Jeane Kirkpatrick

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Jeane Kirkpatrick bigraphy, stories - American diplomat and Presidential advisor

Jeane Kirkpatrick : biography

November 19, 1926 – December 7, 2006

Jeane Duane Jordan Kirkpatrick (December 19, 1926 – December 7, 2006) was an American ambassador and an ardent anticommunist. After serving as Ronald Reagan’s foreign policy adviser in his 1980 campaign and later in his Cabinet, the longtime Democrat-turned-Republican was nominated as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and became the first woman to hold this position.

She is known for her "Kirkpatrick Doctrine," which advocated U.S. support of anticommunist governments around the world, including authoritarian dictatorships, if they went along with Washington’s aims—believing they could be led into democracy by example. She wrote, "Traditional authoritarian governments are less repressive than revolutionary autocracies."

Kirkpatrick served on Reagan’s Cabinet on the National Security Council, Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, Defense Policy Review Board, and chaired the Secretary of Defense Commission on Fail Safe and Risk reduction of the Nuclear Command and Control System.

Ambassador to the UN

Kirkpatrick with President [[Ronald Reagan in the Oval Office]] Kirkpatrick once said, "What takes place in the Security Council more closely resembles a mugging than either a political debate or an effort at problem-solving." Still, she finished her term with a certain respect for the normative power of the United Nations as the "institution whose majorities claim the right to decide – for the world – what is legitimate and what is illegitimate."Kirkpatrick, Jeane J., Legitimacy and Force Vol. 1 (Oxford: Transaction Books, 1988), xvi. She noted that the United States had increasingly ignored this significance and became increasingly isolated.Kirkpatrick, Jeane J., "Standing Alone" in Legitimacy and Force Vol. 1 (Oxford: Transaction Books, 1988), 193-194. This was problematic, because "relative isolation in a body like the United Nations is a sign of impotence,"Kirkpatrick, Jeane J., "Standing Alone" in Legitimacy and Force Vol. 1 (Oxford: Transaction Books, 1988), 195. especially given the ability of the United Nations to shape international attitudes.Kirkpatrick, Jeane J., "The UN as a Political System" in Legitimacy and Force Vol. 1 (Oxford: Transaction Books, 1988), 222. Kirkpatrick was ambassador to the U.N. during the Sept. 1, 1983 Soviet shooting down of Korean Air Lines Flight 007 near Moneron Island. KAL 007 had carried 269 passengers and crew including a sitting congressman, Larry McDonald from Georgia. She played before the Security Council the audio of the electronic intercept of the interceptor pilot during the attack, after which the Soviet Union could no longer deny its responsibility for the shootdown.

According to Jay Nordlinger, on a visit with American dignitaries, Soviet human rights activist Andrei Sakharov said, "Kirkpatski, Kirkpatski, which of you is Kirkpatski?" When others pointed to Kirkpatrick, he said, "Your name is known in every cell in the Gulag," because she had named Soviet political prisoners on the floor of the UN. Kirkpatrick said she would only serve one term at the UN and stepped down in April 1985.

Views on Israel

She was a staunch supporter of the State of Israel. During her ambassadorship at the United Nations, she considered its frequent criticism and condemnation of the Jewish State as holding Israel to a double standard. She attributed it to hostility and considered it as politically motivated. In 1989, Mohammed Wahby, press director of Egypt’s Information Bureau, wrote to the Washington Post saying, "Jeane Kirkpatrick has, somehow, consistently opposed any attempt to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict." Kirkpatrick had warned Secretary of State James Baker and President Bush, in an op-ed, not to get involved in the conflict, because any intervention "will fail." Kirkpatrick was a Board Member of the American Foundation for Resistance International and The National Council to Support the Democracy Movements as the primary organizations that helped to bring down Soviet and Eastern European Communism. Along with Vlaidmir Bukovsky, Martin Colman and Richard Perle she worked tirelessly to organize the democratic revolution against communism. Kirkpatrick frequently expressed disdain for what she perceived to be disproportionate attention on Israel at the expense of other conflicts. She "declared that what takes place in the Security Council "more closely resembles a mugging than either a political debate or an effort at problem-solving."