Carter Administration - Foreign Policy
Foreign Policy
One of Jimmy Carter's first actions upon taking office was to pardon the estimated 10,000 draft evaders who had fled or gone into hiding rather than fight the unpopular war in Vietnam (1959–75). Although organizations representing veterans who had fought the war condemned the move, Carter considered it a unifying gesture that would signal a shift in foreign policy: the Vietnam era was over. Further, the U.S. government would no longer pursue its Cold War rivalry with the Soviet Union at the expense of the nation's domestic stability. Carter's foreign policy team sought to modify what National Security Advisor Brzezinski called the United States's "hysterical preoccupations" with the containment of Communism (See also, Truman Administration).
Instead, Carter hoped to incorporate the notion of "human rights"—the universal...
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