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Jeane Kirkpatrick

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Jeane Kirkpatrick

Jeane Jordan Kirkpatrick (born November 19, 1926) is an American conservative political scientist and member of the neoconservative movement. After serving as Ronald Reagan's foreign policy adviser in his 1980 campaign, she was nominated as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and was the first woman to hold this position. An ardent anticommunist, she is famous for her "Kirkpatrick Doctrine," which advocates U.S. support of anticommunist governments around the world, including authoritarian dictatorships. Along with Empower America co-directors William Bennett and Jack Kemp, she called on the Congress to issue a formal declaration of war against the "entire fundamentalist Islamic terrorist network" the day after the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center.

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[edit] Biography

Born Jeane Duane Jordan in Duncan, Oklahoma, she graduated from Barnard College in 1948 after transferring from Stephens College, and received a doctorate in political science from Columbia University in 1968. During her early academic career she was a Marxist, joining the youth section of the Socialist Party of America. At Columbia her principal adviser was Franz Neumann, a revisionist Marxist. In 1967, she joined the faculty of Georgetown University, and became a full professor of political science in 1968.

She became active in politics as a Democrat in the 1970s, and was active in the later campaigns of former Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Hubert Humphrey. Kirkpatrick published a number of articles in political science journals reflecting her disillusionment with the Democratic Party, and was especially critical of the foreign policy of Democratic President Jimmy Carter. She eventually left the Democratic Party, and joined the Republicans, but not until 1985.

In 1980, though still a long time Democrat, she became the foreign policy adviser for the Republican presidential candidate, Ronald Reagan, during his campaign. After winning the election, Reagan nominated Kirkpatrick as United States Ambassador to the United Nations, a position she held for four years.

She was one of the strongest open supporters of Argentina's military dictatorship following the March 1982 Argentine invasion of the United Kingdom's Falkland Islands, which triggered the Falklands War. Kirkpatrick sympathized with Argentina's President Gen. Leopoldo Galtieri whose military regime clamped down on leftists (see Dirty War). Her support was basically muted when the administration ultimately decided to declare support for the British (see U.S. shuttle diplomacy during the Falklands War).

At the 1984 Republican National Convention, Kirkpatrick delivered the memorable "Blame America First" speech, in which she praised the foreign policy of the Reagan administration and excoriated the leadership of the "San Francisco Democrats" for the party's shift away from the policies of former Democratic presidents such as Harry S. Truman and John F. Kennedy to a multilateral stance that de-emphasized assertive confrontation with foreign rivals, especially the so-called evil empire.

In 1985 Kirkpatrick became a Republican and returned to teaching at the Jesuit Georgetown University. She became a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington D.C think tank and a contributor to the American Freedom Journal. In 1993 she co-founded Empower America, a public-policy organization. She is also on the advisory board of the National Association of Scholars, a think tank which works against perceived liberal academic bias, multicultural education, and Affirmative Action policies.

[edit] Views

Comparing authoritarian and totalitarian regimes, she said recently:

Authoritarian regimes really typically don’t have complete command economies. Authoritarian regimes typically has some kind of traditional economy with some private ownership. The Nazi regime left ownership in private hands, but the state assumed control of the economy. Control was separated from ownership but it was really a command economy because it was controlled by the state. A command economy is an attribute of a totalitarian state [1]

Explaining her disillusionment with international organizations, especially the United Nations, she stated:

  • As I watched the behavior of the nations of the U.N. (including our own), I found no reasonable ground to expect any one of those governments to transcend permanently their own national interests for those of another country.
  • I conclude that it is a fundamental mistake to think that salvation, justice, or virtue come through merely human institutions.
  • Democracy not only requires equality but also an unshakable conviction in the value of each person, who is then equal. Cross cultural experience teaches us not simply that people have different beliefs, but that people seek meaning and understand themselves in some sense as members of a cosmos ruled by God."

[edit] Books

[edit] Quotes

  • "What takes place in the Security Council more closely resembles a mugging than either a political debate or an effort at problem-solving."
  • "Neither nature, experience, nor probability informs these lists of 'entitlements', which are subject to no constraints except those of the mind and appetite of their authors." -- Jeane Kirkpatrick talking about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which she termed "a letter to Santa Claus".<ref>[2]</ref>
  • "When our Marines, sent to Lebanon on a multinational peacekeeping mission with the consent of the United States Congress, were murdered in their sleep, the "blame America first crowd" didn't blame the terrorists who murdered the Marines, they blamed the United States. But then, they always blame America first. . . . The American people know better." - Speech delivered at the 1984 Republican National Convention
  • "Because the miseries of traditional life are familiar, they are bearable to ordinary people who, growing up in the society, learn to cope and therefore accept the fact that wealth, power, status and other resources favor an affluent few while traditional autocrats maintain the masses in misery. So therefore our lack of concern is quite proper; indeed, quite decent and moral because the lower orders feel no pain." - 1979
  • "When Marxist dictators shoot their way into power in Central America, the San Francisco Democrats don't blame the guerrillas and their Soviet allies. They blame United States policies of 100 years ago. But then they always blame America first." [3]
  • "Vietnam presumably taught us that the United States could not serve as the world’s policeman; it should also have taught us the dangers of trying to be the world’s midwife to democracy when the birth is scheduled to take place under conditions of guerrilla war." [4]

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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Donald McHenry 		U.S. Ambassador to the U.N.
1981 – 1985 		Succeeded by:
Vernon A. Walters
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