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Defining the National Interest Minorities and U.S. Foreign Policy in the 21st Centuryz: Project for Diversity in International Affairs
May 2-3, 1996
The Project for Diversity in International Affairs is a Council on Foreign Relations initiative that aims to increase minority involvement in the field of international affairs. The focus is on three areas of Council programs and activities: increasing participation of the Council's minority members in all Council activities as well as raising the total overall number of minority Council members; helping to shape the agenda of the post-Cold War foreign policy debate with attention to minority insights and concerns and exploring how minority and national interests relate to each other; and helping to train the next generation of foreign policy leaders and thinkers.
Under the leadership of David J. Vidal, the Project began in September 1995 with a two-year grant jointly funded by the Ford and Andrew W. Mellon Foundations. To implement the Council's vision of diversity in international affairs for the 21st century, the Project has organized two national conferences of leaders in domestic politics and international affairs to explore the complex relationship between minorities and American foreign policy.
The first conference, "Defining the National Interest: Minorities and U.S. Foreign Policy in the 21st Century," was held May 2(3, 1996 at the Ralph J. Bunche International Affairs Center, Howard University, Washington, D.C. A second conference, "In the National Interest: Does Diversity Make a Difference?" will be held May 15(16, 1997, at Council headquarters in New York.
Acknowledgments
The author would like to acknowledge several colleagues who contributed to the shape and content of this report My thanks to Salih Booker, Janice L. Murray, Michael P. Peters, Karen Sughrue, and Hollie I. West for their input at various stages of this project. To program associate Lisa M. Dolberry, my appreciation for her assistance, especially with the conference transcript. A special vote of thanks is dedicated to David Kellogg, whose editing, insight, and overall guidance gave depth and added value to a final report that bears the stamp of his professionalism on every page.
We all are indebted to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Ford Foundation, whose financial support made the Project for Diversity in International Affairs possible. We are especially grateful to Stephanie Bell-Rose at Mellon and Dr. Mahnaz Ispahani at Ford.
Our gratitude also to the panelists and attendees of the 1996 diversity conference whose commitment to the issues discussed in this report produced the richness and the range of discussion that this report hopefully captures.
Foreword
As the third millennium approaches, the United States faces new challenges that will define its foreign policy. The Council on Foreign Relations stands ready to address these issues ( as it has done throughout its seventy-five year history ( by helping to figure out the new rules and rhythms of international relations.
The conference report that follows represents one more step in that direction for the Council. Defining the National Interest: Minorities and U.S. Foreign Policy in the 21st Century is a look at how the changing composition of America's population affects both its domestic and international policies.
Current demographic projections suggest that the U.S. will enter the next century with a plurality of minorities even more so than in the past. These groups within our society will affect America's involvement in the world and our foreign policy agenda. We can expect, for example, to see more attention devoted to issues such as those discussed at the conference, including human rights, immigration, the impact of the globalization of the economy on incomes, and environmental issues.
Three years ago, the Council recognized this situation and established a Diversity Program to help better understand where the United States was headed and why. Our aim is to bring greater diversity to Council affairs, not for diversity's sake but for our own sake. Leslie H. Gelb
President
Council on Foreign Relations
Marking a new era in its 75-year history, the Council on Foreign Relations hosted a historic conference on minorities and American foreign policy on May 2-3, 1996. The conference, held on the campus of Howard University in Washington, D.C., was a first programmatic effort by the Council to engage ethnic minorities directly in the foreign policy debate. It was convened by the Council's Project for Diversity in International Affairs, a two-year initiative launched in the fall of 1995. The conference brought together some 150 participants from 13 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and three foreign countries: Chile, Portugal, and Russia. Nearly half of the participants were Council members, and a significant majority were members of racial or ethnic minority groups.
The purpose of the conference was twofold: To explore the dynamics of minorities' participation in the setting of the national agenda in a rapidly changing global system, and to examine their varied perspectives on certain critical issues facing the United States in dealing with the world. A specific objective was to assess how the shifts in America's demography and its resulting impact on domestic politics could reshape America's international priorities.
From a broader perspective, the conference was organized to conceive an approach to the future that would be illuminated by a rethinking of the past. The conference theme, "Defining the National Interest: Minorities and U.S. Foreign Policy in the 21st Century," challenged participants to consider how the definition of national interest depends on who is defining it. The conference also sought to examine how minorities might expand their participation and influence in American foreign policymaking, and to contemplate their increased impact on how America perceives and acts upon its overseas interests.
Minorities are increasingly active in the post-Cold War agenda of international issues. The profile of conference attendees reflected the recent increased international interest on the part of the nongovernmental sector. Participants came from the fields of human rights, media, the environment, business, law, finance, peacekeeping and humanitarian operations, all areas beyond the "traditional" foreign policy sphere. Government and academic leaders also attended.
