78. Info Guide Prepared in the Office of Policy and Plans, United States Information Agency1
“A New Strategy for Peace”
1. The President’s report to the Congress on U.S. foreign policy for the 1970’s2 provides us with nearly limitless opportunities to explain abroad the direction in which the United States has embarked.
[Page 177]2. Agency media and posts alike should take sustained and creative steps to ensure that the substance of the report is kept before the public in the months to come. For this comprehensive statement on foreign and defense policy sets out a long term strategy for peace—not tactics to meet immediate crises.
3. The President’s report reflects the change that has taken place in the pattern of international relationships. It signifies a shift from the policies of the postwar era, an era characterized by American leadership in nearly all fields of endeavor, to the era of the 1970’s, in which other nations have the ability and the responsibility to do for themselves what once we might have been required to do for them. This concept of shared responsibilities is the essence of the Nixon Doctrine.3
4. The central thrust of our message should be that this Administration has charted a new course in American foreign policy predicated on a balanced and realistic American role. America’s interests must shape its commitments, rather than the reverse. Our tone should be one of modesty and restraint, in keeping with the tone of the report. Eschewing ideology, dealing with the world as it is today rather than as it was, or as we might wish it to be, this policy aims at a purposeful partnership with other nations in the pursuit of common ends. We should try to communicate this tone, to get across a sense of new departures.
5. At the same time, Agency media and posts alike should take care to show that the U.S. has no intention of withdrawing from the world: we will maintain our commitments, meet our responsibilities, protect our interests, and thereby help to build peace.
6. In stressing these goals and their implications for the international community, Agency media and posts should draw upon the following principal themes for emphasis:
a. A new era in international relations has begun. The Nixon administration has taken steps to adjust the interlocking web of its foreign political, economic, trade, and defense policies to the era of the 1970’s. This era contrasts sharply with the last two decades. Over that period the energies of a generation of dedicated and creative Americans were absorbed in fashioning policies to deal with a cycle of recurring international crises that had their origins in the destruction caused by World War II and the turmoil and uncertainty that often attended the birth of new nations. Then we confronted a monolithic Communist world and our initiatives and resources were largely responsible for political stability and economic progress. That period is over. Today, we deal with a world of stronger allies, a community of independent developing [Page 178] nations, and a Communist world still hostile but now divided. These changed circumstances provide opportunity to get at the causes of crises, to take a longer view.
b. American foreign policy, designed to help build a durable peace, is guided by three basic principles: partnership, strength, and willingness to negotiate.
(1) Partnership. The obligations of peace, like its benefits, must be shared. Our contribution and success will depend not on the frequency or depth of involvement in the affairs of others, but on the stamina of our policies.
More active participation by our friends and allies in their own defense and progress will result in a more effective common effort toward goals we all seek.
The fact that the U.S. does not seek to dominate world affairs does not mean that it is moving toward disengagement or returning to isolation. On the contrary, at the core of the Nixon Doctrine is the assumption that we will maintain our commitments; that we will participate in the defense and development of allies and friends; but that we will help only where that help will make a real difference and where it is considered in our interest. This is not a blueprint for a retreat from responsibility. It is a recognition that interests shape commitments, rather than the other way around.
(2) Strength. Any suggestion that the defenses of America are weak could lead others to make dangerous miscalculations. We will therefore maintain sufficient strength to deny other countries the ability to impose their will on the United States and its allies. At the same time, we realize that our security as well as the security of other nations depends upon effective arms control. There is no area in which we and the Soviet Union—as well as others—have greater common interest, than in reaching agreement with regard to arms control.
(3) Willingness to negotiate. All nations have important national interests to protect. But the most fundamental interest of each lies in building a structure of peace: when peace is threatened the security of all is diminished. America’s commitment to peace is most convincingly demonstrated by its willingness to negotiate points of difference with adversaries as well as with friends in a fair, flexible and businesslike manner. No nation need be our permanent enemy.
Negotiation must proceed from knowledge. Hence a Verification Panel4 was set up under the National Security Council to establish as [Page 179] firmly as possible the data on which to base policy discussions. This “building block” approach involved the most intensive study of strategic arms problems ever made by this or any other government, and played a central part in making our preparation for the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks with the Soviet Union, the most thorough in which the U.S. Government has ever engaged.
c. Peace also has an economic dimension. Here we seek shared responsibilities in partnership with others to advance our common purposes.
We will continue to support measures that strengthen the world monetary system and freer trade on which the prosperity and development of most countries, including our own, depend. Economic barriers block more than the free flow of goods and capital across national borders; they obstruct a more open world in which ideas and people, as well as goods and machinery, move among nations with maximum freedom.
We look forward to the time when our relations with the Communist countries will have improved to the point where trade relations can increase between us.
We will watch with great interest the developing relations between the European Community and other nations, some of which have applied for membership. The Community’s trade policies will be of increasing importance to our own trade policy in the years ahead.
Economic development is also an international responsibility: the struggle of developing countries to achieve a satisfactory rate of economic and social progress is one of the great challenges of our times, and as such must be of concern to all. A liberal system of tariff preferences for exports of developing countries, as proposed in the President’s report, is designed to assist the developing countries in their development.
d. Foreign aid is not a panacea. It is a means of supplementing the essential ingredient for progress in the developing world—efforts of the nations themselves to mobilize the resources and energies of their own peoples. New U.S. foreign assistance policies, designed to be more responsive to conditions of 1970’s, are based on these premises:
—Multilateral institutions must play an increasing role in the provision of aid.
—The developing countries themselves must play a larger part in formulating their own development strategies.
—U.S. bilateral aid must carry fewer restrictions.
—Private investment must play a central role in the development process, to whatever extent desired by developing nations themselves.
—Trade policy must recognize the special needs of the developing countries.
[Page 180]7. A durable peace requires a structure of stability within which the rights of each nation are respected. President Nixon’s new strategy for peace provides a realistic and specific blueprint for the U.S. contribution to that structure.
8. Area Treatment. This guidance is limited to global themes. Output to each area will, of course, put special emphasis on the regional sections of the report.
- Source: National Archives, RG 306, Director’s Subject Files, 1968–1972, Entry A1–42, Box 15, Policy and Plans (IOP)—General 1970. No classification marking. Weathersby sent the Info Guide to all heads of elements under a March 20 covering memorandum, stating: “I know that you share my feeling that the Agency has a continuing responsibility to convey to our audiences overseas the significance of the Foreign Policy Report. The attached paper is intended to focus attention of media and posts on the importance of this task.”↩
- Reference is to the President’s February 18 report to Congress, entitled “U.S. Foreign Policy for the 1970s: A New Strategy for Peace.” For the text of the report, see Public Papers: Nixon, 1970, pp. 116–190. It is also printed in Foreign Relations, 1969–1976, vol. I, Foundations of Foreign Policy, 1969–1972, Document 60. In a March 26 memorandum to Shakespeare, Weathersby updated him on the actions that USIA had taken, and plans proposed, “to make maximum use of the President’s report as our fundamental guidance on foreign policy. We want to make sure that the Agency not only keeps alive for overseas audiences the significance of the report, but also considers its implications for Agency operations.” (National Archives, RG 306, Director’s Subject Files, 1968–1972, Entry A1–42, Box 15, Policy and Plans (IOP)—General 1970) ↩
- See footnote 3, Document 65.↩
- The Verification Panel met for the first time on July 22, 1969. See Foreign Relations, 1969–1976, vol. II, Organization and Management of U.S. Foreign Policy, 1969–1972, Document 65. ↩