Reagan, Congress, and Human Rights: Contesting Morality in US Foreign Policy by Rasmus Sinding Søndergaard

Abstract

Reviewed by: Reagan, Congress, and Human Rights: Contesting Morality in US Foreign Policy by Rasmus Sinding Søndergaard Aryeh Neier (bio) Rasmus Sinding Søndergaard, Reagan, Congress, and Human Rights: Contesting Morality in US Foreign Policy (Cambridge University Press, 2022), ISBN 9781108495639 (hard-back), 324 pages. Rasmus Sinding Søndergaard, a Danish historian teaching at a Swedish university, has written an excellent account of the way that the United States Congress, through its struggles in the 1980s with the Reagan Administration, helped to make the promotion of international human rights an important ongoing component of American foreign policy. His book, Reagan, Congress, and Human Rights: Contesting Morality in US Foreign Policy, is deeply researched. To one who was a close observer and participant in those struggles as they were taking place, Søndergaard’s highly detailed reporting seems flawless. Most of his judgments seem well-considered and fair. And yet, despite his book’s many virtues, it appears to me that Søndergaard has told only part of the story. It was not only struggles with Congress during the Reagan years that led to an ongoing American commitment to promote human rights. It was also the focus on human rights reporting in the mainstream American press during that period and the emergence of an array of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) dedicated to the human rights cause. The press coverage and the lobbying by NGOs complemented and contributed to the efforts of those members of Congress who were at the forefront of disputes with the Reagan administration. In turn, of course, the battles waged by members of Congress provided material for press attention to human rights, and NGOs built their constituencies by mobilizing their supporters around struggles in Congress. Before the 1970s, the international human rights cause did not attract much attention. It was rarely an issue in the US Congress. Press coverage was scarce. And a civil society movement to promote human rights barely existed. Amnesty International had been founded in 1961, but while it caught on in a few European countries, it had only a small following in the United States. Also, in those days, it restricted its activities to very few issues. Its main activity was to identify “prisoners of conscience” in a number of countries and to organize letter-writing campaigns for them. All of this changed in the 1970s because human rights became a focal point in the Cold War struggle. The most important developments were the emergence of a small dissident movement, quickly subjected to harsh repression in Moscow, at the heart of the Soviet empire; a military coup that was accompanied by extensive torture and killings that overthrew a democratically elected leftist government in Chile; and large scale protests against the Apartheid government in South Africa that were violently suppressed. The geopolitical alignments of the governments engaged in repression became a central part of the story. Some reacted to abuses because of their political sympathies for certain victims of repression. Others were insistent that all such abuses should be condemned and that human rights should be upheld regardless of Cold War alignments. [End Page 157] A member of Congress who responded to the human rights developments in different parts of the world was Representative Donald Fraser of Minnesota. He conducted hearings on those developments and was the principal author of legislation that would change the way the United States Department of State would deal with human rights. Fraser’s legislation mandated the creation of the post of Assistant Secretary for Human Rights, provided that the Department would issue annual “country reports” on the human rights practices of governments worldwide, and prohibited security aid to governments that had practiced gross abuses of rights. The latter provision was seen as a repudiation of the role of Henry Kissinger in facilitating the military coup in 1973 that brought General Augusto Pinochet to power in Chile. The legislation was vetoed by President Gerald Ford, for whom Kissinger served as Secretary of State. It was adopted by Congress over Ford’s veto. An essential part of the process that secured the votes needed to override Ford’s veto is that the legislation won the support of right-wing members of...