The Council had decided to dedicate a portion of its energies and resources to gain a better understanding of its own role in encouraging minority participation and leadership in its program activities. The meeting was developed as part of the Council's continuing efforts to broaden its intellectual agenda and extend its national and international outreach, building on the Council's historic role in identifying and introducing new people into the foreign affairs debate.
In his opening remarks, Council President Leslie H. Gelb described the occasion as the start of a serious dialogue and affirmed the Council's dedication "to tomorrow's foreign policy and to broadening participation in the making of tomorrow's foreign policy." During the 12 hours of discussion that followed, conference participants generally shared Gelb's enthusiasm for the initiative. One conferee described the proceedings as "absolutely dynamic, passionate, and full of lots of intensity." An African-American woman noted half in jest that she never expected to attend a Council gathering that included so many minorities, or to attend a meeting where the questions of national interests and minority concerns would be linked.
The decision to hold the conference at Howard University, a historically black institution, symbolized the Council's commitment to the task. The venue had another meaning for the Council. The formal sessions opened at the Ralph J. Bunche International Affairs Center, named for the first African-American Nobel Prize winner and United Nations Undersecretary, who taught at Howard for 13 years. Few participants knew that in 1949 he had become the Council's first African-American member.
On the second day of the conference, participants broke up into four working groups. Each group addressed one of the following general topics: The Cold War and the national interest, and their significance to minorities; how minorities might influence the making of foreign policy; immigration; and the meaning of economic globalization to minorities. What follows is a review of some of the major themes of each session, drawing on the transcripts of the proceedings.
Cold War, Cold Shoulder
In the architecture of postwar American foreign policy, the twin themes of the Cold War and the national interest emerge as unshakable pillars. In the design of the conference, one session was set aside to explore the practical and political meanings of these themes for minorities. Conferees were asked to consider how Cold War foreign policy priorities intersected with minority concerns. They were also asked to assess whether the declaration made by Hans J. Morgenthau --that "we should have one guiding standard for thought and action, the national interest"--was a useful benchmark. These two points of departure struck the organizers as indispensable to any rethinking of the future.
The position of the conferees on these questions was unmistakable. It was their overwhelming sentiment that during the Cold War, the country pursued the national interest as if only the superpower rivalry and the nuclear threat mattered. To be sure, they did matter, but conferees questioned whether changes and opportunities at home really had to be neglected, or whether exclusionary practices that seemed to be a part of the Cold War era's fabric had to be tolerated.
These practices often went unchallenged, according to conference participants, by "establishment" leaders in the name of fighting a common external foe. But to minorities, the issue never was solely the external foe. Rather, it was about the single cause of self-dignity and freedom from state oppression, whether that oppression was perpetrated abroad or at home. It is not coincidental that it was during the Cold War's heyday that many an African-American advocate for civil rights at home became a champion of human rights abroad.
Commenting on this dualism as early as 1924, the eminent African-American scholar W.E.B. Du Bois, in The Gift of Black Folk, described the dilemma of the black soldier:
His problem as a soldier was always peculiar; no matter for what America fought, the American Negro always fought for his own freedom and for the self-respect of his race. He appears therefore in American wars with double motive, the desire to oppose the so-called enemy of his country along with his fellow white citizens, and before that, the motive of deserving well of those citizens and securing justice for his folk.
Du Bois had explored similar themes in several articles in the 1920s for Foreign Affairs, the Council's journal.
This bifocal vision was reflected by many of the conferees, whose views mirrored Du Bois' black soldier's sense of twin purpose. Then, too, there was hardly a chapter of Cold War history whose importance could not be matched by a simultaneous development in the civil rights movement. A review of history would have revealed many symmetries:
When Winston Churchill decried the "Iron Curtain" in his 1946 speech at Fulton, Missouri, the NAACP denounced his call for an alliance against communism as "a cynical ploy" to insure Brtish colonial domination of colored nations. Later that year, the National Negro Congress presented "a petition to the United Nations on behalf of 13 million oppressed Negro citizens of the United States of America." When NATO was launched in 1949, Secretary of Defense Lewis Johnson was issuing the orders to desegregate the military services. The Berlin conference to discuss reuniting a divided Germany was held in 1954, the year of the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision nullifying the doctrine of separate but equal schooling. In June 1963, President Kennedy went on national television to rally Americans behind the civil rights cause, adding, "We have to do it because it is right." That same month in Berlin, he expressed solidarity with the East Germans' cause of freedom with the words, "Ich bin ein Berliner." When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, it was East Germans who were heard to sing the rallying hymn of the civil rights movement, "We Shall Overcome."
Conference participants noted that the fight against communism and the struggle for human rights were often put in opposition to each other. U.S. policy toward apartheid-era South Africa was presented more than once as an example of how Cold War priorities eclipsed human rights concerns. A counter example that might have been cited was U.S. legislation in support of the emigration of dissidents from the Soviet Union.
