for the individual rights of Brazilian citizens. The regime became a solid American ally and supported the United States in many international endeavors, including voting with the United States in the United Nations, isolating Castro in Latin America, assisting in the 1965 Dominican crisis, and offering gifts of coffee and medicine to South Vietnam.69
Brazilian military rule occasioned little political comment in the United States until 1967–1968, when critics began to ask tough questions about America’s authoritarian clients. Early in 1968, the State Department advised against a Washington visit from Brazilian President Artur da Costa e Silva, arguing that his regime demonstrated “authoritarian tendencies” and had not built a credible political base. In light of President Johnson’s troubles with South Vietnam and Greece, advisers believed that a close association with the Brazilian regime would be a political liability.70 The real turning point in American perceptions came late in 1968, when a wave of urban terrorism led the Brazilian government to implement Institutional Act 5 (IA-5), a strict measure that dissolved the National Congress and state legislative assemblies, bolstered censorship, and strengthened the state’s ability to detain suspects. IA-5 ushered in the most repressive period of the twenty-one-year dictatorship, and was the impetus for a more substantial American conversation on repression in Brazil. As we have seen with respect to Greece, many legislators were no longer willing to tolerate long-standing Cold War excuses for allies’ excesses. They expressed misgivings about everything from nation-building in South Vietnam to the Alliance for Progress in Latin America because these endeavors seemed to be doing very little for any American interest, whether military, economic, or humanitarian.
Much like the Greek case, the State Department had a hard time formulating an official American response to IA-5. Most foreign service officers (FSOs) viewed it with revulsion, but they had to conduct a delicate balancing act between expressing concern, maintaining the relationship, and respecting Brazilian sovereignty. There were several matters on the bilateral ledger, including USAID project loans, fighter aircraft sales, and a pending coffee agreement. The sums were considerable: Brazil received $2 billion in U.S. aid between 1964 and 1970, the third highest amount behind South Vietnam and India.71 Exchanges between Washington and the U.S. embassy in Brasilia give us some insight into the dilemma. An embassy official reported to Secretary Rusk that although IA-5 was harsh and the generals were “nationalistic and narrow,” these leaders were also fundamentally favorable to the United States. Rusk agreed that the administration would have to reassure Latin American democrats without pushing Brazil “into further irrational acts affecting our relations” and without “publicly shaking our finger.” Rusk also saw these issues in civilizational terms—that is, that Brazilian customs could not be compared to those of the world’s established democracies. “Brazil’s needs and performance cannot be measured against North American or northwest European standards of constitutional democracy,” he asserted, “nor even easily expressed in Anglo-Saxon terms.”72 Such sentiments betrayed a basic ignorance of Brazilian society, and even reflected common Western conceptions of the developing world. But from Washington’s perspective, the bewildering, cyclical political extremes of South America—conflict and instability followed by authoritarianism and order—made it easy to dismiss the dictatorship as a necessary evil.
The junta’s leaders were more than willing to exploit this perspective by insisting that Americans did not understand Brazil’s problems. As a military official told the U.S. Army attaché, “Writers who refer to the democratic anxieties and aspirations of eighty million Brazilians are dreaming if they believe that most of our population even suspects what democracy in the U.S. sense is.”73 Such justifications fit a common pattern among authoritarian regimes. Aware that their practices would offend sensibilities in Washington, they pled that they had acted in the interest of stability and to quell leftist insurgents. They were not simply acting to retain power, they argued, but were protecting their people from terrorist violence and revolutionary agitation. Finally, if national security and anticommunism were not strong enough justifications for North American liberals, the junta asserted that they were offering Brazilian solutions to Brazilian problems—and emphasizing that Americans could not easily grasp their cultural traditions and methods.
The official U.S. reaction to IA-5 was cautious. The Johnson administration first decided to steer a middle course by making a public statement of concern and announcing that the program of aid to Brazil was “under review.” The embassy maintained normal contacts and privately expressed regret at the curbing of civil liberties. But with Congress and the public now more closely scrutinizing allies’ activities and Washington’s commitments, President Johnson had to be more forthright. His administration thus signaled U.S. disapproval by withholding some weapons, $50 million in aid funds, and $125 million in loans. As in Greece, the possibility of more significant measures would have to wait until Johnson’s exit from office, but the broader significance was that the events in Brazil fueled pessimism in Washington that Latin America was evolving politically. The U.S. embassy noted that the government had “moved to a virtual out-and-out military dictatorship” and that “labor, church, students, journalists, intellectuals, and most politicians are shaken and temporarily cowed.” Given such poor prospects, embassy specialists argued, the United States would be best served by a passive approach. Genuine political development could be achieved only “as an extremely long-range result of other fundamental social and cultural improvements,” wrote one embassy official. “We must recognize that our influence on internal political events is marginal at best.”74
Nixon, Kissinger, and the Perils of Realpolitik
It would be impossible to understand the emergence of human rights in American foreign relations without understanding the policies of President Richard Nixon (1969–1974) and his closest adviser, Henry Kissinger. The two men are remembered for several international accomplishments, including détente with the Soviets, rapprochement with China, and extrication of the United States from Vietnam. Their human rights record, though, is not held in such high regard. Nixon famously eschewed moralism, choosing instead a more traditional realpolitik quest for peace, stability, and an international balance of power. Yet Nixon and Kissinger played a central, though unintended, role in the era’s human rights politics. First, their pursuit of better relations with the Soviet Union facilitated American influence in the internal affairs of the Eastern Bloc. The Cold War thaw encouraged congressional and NGO interest in human rights causes, and it increased the potential for action against communist, anticommunist, and nonaligned states. Second, Nixon and Kissinger’s obstinacy in the face of the growing movement only galvanized their political opponents to work harder. Kissinger, in particular, was a foil for both liberal human rights activists and conservative anticommunists. A third Nixon influence was his attempt to bring white, working-class “ethnics” into the Republican fold. Owing to the period’s shifting voting patterns, these ethnics became a valuable commodity in presidential and congressional elections. Politicians were willing to give extraordinary attention to ethnics’ interests, including human rights in their ancestral homelands.
Despite his administration’s disdain for what he considered moralistic interference in presidential diplomacy, Nixon did show some signs of flexibility. He saw a place for humanitarianism in foreign affairs, but only if these issues did not conflict with his central foreign policy goals. He supported ratification of the Genocide Convention, backed relief efforts in war-torn Biafra and Burundi, and supported the idea of a U.N. human rights commissioner and a State Department humanitarian bureau. But a nominal response to natural and manmade disasters was not the same as having an active human rights policy. Nixon wanted to leave these matters to the United Nations, the State Department, and humanitarian agencies while the White House and NSC handled important bilateral issues among powerful nations.
Nixon’s foreign policy was more pragmatic than ideological. He adhered to a traditional “balance of power” model and argued that the United States should work closely with the Soviet Union and regional powers like Japan, Britain, and China. He paid little attention to much of the rest of the world, except in response to crises. “There are certain countries that matter in the world and certain countries
