In his memoirs, Brzezinski outlined the deliberate, systematic process whereby he came to shape Carter’s thinking on foreign policy issues:
In effect, the morning briefing involved a touching of bases, some prodding of the President to think about problems that in my judgment needed attention, the planting of basic ideas, and—especially in the first months of his Presidency—some wider discussions of conceptual or strategic issues. This was particularly important in the initial stages, when we were defining our broad goals and setting our priorities. I also used the sessions occasionally to make suggestions to Carter as to what he ought to stress in his public statements, including possible formulations or wordings. He was extremely good at picking up phrases, and I was often amazed how after such a morning briefing he would use in a later press conference or public appearance words almost identical to those we had discussed.
Priding himself on being Carter’s ventriloquist, Brzezinski outlined the additional steps he had taken to make sure that his lessons sank in. In addition to repeated daily conversations, he began sending Carter a weekly NSC report, which was “meant to be a highly personal and private document, for the President alone.” It usually opened with a one-page editorial from Brzezinski in which he “commented in a freewheeling fashion on the Administration’s performance, alerted him to possible problems, conveyed occasionally some criticism, and attempted to impart a global perspective.”40
Brzezinski noted that Carter sometimes disagreed with his analysis and was “irritated” by his reports. But the record of the administration shows that Brzezinski’s obsessive anticommunism—he bragged about being “the first Pole in 300 years in a position to really stick it to the Russians”—eventually wore Carter down and won him to Brzezinski’s point of view.41
Carter came to office committed to promoting human rights, but he used human rights as a vehicle for attacking the Soviet Union, causing relations between the two countries to chill. The Soviets, proud of the fact that they had expanded civil liberties and decreased the number of political prisoners in recent years, countered that Soviet citizens had rights that Americans didn’t enjoy. The Kremlin instructed Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin to ask Vance how the Americans would feel if the Soviets tied détente to ending U.S. racial discrimination or unemployment.42
Carter also overreacted to the USSR’s support of Mengistu Haile Mariam in Ethiopia. Mengistu had come to power in a 1974 coup that had overthrown Emperor Haile Selassie. During those years, the Soviet Union was taking advantage of the turbulence throughout Africa and the rest of the third world to align with progressive forces and push socialist models of development. But third-world involvements would repeatedly trap the Soviets in their own quagmires economically, politically, and militarily. Ethiopia proved to be such a case. In late 1977, Soviet leaders, encouraged by Castro and his support for African liberation movements, responded to requests from Mengistu, who was facing invasion from neighboring Somalia and opposition from a Somali-supported Eritrean independence movement. Despite their criticism of Mengistu’s often brutal behavior, the Soviets significantly increased support for Ethiopia’s revolutionary government, providing over a billion dollars’ worth of military equipment and a thousand military advisors. They also assisted in transporting 17,000 Cuban military and technical personnel to assist the Ethiopians. Most African nations applauded the Soviet intervention, viewing it as a legitimate response to Somali aggression.
Carter responded mildly at first, sharing Soviet leaders’ sense that détente and arms control were the top priorities. Brzezinski, however, urged the president to stop being “soft” and stand up to the Soviets. “A president must not only be loved and respected; he must also be feared,” the national security advisor argued. He urged Carter “to pick some controversial subject on which you will deliberately choose to act with a degree of anger, even roughness, designed to have a shock effect.”43 Carter thought Ethiopia a good place to start. Despite Vance’s strong objections, Carter accused the Soviets of “expanding their influence abroad” through “military power and military assistance.”44 Brzezinski was thrilled by Carter’s denunciation of Soviet actions. He would later remark on several occasions that “SALT lies buried in the sands of the Ogaden.”45 The Right was more strident in its attack on Soviet adventurism in Africa. Reagan warned:
If the Soviets are successful—and it looks more and more as if they will be—then the entire Horn of Africa will be under their influence, if not their control. From there, they can threaten the sea lanes carrying oil to western Europe and the United States, if and when they choose. More immediately, control of the Horn of Africa would give Moscow the ability to destabilize those governments on the Arabian peninsula which have proven themselves strongly anti-Communist… in a few years we may be faced with the prospect of a Soviet empire of protégés and dependencies stretching from Addis Ababa to Capetown.46
Soviet leaders did not anticipate such a strong response in light of similar U.S. actions in its sphere of influence. But they did overestimate U.S. willingness to accord them equal status. Many within the Soviet hierarchy and intelligentsia were already questioning the wisdom of Soviet involvement in countries such as Afghanistan, Angola, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Somalia, and South Yemen, given the repeated unwillingness of their repressive leaders to heed Soviet advice on political and economic issues.
Carter’s support for human rights prompted Soviet countercharges. In July 1978, Carter “deplored” and “condemned” Soviet sentencing of dissident Anatoly Sharansky to thirteen years in prison for allegedly spying for the CIA. Carter’s charges particularly galled the Soviet leaders because he and Brzezinski had been cozying up to China, whose human rights record was far, far worse. Brzezinski admitted to Carter that China was executing as many as twenty thousand prisoners a year. However, the sting of Carter’s accusation was blunted by UN Ambassador Andrew Young’s telling a French newspaper that there were “hundreds, maybe even thousands of people I would call political prisoners” in U.S. jails.47
Criticizing Soviet human rights lapses while supporting other egregious human rights offenders was a dangerous game to play and sometimes backfired. In 1967, Great Britain announced plans to withdraw its forces from east of Suez. The United States decided to fill the void. It built a military base on the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, from which the British had expelled almost two thousand natives between 1968 and 1973. The United States would use the base as a launch pad to protect its interests in the Persian Gulf.48 It also tied its fortunes even more closely to the shah of Iran, who, along with Israel, became the principal defender of U.S. economic and geopolitical interests in the Persian Gulf, which held 60 percent of the world’s known oil reserves. During these years, the oil-rich Gulf states had begun to play an important role in world economic affairs, importing goods from the United States and Europe and investing billions of petrodollars in U.S. banks.