The discussion on these issues led to two conclusions. The first was that the Cold War was costly for minorities, less in dollars than in the "opportunity costs" that resulted from inattention to issues of minority concern. The second was that the ending of the Cold War and its controlling definition of national interest was welcome, because it opened the door for a new discussion of national priorities.
The conference organizers had developed specific questions on which the panel would focus. One asked how minorities might conceive "national interest" in the next century as compared to the past. Several participants agreed that in the future it would be defined not by a narrow group, as it seemed to have been during the Cold War, but by a broader political process. According to this view, a shift in national priorities would be achieved only through increased political engagement. Another view was that the apparent lack of a coherent paradigm like "containment" for guiding the new era might lead political leaders to seek an evocative but inadequate alternative. Instead, it was argued, the United States should embrace the complexities of the new era. For example, the national interest might be served by marshaling U.S. diplomatic, economic, and military resources in a more deliberate effort to advance individuals' rights and opportunities around the globe. This approach might link the preservation and expansion of civil rights at home and the promotion and protection of human rights abroad.
A political scientist believed that the history of U.S. relations with Africa substantiated this point. He maintained that over the last 30 years, Americans who have had the most "progressive" points of view about U.S. policy toward Africa have most often been proven right, whereas the foreign policy decisions that were made were often misdirected. Part of the explanation for why these policies failed, the professor held, had to do with the assumptions that informed them. Conferees were asked to describe the framework of assumptions used to set priorities for America abroad, and to assess whether this framework was valid today. The answer was immediate and pointed. The framework was "threat perception," and it was inadequate to the task.
One Californian observed how the "threat perception" approach to foreign policy had a direct, negative impact on Latinos. Four out of ten Latinos are foreign born, come from countries that enjoy increasing economic and trade relations with the United States, reside mostly in urban areas, and are concentrated in states that are undergoing the most dynamic economic and demographic change. Yet much of the national debate on NAFTA, immigration, and other issues relevant to Latinos is in terms of the perceived threat to American economic security. At its worst, this debate targets Latinos as the threat.
"How can we talk about integration with the Americas and integration with Mexico and at the same time advocate measures that separate? So, you want transfer of goods and services in this globalized economy, but not people? I think we're using old notions of fortress America," the speaker concluded.
The group was asked to consider the new threats and opportunities resulting from the end of the Cold War. Because conferees believed the very notion of threat perception too narrow and exclusive, they resisted a new inventory of threats. Instead, the discussion shifted to the new opportunities many attendees hoped were now within reach. Often, the discussion centered not only on new issues but also on new personnel. Many conferees agreed with the speaker who said that the United States would exert greater moral authority on the world stage "if it presented to the world a more diverse group of leaders, finally demonstrating that it is overcoming its own history of racial and religious discrimination."
The group also addressed the financing of change. Discussants were asked who will pay the financial costs of the policy alternatives we must consider. But the participants chose not to deal with the question in strictly fiscal or budgetary terms. Instead, they interpreted it in terms of social and moral costs. The participants kept returning to a theme that went well beyond the bounds of traditional foreign policy discussion: the key to a coherent and productive foreign policy lies in the nation's fundamental view of access to opportunity for all segments of society. Until the debate over that issue is joined, policy will be at best uninformed and at worst prone to failure.
Minority Rule, Majority Policy
When all foreign policy was focused with blinding intensity on the issue of the nuclear button, it was managed by a few in the name of the many. "Majority" policy was set by a "minority" of actors. Now that the Cold War is over, the policy issues have multiplied exponentially and the management of this new foreign policy agenda by a few is ill-suited to an era of dispersed decision making. The traditional role of the U.S. Department of State has changed to the point where it is no longer the principal arbiter in foreign affairs.
A question stemming from these developments became the focus of a second conference working group. How does the interplay between the emergence of new issues--the enlargement of the playing field, the increase in the number of actors, and the rise of additional opportunities for involvement--square with the current absence of minorities from the centers of foreign policy power?
To conferees, there was no doubt that "something new" was taking place, as evidenced by the way minorities were being perceived not as liabilities but as assets in the new foreign policy arena. Nonetheless, a constant refrain in the deliberations was that minorities still were not "at the table." This term was never specifically defined by discussants, but it did not have to be. It was understood as a metaphor for the place where decision makers process decisions that bind the entire nation, often without minority input. If the United States is to meet successfully the international challenges of disease, poverty, migration, deforestation, and religious fanaticism, one keynoter argued, then it must draw upon the full range of its African-American, Hispanic, and Asian-American citizens and the skills, talents, and special affinity with the emerging nations that they bring. But although it was agreed this need was obvious, it was also agreed that, at least so far, minorities in general have not joined the post-Cold War foreign policy discourse in any meaningful way. To better understand why, the conferees debated the experiences of Jewish-Americans and Cuban-Americans and sought to extract lessons from the way these two groups succeeded in influencing foreign policy while others failed.
