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I'd like to introduce the these names that you know faces you may be new starting from my left. David Broder. Who is America's premier political correspondent really during the interregnum between elections he takes odd jobs and his odd jobs now happens to be the Carter presidency. And he's with special interests in the way that the president and the White House and Dr. Brzezinski see the world on his left. Is David Greenway a truly veteran foreign correspondent. He's the one in the helmet in the picture and he's told me it's only appropriate that he's the only one with a vest here. David is that was first for Time magazine then for Washington Post for us he's been in Hong Kong and get now before moving to Jerusalem 18 months ago he was one of the very last car sponsors to leave Saigon by helicopter from the roof of the American embassy on his left wrist Tom Lippmann was just beginning his third year in Cairo for the Washington Post to get ready for that
assignment. He taught and studied at the American University in Cairo and he did a two year stint for us in Cairo also in Saigon also before moving on to the Middle East. On his left is the dean of the Washington's diplomatic political diplomatic correspondence Mari mater. Who star on knowledge of American foreign policy has been envied and respected by many of you in this room including me. As a personal note Murray was senior to me when I decided that I could never aspire to his job and left Washington Post some years back. On his left. Is David Ottaway who is probably as jet lagged as any of the trio. He's been covering Africa forests for the last three years when he isn't being expelled as he was from Ethiopia as he was from Kenya. He lives in Los
Saka. It took us five days to find David. To ask him home for this occasion tonight. David you lead off. Thank the. Thank you very much. And I want to be very brief in hopes of concealing my ignorance compared to my colleagues on this panel was just a few weeks ago in this very room that at the winter dinner of the Gridiron Club Brzezinski spoke up to explain the basic precepts and architecture of Jimmy Carter's foreign policy. He did so noting that no less an authority than Joe craft had declared that he was the best qualified person in the administration to give that policy its true articulation. And having said that he said I want to now explain our principles and our precepts in my own words. And
he began speaking Polish. I'm not sure that I can do as well in making it clear. Jimmy Carter came to the presidency and to the conduct of American foreign policy from the roads in Plains Georgia and in a career of extraordinary accomplishment in American politics is a distinguishing quality isn't a politician was his activism. He practices a kind of politics of preemption getting there first occupying the ground staking out his initiative forcing other people to play his game rather than his responding to their initiatives. It was a policy that said in the primaries I'll run everywhere you fellows decide where you're going to challenge me running in all the primaries has been the keynote of Jimmy Carter's approach to foreign policy as well. It has meant in practice that there is hardly a portion of the face of the globe where Jimmy Carter in
his first 12 months as president did not stick a pin in the map. So this is the carter policy for this part of the world. Everybody please line up accordingly. He came to the presidency with a very strong moral sense of America's mission in the world and identity in the world. In addition to his own native moralistic and religious rights I think he felt that American foreign policy had suffered from a cynical public reaction to what he described as the policy of secrecy and maneuver conducted by the previous Republican administration. He also brought several personal concerns and the foreign policy area to the job. He was very much concerned about America's role as a merchant of weapons in the world. He was very much concerned about trying to limit and if possible eliminate nuclear weapons from the arsenals of the world's nations. He had an almost biblical concern as he has said himself for trying to bring peace to the warring
nations and causes in the Middle East. And he had a very strong moral interest as you all know in the issue of human rights and the Struggle for the rights of the oppressed around the world. In his office next down the corridor from the president's big Mia Brzezinski has a piece of stainless steel sculpture kind of cylindrical. Pivots on hinges which is called the manipulable blow. And I think that represents his view and the president's view of the nature of the world that it is a world in flux in motion and that if America plays its part skillfully it can but impose to some degree its own design on the changed shape of world relationships. In their first year in office I think this administration found it was very difficult to translate those moral precepts and general notions into policy. They found as we all know that there were important tradeoffs when one raised the issue of human
