5 I firmly believe that the stance from which Dr. Lefever launched his critique is not one of indifference or insensitivity to human rights. On the contrary, it is first of all a stance of discriminating concern that our human rights policy be targeted on those violations of human rights that are most severe, enduring, and rooted in ideologically totalitarian concepts of government. Second, it is a stance that is itself deeply rooted in classical, democratic concepts of the role of government as a legal protector of rights of free speech, assembly, religion, due process, petition, privacy, property, and so on. Third, it is a stance that is profoundly aware of the frailties and potentials for the corruption of the institutions of government, especially among newly emerging states that are under multiple tensions and pressures including pressures of manipulation, subversion, and exploitation by external powers. Finally, it is a stance that cautions both against exaggerated claims for the U.S. to be the world's spokesman and prime standard bearer for human rights and against illusions about our capacity to affect the protection of human rights in other countries by our own statecraft. While some have read Dr. Lefever's criticism as harsh and abrasive, it seems to me that he stated a clearly needed corrective to a policy that bore some marks of being counterproductive to its own goals. Like his principal mentor in ethics and public policy -- Reinhold Niebuhr Dr. Lefever is forceful in argument and his criticisms can be painful, especially when directed against what appears to be moral pretensions and naive pursuit of a cherished goal or value without adequate attention to the possibilities of corruption of that pursuit and proper care in building the institutions and procedures to safeguard and balance competing goals and values. My firm conviction is that Dr. Lefever's commitment to human rights, his realism and his own ethical analysis of policy in the mode suggested above will lead him to formulate imaginative and positive ways to make U.S. foreign policy more supportive to human rights around the globe. I am confident he will fill this post with humaneness as well as distinction. Statement of Professor Helen Yakobson Professor of Russian George Washington University I am especially appreciative of the educational efforts of the Ethics and Public Policy Center because of my active support of Soviet dissidents. I have been following closely the violations of human rights in the U.S.S.R. I am in constant contact with the United States representative of the MoscowHelsinki Monitoring Group, Mrs. Ludmila Alexeeva, and other Soviet dissidents abroad; and I am a member of the Committee for the Defense of Persecuted Orthodox Christians. I fully share Dr. Lefever's belief that the struggle for human rights in the Soviet Union is not an internal affair, but an imperative moral issue on which the U.S. government should take a strong and clear stand. It is my firm conviction that Dr. Lefever would greatly enhance the office of Assistant Secretary for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs. The complexities of our times need someone of his moral fibre who can deal with contemporary issues in the light of enduring and eternal concepts and values. Statement of Richard Schifter Alternate Delegate to the U.N. Human Rights Commission 37th Session, Geneva, Switzerland 1981 Let Having recently served as United States Delegate at a session of the United Nations Human Rights Commission and as United States Representative of a UNESCO Committee dealing with human rights, I have had the opportunity to study and analyze the problem of human rights on the international scene. me also say that as one who close to forty years ago lost his father and mother and most other relatives in the Nazi death camps in Poland, I am deeply aware of the problems posed by man's inhumanity to man. The issue, Mr. Chairman, is not whether the United States should help alleviate human suffering throughout the world, but how it can do so effectively. From my discussions with Dr. Lefever, I am certain that he is committed to the principle that our country must try its best to help, but that he considers it important that we do so in the context of our foreign policy objectives and in a manner which is likely to produce effective results. In this context, I do want to tell you that what I have discovered in recent months is that a great many strong advocates of the human rights cause focus on slogans, on public pronouncements and high-sounding covenants on the subject, but unfortunately tend to lose sight of the human beings whose lives should be affected by these statements and declarations. Dr. Lefever, whose life experience has been with people and who has been dedicated to the realization of a better like for people, will indeed be able to devise ways in which our country can help save lives and protect the human dignity of individuals rather than have us limit ourselves to high-sounding pronouncements which are far removed from the reality with which suffering people throughout the world must deal. Statement of Professor Paul Ramsey Princeton University It is clear that church and other moderates and liberals left Ernest Lefever as they left Niebuhrian political realism by going left. Lefever himself stood steadfast on the matter of the need for an ordered peace as well as justice, the need to use power responsibly linked with policy as a nation's chief means of insuring human rights and liberty in the long run. The objections arise from an optical illusion like seeing the platform and people standing on it seem to move when one's own train begins to leave the station. I am confident that Dr. Lefever's concern was more representative of grassroots church members in the United States (these are the largest pockets picked) than the NCC or WCC who claim to speak and act for them. In short, even as the U.N. General Assembly has become a Third World talk-show, so the WCC (with the NCC echoing) has become a forum for similar talk and for actions that are more than symbolic only. Surely Dr. Lefever is correct in believing that concern for human rights ought not to be narrowed to partisan advocacy and morally questionable means. 