THE ADMINISTRATION: Do-lt-Yourself Diplomacy

Jimmy Carter seems determined to apply his people-to-people approach to foreign affairs as well. He pledged an open foreign policy during the campaign, and he seems to have meant it. Whether Foggy Bottom and U.S. diplomacy can take it remains to be seen.

Carter appears to be flinging about foreign policy ideas with abandon. At his first news conference, he ticked off points for strategic arms talks with Russia. He made personal contact with Soviet dissidents. During the great phone-in he reiterated his intention to try to normalize U.S. relations with Cuba. Last week Carter was at it again.

It began with an apparent error of inexperience. Greeting Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, the President said that Israel should be granted “defensible borders” in any peace agreement with the Arabs. Since “defensible borders” has been a code phrase for Israel’s argument not to return the Arab lands it has occupied since the 1967 war, Carter’s statement alarmed State Department officials and Arab diplomats.

Later, at his press conference, he outlined his vision of a Middle East settlement. He distinguished between legal frontiers, geographical borders and defense lines. He suggested that “there may be extensions of Israeli defense capability beyond the permanent and recognized borders”—meaning something like the monitoring posts manned by Americans in the Sinai. He noted that Israel would probably need some “minor adjustments” of its pre-war 1967 borders. Although Nixon once alluded to “defensible borders” and the need for some eventual Israeli withdrawal, Carter is the first President to suggest publicly that Israel might have to give up almost all Arab territory it seized in 1967.

The statements by the President partly pleased and partly alarmed both sides. Jerusalem hawks, while mollified by Carter’s insistence on a full-fledged peace settlement (including trade, tourism, etc.), were perturbed by the notion of agreeing to give up virtually all the territory even before negotiations begin. The Arabs were pleased by the implication of nearly total Israeli withdrawal, but were upset by the notion of foreign forces on their soil. Rabin, who faces stiff opposition in the May election, professed to be happy.

On Capitol Hill, House Minority Whip Bob Michel of Illinois complained that the Administration’s “do-it-yourself diplomacy is confusing other nations and the American people as well.” Other critics felt that a remarkably undisciplined brand of diplomacy was taking shape. It certainly looked that way.

U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young kept expressing unorthodox and sometimes personal views on sensitive issues (see following story). One of Young’s U.N. appointees caused another stir. At a meeting of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights in Geneva, Brady Tyson, deputy chief of the U.S. delegation, publicly apologized for what he described as “the role some Government officials, agencies and private groups played in the subversion of the democratically elected Chilean government.” Though Carter himself condemned the U.S. during the campaign for helping to overthrow “an elected government,” he reprimanded Tyson for making an “inappropriate” remark.

Just Semantics. But there is a difference between such bloopers and Carter’s own policy pronouncements. While he sometimes stumbles over fine points of diplomacy. Carter’s remarks have generally been deliberate despite their informality. Before his news conference last week, both Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and Zbigniew Brzezinski, the White House National Security Adviser, suggested that Carter not use the term defensible borders. They proposed a more politically neutral substitute: “secure frontiers.” Carter rather gingerly used both concepts and described the difference between them as “just semantics.” Says TIME Diplomatic Correspondent Strobe Talbott, assessing Carter’s foreign policy style: “Unprecedentedly public, yes. Occasionally feckless, yes. Controversial and provocative, to be sure. But off-the-cuff or casual, never.”

Henry Kissinger and most other professional diplomats believe that this kind of open diplomacy is untenable. It makes it politically difficult for leaders to accept or reject proposals in the face of domestic public opinion, and makes it hard for everyone, including the U.S., to back down or change course. Carter disagrees. He thinks that U.S. diplomacy has been too secret in the past, thereby often failing to enlist understanding and support from the U.S. public. Ventilating a difficult idea, he believes, can be healthy. Of his Middle East suggestion, one Washington official observes: “It gets the Israelis off some of their unrealistic notions about how far they can dig in their heels and gives them two months to talk about it before their election.” It also gives Arab leaders something to consider as they prepare for their own meetings with Carter in coming weeks.

An interesting view of diplomacy. Will it work? It is too early to give odds.