its headquarters be permanently located in Manhattan, "where its activities will be in the forefront of our attention."

The Administration has been taking pains to emphasize that the finger of morality is not pointed solely at the U.S.S.R. Earlier this month, Vance recommended that military aid to Argentina, Uruguay and Ethiopia be cut because these nations violated human rights. Then last week the State Department released a human rights report on 82 nations eligible to receive U.S. aid (see box). The report set off some enraged reactions in Latin America. Brazil, which ironically was given a relatively clean bill of health by the study, denounced Washington for meddling in its internal affairs. Ambassador John Crimmins was summoned to the Foreign Ministry in Brasilia and frostily told that the U.S. could keep its proffered credits for next year--some $50 million. The ministry also gave the year's notice required to dissolve the 1952 U.S.-Brazil Military Assistance Agreement.

Brasilia's action did not come as a total surprise; anger at the U.S. has been rising for some months and anti-Americanism has been creeping into the Brazilian press. Newspapers have increasingly referred to the President as "Janio Carter"--an unkind comparison with Janio Quadros, the high-minded but somewhat erratic former President of Brazil. A major cause of Brazil's hostility is Washington's opposition to the regime's plans to purchase a full-cycle nuclear-fuel plant from West Germany (see box). Still, it was clearly the human rights issue that prompted the Brazilian government to take last week's sudden action.

Bad Relations. Within days, Argentina, Guatemala, El Salvador and Uruguay--all ruled by military regimes --also rejected U.S. aid; like Brazil, these governments complained that U.S. concern for human rights amounted to "intolerable interference" in their internal affairs. (By contrast, President Carlos Andres Perez of Venezuela--which has one of South America's few surviving civilian-ruled democracies--has cheered the Carter human rights drive.)

The rejection of aid by the angry juntas will probably not have a catastrophic impact on U.S. interests in these countries; economic ties, after all, remain close. Still, a Washington-based expert on Latin America advises that "our relations with them are going to be bad for a long time. The life of a lot of American diplomats is going to be pretty miserable." The U.S., though, may find it sorely misses the backing it has received from Brazil in international organizations and the kind of invaluable, quiet diplomatic services the Brazilians have performed. Among other things, Brazil functioned discreetly as Washington's proxy in opposing the Communists' bid for power in Portugal during the unsettled postrevolutionary period in 1975.

So far, at least, Carter's human rights campaign has not yielded any significant positive results. TIME Correspondent Marsh Clark reports from Moscow that the White House rhetoric "has not demonstrably discouraged the Soviets from cracking down on dissidents. Although ailing Dr. Mikhail Shtern was released from a Ukrainian prison last week (and this may have some connection to the approach of the Vance visit), it might be argued that this was more than offset by the almost simultaneous arrest of Jewish Dissident Anatoli Shcharansky, the 29-year-old computer expert who has been an unofficial spokesman for the human rights movement in the U.S.S.R. The officially controlled Soviet press continues to print vicious attacks on dissidents, U.S. diplomats and journalists. If anything, the shrillness of these attacks appears to have increased."

Freewheeling Style. The story is much the same in Latin America. From Rio, TIME Correspondent Barry Hillenbrand cables that Carter's concern with human rights at first prompted the Chilean and Argentine regimes to grant dissenters a bit more leeway. But in the past week "Argentina barred those held under the state-of-siege regulations from leaving the country--an option they had before. In Chile, the official state of siege has been extended for six more months, and last week the Christian Democratic Party and three other political groups were outlawed."

While Western European leaders generally endorse the human rights emphasis, some diplomats worry that Carter's freewheeling style may begin to create serious problems for the U.S. abroad. West Germany is already miffed by the President's use of public platforms to make policy and by what Bonn calls his lack of clarity and precision. While the French and British are much less critical --at least for now--they feel that the President is not being totally realistic. Mused a Quai d'Orsay official: "There are no longer any great secrets in the world. But Carter will soon discover that to conduct foreign policy publicly is neither possible nor desirable." One danger is that revealing negotiating postures in such sensitive matters as SALT or the Middle East may force other nations into a rigid stance they otherwise might not assume.

Despite the reservations about Carter's style, doubts about his knowledge of international questions--long regarded as his weakest suit--are fast fading. From those who have already personally dealt with the President, the verdict is unanimous: Carter has been well briefed, is a fast learner and has enough self-confidence to admit when he has not yet studied an issue sufficiently to make up his mind. After his meeting with Carter earlier this month, British Prime Minister James Callaghan returned to London and said that he had never before met a statesman who spoke with such openness. Above all, Carter has left no doubt that he is in charge of making U.S. policy. Remarks a White House insider: "Stuff the criticism. He said what he was going to do. He won the election and now he's doing it."

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