7 Statement by Robert P. Dugan, Jr. The National Association of Evangelicals is a voluntary association of evangelical Christians numbering nearly four million among our 38,000 churches from seventy-four denominations. Through commissions and affiliates like the National Religious Broadcasters and World Relief, we actually serve a constituency of approximately fifteen million. We are not politically motivated in asking to testify at these hearings, since the NAE is not a political organization, not is it involved in advancing partisan legislation for any particular ideology. My primary purpose in testifying is to express evangelical concern for human rights and how these rights may be advanced by the appointment of Dr. Ernest Lefever to the position of Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs. Furthermore, the media have communicated an impression that religious leaders are generally opposed to the appointment of Ernest Lefever. That this is not the case is demonstrated both by my presence here and by the large number of letters written by a diversity of religious leaders supporting his appointment. Our endorsement is based upon Ernest Lefever's philosophical and strategic approaches to human rights, which are compelling to us in their wisdom. I regard Dr. Lefever as eminently qualified for the post of Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs. He has a fine educational background in Christian ethics. He is well-read and has himself written a great deal in the field of ethics and public policy. He is committed to the causes of the oppressed. Statement of Mr. Charles Burton Marshall Professor Emeritus SIAS, Johns Hopkins University I think Lefever's concept of rights square with the essence of the concept as explained, for example, in the appropriate entry in the "Encyclopedia of Philosophy." His ideas recognize an essential connection between rights and restraints. Anyone's right expresses constraint on someone else. Rights are effected not simply by being invoked as desiderata but by being enforced. Statement of David Sidorsky Some people have taken issue with Dr. Lefever's views on a number of now familiar problems, like the balance between public declarations and quiet diplomacy, or between strategic interests and human rights priorities. There is disagreement over the effectiveness or the counterproductive character of particular strategies. These issues have generated much debate, and the view of Dr. Lefever seem to me, even when they may be overstated and in polemical contexts, much more empirically verified, sustained by realistic and insightful moral sensibility than the views of his critics. Yet this would not be a crucial argument on behalf of his confirmation, just as the mistaken view of his critics, in my opinion mistaken, would not in parallel be decisive for the denial of their qualifications for a similar post. To argue otherwise would be to ignore the important distinction between arguments advanced in academic media or polemical contexts and positions adopted in the framework of consultative decisionmaking upon the assumption of institutional moral responsibilities of public office. In the present context, the issue is even more striking, for the logic of some of the arguments against Dr. Lefever would require that there be recognized a theoretical dogma of human rights which is to be accepted as a condition for the exercise of responsibility in this area. ww 9 EXCERPTS FROM LETTERS SUPPORTING DR. ERNEST W. LEFEVER Hundreds of letters have been sent to Senator Charles H. Percy, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and other members expressing support for or opposition to the confirmation of Dr. Lefever. A high percentage of the opposition letters come from persons who have no first-hand knowledge of the candidate or his thinking. In sharp contrast, many of the supporting letters come from persons who have a first-hand understanding of Dr. Lefever's life and thought. Many of the writers have worked with him or read his books and articles for more than 25 years. Assembled below are excerpts from a cross-section of supportive letters, courtesy copies of which were sent to other Members of the Foreign Relations Committee or Dr. Lefever. They are arranged in five categories: A. Leaders of Human Rights and Ethnic Organizations B. Theologians and Other Religious Leaders C. University Professors and Other Educators D. Former United States Government Officials E. National and Community Leaders A reading of these excerpts will demonstrate that there is an intelligent and broadly-based support for Dr. Lefever in the religious, human rights, and academic communities from all sections of the country. The writers speak only for themselves unless otherwise indicated. |