Page 278 - Argentina - Carter, Regan, and Bush VP

No Objection To Declassification in Full 2013/02/04 : NLC-24-69-1-4-4

Critical Observation and Recommendation (Pastor)

Public Diplomacy

To an extent that few people would ever believe, the U.S. has been
conducting its diplomacy publicly. There is relatively little that
an astute reader of the best newspapers in the U.S. does not know —
that I do — about the current state of negotiations on Panama and Cuba,
for example. And the rest will probably be in the newspapers in a
matter of days or weeks .

I personally think that this new development is a good one and clearly
in line with President Carter's objective of greater openness (though
not in line with his objective of restricted confidentiality on some
issues) . But I do not believe that we have thought through the
implications of public diplomacy or its difficulties . For example,
on those relatively difficult negotiations like Panama and Cuba
where you are dealing with two constituencies who are headed in
diametrically opposite directions, a public statement in one's own
country may set back negotiations with the other. I am not sure there
is any easy way to cope with this problem. Certainly, I do not
believe that an attempt to keep better control of secrets will work,
but the entire question of how public diplomacy related to private
negotiations, and whether secrecy is irrelevant is something which
should be explored at greater depth.

Human Rights

The new Administration has succeeded in credibly projecting a concern
for human rights abroad which is at least as sturdy as that of Congress.
There is no question that the American people feel better about U.S.
foreign policy than in any recent period.

Therefore, the time has come to begin a second phase in our human
rights policy — this one focused on alleviating the repression abroad.
We must begin, of course, by realizing that the U.S . cannot determine
events in less developed countries, but we can influence the debate
between moderates and hard-liners in different governments. The
question is: how? And I have.been tasking the bureaucracy on this
question with no success .

Part of the reason for the lack of success is the difficulty of the question.
Another part may be that I am very skeptical? when the bureaucracy says
we cannot do anything. The first step, I believe in getting good answers
to the question is in choosing new Ambassadors who share our objectives.
But in the meantime, we should re-focus our approach to this issue from
projecting our own interest to weighting the debate in foreign governments.