Sarah B. Snyder

The Defeat of Ernest Lefever’s Nomination: Keeping Human Rights on the United States Foreign Policy Agenda

To those committed to human rights, Ronald Reagan’s election on 4 November 1980 raised widespread apprehension. Their basic concern was that Reagan would abandon Jimmy Carter’s human rights policies. Joshua Rubenstein of Amnesty International spoke for many human rights activists when he said, ‘We are concerned that the Reagan administration will not have a positive emphasis on human rights and in some parts of the world his election has been taken as a green light, an encouragement for repressive forces.’1 The role of human rights in US foreign policy had slowly emerged in the 1960s and gained considerable ground in the years that followed, culminating with Carter’s declaration in his 1977 inaugural address that the US commitment to human rights must be ‘absolute.’2 To those focused on the issue, Reagan’s electoral victory threatened that progress. The persistence of human rights as an element of US foreign policy under Reagan is thus a testament to the power of the issue against communist regimes, but also to the efforts of the human rights community to keep the issue on the American foreign policy agenda and to its resonance with the broader American public.

“Jerry, Don't Go”: Domestic Opposition to the 1975 Helsinki Final Act

Though now seen as a key turning point in the Cold War, the 1975 Helsinki Final Act provoked considerable opposition in the United States. The principal line of criticism was that the United States had given away too much in the negotiations and had required little of the Soviets. The Helsinki Final Act initially was unpopular domestically with Eastern European ethnic groups as well as members of Congress due to concerns about its implications for Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania and the Soviet presence in Eastern Europe. At the root of many of these complaints was a larger critique of United States President Gerald Fords policy of detente with the Soviet Union. Understanding the sources of opposition to the Helsinki Final Act in the United States illuminates the potential conflict between foreign policy formulation and domestic politics, and it reflects the Ford administrations inability to explain his support for the agreement to the American public. Furthermore, the controversy engendered by the Helsinki Final Act illustrates how contentious Cold War politics remained even in an era of supposed detente with the Soviet Union and demonstrates the extent to which the pacts long-term benefits were unforeseen by participants at the time. The Ford administration was never able to counter condemnation of the Helsinki Final Act sufficiently, enhancing existing skepticism about his leadership and policy toward the Soviet Union.

Through the Looking Glass: The Helsinki Final Act and the 1976 Election for President

The controversy surrounding the 1975 Helsinki Final Act made it an enduring issue in the 1976 campaign, and the political backlash against President Gerald R. Ford damaged his electoral chances. Fords signature of the agreement, his continuation of détente, and his foreign policy more broadly may not have been decisive issues in his contests with Ronald Reagan and then Jimmy Carter, but they certainly were prominent throughout the election. Examining the influence of the Final Act on Fords election campaign illuminates the extent to which a number of candidates sought to use popular opposition to the agreement to their advantage. Furthermore, it reveals how the 1976 presidential candidates, and Ford in particular, struggled to address growing questions about détente, human rights, and morality in foreign policy. Fords failure to defend his signature of the Final Act adequately raised concerns about his foreign policy and personal leadership with the electorate.

The foundation for Vienna: a reassessment of the CSCE in the mid-1980s

This article analyses the interim Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) interim meetings held from 1984 to 1986 in Stockholm, Ottawa, Budapest, and Bern and reassesses previous characterisations of this period as one of stagnation in the CSCE. It demonstrates that the significant groundwork laid at these meetings later manifested itself during the Vienna CSCE Review Meeting. The two most important shifts in the CSCE during these years were an increased Western and neutral emphasis on compliance with existing CSCE agreements at the expense of achieving new concluding documents and a slow evolution in Soviet thinking on its role in the Helsinki process.

Frank Costigliola and Michael J. Hogan, eds., Explaining the History of American Foreign Relations, 3rd ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016. 389 pp.

One could reasonably ask whether, after only twelve years, we really need a third edition of Explaining the History of American Foreign Relations. The answer, for a range of audiences, is yes. The book strikes a difficult balance between being accessible to students new to the field and offering value to regular attendees of the annual meeting of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR). For those who already have the first or second edition, the third edition is worth adding to your shelf. In many ways, the third edition of Explaining the History of American Foreign Relations will be familiar to readers of the first and second. After all, the contributors include eight former presidents of SHAFR. This new volume, however, expands considerably over the previous version, with 21 chapters as well as an introduction. The third edition includes six additional chapters and 140 more pages. Yet, with 373 pages of text, the volume is surprisingly concise. Contributions on borders, international relations, psychology, ideology, national security, corporatism, borderlands, race, memory, and gender remain. Earlier chapters on modernization and cultural transfer have become development and nation branding respectively. On the other hand, nine new chapters join the volume; their themes and perspectives include political economy, computational methods, non-state actors, senses, emotion, legal history, domestic politics, religion, and exceptionalism. Furthermore, the backgrounds of the contributors reflect the diversification of the field. In some respects, the editors’ decision to add so many chapters and reframe others reflects the broadening and reconceptualization happening in much of the scholarship produced over the past decade or so. What is lost in the new volume, however, are two essays that defined the field and reflected on the practice of U.S. foreign relations history. Although many of the essay’s authors outline the historiography relevant to their chapter, these are not historiographical reviews per se. But, the footnotes of each chapter are a gold mine for syllabi, comprehensive examination lists, and summer reading. Making comparisons with the previous editions, I was surprised to discover that domestic politics had not previously warranted inclusion (the first edition includes an essay on public opinion and the first two editions include a contribution on bureaucratic politics, but Frederik Logevall’s focus here is distinct from those earlier chapters). Logevall’s essay warns us against treating the U.S. government as a “unitary actor” and instead to immerse ourselves in domestic sources of foreign policy (p. 155). The most radical addition may be the chapter by David Allen and Matthew Connelly, which proposes that historians of U.S. foreign relations undertake new types

