Patterico's Pontifications

9/5/2007

How Robert Novak Is Responsible For Jimmy Carter Having Been President

Filed under: General — WLS @ 12:05 pm



[Posted by WLS]

Novak contends that the most important column he ever wrote, both professionally and personally, came during the Ford Administration when he came into possession of a transcript of a speech given during a closed briefing of US European Ambassadors. The speaker was State Dept. Counselor Helmut Sonnenfeldt, a close ally of Kissinger in his detente policy, and the leading State Dept. expert on East-West affiars. Novak’s column was in the Spring of 1976 during the Republican primaries, and it exposed a movement in the State Dept. towards a less and less aggressive posture towards the growth of communism in Europe.

The speech was given in Europe, and in it Sonnenfeldt laid out a revised State Dept. doctrine for dealing with the Soviet domination of Eastern Europe. This doctrine represented Kissinger’s views, and Ford was at that time in Kissinger’s camp.

The “Sonnenfeldt Doctrine” held that the risk of military conflict between he East and West in Europe was heightened due to the “Inorganic” nature of the relationship between the Soviet Republics and the Eastern European countries — Yugoslavia, Chezkoslovakia, Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania. The Doctrine stated that the US should not actively support independence movements within those countries as that would increase the potential for Soviet military intervention, and the happening of some event that might set off WWIII.

Instead, Sonnenfeldt laid out for the Ambassadors that the US policy would shift towards one of allowing a more “organic” relationship between the Soviets and the Eastern European countries with Soviet troops stationed in their borders.

Here is a Time Magazine article from April 1976 that gives good background on this subject. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,914055-1,00.html

The exposure of this policy shift at the State Dept. set off a raging debate within the Administration between the Kissingerites and the more hardline Anti-Soviets led by Rumsfeld in the Defense Department.

The real danger posed for Ford, however, was the prospect of losing ethnic Euorpean voters to Reagan who was putting together a primary challenge to Ford. In response, the Administration was forced to pull back publicly from the Sonnenfeldt Doctrine.

Advance now several months to the Presidential debate on foreign affairs. Ford made his now famous mis-statement that there presently was no Soviet domination of Eastern European countries, specifically contending that Poland doesn’t consider itself dominated, notwithstanding the presence of three Soviet Army divisions in Poland.

Novak points out that Ford’s answer was nothing more than a convoluted attempt to explain the Administration policy while simultaneously disavowing the Sonnenfeldt Doctrine which had been such a point of controversy several months earlier. What Ford was trying to convey was that it was US policy to never RECOGNIZE Soviet Domination of Eastern Europe as an accepted circumstance, but rather that it would always be the policy of the US to recognize the sovereignty and independence of the Eastern European countries notwithstanding their current subordination to the Soviets.

The 1976 election saw the entire South line up for Carter, and Ford’s election depended upon holding the steel belt, industrialized Midwest, and the West. But his Eastern European faux paus cost him dearly among the ethnic Eastern Europeans across Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Illinois — especially the Poles. As close as 1976 turned out to be, this provided the edge that gave us President Carter.

Had it not been for the exposure of the Sonnenfeldt Doctine by Novak, the attention it garnered in the Spring of 1976 — leading the Ford camp to battle over it with the Reagan camp — Ford would not have been preoccupied with trying to explain it away in response to a debate question that didn’t require him to address it.

— WLS

13 Responses to “How Robert Novak Is Responsible For Jimmy Carter Having Been President”

  1. That is pretty spurious. I would seriously doubt that this was the tipping point.

    Ford lost because he was a Republican following Nixon and he pardoned Nixon.

    headhunt23 (9e1243)

  2. If I read this right, either Ford was dumb on Eastern European issues or Ford was forced to admit he supported the Sonnenfeldt Doctrine. Either way, he would lose the Eastern European-American vote and probably should have, since his views were not in accord with what those voters wanted.

    Novak may regret the outcome but isn’t this what reporters are supposed to do? The tragedy is that the media was unable or unwilling to expose Carter’s limitations, too.

    DRJ (8b9d41)

  3. Ford gained rapidly at the end of the campaign and the comment above suggests the writer does not know the history. Had the campaign gone on another week or two, the trend was for a Ford win. The gaffe over Poland interrupted that trend and confirmed the image of Ford as a klutz. The Nixon pardon issue had been thoroughly thrashed out earlier in the campaign and was receding as a factor (except in the minds of single issue Nixon haters like the commenter above). The gaffe was fatal in an election much closer than anyone anticipated even a month before voting day.

    Mike K (6d4fc3)

  4. I remember the gaffe, too. It may very well have cost Ford Pennsylvania, Ohio and Wisconsin but he carried Michigan and Illinois where, at the time, Chicago was the “second largest Polish city after Warsaw”. Quien sabe?

    Ford was a political dunce in many ways but chief among them was his mantra “No one to the right of me can be elected President”. Thank God those who voted for Ronald Reagan in 1980 refused to believe him.

    nk (a6ecc6)

  5. Mike K is exactly right in No. 3. Ford had climbed to within 2 points in the Gallup poll just prior to the Foreign Policy debate, after having trailed Carter by 30 points earlier in the campaign. Ford’s campaign had been hamstrung by a late start because the GOP convention had been after Labor Day. Ford’s first campaign appeanance after the convention was September 12, and he inexplicable went to Ann Arbor, Michigan, home of his alma mater, even though it was a hotbed of 1960’s liberalism.

    If Ford had made it through the debate without the blunder, he would have overtaken Carter and won. The debate froze his momentum just prior to the election, and he never got it back.

    WLS (077d0d)

  6. Try Czechoslovakia instead of Chezkoslovakia. Awright, so I’m a constipated wannabe copy editor.

    dchamil (0f5ebd)

  7. The perceived gaffe cost him votes across the board, not just among ethnically eastern European voters. It made him look like a doofus. The election was easily close enough that this could have shifted the margin of error.

    Beldar (bdd5c6)

  8. State hasn’t changed in 50 years. It clones its officers through its promotion procedures headed and vetted by a group of black dragons with no clear or standard guidlelines available for all to see. So the incompetent rate officers under them who are just as dull and ineffective as outstanding. An officer with Reagan’s point of view in 1976 would have been low ranked and selected out.

    It hasn’t changed and we would do to remember it was State that created the mess that is Iraq today. State will remain a disaster as long as officers cannot exercise independent judgement without fear of being selected out or being low ranked, not because they are wrong but because they object to a policy that is obviously flawed at best.

    Thomas Jackson (bf83e0)

  9. LOL — so much for phonetics. Next time I’ll just spell it “Google”.

    wls (fb8809)

  10. The hypothetical had it not been for is not convincing. These thinks can’t be isolated so neatly.

    Novak had a big impact, but I doubt as big as he thinks. But I appreciate the Ford Poland explanation – I had bought the lie that he was just an idiot.

    Amphipolis (fdbc48)

  11. I dunno if I should thank Novak for Carter (his 4 years set up 8 of Reagan), or swear at him for Carter… I’m really quite torn.

    😉

    Scott Jacobs (425810)

  12. Web Reconnaissance for 09/06/2007…

    A short recon of whatÂ’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day…so check back often….

    The Thunder Run (59ce3a)

  13. State needs a though housecleaning, but that can’t happen unless Congress changes some laws.

    The next President should treat State as irreparably damaged and route around it. Starve the State Department of status, money, and responsibility, until such time as it can be redeemed.

    LarryD (feb78b)


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