Senator TSONGAS. Mr. Chairman, just initially a question on procedure. What will be the procedure if the hearings go on and there are further questions? Will the hearings continue into tonight, or would you expect to continue the questioning tomorrow night or Wednesday? The CHAIRMAN. The Chair intends to adjourn the hearing no later than 6 p.m. this evening. We will then have the full day tomorrow for panels. We can tighten the schedule, if it looks like we are going to need more time today, and have a shorter lunch break. But we hope to complete the questioning of Dr. Lefever. Senator TSONGAS. Mr. Chairman, let me say that in this committee we have been involved with strategic and policy questions, and I think those have been handled well. What we are dealing with today is on a much more human scale. There has been no other issue that came before us in which the effect on individuals would be so profound or potentially so profound. With all due respect to the people here, I think the true audience for these hearings are those people who are today incarcerated by governments of all kinds around the world, and indeed, those who will be incarcerated. The true audience are those who, while we sit here in comfort, are being tortured, and those who will be tortured in the future. Those people, I think, in the most real sense, are today our constituents. I trust that what we do as a committee will keep that in mind, and we will be as loyal to those people as we are to those whom we represent back in our States. I thank the chairman. The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Tsongas. Senator Cranston. Senator CRANSTON. Mr. Chairman, I believe that one of the essential elements of U.S. foreign policy is a clear articulation of those values for which we, as a people, stand. This is an element of our national security as well. Defending individual human rights, democracy, and freedom provides us with one of our most potent weapons in our peaceful competition with Communist regimes. It attracts support for U.S. objectives from citizens of foreign lands and helps to insure their continued friendship in a world of turmoil and instability. Standing for human rights clarifies the values which we seek to defend, and differentiates us from repressive regimes of the right and the left. We have before us today, in Mr. Ernest Lefever, a man who has made a career out of promoting a diminished, muted role for American human rights advocacy. He has called for abolition of all human rights restraints on our foreign assistance, on the expenditure of U.S. taxpayer dollars overseas. He has advocated close U.S. alliance with the South African regime which daily perpetrates gross violations of the human rights of a whole people. He has generally displayed a blindness towards human rights violations by rightwing dictatorships and has seemed to be outraged only by human rights violations in Communist countries. I will listen carefully to what Mr. Lefever has to say to the members of this committee, but unless I learn in these hearings that he has undergone a remarkable transformation and has chosen to renounce his previous writings and pronouncements, I do not see how I can support his nomination. I believe the symbolic and substantive duties of the Assistant Secretary for Human Rights are too important to allow the position to be warped into becoming a bully pulpit for redbaiting. The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Cranston. Now, Senator Hayakawa, as a member of this committee and longtime acquaintance and friend of Dr. Lefever, we welcome you and would ask you to present the witness. STATEMENT OF HON. S. I. HAYAKAWA, A U.S. SENATOR FROM CALIFORNIA Senator HAYAKAWA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a pleasure to be here to address you and my fellow members of the Foreign Relations Committee, and to have the honor of introducing Dr. Ernest W. Lefever who is a friend, fellow scholar, an academic colleague, and President Reagan's nominee to be Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs. My familiarity with Dr. Lefever's views, particularly in the complex area of foreign policy, has convinced me that the President has made a very wise choice. In his research and writing, he has distinguished himself by addressing with wisdom and candor some of the most perplexing issues of our time. For more than 40 years, he has been concerned with relating western ethical norms to public policy questions. His first book, "Ethics and U.S. Foreign Policy," was published in 1957. It ran into seven printings and established him as an internationally recognized scholar. He has written, co-authored and edited 13 books since then, as well as numerous articles. He has a bachelor of divinity degree and a Ph. D. degree from Yale University, both in Christian ethics, and just yesterday he received an honorary doctor of law degree from Rockford College after addressing the graduating class on the topic, "Trivialization of Human Rights." Dr. Lefever is a man of action as well as of words. Throughout his life he has been devoted to human rights and humanitarian concerns, from local welfare work in his hometown of York, Pa., to the sponsorship of a Vietnamese boat family after the fall of Saigon. During his college and seminary days, he spent six summers in volunteer work camps helping the poor from the slums of Philadelphia to the hop fields of Yakima County in the State of Washington. Before Pearl Harbor, he worked with James Farmer and Bayard Rustin in the civil rights movement, and I would take this occasion to remind the committee that James Farmer and Bayard Rustin are very honored names in the whole field of human rights. While in the seminary, he arranged to have the first members of the Japanese-American relocation camp in southern California brought to Chicago for resettlement. Between college and seminary, he spent 3 years, 1945 to 1948, in Western Europe as a volunteer field worker for the World Alliance of YMCA's in helping relocate returning prisoners of war. I could go on, but Dr. Lefever's past accomplishments are of less concern to this committee than his present qualifications for this sensitive and vital position. It is important to stress that his views are wholly compatible with those of the President and the Secretary of State. His foreign policy outlook corresponds to the mandate of the American people as expressed last November. Earlier, I placed in the Congressional Record Dr. Lefever's major article on "Foreign Policy and Human Rights," and, on May 11, I inserted Secretary Haig's address before the Trilateral Commission on the same subject. It is clear that both men share a deep commitment to human rights and believe that humanity's aspirations for freedom and integrity can and must play a crucial role in all our foreign policy decisions. Mr. Chairman, I should like to make it clear that my high opinion of Dr. Lefever's qualifications is widely shared by leaders in the religious, academic, and public policy communities, as well as by those groups who have suffered most from the deprivation of human rights. In the hundreds of letters that have poured into this committee, the strongest statements of support have come from persons whose families have been victims of Hitler's holocaust, from Soviet dissidents, from Eastern European emigres and from Asian boat people. There is ample evidence that people of all religious persuasians support his approach, and not surprisingly, the people in organizations who have known him longest and have worked with him most closely are virtually unanimous in recommending his speedy confirmation. