Water's Edge: Domestic Politics and the Making of American Foreign Policy (Contributions in Political Science)

ISBN: 0274904179

Author: Stern, Paula

Condition: New

Review"Water's Edge is a skillful and illuminating account of the politics behind the 'Jackson Amendment.' Stern's sure instinct for the significant detail and her sensitivity to the legislative process endow her book with the vivid immediacy of good journalism and the lasting value of solid political history." -- U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson"This is a major contribution to our understanding of the conception, negotiation and passage of the Jackson-Vanik Amendment that led the U.S.S.R. in 1975 to denounce the trade agreement negotiated with the US in 1972. The public record, interviews and inside information are combined to give a detailed and lively account of what went on; when data fail, Rashomon is invoked to provide alternative readings. Close analysis of the aims, methods and choices of Senator Jackson tells us much about his relation to Jewish groups, labour, other senators and the executive branch. The latter, usually personified in Henry Kissinger, does not cut a very impressive figure in this account. Rebuttals from protagonists are to be expected, but it is hard to see how they can detract much from this first-rate piece of work." -- Foreign Affairs"In Water's Edge Paula Stern has provided a most sophisticated analysis of the intricate interplay of domestic and international considerations which produced the 'Jackson Amendment.' It is a tribute to her skill that an overwhelming mass of detail is never permitted to overwhelm her conceptual lucidity." -- John P. Roche, Syndicated Columnist and Professor of Foreign Affairs, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy"The Jackson-Kissinger contest was a duel of classic proportions, portrayed here in all its intricacy. A valuable addition to the literature of legislative-executive relations." -- Alton Frye, Council on Foreign Relations"[Water's Edge] is an important as well as a highly interesting study and a 'must' for anybody interested in the domestic political aspects of efforts to expand American-Soviet trade." -- John M. Lee, Just for the PressFrom the Inside FlapThe recent trial of Jewish dissidents like Anatoly Shcharansky has made the Soviet Union's denial of its citizens' human rights a controversial American political issue. The Kremlin's rights violations threaten to hamper critical negotiations aimed at lessening tensions between the two superpowers. The president is accused by many, including some senators, of not being tough enough on the Russians.The American public may be forgiven for experiencing a sense of deja vu: they have been through all this before. Water's Edge tells the story of a major Russian-American crisis over human rights: from the two and one-half-year battle over the Jackson amendment to the Trade Reform Act of 1974, which aimed to pressure the Russians into correcting human rights violations by denying them trade concessions. But Water's Edge is more than an incisive recounting of the Jackson amendment fight; it is a probing investigation of the way American foreign policy is created under conditions of high domestic political involvement.Paula Stern begins with an account of the Soviet Jewish emigration movement that dates back to the late 1960s and the political action it inspired in Israel and America. She goes on to show how one politician - Senator Henry Jackson - forged a link between the emigration issue and U.S.-Soviet trade, an element in the detente marked by the Nixon-Brezhnev summit of 1972. Jackson assumed leadership of the cause of Soviet Jewry, rallied the support of three-quarters of the Senate, and neutralized the opposition of President Nixon. Jackson emerges as a master legislative manipulator, using such supporting groups as American Jews and labor groups to maximum effect. Stern then details how the debate became a three-part negotiation among the Congress, the Executive, and the Soviet Union. By this time (1974), the expanding Watergate scandal had become a factor, and Jackson was also anxious to have somethi