William Michael Schmidli, The Fate of Freedom Elsewhere: Human Rights and U.S. Cold War Policy Toward Argentina (Cornell University Press, 2012).
During the first quarter-century of the Cold War, upholding human rights was rarely a priority in U.S. policy toward Latin America. Seeking to protect U.S. national security, American policymakers quietly cultivated relations with politically ambitious Latin American militaries—a strategy clearly evident in the Ford administration’s tacit support of state-sanctioned terror in Argentina following the 1976 military coup d’état. By the mid-1970s, however, the blossoming human rights movement in the United States posed a serious threat to the maintenance of close U.S. ties to anticommunist, right-wing military regimes.
The competition between cold warriors and human rights advocates culminated in a fierce struggle to define U.S. policy during the Jimmy Carter presidency. In The Fate of Freedom Elsewhere, William Michael Schmidli argues that Argentina emerged as the defining test case of Carter’s promise to bring human rights to the center of his administration’s foreign policy. Entering the Oval Office at the height of the kidnapping, torture, and murder of tens of thousands of Argentines by the military government, Carter set out to dramatically shift U.S. policy from subtle support to public condemnation of human rights violation. But could the administration elicit human rights improvements in the face of a zealous military dictatorship, rising Cold War tension, and domestic political opposition?
By grappling with the disparate actors engaged in the struggle over human rights, including civil rights activists, second-wave feminists, chicano/a activists, religious progressives, members of the New Right, conservative cold warriors, and business leaders, Schmidli utilizes unique interviews with U.S. and Argentine actors as well as newly declassified archives to offer a telling analysis of the rise, efficacy, and limits of human rights in shaping U.S. foreign policy in the Cold War.
One of the three “Best Books of 2013 on the Western Hemisphere.”
—Foreign Affairs
“…the best bilateral study we have of US policy toward a South American country during the Jimmy Carter administration.”
—Hispanic American Historical Review
“As a work of diplomatic history, Schmidli's approach is innovative. He weaves state, non-state and high-level actors into a single narrative by profiling a diverse set of characters, taking the time to describe each figure's background, outlook and place in US government or civil society.... The book's textured analysis makes a valuable contribution to the history of human rights and US-Argentine relations during the Cold War.”
—Journal of Latin American Studies
“Schmidli's carefully researched and well-written book explores the Carter administration’s adoption of human rights policies and the attendant tensions, conflicts, failures, and successes this decision generated....[T]his is an excellent book, and one that is highly readable and valuable both to experts on the topic and undergraduates in the fields of law, human rights, Latin America, United States foreign policy/diplomatic history, and the 1970s.”
—Law & History Review
“This disturbing study examines the US response to Argentina's 'dirty war,' during which the military government tortured and killed (‘disappeared’) thousands of political dissidents.... Even when President Carter emphasized human rights, the State Department was deeply divided.... As Carter hardened his policy toward the Soviet Union, he relaxed his opposition to Argentina's military government. Schmidli argues that despite Carter's retreat and the Reagan administration's friendly attitude toward military dictatorships, human rights had become institutionalized and could no longer be ignored. When Argentina began a reconciliation process in 1983 after the fall of the dictatorship, Reagan embraced it. Summing Up: Highly recommended.”
—Choice
“This is perhaps the best study we have of U.S. human rights policy toward a single country, and probably one of the best regarding the complicated interaction between states, bureaucracies and nongovernmental organizations in formulating human rights policy during the Cold War.”
—H-Diplo Roundtable Review
“In his fast-paced, engrossing account, Schmidli chronicles the fierce internal struggles within the White House and the State Department, where political appointees dedicated to transforming Carter's idealism into concrete policies battled career diplomats accustomed to maintaining cordial relations with anticommunist regimes such as Argentina’s. Schmidli concludes that, despite subsequent policy vacillations, the U.S. extracted some important concessions from the Argentine junta, saving many lives. More broadly, the Carter team succeeded in institutionalizing human rights in U.S. foreign policy.... Drawing on declassified documents and personal interviews, Schmidli paints colorful portraits of key players in the policy debates.... This very valuable study also underscores the vital roles of human rights activists and Congress in laying the foundations for Carter’s diplomatic offensive.”
—Foreign Affairs
“Scholars interested in human rights diplomacy will find much of value in William Michael Schmidli's engaging account of the human rights dimension of U.S. president Jimmy Carter's policy toward Argentina.. Engagingly written and conveying the sweep of human rights developments in the 1970s concisely and effectively, the book deserves a wide audience.”
—The American Historical Review
“William Michael Schmidli has made an original contribution by exploring the motives and paradoxes in the inner workings of President Jimmy Carter's human rights practices in Argentina. Underscoring challenges and opportunities, Schmidli has aptly presented Argentina as the defining test of whether Carter honored his promises to recast U.S. foreign policy with a focus on human rights... His nuanced, detailed analysis concludes that Carter's honest intentions to institutionalize human rights policy partially and temporarily transformed U.S. diplomacy in the Western Hemisphere especially in Argentina, but that outside pressures minimized that diplomacy's continuity and impact.”
—Journal of American History