rights with the Soviet Union. At the same time one was seeking to open negotiations with them on strategic arms control. They found that it was much harder in practice than in precept to reduce the trade in arms across the face of the globe. They have also found it difficult in this first year to define the role of the president in foreign policy. His instinct was to be out front. And that caused him frequently to take positions verbal positions in advance of American policy. The verbal precision of those formulations and occasionally their imprecision caused some serious problems. They found late in the year that even the traditional presidential tour of the world could cause could be a difficult thing to manage in this kind of an environment. But if I was going to summarize where they are at this point I would put it in two sentences. This administration inherited a world that was stable enough at least temporarily to permit it self. The luxury of a year
of experimenting without courting disaster. They have stirred it into motion. Some forces some personalities that were not engaged in world problems when they arrived a year ago and now I look forward with you to hearing my colleagues tell us whether this activism will work out well or badly for us in the rest of the world. Bank. This is David Ottaway covers Africa. I listen to fascination with what David was saying because when you're out in a continent like Africa and. For long periods of time you lose total contact with the newspaper and pointed out trying to get a hold of me. You often wonder what is going on in Washington and how Washington looks at the area you're covering and it's sometimes very difficult to understand. What I want to talk to briefly today is the changes that I have seen in
U.S. foreign policy very briefly towards Africa and how Africa has been looking at the United States. Particularly the change in the two administrations during which I've been in Africa. And I think to understand. Also some of the challenges the U.S. is facing in Africa this year and the changes I see underway in the U.S. attitude towards Africa. One has to start back with the Kissinger years and understand the deep distrust with which Africa viewed the United States until very recently most of African countries believe that. The United States was only interested in Africa in terms of the East-West struggle and the containment of communism and the spread of so influence in Africa and that there was no policy of being interested in Africa for Africa itself. And one of the most dramatic changes. It. Was. A
The entire change in the Africa perception of the U.S. interest in the continent. With the coming to power of the Carter administration and I would say the first nine months of last year there were really some very fascinating. Changes. As Africa opened up to the new American ministration overcame its distrust of American motives. The Carter administration said they were not interested in Africa because they were concerned about communism but they were concerned about racism. Concern about the problems of Africa. Secretary of State Kissinger who was not even allowed to visit Ghana or Nigeria. That attitude passed and Andrew Young was warmly welcomed and many places where Americans were not allowed to enter before. And it was really quite a dramatic change. Now I
would say sometime toward the end of this year I've begun to see another change and. Africa the relations with the United States and vice versa. And that I would say is what seems to me a change back to the Kissinger approach to Africa and that is to see Africa once again in terms of the relations between the United States and the Soviet Union and to be concerned about. Solely or mainly about what the Cubans and Soviets are doing in Africa. And to cast our foreign policy once again in the terms which the African countries themselves initially rejected and deeply distrust. We have. A very serious situation in the Horn of Africa where the U.S. has to decide
whether it will. Try and oppose the massive build up of Soviet and Cuban influence in a new area where they were not before. We have the likelihood of an internal settlement in Rhodesia. Which could. Pit the East against the West over which factions are going to support the same holds true and then India and the US may have to choose whether it will support South Africa internal solution. And thus oppose those who are backed by the Soviets and the Cubans. And there are many conflicts now in Africa where the temptation to. Meet the Soviet involvement with a growing American involvement covert and overt is very great. Which I think basically would take us back to what was essentially the Kissinger approach to Africa. And should this happen I think that
a lot of the goodwill that has been built up during the first year of the Carter administration could be wasted away and a lot of the distrust and uncertainty about American motives towards Africa could be revived in Africa. Thank you. We're going to hear from the first of the Middle East duo Tom Lipman who is our correspondent in Cairo. It was only about three months ago that there was a great deal of excitement. When it became clear that the government of Egypt was prepared to do business with the Ford Motor Company and a few other companies that were on the Arab boycott list. It seemed like a considerable breakthrough at the time. And now it seems like ancient history because President Sadat has gone so much farther so quickly since then that we tend to forget.
