Clarence Lusane Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, Foreign Policy, Race, and the New American Century (2006)

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.Even Colin Powell would write that he thought sanctions could be a usefulweapon. 16Like Powell, Young would make a number of impolitic statements that wereinconsistent with the administration s position on several issues.In early 1977,he found himself on the defensive for stating that Cuba was a stabilizing factorin Angola during a time when official U.S.policy backed the anti-communistforces, Angolan and South African, that the Cubans were fighting.In July 1978,in an interview with Le Matin, he stated, there are hundreds, perhaps thousandsof political prisoners in the United States. 17 Both these remarks, for which hewould apologize profusely, and Young s general blunt style branded him assomewhat a renegade and preceded the incident that would lead to his bruntdismissal.In August 1979, the story broke that Young had met secretly with theUN representative of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).He was notonly in trouble for not informing the administration about the meeting that hadtaken place on July 26, 1979, but also initially gave misleading informationabout how the meeting came about, first stating that it had been an accidentalencounter and then revealing that it had been pre-arranged.The meeting clearlyviolated the Carter administration s agreement with Israel that there would be nounscheduled U.S.meetings with the PLO.Young s resignation quickly followedthe revelations.In this instance, Young s overtures to the PLO reflected a strong sentiment inthe black community, among activists and elites alike, that U.S.policy in theMiddle East should be more balanced in tone and approach.Black leaders andorganizations, including the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)and Operation PUSH as well as several members of the Congressional BlackCaucus, called for human rights for the Palestinians and the right of self-determination.The ultimate lesson from this episode was crystal clear: black State Depart-ment staffers and ambassadors implement rather than make policy decisions.Young may or may not have believed consciously that in addition to his ownpersonal political objectives he was carrying out the policy preferences of theblack community, but, in any case, he was not in sync with the administration.While there may be leeway regarding the particular means in which policy iscarried out, fundamental strategic decisions and policy objectives are establishedat the very top of the political pyramid.jColin Powell and Condoleezza Rice20Young was succeeded by his deputy for Security Council Affairs, DonaldMcHenry, who is also African American.McHenry was a career diplomat andmore than qualified for the position, yet his appointment could also be seen inpart as mollification for the black community in the wake of the Young disaster.McHenry, however, was not linked to the civil rights establishment or blackcommunity organizations in an organic way as was Young.His tenure as am-bassador, with a few minor snafus, was relatively traditional and certainly straight-forward in representing the Carter administration s policies.A number of re-searchers conclude that in a substantive way, Young (and by extrapolation,McHenry) had little to no impact on U.S.policies toward Africa.18However, the Carter period is seen as a great watershed for black Americansin the Foreign Service.19 Carter named fifteen black ambassadors who weredispatched not only to sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean, but also to Ro-mania, the former East Germany, Algeria, and Malaysia.In addition, Secretaryof State Cyrus Vance ordered a study on diversity at the State Department thatconcluded, in part, that the department was an elitist, self-satisfied, walled-inbarony populated by smug white males, an old-boy system in which women andminorities cannot possibly hope to be treated with equity in promotions andsenior level responsibilities. 20During the Reagan and first Bush administrations, black Americans actuallylost ground in terms of appointments in the Foreign Service and ambassador-ships.The number of black ambassadors fell precipitously from fifteen to fivewho were sent to outposts such as Mauritius, the Seychelles, and Sierra Leone.Reagan s focus on the Soviet evil empire, manifest in his anti-communistsurrogate wars in Africa and Latin America underscored the long-held view byconservatives that one had to be exceptionally nationalistic and patriotic torepresent the United States and that perhaps black Americans (as well as His-panics, Jews, and other racial and ethnic groups) were not demonstrably so.Reagan did find a few black Americans who were willing to defend his policiessuch as Alan Keyes who served as assistant secretary of state for internationalorganizations.Keyes had also previously been on the staff of the National Se-curity Council and been ambassador to the UN Economic and Social Council.Powell, of course, would also join the Reagan administration as national securityadvisor among other appointments.George H.W [ 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