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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, March 7, 1980
Page 6
Tanzania's President Julius Nyrere (Mr. Carter's African penpal) refused
to see Ali. He was clearly offended that his friend in the White House
had dispatched what he considered a buffoon--selected solely because of
the color of his skin--to discuss international policy with him. Yet
another example of America not taking Africa seriously.
In a related misjudgement, President Carter appealed to over 100 heads
of state, via personal letters, asking for their support in boycotting
the Moscow Olympic Games. South Africa's Premier Pieter Botha received
a letter too, but could hardly be expected to offer support. South Africa
has been barred from the Olympics for the past twenty years!
The mistakes continue to pile up. The feelings of other nations are
blissfully ignored. President Carter, for example, has just nominated a
prominent Mexican-American, Dr. Julian Nava, to be U.S. Ambassador to
Mexico. Dr. Nava is an educator and former member of the Los Angeles
School Board. He has no diplomatic experience. He was selected solely
because of his race--also hopefully securing for Mr. Carter the political
allegiance of Hispanics. However, Mexico is not impressed by this act of
condescention. The ruling circles of the Mexican government, almost
entirely of white European-Spanish stock, look disdainfully upon American
Chicanos, highly educated or not. They prefer to deal with the basic U.S.
"Anglo" stock, more representative of U.S. power circles in business and
government. Hence, another black eye for Washington.
Nevertheless, Dr. Nava (an acknowledged expert on Mexican history) cer
tainly will do a better job, if Senate approval is forthcoming, than the
present U.S. Ambassador to Singapore. Former South Dakota governor
Richard Kneip was appointed to that post by President Carter in 1978.
As related recently to the press by a former aide, Ambassador Kneip, when
he took up his post, didn't know who Chiang Kai-shek, Mahatma Gandi,
Jawaharlal Nehru, Helmut Schmidt and Giscard d 'Estaing were. He was
unaware that India and Pakistan had fought a war in 1971 ("What was that
all about?" he reportedly asked). Worse still, Mr. Kneip didn't know
there were two Koreas--and once, during a discussion of the resurgence
of Islam, asked "What's Islam?"
Key Factor in National Power
The number of examples that could be given highlighting the low state
of American diplomacy are almost endless. A book could be written on
the undiplomatic utterances of Andrew Young alone. And a couple of
volumes on the disastrous "human rights" policy.
How important to a nation is the quality of its diplomacy? It is, along
with quality of government, the most important factor of all. It gives
life and animation to all others (which are: geography-,-
national re
sources, industrial capacity, military preparedness, population, national
character and national morale). "The quality of a nation's diplomacy,
says Hans J. Morgenthau in Politics Among Nations, "combines all those
different factors into an integrated whole, gives them direction and
weight...." Mr. Morgenthau continues:
"Diplomacy, one might say, is the brains of national power, as national
morale is its soul." How desperately lacking both of these factors are
in America today. God prophesied, through Isaiah (chapter 1, verse 5)