| Photo by Robert Holmgren |
Allan Gotlieb Interview: Conversations with History; Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley
| Photo by Robert Holmgren |
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I'd like to focus on your years in Washington. And you are associated with the successful implementation of what you call the "new rules of diplomacy" in Washington? Tell us about those rules and your work in Washington.
Well, the "new rules of diplomacy," I have to say in the first instance, may be an exaggerated way of expressing what I was trying to do. But I have to blame myself for that, or take credit, because that was the term I used. Its most quintessential forms are practiced in Washington. And the reason for that is that power is so dispersed and fragmented in Washington.
Classic diplomacy continues and indeed, had a tremendous new lease on life because of the enormous increase in the number of sovereign states. If you look at the international community, what we saw in the 20th century was an explosion of 19th century concepts. We saw decolonization, which was a 19th century concept. It gave way, fortunately, to another 19th century concept, which was the nation-state, or the sovereign state. An enormous proliferation. And this, indeed, was the impulse for the United Nations to codify the Law of Diplomatic Relations, which had never been done before. In an enormously learned exercise that took place over at least ten years, the international jurors of the world, under the umbrella of the United Nations International Law Commission, codified the Law of Diplomatic Relations. And it came to be embodied in the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which most of our countries are now a party to and have ratified. It is, or at least it was in the mid-1950s, a completely contemporary codification of international law, including some progressive developments. One of its key articles is that all official business has to be transacted through the intermediary of the foreign ministry. If a foreign ambassador has business to conduct, he does it with the executive branch, and with a designated center or channel in the executive branch of the government: the court, the chancellery, the prime minister's office, the president's office, whatever it is, but that designated channel is the foreign ministry.
Now, if that's classic diplomacy, and it is essentially current diplomacy, then my view is that you couldn't possibly practice that in Washington. If you did, you ought to be expelled for incompetence. Certainly, the State Department is the proper and appropriate channel, and if you want to deliver a diplomatic protest, you go to the State Department. If you want to propose any major undertaking in the foreign policy field, the proper channel is the State Department. But if you look at the substance of international relations, and if you try to quantify it, the vast number of issues which have become the substance of international relations are generated by forces which are represented by other departments of government, or by the legislative branch. The result is that, in terms of Canada - U.S. relations, most of the conflicts that I had to deal with were generated out of initiatives taken in the United States Congress, or taken in a regulatory body, outside of the stretch and purview of the State Department. And whereas the State Department could be helpful, they couldn't possibly lobby effectively on the hill for every country that had a problem. You had to do that yourself. You had to explain it, you had to fight your own fights. You had to work, not only with the State Department, but with the Commerce Department, the Trade Department. Sometimes, you had to work a little bit against some of these domestic departments too, that's always a very tricky business. By the "new diplomacy," I mean a number of activities which take one fairly close in the domain of domestic affairs and the internal processes of government.
So you're talking about issues like trade. You're talking about issues like acid rain, trucking regulation -- what we traditionally thought of as the core domestic issues.
That's correct. That is absolutely correct. Issues that may well be called domestic issues in the United States. A very good example, I think the clearest, is the problem of acid rain. The simplest way to understand this issue is that over half of the acid rain which falls in Canada originates in the United States. The general scientific opinion to which we subscribe, and I think most Americans would subscribe who follow this, is that you cannot absorb more than 18 lbs. per year per acre of acid rain without serious and possibly irreversible harm. If we were to close down Canadian industry all together, just pull down the smokestacks, go back to a pastoral society, we'd still get more than 18 lbs. It would be coming from the United States. So that means that to solve what most Canadians would identify as the most critical environmental issue that we know, and one of the top concerns that most Canadians identify on their score sheet of public issues, United States behavior and activity is fundamentally important. Now, the United States air quality, issues of pollution, are dealt with by United States domestic laws. They're not part of any treaty. They're are not part of any international agreement that reflects these international obligations. It is a domestic law that governs air, and it's called the Clean Air Act of 1970. And that means that if there are to be any new controls on acid rain, they would have to be embodied in an amendment to the Clean Air Act, or in regulations under it. How far could you go under the existing act? What is the scope for interpretation? Or, what amendments do you have to have? So the whole subject of Canadian concern about acid rain immediately leads one into the issue of an amendment of a U.S. domestic law.
Your predecessors, on an issue like this, might have filed a protest with the Secretary of State; but the ambassadors now work the halls of Congress. And who do you have to talk to, to convince, to argue with? Is it only the Speaker, or the Secretary of Energy in the Executive, or are there others now?
Well, if you take the subject of acid rain, and if you are trying to advocate the position that the United States should enter into a negotiation with Canada for a treaty to reduce the trans-boundary flow, you would identify the key players. In the Senate you would identify the chairman of the environmental committee and the senior Republican member, or minority member. When I was there it was, for a time, Senator Stafford. Senator Mitchell is now the leader in the Senate. You would be very conscious of their role, but you would also be very conscious of people who weren't on the committee who would also be important. For example, the environmental committee was usually favorable to action. So they would pass or be prepared to pass a bill that would do something, but it would never go anywhere. So you would have to be aware of who were some of the leaders or important senators who would oppose that, and you'd want to explain to them what your problems are, why this is a problem for the United States, and what Canada is hoping to achieve. You would want to explain what Canada is doing, because a lot of the opposition will say, "Well, Canada is not doing anything. Canada just wants a free ride." Obviously, if you're opposed to action, you're going to fight back.
The same is true on the House side. You have committees, they were headed by Congressman Waxman of California, Skorsky in Minnesota, and you had the chairman of one of the most powerful committees, Chairman Dingle, who was very skeptical, if not opposed, from Detroit. So, you would constantly be in discussion with such individuals and their staffs. You would be in discussion with environmental organizations here, or meeting with them, because they would want information about Canada -- they want the latest data on the destruction of Canadian lakes, they want to work with us
Not only is the Congress very decentralized, but the administration was very decentralized, certainly in the Reagan years, and maybe forever now, I don't know. In the administration you'd have the State Department, you would have the Energy Department, you would have the Interior Department. You'd have the Office of Management and Budget -- OMB -- very, very powerful players. You would even try to involve the Defense Department. Why would you want to involve the Defense Department? Because you would want to make the argument, if you were me (which I did): "Look, there's a summit coming up (a meeting, let's say, between the two leaders), and we've got to try to make this summit a success. If acid rain is going to produce a blow-up, it's not going to be conducive to movement on other items." These aren't formally linked, but there are linkages. There are linkages in the relationship as a whole, and also in the White House. You would find two sides, the domestic side of the White House, and the National Security Council. Very often, issues that concerned Canada were dealt with on the domestic side. Very often, they were dealt with on both sides. And, again, having identified these key administration groups, very often you would have to identify the players because in the executive branch, in my experience, there was a lot of independent activity, a lot of free-wheeling. In France they say, "franc tiré," loose cannons, free shooters.
It sounds Byzantine!
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