How far we've come in a very very short period of time. And it's not clear now exactly where we're going. But I would submit that. We have arrived at the point we have now reached through a consistent and fairly straight line pattern of actions by President Sadat that began shortly after the election of President Carter. When he saw the opportunity to make a new start in the Middle East and he began a campaign that's been waged on many fronts but have all been going in the same direction. The basic thrust of this was to try to meet every conceivable Israeli objection or concern or anxiety. And by doing that and by appealing to American and Israeli opinion to bring the Israelis along to meet him at a point that he could accept that the terms for peace. He has for example for all practical purposes jettisoned the Palestine Liberation Organization from the whole
negotiating process. He has curried favor and I don't I don't mean that in a pejorative sense at all. He has sought to show the United States that his heart is in the right place by Egypt's performance in Africa by being willing to step in to take up the side of what he believes American interests to be in Zaire in Ethiopia. And in West and in West Africa. Now he's done several other things that fall into this same hill of this same pattern. And. The trip to Jerusalem. I think. Was the ultimate expression. Of his determination. To to do whatever he could. To persuade the Israelis. That they shouldn't meet him. On terms that he could accept by doing that. He believed that what he was doing was showing Israel that it could have recognition and
legitimacy in the Middle East a community of nations. All these things were now available. The ostracism of Israel that the Arabs had promoted for so many years. Could be ended and that peace was obtainable. All those things normalization of relations the conditions of peace the nature of peace that have always been of such concern to Israel were available if they would accept his terms which he thought were quite reasonable and which are considerably softer than he has presented them to being as being. And if in fact the Americans would give him a little help. Now. Things have not worked out as President said I thought they would and I think there are a couple of reasons for that. I don't believe President Sadat had a complete grasp of the internal political dynamic in Israel. President Sadat is not responsible to his party or his cabinet in the ways that Prime Minister Begin is. And he may not he doesn't understand. I don't I don't believe
why. Certain things can't be delivered and why the Israelis haven't responded as he would like them to when he pulled his negotiators out of the conference in Jerusalem. It was not because the negotiations themselves within the structure of the Jerusalem Conference weren't going well in fact they were according to everybody who was there. But it was he was responding to other stimuli outside that conference including such things as what he considered an insulting toast offered by promise to begin that I think leaves us in a very dangerous situation. In which we are facing a very very uncertain future in which there is certain to be a very important role for the United States. But nobody knows what the rules are. And the Americans I think have found themselves just as uncomfortable as all the others have because they know that they're going to be asked to take a certain role. They're going to be asked certainly by the Egyptians to make certain decisive and strong moves but they don't
really know what the framework is or where exactly we're going from here. All the traditional notions that we live with for so many years like the Geneva conference have been reduced to irrelevance. And the lineup is obviously changing very rapidly. And it's it leads. There's a potential for a very very serious miscalculation. A man in Jerusalem David Greenway without a helmet when things started to come apart. This last week the leader of the opposition party in Israel Shimon Paris said the trouble was this host said an issue to it had started like a Hollywood movie in reverse the happy ending had come first and then deteriorated into all the problems. And I agree with Tom that one of the major problems has been a misconception
onset outside of the political realities of a parliamentary democracy like Israel. But I think the Israelis too have misinterpreted what Sadat was trying to do. I think the Israelis believe that when Sadat came to Jerusalem the hard bargaining Face-To-Face would now begin and complete exchange of view and free to put what they liked on the table. They didn't understand or they didn't listen when said I said I'm prepared to give you complete security but there cannot be compromises about territory and withdrawal. And this
misunderstanding which I think is understandable in terms of both the Egyptians and the Israelis has led to the present impasse. The Arabs in general and Sadat were interested in principles and wanted the Israelis to commit themselves to principles. And there are after details could be worked out. The Israelis on the other hand wanted to know what the application of what was being discussed would be first and then they would move to principles. In my view. In other words they wanted know exactly what could be how the Egyptians would react to what they would be allowed to be allowed to keep in the Sinai what they would not be allowed to what Palestinian entity would mean first before they got
into committing themselves in advance. And these two mutual misconceptions I think of led to the present impasse and bitter debate for all the impasse now there is I think the important thing to realize in Israel it is a great national debate going on. And I don't believe the Israelis know themselves now exactly what they can give up or are prepared to do. And in a sense one can't blame Saddam too much for getting the wrong impression because for so many administrations the Israelis have said we're not interested in territory we're interested in real peace. And I believe that was absolutely true. 967 right after the Six Day
War. But the Israelis have fallen in love with the territories they have and they especially the West Bank and the issue of territory with security is so interlinked and so ambivalent in Israel's mind that it's very difficult for them to make a decision on this. I believe that begging would have the political clout to lead the Israeli public either way. But if he the Sadat visit has turned to Israeli politics completely upsidedown dabs have become hawks Hawks have become dubs. Most people are uncertain the seductress it is change that completely and the politics of Israel will never be the same. But David Broder also said that America found
itself it had a year luxury without courting disaster. The Israelis don't feel that they feel that the decisions that are going to be made now the permanent ones and they don't have the luxury of making a mistake. Thank you. Sorry mater. Tell us what it all means for me. I'm by no means going to attempt to sum up what my colleagues have said and there are so many areas of the where that we haven't even touched on here and couldn't possibly in a short time. But listening to them reminds me of and I lay Stevenson's story which some of you I'm sure will know. I'd lay Stevenson's story about Old Zeke the wisest man and. And a young man was anxious to get ahead. I was advised to go see Old Zeke and he sought him out on a mountaintop and said What makes you so
wise and old zig sagely replied. Good judgment. He said. But how do you get good judgment and peered off into the just in so he said from experience. And the young man said but how do you get the experience. And he said from bad judgment. So I think we've seen the administration as any administration in its first year hopefully learn from experience. Everybody does learn something from experience whether it's good judgment or bad judgment. President Carter said during the election campaign in the area of foreign policy our people are troubled confused and sometimes angry.