In examining these cases, three elements of what might be described as the "success formula" for minority impact on foreign policy were identified. The first sounded very much like the fundamental criterion for success in any business enterprise: having a clear purpose. One veteran of the Jewish-American lobbying effort noted, "When there is a singular objective, an ethnic lobby group that gets together to affect foreign policy has been more or less successful. Domestic electoral political power determines one's ability to influence foreign policy."
The second element involved building the infrastructure and having the money necessary to compete in electoral politics. The ability to attract and organize votes gives a group the voice to say, "Listen to this ethnic group and take into account what they're saying as it affects foreign policy," a participant commented. Another participant summarized this approach in one phrase. "You contribute, you advocate, you agitate, you organize, and you're in the face of policymakers."
The third element focused on the compatibility between an ethnic group's private agenda and the level of public predisposition toward that agenda. This was seen as the most critical yet least predictable element, and the one over which an ethnic group had the least direct control.
The core issue of the majority's receptivity to a minority viewpoint was illustrated by the Cuban-American and the Jewish-American experiences. In both cases, success was preceded by a strong majority acceptance of a corroborating American interest. In the case of Cuba, the soil was prepared by the Cold War. In the case of Israel, there was something deeper, "an existing cultural and political reservoir of popular sympathy" for the ideal of Israel, powerfully reinforced by both the recent memory of the Holocaust and America's enduring love for its own pioneering heritage. When a minority group succeeds, a veteran of the anti-apartheid movement said, its ideas are "in synch" with those of the majority and it gets a hearing, as in the Cuban case. But when the majority finds minority ideas discordant, then the minority's interest "really doesn't matter very much."
Participants also raised the issue of the traditional policy community's apparent animosity toward the very idea of minority involvement in international affairs. This tradition was articulated 40 years ago by one of the intellectual designers of the Cold War. A conferee recalled that none other than George Kennan, in his 1956 book Russia Leaves the World, had written that ethnic groups seeking to intervene in foreign policy were "maladjusted." Kennan identified these groups as "Jews, Negroes and immigrants, all those who feel handicapped in the framework of our national society." To some participants, the residue of such sentiments was still evident in the policy process. Several months after the conference, Foreign Service Journal, a magazine for foreign affairs professionals, devoted an entire issue to the Foreign Service's continuing struggle "to include disenfranchised groups." The issue cited data showing that today there are fewer black male foreign service officers than a decade ago, and reported on a class action discrimination lawsuit brought against the State Department by black foreign service officers that had been pending since 1986. A settlement has since been announced.
Participants also observed that even though new foreign policy issues might affect the interests of various minority groups, these issues do not lend themselves to coherent group action or political mobilization. The prime examples that were cited were job loss due to foreign competition and economic globalization, which has a disproportionate impact on members of minority groups, who are concentrated in urban areas. Moreover, the general decline in Americans' interest in organized political action makes it all the more difficult to affect policy.
Participants searched in vain for a new model of minority political action. Could the new model solve problems of an intercultural nature? Could it build an urban agenda? Could it contribute to housing the homeless? One analyst concluded there was no clear model for the kind of influence domestic groups should have on foreign policy. Another said it is not even clear there was anything ethnic groups can bring to the foreign policy debate that owed to their ethnic group experiences and would make policy profoundly different.
The basic outlines of American's foreign policy are determined by the president and his foreign policy and security advisers, another participant noted, adding that no ethnic group, no matter how well organized, can succeed in changing those fundamentals.
Coming to America
The realization that America will emerge in the 21st century as a new nation with a plurality of racial and ethnic minorities--the antithesis of its historical self-image--was the provocative backdrop to the deliberations of the third conference working group. Here, conferees were asked to consider how America should deal with immigration in the 21st century. In the minds of many was the parallel question of whether the term "minority" will still be valid when the balance of demographic power shifts.
Participants agreed both that immigration has been the catalyst that created, and continues to transform, the face of America, and that its impacts would likely accelerate. In posing the question of how to deal with immigration in the future, the discussants turned, "inevitably" according to one of them, to the role that race has played in past immigration policies. The discussion tended to focus more on past policy than on future policy. While conferees were keenly aware of the dramatic demographic changes already underway, they were not all comfortable with them. Chief among the concerns expressed in these discussions was the reality that "minorities" are not a homogenous group, and that growth in numbers will not necessarily translate into growth in power or status for any one minority group.
Through the first half the 20th century, according to a panel expert on demography, U.S. immigration policies were overtly racially discriminatory. The 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act was the first law that prohibited the entry of immigrants on the basis of nationality. It and other laws mandated not only unequal treatment for the groups we call minorities today, but also for nonfavored European groups as well. This changed with the Immigration Act of 1965.
