Jeane Kirkpatrick Totally Explained

Everything about Jeane Kirkpatrick totally explained

Jeane Jordan Kirkpatrick (November 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 famous for her "Kirkpatrick Doctrine," which advocated U.S. support of anticommunist governments around the world, including authoritarian dictatorships, if they were not totalitarian and 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.

Early life

Jeane Duane Jordan was born in Duncan, Oklahoma, the daughter of an oilfield wildcatter, Welcher F. Jordan, and his wife, the former Leona Kile. She attended Emerson Elementary School there and was known to her classmates as "Duane Jordan". At age 12, her father moved the family to southern Illinois where she graduated from Mt. Vernon Township High School in Mt. Vernon, Illinois. In 1948, she graduated from Barnard College after transferring from Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri. In 1968, Kirkpatrick received a Ph.D in political science from Columbia University. She spent a year of post-graduate study at the at the Institut des Sciences Politiques at the University of Paris, which helped her learn the French language. She was also fluent in Spanish.
Though she was to be ultimately known as a figure of conservatism, as a college freshman in 1945 she joined the Young People's Socialist League of the Socialist Party of America, a membership that was influenced by one of her grandfathers, who was a founder of the Populist and Socialist parties in Oklahoma. As Kirkpatrick recalled at a symposium in 2002, "It wasn't easy to find the YPSL in Columbia, Missouri. But I'd read about it and I wanted to be one. We had a very limited number of activities in Columbia, Missouri. We had an anti-Franco rally, which was a worthy cause. You could raise a question about how relevant it was likely to be in Columbia, Missouri, but it was in any case a worthy cause. We also planned a socialist picnic, which we spent quite a lot of time organizing. Eventually, I regret to say, the YPSL chapter, after much discussion, many debates and some downright quarrels, broke up over the socialist picnic. I thought that was rather discouraging." She also served on the Platform Committee for the Democratic Party in 1976.
Kirkpatrick published a number of articles in political science journals reflecting her disillusionment with the Democratic Party with specific critism of the foreign policy of Democratic President Jimmy Carter. Her most well known piece was "Dictatorships and Double Standards," published in Commentary in November 1979. In that piece, Kirkpatrick mentioned what she saw as a difference between authoritarian regimes and the totalitarian regimes such as the Soviet Union; sometimes it was necessary to work with authoritarian regimes if it suited American purposes.

Ambassador to the UN

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."
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'd named Soviet political prisoners on the floor of the UN. Anti-Defamation League President Abraham Foxman issued a press release upon her passing saying that "She will be fondly remembered for her unwavering and valiant support of the State of Israel and her unequivocal opposition to anti-Semitism, especially during her tenure at the United Nations. She was always a true friend of the Jewish people."

Political views

Comparing authoritarian and totalitarian regimes, she said:

"Authoritarian regimes really typically don't have complete command economies. Authoritarian regimes typically have 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."

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's 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." About socialist activism, she said:

"As I read the utopian socialists, the scientific socialists, the German Social Democrats and revolutionary socialists — whatever I could in either English or French — I came to the conclusion that almost all of them, including my grandfather, were engaged in an effort to change human nature. The more I thought about it, the more I thought this wasn't likely to be a successful effort. So I turned my attention more and more to political philosophy and less and less to socialist activism of any kind."
Kirkpatrick died at her home in Bethesda, MD, on December 7 2006 of congestive heart failure. She had been diagnosed with heart disease and had been in failing health for several years.

Quotes

"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."

"Russia is playing chess, while we're playing Monopoly. The only question is whether that'll checkmate us before we bankrupt them."

Awards and honors

Kirkpatrick received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor. Kirkpatrick was awarded an honorary degree by Brandeis University in 1994, but her honor was met with protests from some professors and students. One of the 53 (out of 350 total Brandeis faculty) opposing professors said, "We oppose the degree because she was the intellectual architect of Reagan administration policies that supported some of the Latin-American regimes with the most repressive records."

Books authored

Making War to Keep Peace, 2007 (ISBN 0-0611-9543-X)

The Withering Away of the Totalitarian State -- And Other Surprises, 1992 (ISBN 0-8447-3728-3)

Legitimacy and Force: National and International Dimensions, 1988 (ISBN 0-88738-647-4)

International Regulation: New Rules in a Changing World Order, 1988 (ISBN 1-55815-026-9)

Legitimacy and Force: Political and Moral Dimensions, 1988 (ISBN 0-88738-099-9)

Legitimacy and Force: State Papers and Current Perspectives 1981-1985, 1987 ISBN 9999962750

The United States and the World: Setting Limits, 1986 (ISBN 0-8447-1379-1)

The Reagan Doctrine and U.S. Foreign Policy, 1985 (ISBN 999650591X

Reagan Phenomenon and Other Speeches on Foreign Policy, 1983 (ISBN 0-8447-1361-9)

U.N. Under Scrutiny, 1982 (ISBN 99938-872-9-3)

Dictatorships and Double Standards: Rationalism and Reason in Politics, 1982 (ISBN 0-671-43836-0)

Presidential Nominating Process: Can It Be Improved, 1980 (ISBN 0-8447-3397-0)

Dismantling the Parties: Reflections on Party Reform and Party Decomposition, 1978 (ISBN 0-8447-3293-1)

The New Presidential Elite: Men and Women in National Politics, 1976 (ISBN 0-87154-475-X)

Political Woman, 1974 (ISBN 0-465-05970-8)Further Information

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