Well I guess all three of those characterizations are probably still true. The administration initiated an immense number of things as Dave Broder has pointed out in the question of operating style. It was haunted really by the shadow of Henry Kissinger. And it's set out to do so many things diametrically opposed to the way Kissinger did them. And yet it is found itself trapped in many of the same practices to sy Vance really has rival Henry Kissinger's travel schedule. And the irony is that sidebands by no means likes to travel that much he had no intention of doing so he found himself caught up in a pattern totally contrary to his desires. Imagine Vance who it was a
charming personable very low key very shy fellow. Doing some of the things that kissing your head the administration got caught last March very early in the game with with a as you know a hit hit a stone wall in Moscow on the SALT talks. I was carried away by its original enthusiasm and as near as I can tell the officials were so new in the administration that no one did dare question the president that he was aiming too high and too broad. A senior official assured me last week this couldn't happen again. I asked him why and he said because the men around the president would speak up and head him off if he was going in that kind of a direction. I hope these are. I hope he is right. But frankly even though the present administration is it is
declaring and acting to a considerable extent more modest there is a great degree of incredible degree of power that emanates from the president no matter how how informal his is on style. Yes and I you can see the men around him even in this administration be considerably overwhelmed by the presidential power. One of the things that I do find as as a as a moderating factor for the gloom I guess we're on and not deliberately conveying here much criticism has been aimed at the Carter administration on grounds that it's amateurish. It is it is amateurish but so frankly is every administration that takes office one of the great paradoxes of American life is that we elect to office a president who may come from a highly prevention of our limited background yet he is automatically since World
War 2 leader of the Western world. Even when the new leader does have some background in world affairs he is not automatically qualified for that exalted role. President Kennedy's first year in office was a disaster in many respects. The Bay of Pigs the Vienna summit conference with Nikita Khrushchev the Berlin Wall. It was not until nine hundred sixty three years ago of Kennedy's death that the administration was operating not operating on all cylinders. Fortunately for this administration there is no immediate cataclysmic crisis ahead. So far as we know but in a nuclear age you can never be that sure. And history has granted this administration time to get its act in order. No administration can ask for more thank you. And that was diplomatic correspondent Marie Martin. After the question. Thank you Larry. Ben Bradlee once again thank you gentleman.
Series
WGBH Journal
Episode
Washington Post Correspondents
Producing Organization
WGBH Educational Foundation
Contributing Organization
WGBH (Boston, Massachusetts)
AAPB ID
cpb-aacip/15-24jm6cnj
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Description
Series Description
WGBH Journal is a magazine featuring segments on local news and current events.
Description
Washington Post Correspondents, from various countries, discussing their areas of coverage.
Created Date
1978-01-26
Genres
News
Magazine
Topics
News
Media type
Sound
Duration
00:29:26
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Credits
Producing Organization: WGBH Educational Foundation
Production Unit: Radio
AAPB Contributor Holdings
WGBH
Identifier: 78-0160-01-26-001 (WGBH Item ID)
Format: 1/4 inch audio tape
Generation: Master
Duration: 00:29:30
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Citations
Chicago: “WGBH Journal; Washington Post Correspondents,” 1978-01-26, WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed March 29, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-24jm6cnj.
MLA: “WGBH Journal; Washington Post Correspondents.” 1978-01-26. WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. March 29, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-24jm6cnj>.
APA: WGBH Journal; Washington Post Correspondents. Boston, MA: WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-24jm6cnj