In the future, minority groups that currently make up about 25 percent of the general population (up from 17 percent a generation ago) will grow to the point where, in another generation, the demographic profile of the United States will match California's today. In California, 45 percent of the population is either black, Asian or Hispanic.
Moreover, it was estimated that within fifty years a majority of the American work force will consist of today's minorities. Even sooner, African-Americans will no longer be the country's largest minority, as the Hispanic/Latino population will double in size. These developments impose changes not only on minorities themselves but, equally important, on the current majority's relations with them.
In the past, the views of minorities were largely absent from the American view of the world, and from the national security and immigration policies that this view reflected. The historian Roger Morris was quoted by one panelist as saying that "it is impossible to pretend" that "casual bigotry" did not have some affect on American policies toward the overwhelming majority of the world that is nonwhite. Participants agreed and predicted that in the future, the changed demography of America would offer greater opportunity to redefine the American view of the world to be more inclusive.
Today, immigration is discussed in terms of securing the nation's borders from an actual or perceived threat of uncontrolled population inflows. In the future, one participant urged, the issue should be viewed from other perspectives, for example, in terms of global interests, regional interests, or hemispheric interests. In his view, he and his Mexican-American compatriots are "a binational people" with "one foot here and one foot there." For him, the border really represents "a sort of dotted line," and across this line stretches a web of relationships among labor markets, economies, and ecosystems.
Discussion of the immigration issue also raised the question of differences among minority groups. For example, it was generally agreed that on U.S. policy toward apartheid-era South Africa there was a single minority foreign policy point of view. But on issues that are more current and closer to home, such as migration and trade, the views of Latinos differed from those of African-Americans. Another observation was that the impact of both immigration and internal demographic expansion presented an unprecedented opportunity "to really make the United States closer to what its ideal philosophy has been." Said one participant, who identified herself as a fourth generation Asian-American from the West Coast, "The challenge for us is to figure out how to make that happen," noting how she is often asked where she is "really from," since she does not "look American." The immigration issue was thus intimately related in the discussion to the definition and perception of what constitutes a minority population. If there was any conclusion, it was that in 30 years our definition of minority groups will be dramatically different.
Rising Tide, Sinking Boats
Perhaps no issue better captured the promise and the predicament of minority involvement in international affairs than that of economic globalization and its impact, the topic of discussion in a fourth conference working group. This group explored the dilemma of why, if a rising tide lifts all boats, the idea of prosperity through globalization remains more a promise than a reality for minority communities.
Conferees were asked to debate what price in jobs and economic opportunity America's minorities are paying for economic globalization. The answers to this and related questions--such as what skills and types of jobs are needed to survive in the global economy--were as clear as they were disconcerting. On the one hand, globalization holds the promise of long-term growth and prosperity for all working people, not just those in the United States. This would especially benefit the regions of the world, including Asia, Africa and Latin America, to which minorities are linked by ancestral or family ties, and would also increase the demand for minority talent at home to deal with these emerging markets. For minority communities, these are welcome developments. On the other hand, one presenter noted, economic globalization is creating within these very same communities a class of economic "losers." Absent dramatic and creative intervention by the U.S. government, whose policies have encouraged globalization, people in this category face a long-term downward spiral from which they may not easily escape. And therein lies the predicament.
Worse, because globalization is not an issue that lends itself to organized political action, none of the known models of successful minority interventions in foreign policy seem to apply. Moreover, although globalization helps regions of the world that are of particular interest to minority communities in the United States, the new found importance of these regions does not seem to be engaging minority groups in the political arena at home.
One reason conferees cited for this was uncertainty among the affected constituencies about whether their goal should be to advance the cause of workers around the globe, or to focus only on workers in the United States. Exacerbating this dilemma is the historical difficulty in creating any coalition of working people, and the frustrating challenges of mobilizing any political constituency around as theoretical and diffuse an issue as globalization. While there may be certain "broad diasporic unity" on the issue of globalization, a participant noted, this unity can easily break down over specific issues that have different consequences for different coalition members.
Conferees agreed that foreign competition's disproportionate impact on America's highly urbanized minority communities is compounded by the minorities' historical disadvantage in education and training. Globalization thus was seen as exemplifying what one speaker called the "untenable anachronism" of the traditional separation between foreign and domestic affairs.
No issue stands to have as a great an impact on minority communities as economic globalization, yet no issue seems to be as hard to deal with. On the positive side, a black CEO said, it offers America a unique opportunity to construct a foreign policy using trade, commerce, and economic development as its key drivers. Stronger market economies abroad create new consumers for products created at home, a policymaker added, and minorities share with all Americans a common stake in achieving peace and sustainable development in order to stem refugee flows, protect the environment, and help eradicate poverty and disease.
On the negative side, globalization typifies minorities' inability to have an impact on the issues that matter the most to them. It requires the most effective type of minority intervention, one lawyer said, yet it eludes all available methods. This analysis led to a discussion of how minority communities could create multiethnic coalitions and how a "new model" of political mobilization might be developed. But of all the questions raised in the session, these produced the least conclusive answers.
