Human Rights in American Foreign Policy. Joe Renouard
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Some Americans and Greeks lobbied Nixon to cut ties at the outset of his presidency, and both pro- and anti-junta advocates used anticommunism to bolster their arguments. “You are respectfully asked whether you can tolerate any longer the violation of human rights of your Greek allies and friends,” implored a former Greek politician and torture victim. “Increasing hatred boosts the communist cause and may turn Greece into another Vietnam.” But others asked Nixon to restore ties and end the arms embargo. Congressman Edward Derwinski (R-IL), who was angry that “the American liberal establishment” had ostracized Greece, argued that “logic and American national interest” necessitated full U.S. support. Meanwhile, the junta’s leaders pled for support with a combination of polite inquiries and thinly veiled threats. A bitter Greek general told his American counterpart that U.S. inaction imperiled his nation. “When you at last decide to give us the weapons,” he said, “you will probably find no one here to use them.”105 But while it was true that Greeks faced some internal threats, the junta also overstated the problem in order to maintain power, and sometimes even to justify abuse of civilians. The communists in the Western world were “using the students as a spearhead,” argued the deputy prime minister. These were “children [who] smoked marijuana and had little sense of reality.” Urging resumption of full political and military ties, Prime Minister Georgios Papadopoulos argued that the regime had remained loyal to NATO and had prevented an economic collapse, a communist takeover, and a civil war. The junta was moving toward democracy, he asserted to Nixon, but it would have to do so at its own pace.106
Early on, the Nixon administration lobbied for a democratic restoration in the belief that this would enhance stability. In April 1969, Secretary of State William Rogers pressed the foreign minister on a political timetable and on the release of Greece’s eighteen hundred political prisoners, arguing that the United States considered “evolution toward representative government and the application of civil liberties” as important steps. A harsh State Department assessment found that America’s reputation had “to some extent become identified with that of the junta.” There had been no meaningful progress on democracy or on promised economic and social programs, yet the junta seemed to be relying on the U.S. need for Greek facilities. (Europeans, meanwhile, were criticizing the regime while profiting from arms sales.)107 By the end of Nixon’s first year, Ambassador Tasca was advising that there was no alternative to the dual policy of public support mixed with private encouragement for a return to democracy. Because the colonels were maintaining domestic stability and following a foreign policy generally consistent with America’s, Tasca advised against a “self-defeating” policy of military aid cuts and “quixotic public criticism.”108
Beyond the domestic political issues at stake, Nixon considered Greek democracy irrelevant to the bilateral relationship. At a time when the United States was the only NATO member granting military aid to Greece (several were selling weapons), he lifted the embargo on heavy weapons in September 1970 in response to a Greek timetable to restore democracy. “The [anti-junta activists’] idea is that the U.S. shouldn’t give arms and then the Greeks would change,” said Nixon privately. “They’d change alright, but the wrong way…. We need the Greeks…. We don’t like the government, but we’d like its successor less.”109 This resumption of arms shipments forced the administration to defend the regime and to put a positive spin on Greek events, even to the point of stating in September 1970, with scant evidence, that torture had ceased and that political prisoner numbers were falling. Behind the scenes, the United States was dissatisfied with the Greeks’ authoritarianism and their “public relations ineptness,” but Greece’s strategic importance and loyalty to the alliance remained the focal point of Nixon’s policy.110 It is clear, then, that security and continuity overrode any sharp public tones on democracy and human rights. Because Nixon and Kissinger had little interest beyond regional security and the possibility that bad press would hurt their overall foreign policy, from 1970 onward their Greece policy was entwined with détente. The “noninterference” position became a broad cover for Nixon’s desire to free the United States from unwanted commitments, but for better or worse, the United States was now more closely identified with the junta. When Defense Secretary Laird visited Greece in October 1970, his meetings were interrupted by a nearby bomb, and the following month a bomb damaged the statue of Harry Truman in downtown Athens.
In light of Nixon’s unwillingness to pressure the junta, legislators proposed several solutions. Congressional liberals challenged the administration’s line that Greece was fulfilling its NATO obligations. Congressman Don Edwards (D-CA) asserted that Greece’s NATO status was “an excuse for U.S. inaction” because of Greece’s minimal military value, while Congressman Fraser argued that Nixon’s approach contradicted American tradition and alienated America’s friends.111 In 1969–1970, Senator Pell’s and Vance Hartke’s (D-IN) proposals to deny new aid were nixed in close votes amid strong lobbying by the Departments of State and Defense. The proposals prompted Kissinger to clarify U.S. aims in private: “We do not give military aid to support governments, but because a country is important to the U.S.”112 Appropriations committees also scrutinized NATO ties and military aid. Congressman Wayne Hays’s (D-OH) 1971 amendment to ban such aid to Greece was a significant milestone in congressional assertiveness, though it allowed the president to grant a waiver on national security grounds, which he did.
In addition to this legislative interest, public opinion ran a wide gamut between those who decried congressional liberals’ “interference” in Greek affairs and those who criticized support to an authoritarian regime. One of Congressman Fraser’s constituents told him to “quit whipping the government of a country that is trying to do a good job…. Let’s give the few rightist countries of the world a chance to prove their mettle before we castigate them.”113 Another voter wrote to Senator Henry Jackson, “That the U.S. even recognizes such a repressive dictatorship as the Greek junta is unbelievably hypocritical for a country purporting to be the bastion of freedom in the world…. How can we fight totalitarianism of the left while condoning and even aiding totalitarianism of the right?”114 Greek Americans were similarly divided. A Greek Orthodox archbishop wrote to Secretary Rogers that America’s interests “should be with the people [of Greece], and not in the hands of the leaders who form an unacceptable, self-imposed, and self-perpetuating oligarchy.”115 But most favored the status quo. “Is it not a little ridiculous,” wrote a Greek-American voter to Congressman Fraser, “to concern ourselves with the internal affairs of Greece at a time when all congressmen should be devoting all their time and energy to solving the many problems that plague our country?”116 The Order of AHEPA at first lamented the dictatorship’s emergence, but soon accepted the argument that communists had threatened Greece and that military aid should continue. “Greece today is our lone ally in that part of the world,” asserted AHEPA’s president, and “Greek internal politics are the business of the Greek people.”117
Congress and the administration then locked horns over the 1971 decision to homeport part of the U.S. Navy’s Sixth Fleet and ten thousand military and civilian personnel in Athens-Piraeus. Homeporting was intended to increase regional capabilities and improve morale by minimizing long family separations, but many interpreted the choice as support for the junta. Two critics, Congressmen Benjamin Rosenthal (D-NY) and Lee Hamilton (D-IN), were eventually proved correct in arguing that the home-porting decision would embolden the colonels. One year after the decision, the dictatorship was still in power, anti-Americanism in Greece was on the rise, and there was no democratic transition in sight. Unless the United States paid more attention to political considerations, argued Rosenthal, “We will not have much prestige left in Greece to use in the difficult times ahead.”118 State Department analysts privately admitted that the regime had stepped up its efforts to emphasize American dependence on Greece. “It is difficult to look to the future with optimism,” they concluded.119 Since the lack of democracy was now the major bilateral problem, Secretary of State Rogers and the U.S. embassy ramped up both private diplomacy and public statements. Rogers even took an indirect stab at the colonels by giving a prodemocracy speech to a group of American FSOs and their families in Greece on July 4, 1972. “Democracy is one of those clear and incisive Greek words that are part of the Western vocabulary,” he