79. Editorial Note
On May 5, 1978, President Jimmy Carter delivered remarks at a town hall meeting at the Convention Center in Spokane, Washington. Carter visited Spokane as part of a 3-day trip, May 3–5, to Colorado, California, Washington, and Oregon. After an introduction by Representative Thomas Foley (D-Washington) and Senator Warren Magnuson (D-Washington), the President discussed several domestic issues, including inflation and the administration’s energy program, conceding that there were “no easy answers” to these problems facing the United States. Foreign policy, he continued, failed to yield easy answers as well:
“I know that in the past we’ve made some very serious mistakes. The Vietnam war, Watergate, the CIA revelations have kind of torn the fabric of our society, because the American people were not involved in making those decisions. We were faced with mistakes for the first time after they were revealed to us. And we create, sometimes, in the minds [Page 387] of American people, an image that we don’t know exactly what we want to do.
“I don’t claim to know everything about what we want to do. But we try to bring the debate out into the open and let various voices be heard, so that when I do make a final decision about SALT talks or nonproliferation, or the use of solar power, or the control of the waste of energy, or farm agriculture policy, or urban policy, I will have listened to hundreds, even thousands of voices of Americans who know better answers than I do about a specific subject and who care deeply about our country.
“So, to me it’s important that we do have some confusion, that we do have an open debate, that we do have disputes on occasion and even outright criticisms. I think that’s good in a strong, democratic society. I don’t fear it. I also don’t fear addressing some very difficult questions that have been ignored too long and have now become crises in our Nation.”
During the subsequent question-and-answer portion of the event, an audience member asked the President if he viewed Soviet and Cuban intervention in Africa as a “test” of U.S. policy, then rephrased the question to inquire as to the nature of U.S. policy “toward Soviet intervention” in Africa and elsewhere. The President responded:
“I think we are holding our own in the so-called peaceful competition with the Soviet Union, in Africa, and in other parts of the world. Again, I hate to refer repeatedly to what existed in the past, but I think it’s accurate to say that never before in the history of our Nation have we shown any substantial interest in the continent of Africa.
“Just a few weeks ago, I visited Nigeria, the greatest nation in Africa in many ways—economically, population, vigor, influence, growing influence. There are about 100 million people who live in Nigeria. It’s one of the present and future leaders of black Africa. I was the first American President, by the way, in the history of our country who had ever made an official visit to a black African nation.
“Two or three years ago when Secretary Kissinger wanted to go and visit Nigeria, the country would not even let him enter that country. But I was received with open arms in a tremendous outpouring of friendship and realization of mutual purpose.
“We are trying to do the same thing in other parts of Africa, particularly where the black nations exist. We’ve got a good advantage in having a man like Andrew Young head our United Nations delegation. He’s trusted by black people, not only in Africa but in the Caribbean area, in Latin America, and around the world—also in this country, of course. But just the fact that I appointed him to be our U.N. Ambassador is a demonstration to those people in tangible terms that we care about them for the first time in 200 years.
[Page 388]“Now, the Soviets are obviously trying to use their influence in Africa and other parts of the world. In many instances when they have come into a nation that has a changing government, their major input has been weapons, and they are much more easy to buy weapons from than we are. They will supply excessive weapons to countries like Somalia and Ethiopia, in the Horn of Africa, resulting in this instance by an attack on Ethiopia on Somalia with Soviet weapons. Both countries got them from the Soviet Union.
“The Soviets have gone into Ethiopia, using Cuban troops to fight against Somalia. I deplore this very much. In the strongest possible terms we have let the Soviets and Cubans know that this is a danger to American-Soviet friendship and to the nurturing and enhancement of the principle of détente.
“The Soviets know very clearly how deeply I feel about this. I’ve communicated directly with Brezhnev through private, sealed messages. And Cy Vance just came back from Moscow recently, having repeated to the Soviets, ‘Be careful how you use your military strength in Africa if you want to be a friend of the United States and maintain peace throughout the world.’
“So, I think that they are mistaken. There’s a strong sense of nationalism in Africa. Once the Soviets are there to help with military weapons when a new government is formed, then the people of that country almost invariably want the Soviets to get out and let them run their own affairs.
“I think there’s an innate racism that exists toward black people within the Soviet Union, as compared to us. We know how to live with white and black people together. We respect each other. We’ve learned this the hard way. But there’s a great deal of appreciation in Africa for this attitude on the part of the United States, as contrasted with the Soviet Union. And there’s another very major factor that I mentioned yesterday morning in Denver at the Governor’s Prayer Breakfast, and that is that there’s a strong sense of religious commitment throughout black Africa and indeed the northern part of Africa as well, Egypt and the others. They may be Arabs, they may be Moslems, they may be Christians or others, but they worship God.
“And this is a sense or a mechanism of a feeling of brotherhood and sisterhood that binds us together very strongly. They recognize that the Soviet Union is a Communist and an atheistic nation, and it’s a very present concern in the minds and hearts of Africans who, on a temporary basis, will turn to the Soviets to buy weapons because we won’t sell the weapons to them.
“We come in later with economic aid, with trade, with friendship, with the commitment to democracy and freedom, to human rights, and I believe in the long run our system will prevail. We could compete [Page 389] more directly and effectively with the Soviets on a temporary basis by trying to sell our weapons to every country that calls for them. I don’t think that’s the right approach.
“I’d rather depend on the basic commitment of American people to human rights, to religious commitment and freedom, and to a sense of equality with those people who might be brown or yellow or black, than to depend on the Soviets trying to buy friendship through the sale of weapons designed to kill.” (Public Papers: Carter, 1978, Book I, pages 863, 871–872)