At their first meeting, Médici implored Nixon not to neglect South America, where the danger from homegrown, Cuba-backed insurgencies was so dire that it “could blow up at any time.” Nixon agreed that regional insurgencies were a problem, and he assured Médici that the United States would maintain a strong front against Cuba. But otherwise he was cautious, asking many questions but promising little. Twice he pointed out that Congress controlled foreign aid, and he frankly noted that many American legislators wanted to limit ties in the belief that Brazil was “not democratic enough.” Médici denied that Brazil was a military dictatorship (he cited as proof the nation’s relatively small army), and he emphasized that the position of Brazil and its neighbors was so tenuous that they needed U.S. military support.157 Considering that Nixon twice brought up the lack of democracy, we might be tempted to believe that he had misgivings about supporting an undemocratic government. But it is more likely that he simply wanted to clarify that Congress had to be taken seriously and that he did not have a free hand to aid allies as he wished. He may also have been preoccupied by his more important upcoming meetings in Beijing and Moscow. Either way, with respect to Brazil he was essentially caught between three of his central policy positions. He sought to aid anticommunist allies and avoid involvement in their internal affairs, all while decreasing America’s overseas commitments.
At their second meeting, it became clear that the price for Nixon’s support was Brazil taking a leading role in policing the Americas. The two leaders found common cause in curbing the activities of Fidel Castro, the region’s guerrillas, and Salvador Allende in Chile. Médici strongly agreed with Nixon’s statement that the two countries must work to “prevent new Allendes and Castros,” and he made it clear that Brazil intended to play a key role in preventing left-wing incursions. Nixon then made vague promises of U.S. back-channel funding if the Brazilians moved to undermine or overthrow Allende. Each side saw these meetings as a great success—the Brazilian foreign minister even told American officials that the visit “far exceeded our fondest expectations.”158 Nixon was pleased with the Brazilian leadership from the standpoint of hemispheric security, and he and Secretary Rogers were privately effusive in their praise of Médici. “He’s quite a fellow, isn’t he,” said Nixon. “I wish he were running the whole continent.” Rogers agreed: “God, I’m glad he’s on our side.” The Brazilians did go on to interfere in their neighbors’ political affairs, and Médici became far more active than Nixon in fighting communism in South America.159
But not everyone was happy with the Médici visit or the state of U.S.-Brazil relations. The Committee Against Repression in Brazil erected a large sign outside the White House that read, “Stop U.S. Dollar Complicity with Brazilian Torturists.” A Brazilian student briefly disrupted Médici’s speech at the Organization of American States by yelling, “Long live free Brazil—stop the tortures!” The New York Times suggested that Nixon’s public inclusion of Brazil among America’s closest allies “will be taken in Latin America as bestowing Washington’s blessings on the less attractive aspects of the junta’s record.”160 Even some Brazilian military leaders had misgivings, including one general who lamented that the Americans wanted Brazil to “do the dirty work” in the region.161
Although the Nixon administration did not alter its position, the Brazilian case showed that a focused antitorture campaign could raise public awareness of suffering, essentially turning a Brazilian domestic issue into an international concern. Activists’ testimony and images reached the news media and Congress, and this rise in awareness forced the executive branch to reexamine bilateral relations. Antitorture activism on behalf of Brazilian political prisoners contributed to a much broader international movement against torture, including Amnesty International’s groundbreaking global campaign in 1973.162 These activities would lay the foundations for a strong international reaction to one of the era’s major turning points: the Chilean military’s September 1973 overthrow of Salvador Allende. As for Brazil, incidences of torture and disappearances would decrease under the government of General Ernesto Geisel (1974–1979), in part because of international criticism and in part because most of the armed resistance had been subjugated. Many exiles would return following a 1979 amnesty, though the Brazilian military government would remain in power until 1985.
Chapter 2
The Congressional Challenge and the Ethnic Revival
Washington politics in the 1970s were defined by an inordinate amount of conflict between the executive and legislative branches. As part of a broad-based effort to limit the power of the executive and claim a more prominent position in the foreign policymaking process, legislators played a key role in bringing human rights concerns to Washington. Indeed, Congress became the linchpin by transforming earlier questions about support to authoritarian regimes into firm statutory demands to alter these relationships. Through a variety of measures, the U.S. government became the first in the world to write human rights standards into its bilateral foreign policy laws. Between 1973 and 1979, legislators invoked the power of the purse and amended the Foreign Assistance Act to assess the human rights situation in every nation receiving aid, and they approved over two dozen bills that addressed foreign nations’ human rights practices. Congress also passed country-specific legislation that influenced relations with upward of twenty nations between 1973 and 1984.1
These moves heartened activists, and at times may even have influenced human rights practices in target countries. But congressional activism was a double-edged sword. Not only did much of this activity antagonize foreign governments, but it also spawned awkward questions about policymakers’ intentions and the limits to American power. Were these pursuits solely intended to improve human rights practices, or were they politically motivated? How could Congress measure success? What if new laws conflicted with American commercial or security interests? And where did legislators draw the line between suitable and unsuitable causes? This chapter explores these questions and explains the pivotal role Congress played in the human rights story. It also highlights those legislators who took the lead in bringing these concerns into the diplomatic realm. Activists and journalists played an important part in providing information and pressuring the powerful, but Congress had the power to pass laws and directly challenge the executive branch. The clearest cases of executive-legislative conflict over human rights in the Nixon-Ford years were the Pinochet dictatorship and the Soviet Jewry movement. This chapter also examines ethnic interest groups’ involvement in the major causes of the seventies.
Congressional assertiveness grew from several sources. Congress had earlier granted President Johnson extraordinary power to wage war and expand social programs, but the combination of endemic domestic problems and the Vietnam stalemate led legislators to openly lambaste the “imperial presidency.” President Nixon aggravated this animosity through his secretive, executive-centered diplomacy. A set of legislators then emerged with a program that one senator defined as “new internationalism”—a posture aimed at demilitarizing foreign policy and pursuing new international priorities.2 In 1970, Congress repealed the Tonkin Gulf Resolution and restricted Nixon’s use of the military in Southeast Asia—the first ever vote to limit troop deployments during wartime. Three years later, the War Powers Act required congressional approval for all American military activities. Congress also assumed some oversight of intelligence and pressured President Ford into banning involvement in political assassinations.3 In perhaps the most famous (or infamous) assertion of legislative dominion, Congress refused emergency funds for the final defense of South Vietnam in 1975. These moves led William Bundy to write of these years, “Consensus on foreign policy has disappeared perhaps beyond recall.”4
International human rights became a significant battleground in this executive-legislative conflict. The executive had never been required to consider human rights in bilateral relations, but in light of the Nixon administration’s adherence to realpolitik, legislators took the lead in placing these issues onto the agenda. They used the hearings process to gather information and to build support for pending legislation; they mandated human rights requirements in trade and foreign aid; and they passed nonbinding “sense of the Congress” resolutions, which functioned as public position statements on everything from civil liberties in South Korea