159. Memorandum From the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Brzezinski) to President Carter1
SUBJECT
- Themes for your Foreign Policy Debate
It is important that in the debate you not only demonstrate a superior knowledge of foreign affairs (which you clearly have) but also [Page 797] convey to the public several broad themes, which show clearly the contrast between you and Reagan. The war/peace theme is the obvious one, but in the discussion of foreign affairs you may want to relate any specific comments to two or three broader themes, contrasting your foreign policy with Reagan’s. By emphasizing such broader themes, the public will get a better sense of your statesmanship, in contrast to Reagan’s sloganeering. To the extent possible, every comment on foreign policy should reflect the themes discussed more fully below.
The distinctive quality of your foreign policy is that it combines respect for morality with the recognition of the importance of power in world affairs. When you assumed office in 1977, you set yourself two central tasks:
1. To improve America’s political position in the world, overcoming the isolation in which America found itself after eight years of Republican rule and fifteen years of the Vietnam war;
2. To improve America’s strategic position, after eight years of Republican neglect of our strategic needs and some fifteen years of a sustained Soviet defense effort.
As a consequence, you have succeeded in greatly improving our relations with the Third World, in identifying America through your human rights policy with the basic aspirations of our time (and this is why you have a right to be optimistic in your historical vision), and your various concrete policy successes reflect this progress (Panama, Zimbabwe, Camp David, China, etc.). It is important that in your comments you emphasize this theme, noting that Reagan’s administration would be likely to produce again America’s global isolation.
At the same time, you have not neglected the dimension of power. Here you have pursued a sophisticated policy of emphasizing arms control with a long-term effort to improve our overall defense posture (NATO modernization, RDF, MX, Trident, PD–59). Moreover, the normalization of relations with China has also contributed to an improved strategic situation for the United States. By moving forward with SALT, you have held out the possibility of a greatly reduced or even contained arms race, and that too enhances our security.
In effect, your foreign policy has been responsive to the fact that we live in an age of complexity, and that the President has to make careful and mature judgments, weighing carefully a variety of trade-offs while avoiding simplistic slogans. You have done this throughout by stressing the proposition that on the one hand America must positively identify itself with global change (and thus also improve its own political position in the world) and on the other hand remain strong, both through its system of alliances as well as its own defense effort.
[Page 798]Accordingly, your foreign policy, by combining the ability to work with the new forces in the world with an emphasis on American strength, is more likely to generate a condition of global peace and gradual accommodation of regional or ideological disputes.
All of the foregoing enables you to state confidently and very affirmatively that “tyranny is everywhere on the defensive”; that “free-dom is the genuine inevitability of our times”; that “American principles and values are relevant to our times.” These optimistic themes regarding the future follow logically from your broad approach to the world.
In contrast, Reagan’s foreign policy can be defined as:
1. Dominated by a nostalgia for the past;
2. Preoccupied one-dimensionally with weaponry.
The nostalgia for the conditions of the fifties, a time of unique American military and economic preponderance, shows the degree to which Reagan has no sense of history and particularly no vision for the future. Neither our relations with the Third World nor our relations with the Soviet Union can be shaped in the eighties on the basis of what existed thirty years ago. Any effort to do so is simply likely to produce America’s isolation in a hostile world. At the same time, Reagan’s one-dimensional preoccupation with weaponry is likely to precipitate an arms race while giving the Soviets no incentive to exercise any restraint, be it in the Persian Gulf area or in regard to Poland. It is likely to generate more intense confrontations and thus threaten world peace.
In connection with the foregoing, it might be also possible to register subtly the relevance of Reagan’s advanced age to our concerns with the future. The decade of the eighties cannot be managed by an America led by an aged President, dominated by nostalgia for the past. America must convey a vital message to the world, 80% of whose population is composed of politically awakened Third World peoples, most of them quite young. A world of change and youth requires a vital and forward-looking America.
To conclude, the three themes which you should have very clearly in your mind as you speak are:
1. That your foreign policy reflects an optimistic recognition of the nature of change in the world and America’s ability to convey a morally relevant sense of direction to that world;
2. That under your stewardship American strength has been increased, our Allies have been strengthened, and our strategic position in the world has also improved;
3. That the proper response to complex global change is not nostalgia for the fifties.
[Page 799]The Qs and As which are attached focus on more specific issues, but are designed with the above considerations in mind.2
- Source: Carter Library, National Security Affairs, Brzezinski Material, Subject File, Box 16, Debate Themes: Foreign Policy, 10/80. No classification marking. Printed from an uninitialed copy. There is no indication that the President saw the memorandum. A notation in an unknown hand indicates that the memorandum was part of a briefing book prepared in advance of the debate. The only Presidential debate of the 1980 campaign took place at the Cleveland, Ohio, Convention Center Musical Hall on October 28 at 9:30 p.m. and was broadcast live on radio and television. The League of Women Voters sponsored the debate, which was moderated by ABC News political commentator Howard K. Smith. Stone, Ellis, Hilliard, and Walters served as panelists. For the transcript of the debate, see Public Papers: Carter, 1980–81, Book III, pp. 2476–2502. In his diary entry for October 28, the President noted: “In the debate itself it was hard to judge the general demeanor that was projected to the viewers. Reagan was ‘Aw, shucks’ . . . this and that . . . ‘I’m a grandfather, and I would never get this nation in a war’ . . . and ‘I love peace . . .’ He has his memorized tapes. He pushes a button, and they come out. He apparently made a better impression on the TV audience than I did, but I made all our points to the constituency groups—which we believe will become preeminent in the public’s mind as they approach the point a week from now of actually going to the polls. Both sides felt good after the debate. We’ll see whose basic strategy is best when the returns come in next Tuesday.” (White House Diary, p. 476)↩
- Not printed are 12 Presidential debate briefing papers on foreign policy and national security. A cover page, dated October 20 and presumably prepared by Inderfurth and Eric Newsom, lists the titles of the papers: “Leadership,” “Military Balance,” “SALT,” “U.S.-Soviet Relations,” “Western Alliance,” “Persian Gulf,” “Hostages,” “Middle East Peace Process,” “U.S. Policy Toward China,” “Central America,” “Human Rights,” and “Future Goals.”↩