Bringing the Transnational In: Writing Human Rights into the International History of the Cold War

One of the most interesting innovations in recent international history writing is the adoption of transnational approaches. This article echoes earlier calls for international historians to integrate transnational methods more fully into their work by highlighting the salience of human rights and influence of human rights activism as aspects that would otherwise be largely left out of the history of the Cold War. Such methodological innovation is essential to a deeper understanding of the Cold War.

Beyond containment? The first Bush administration's sceptical approach to the CSCE

This article analyses the first Bush administrations policy toward the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), finding that as with Soviet-American relations and US policy toward Eastern Europe, the administration diverged from the foreign policy of its predecessor. Whereas previously the CSCE had been a forum to encourage progress on human rights, promote reform in Eastern Europe, and encourage cooperation with the Soviet Union, under Bush it became a tool to manage the transformation of Europe and preserve the Atlantic alliance. This new approach was guided by uncertainty about the CSCEs usefulness as a multilateral forum, scepticism about Mikhail Gorbachevs reforms, and a preference for stability.

Visions of the End of the Cold War in Europe, 1945–1990 (New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2012), vii + 358 pp.

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Brent Scowcroft: Internationalism and Post-Vietnam War American Foreign Policy

David F. Schmitz has written an insightful biography of Brent Scowcroft, national security advisor to presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush and a leader who has remained largely behind the scenes, content to advise rather than hog the limelight, but who nonetheless has been ‘at the center of debates over American foreign policy since the 1970s’ (p. 197). Schmitz’s book is also a good primer on United States foreign relations as Scowcroft served during two of the most important periods of the Cold War. Schmitz showcases the many facets of Scowcroft’s highly contingent career – he was a military officer, an academic, and a civil servant, who only pursued graduate study because he broke his back training to be a fighter pilot. Utilising Scowcroft’s early published and unpublished writings, including his PhD dissertation on the role of Congress in foreign policy-making, Schmitz explores the principles and lessons most salient to the national security advisor. He outlines Scowcroft’s worldview, highlighting his belief in American exceptionalism and his conviction that ‘only the United States can exercise enlightened leadership’ (p. 5). Other principles that guided Scowcroft include: an internationalist vision, a multilateral approach, a focus on stability, and caution about overselling a policy to the public. One of the book’s most important contributions is demonstrating how Scowcroft’s criticism of President Woodrow Wilson’s quest to transform the world by promoting democracy and distaste for peace settlements dictated by victors shaped Scowcroft and Bush’s decision to eschew triumphalism in the wake of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Schmitz argues against a growing body of literature portraying the first Bush administration as lacking a strategic vision for the end of the Cold War, contending that with Bush’s May 1989 address in Mainz, ‘A new vision of Europe was driving American policy’ (p. 102). Furthermore, in contrast with Gregory Domber’s recent work, he concurs with Scowcroft’s assertion that the United States played ‘midwife’ to the transformation of Poland. Schmitz’s book concludes on a disappointed note with Scowcroft’s counsel unheeded by George W. Bush and his former National Security Council colleague Condoleezza Rice. The second Bush administration subscribed to a very different worldview than Scowcroft’s internationalism, which given Bush I’s electoral loss in 1992, Scowcroft had been ‘unable to institutionalize’ (p. 199). Therefore, Scowcroft was understandably upset with the second Bush administration’s unilateral approach to foreign affairs, its poor planning for the post-war administration of Iraq, and the hubris of its worldview.

“Promising Everything under the Sun”: Helsinki Activism and Human Rights in Eastern Europe

The 1975 Helsinki Final Act spurred an explosion of dissident activity in Eastern Europe, eventually leading to the development of a transnational network committed to reform in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. The agreement was the culmination of three years of negotiations by representatives of 35 European and North American states at the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) and contained principles to govern East-West interactions in Europe. In addition to reaching an agreement on the inviolability of frontiers, which was the original impetus for the Soviet desire to hold the conference, the Helsinki Final Act committed the CSCE states to respect human rights and facilitate human contacts across East-West borders.1 The agreement’s final provision set a follow-up meeting to evaluate Helsinki implementation in two years’ time, which provided the rationale for the formation of nongovernmental groups to monitor adherence to the accord. Importantly, the first review meeting led to a second, and a whole series of meetings followed, fostering links among Helsinki activists and cementing the CSCE and human rights advocacy onto the international diplomatic agenda. Advocates for implementation of the Helsinki Final Act succeeded in unifying and supporting dissidence, advancing a human rights agenda on an international stage, offering incentives for change in Eastern Europe, and facilitating the transition to a new Europe at the end of the Cold War.2