Endnote
The conference was called to mark a new beginning and not necessarily to arrive at specific solutions. Nevertheless, several broad conclusions can be drawn from the wide-ranging deliberations. These include:
Excerpts from Plenary Address by the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson
Conference Program
Defining the National Interest:
Minorities and U.S. Foreign Policy in the 21st Century
Ralph J. Bunche Center for International Affairs, Howard University
Blackburn Center, Howard University
Honorary Chairman: Andrew Young
Co-Chairs: Gabriel Guerra Mondragon Bette Bao Lord
Thursday, May 2, 1996
4:30 p.m.Registration & receipt of papers and materials at Bunche Center and Hotel
5:30 p.m.Depart Howard (or hotel) via shuttle buses for Department of State, 2201 C Street, N.W.
6-7:30 p.m.Reception in Honor of the Project for Diversity
in International Affairs, Benjamin Franklin Room, Eighth Floor, U.S. Department of State
Welcome: Leslie H. Gelb, President, Council on Foreign Relations
Remarks by Conference Co-Chairs: Bette Bao Lord and Ambassador Gabriel Guerra Mondragon
Remarks by the Under Secretary of State: Peter Tarnoff
Closing Remarks: David J. Vidal, Vice President, Council on Foreign Relations
7:35 p.m.Return to Howard via shuttle buses
8-9:30 p.m. Opening Dinner, Blackburn Center
Welcome: Charlayne Hunter Gault, Presider
Dinner
Recognition of Howard University:
Charlayne Hunter-Gault
Remarks: David J. Vidal
Remarks: Leslie H. Gelb
Tribute to Commerce Secretary Ron Brown:
Frank Savage
Keynote address:
Dr. Susan E. Rice, National Security Council
Closing remarks: Charlayne Hunter-Gault
9:35 p.m.Shuttle buses depart Howard for Henley Park Hotel, 926 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.
Friday, May 3, 1996
7:45 a.m.Shuttle buses depart Henley Park Hotel for Howard University
8-9:00 a.m.Continental Breakfast at Blackburn Center
9:30-10 a.m.Plenary Session: Leslie H. Gelb, President, Council on Foreign Relations
Presider: David J. Vidal
10:20-12:10 a.m.
Concurrent workshops, Blackburn Center
Coming to America: What Kind of Immigration Will America Want or Need in the New Millennium and What Will This Mean for Minorities?
"Cold War, Cold Shoulder: What Will "National Interest" Mean to Minorities in the Next Century Compared to What It Meant in the Past?"
"Minority Rule, Majority Policy and a New Millennium: How do Minorities Succeed in Influencing Foreign Policy? Why Do Some Minorities Fail?"
"Rising Tide, Sinking Boats: What Price in Jobs and Economic Opportunity Are America's Minorities Paying as Economic Globalization Rises?"
12:30-2 p.m.Luncheon, Blackburn Center
Keynote Address: Rev. Jesse L. Jackson
Presider: Bette Bao Lord
2:10-3:20 p.m.
Afternoon sessions
(Same topics and panels, new audience assignments)
3:40-5 p.m.Wrap-up Plenary Session, Blackburn Center
Presider: Gabriel Guerra-Mondragon. Panel Moderators' Summaries
Closing Remarks: Leslie H. Gelb
5-6:00 p.m.Closing Reception, Blackburn Center
List of Conference Participants
Richard Alleyne, Council on Foreign Relations
Natsuo Amemiya, The Japan Foundation
Faye M. Anderson, Council of 100
Jaime A. Areizaga-Soto, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison
Samuel M. Austin, III, Bankers Trust
Mario Baeza, Latin America
Equity Partners, Board Member, Council on Foreign Relations
James Baker, United Nations (Retired)
Bette Bao Lord, Freedom House, Conference Co-chair
Miguel D. Baraona, Tomas Rivera Center
Shirley E. Barnes, U.S. Department of State
Akosua Bartwell Evans, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett
Lisa Bedolla, The Hispanic Council on International Relations
Keith Berner, Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs
Milton Bins, Council of 100
Angela Glover Blackwell, The Rockefeller Foundation
Prof. Roland G. Blasini, Sheridan College
Frank Bonilla, Hunter College
Rafael Bonoan, The Ford Foundation
Salih Booker, Fellow for Africa, Council on Foreign Relations
Timothy J. Bork, The Ford Foundation
John D. Brewer, U.S. Department of State
Robert S. Browne, TransAfrica Forum
Beverlee Bruce, Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children
Terry Bruner, Howard University
A'Lelia Bundles, ABC News
Theodore N. Carter, Deputy Campaign Manager & C.O.O., Clinton/Gore '96
Dr. Allison L. C. de Cerreno, Council on Foreign Relations
Robert Chaves, Grupo Ferrominero
Betty J. Cleckley, Multicultural and International Programs, Marshall University
Julius E. Coles, Ralph J. Bunche International Affairs Center,
Howard University
Ertharin Cousin, Office of the White House Liaison, U.S. Department of State
Flavio Cumpiano, Hughes Hubbard & Reed
George Dalley, Holland and Knight
Joyce Davis, National Public Radio
Horace G. Dawson, Jr., Patricia Roberts Harris Public Affairs Program,
Howard University
Amb. Ruth A. Davis, U.S. Department of State
Raghida Dergham, Al Hayat
Hon. Rita Di Martino, AT&T
Lisa M. Dolberry, Council on Foreign Relations
Joel Dreyfuss, Our World News
Brenda M. Dugue, The Madam C. J. Walker Foundation, Inc.