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to have excerpts from some of these letters included as part of the hearing record. Dr. Lefever's commitment, talents, and experience augur well for a period of distinguished service as the Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs. Mr. Chairman, I fully support his nomination and urge my colleagues to do likewise. Mr. Chairman, I have here a considerable amount of letters from many of the groups I have mentioned, from the representatives of the Baltic nations, from victims of Hitler, no less than from the victims of Soviet tyranny, attesting to Dr. Lefever's wide support among all those who have known at first-hand the problems of violations of human rights. I ask the committee's consent to include these letters in the record of the hearings. But before I do so I would like to read a couple of letters which are characteristic of the views of those who have benefited most from Dr. Lefever's passion and concern and writings on these subjects. The first letter I would like to read is from Mark Benenson of New York, General Counsel for Amnesty International from 1971 to the present. Mr. Benenson writes: I have been a member of the Board of Directors of Amnesty International of the USA, Inc., the American branch of Amnesty International, since 1966. I was General Secretary at that time under Michael Straight, our first Chairman. and succeeded him in that position from 1968 through 1971. I have been general counsel since 1971. I write to give my-not Amnesty International USA's-view on the appointment of Ernest Lefever as Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs. AIUSA has not taken a position on the appointment and it is unlikely that it will do so. Nevertheless members of our Board have received a communication from one of us, on the letterhead of the International Human Rights Law Group, urging us to write to you to object to Dr. Lefever's appointment. I am instead writing to support him. Yesterday I interviewed Dr. Lefever and I am now satisfied that he will serve as Assistant Secretary in a manner consistent both with the national interest. and our tradition of respect and support for those ideals of human rights, which were historically among the most important causes for the creation of the United States. MARK K. BENENSON, Esq., New York, N.Y. Another one comes from a personal friend of mine, Prof. Sidney Hook of the Department of Philosophy, now retired. He was at New York University and I believe he is now at the Hoover Institution. Dr. Hook writes, As my many writings show, the most recent of which is "Philosophy and Public Affairs" (Southern Illinois University Press), I have been a strong partisan of the policy that concern for human rights should be an integral element in American foreign policy. Because of that, I am writing to you concerning the nomination of Dr. Ernest W. Lefever as Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs. I have been a close reader of Dr. Lefever's writings on the subject and have found that he is a courageous and intelligent defender of the basic concepts of human rights. I have been appalled by the evidence of a veritable campaign of misrepresentation of his position by those who are more hostile to current American foreign policy than dedicated to the even handed defense of human rights. Dr. Lefever is being criticized because he is not an absolutist about human rights and recognize that sometimes considerations involving the defense of the entire system of human rights must be given priority over the expression of a particular human right in a specific place and time. It is the logic that has guided Dr. Lefever's reflection and advocacy, and it should be sufficient to expose the unfairness and intellectual dishonesty of those criticisms of him that impugn his dedication to the philosophy enshrined in our Bill of Rights. Dr. Lefever's merit warrants his confirmation. SIDNEY HOOK, Department of Philosophy, New York University. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Hayakawa, very much. We appreciate your introduction. [The documents referred to follow:] A. LEADERS OF HUMAN RIGHTS AND ETHNIC ORGANIZATIONS The Bulgarian National Front in the U.S.A. We are confident that Dr. Lefever is fully qualified and will provide a balanced implementation of U.S. policies on human rights in countries under authoritarian as well as totalitarian Marxist regimes; and we urge the Foreign Relations Committee to confirm his nomination. March 4, 1981 Dimiter Baharoff, Chairman General Counsel, Amnesty International, 1971-Present I have been a member of the Board of Directors of Amnesty International of the USA, Inc., the American branch of Amnesty International, since 1966. I was General Secretary at that time under Michael Straight, our first Chairman, and succeeded him in that position, from 1968 through 1971. I have been general counsel since 1971. I write to give my not AI-USA's view on the appointment of Ernest. Lefever as Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs. AIUSA has not taken a position on the appointment and it is unlikely that it will do so. Nevertheless members of our Board have received a communication from one of us, on the letterhead of the International Human Rights Law Group, urging us to write to you to object to Dr. Lefever's appointment. I am instead writing to support him. ...Yesterday I interviewed Dr. Lefever and I am now satisfied that he will serve as Assistant Secretary in a manner consistent both with the national interest, and our tradition of respect and support for those ideals of human rights, which were historically among the most important causes for the creation of the United States. March 13, 1981 Mark K. Benenson, Esq. Committee for a Balanced Human Rights Policy The Committee for a Balanced Human Rights Policy, a bipartisan, independent group of citizens representing over 20 million Americans, has extended its endorsement and support to Dr. Ernest W. Lefever for the position of Assistant Secretary of Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs. |