Melba Duncan, The Duncan Group
Patricia Ellis, Women's Foreign Policy Group
Prof. Damian Fernandez, International Relations, Florida International University
Lauri J. Fitz-Pegado, U.S. Department of Commerce
Melvin Foote, Constituency for Africa
Patricia J. Friedman, Women's Foreign Policy Group
Alton Frye, Council on Foreign Relations
Juan M. Garcia-Passalacqua, Analisis Inc.
Nicole Gaymon, Council on Foreign Relations
Antonio Gayoso, World Council of Credit Unions
Leslie H. Gelb, Council on Foreign Relations
Douglas G. Glasgow, Early Action Response to Urban Needs
Antonio Gonzalez, Southwest Voter Research Institute
Allan E. Goodman, School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University
Dr. Diana Sorensen Goodrich, Wesleyan University
John W. Gravely, Living Light Ministries
Ernest G. Green, Lehman Brothers
Amb. Gabriel Guerra-Mondragon, U. S. Ambassador to Chile, Conference Co-chair
Leigh Gusts, Council on Foreign Relations
Morton Halperin, Council on Foreign Relations
Giselle Hantz, Debevoise & Plimpton
Conrad K. Harper, U.S. Department of State
Prof. Joseph E. Harris, Howard University
Irvin Hicks, Jr., U.S.-South Africa Leadership Development Program
Howard Hills, Attorney-at-Law
Maria Hinojosa, National Public Radio
Adonis Hoffman, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Dwight F. Holloway, Jr., Pacific Investment Management Company
Pat Holt, Member, Council on Foreign Relations
Michael Holtzman, Council on Foreign Relations
Richard O. Hope, The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation
Charlayne Hunter-Gault, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Board Member, Council on Foreign Relations
Mahnaz Ispahani, The Ford Foundation
Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, National Rainbow Coalition
Dr. Gerald D. Jaynes, Yale University
Mary Harris Johnson, U.S.I.A./Office of Civil Rights
Thomas A. Johnson, Thomas A. Johnson & Associates
David R. Jones, Community Service Society of New York
Dr. Ethan Kapstein, Council on Foreign Relations
Charlotee G. Kea, U. S. Department of Commerce
Jude Kearney, U. S. Department of Commerce
Alan H. Kirschner, United Negro College Fund
Kanfantine Lara-Lantone, Howard University
Prof. Ricardo Rene Laremont, Vassar College
Michael A. Levine, Attorney-at-Law
Elise Carlson Lewis, Council on Foreign Relations
Eric Liu, Harvard University
Yolanda Londono, Houston Hispanic Chamber of Commerce
Dr. Abraham F. Lowenthal, Pacific Council on International Policy
C. Payne Lucas, Africare
Myles V. Lynk, Dewey Ballantine
Taynia L. Mann, The Urban Institute
Jane Elizabeth Marcus, Inter-American Dialogue
Prof. David R. Mares, University of California, San Diego
John L. Martin, Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR)
Armando B. Martinez, The Ford Foundation
Jocelyn (Johnny) McCalla, National Coalition for Haitian Rights
Gay McDougall, International Human Rights Law Group
Mora McLean, The Ford Foundation
Cheryl McQueen, U.S. Department of Commerce
Dr. Gwendolyn Mikell, Georgetown University
Valerie Mims, U.S. Department of State
Lourdes R. Miranda, Miranda Associates
Wandra Mitchell, Bahia Group
Dr. Kiichi Mochizuki, The Pacific Institute
Ann Morning, School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
Joel Motley, Carmona, Motley & Co.
Emily Moto Murase, U.S. Federal Communications Commission
Janice Murray, Council on Foreign Relations
Leonard Murray II, Alliance Capital Management International
Karen Narasaki, National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium
Carole Nichols, Global Kids, Inc.
Crystal Nix, U.S. Department of State
Dr. Carol O'Cleireacain, The Brookings Institution
Kongdan Oh, Ph.D., OH & HASSIG, Pacific Rim Consulting
Sumiye Okubo, U. S. Department of Commerce
Felix N. Opara, Howard University
Sam Osunde, Howard University
Amb. Ronald D. Palmer, Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University
Dr. Jeffrey S. Passel, The Urban Institute
Michael P. Peters, Council on Foreign Relations
Marguerita D. Ragsdale, U. S. Department of State
Dr. Susan E. Rice, National Security Council
David G. Richardson, Coudert Brothers
Prof. Henry J. Richardson III, Temple University School of Law
Yolonda Richardson, Carnegie Corporation of N.Y.
Charles Rivera, U. S. Commission on Civil Rights
Dale Robinson, Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management
Eugene Robinson, The Washington Post
Leonard H. Robinson, Jr., Washington Strategic Consulting Group
Lori Robinson, Emerge Magazine
Anthony D. Romero, The Ford Foundation
Beverly Ryder, Edison International
Yves Savain, Key Bridge International
Frank Savage, Alliance Capital Management International, Board Member, Council on Foreign Relations
Samuel T. Scott, Institute for International Public Policy, United Negro College Fund
Henry Siegman, Council on Foreign Relations
Dr. Elliott P. Skinner, Columbia University
Ruth Ann Stewart, Congressional Research Service
Prof. Arnold H. Taylor, Howard University
David K. Y. Tang, Preston, Gates & Ellis
Prof. Richard Thornell, School of Law, Howard University
Adela de la Torre, Ph.d., California State University, Long Beach
Prof. J. Michael Turner, Hunter College
Abelardo Lopez Valdez, Squire, Sanders & Dempsey
Rina Verma, Center for International Affairs, Harvard University
David J. Vidal, Council on Foreign Relations
Mary Lynn Walker-Huntley, Southern Education Foundation
Dr. Ronald Walters, Howard University
Cherri D. Waters, TransAfrica Forum
Dr. Michael Webb, International Youth Leadership Institute, Teachers College, Columbia University
Walter H. White, Jr., Steptoe & Johnson International
Ruth Whiteside, U.S. Department of State
Sharon Wilkinson, U.S. Department of State
Ernest J. Wilson III, Center for International Development & Conflict Management, University of Maryland
Nancy Yao, Council on Foreign Relations
Program Participants and Council on Foreign Relations Staff
Keynote Speakers and Presiders/font>
Charlayne Hunter-Gault*Presider
Panelists
Mario L. Baeza*Moderator
Council on Foreign Relations
Mario L. Baeza*
Officers and Staff
Leslie H. Gelb*President
Council on Foreign Relations Task Force on Minorities
George Dalley,* Chair
Conference Staff
David J. Vidal*Conference Coordinator *Members of the Council on Foreign Relations
Leslie H. Gelb*Keynote speaker
Gabriel Guerra Mondragon*Co-chair, presider
Rev. Jesse L. Jackson*Keynote speaker
Bette Bao Lord*Co-chair, presider
Dr. Susan E. Rice*Keynote speaker
Frank Savage*Speaker
David J. Vidal*Presider
Joyce DavisModerator
Raghida Dergham*Moderator
Antonio GonzalezSpeaker
Maria HinojosaModerator
Gerald D. JaynesAuthor
Ethan Kapstein*Speaker
Karen NarasakiSpeaker
Jeffrey S. PasselAuthor
Elliott P. Skinner*Author
Henry Siegman*Speaker
Ronald WaltersAuthor
Members, of the Board of Directors
Charlayne Hunter-Gault*
Frank Savage*
Alton Frye*Senior V. P. & National Director
Michael P. Peters*Senior V. P. & C.O.O.
Ethan Kapstein*V.P. & Director of Studies
Janice L. Murray*V. P. & Treasurer
David J. Vidal*V. P., Project for Diversity in International Affairs
Elise C. LewisDirector, Membership and Fellowship Affairs
Henry Siegman*Senior Fellow for the MiddleEast
Salih Booker*Fellow for Africa
Allison L. C. de CerrenoProgram Associate
Lisa M. DolberryProgram Associate
Richard AlleyneRapporteur
Rita DiMartino,* Vice Chair
Salih Booker*Senior Advisor
Lisa M. DolberryAssistant to the Conference Coordinator
Conference Report
David J. Vidal
Defining the National Interest
Minorities and U.S. Foreign Policy in the 21st Century
In May 1996, the Council's Project for Diversity in International Affairs hosted a historic conference on minorities and foreign policy. The conference brought together on the campus of Howard University 150 participants, most of whom were members of racial or ethnic minority groups. Nearly half were Council members. Participants came from the fields of human rights, media, the environment, business, law, finance, peacekeeping, and humanitarian operations, all areas beyond the "traditional" foreign policy sphere. Government and academic leaders also attended.
The conference explored the dynamics of minorities' participation in the setting of the national agenda in a changing global system; examined their varied perspectives on certain critical areas of foreign policy; and assessed how the striking shift in American demographics could reshape the country's international priorities.
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