Six Professors See Shift in Reagan Foreign Policy

Six Harvard international affairs experts noted a shift toward moderation in President Reagan's first-year foreign policy initiatives as compared with the hard-line stance of his campaign rhetoric, but voiced reservations about whether the change has had pronounced effect on the administration's global strategy.

"I think President Reagan has been pulled by events back toward the middle," Joseph S. Nye, professor of Government, said yesterday. Both foreign and domestic pressures have forced the president and his administration to make this change, Nye added.

Complexities

Samuel P. Huntington, Thomson Professor of Government, said Reagan began his administration with a foreign policy influenced largely by previous political beliefs. The "complex realities of the international system" forced Reagan to change his foreign policy, Huntington added.

Both Nye and Huntington said Reagan's decision not to sell F-5 fighter planes to Taiwan exemplified the administration's move toward moderation. "If Reagan had pushed ahead with Taiwan the way he wanted to initially, our relations with China would have deteriorated," Huntington said, adding, "He did the sensible thing."

Mellowing Out

Nye said the president's moderate position toward the USSR in the Polish crisis also reflected a move toward moderation from the campaign rhetoric of a year ago, adding that the Western allies in Europe prompted this move.

Ernest R. May, professor of History, said the allies were an important consideration in forming the president's foreign policy. "The administration had taken the view that it is important to compromise with and make concessions to the allies," he said, adding that while Reagan's political supporters advocated a hard-line foreign policy, he has nevertheless tried to maintain "a degree of solidarity with the allies."

Stanley H. Hoffman, Dillon Professor of the Civilization of France, said that the administration had exercised moderation in the nuclear talks in Europe. But the attitude is not significant enough to affect the administration's overall global strategy of defining policy "simply as a Soviet-American conflict," he added.

The Clash

"We still have to discover that the world is not just a clash between Moscow and Washington," Hoffman said, adding that the moderate European allies wished to see that the Soviet Union is not "priority number one" with the United States.

John S. Odell, assistant professor of Government, said he did not believe the President's shift from conservative campaign rhetoric to moderation in foreign affairs was significant, adding that he did not see any real trend toward moderation.

Two Chinas?

Odell said that the administation had to temper its conservative policies occasionally to deal with the real world, as it did by refusing Taiwan the F-5 fighter planes, but he said the administration's plans had not changed or become more moderate. Although Reagan did not give the Taiwanese what they wanted, he continued to oppose Peking and support Taiwan, Odell added.

James C. Thomson, curator of the Neiman Fellowships and a specialist on Far Eastern affairs, said Reagan's policy toward Peking is "more moderate than the shrillness of his original rhetoric, but it has come too late," adding that the President should have taken advantage of the trust he had built up with China during the last year.

The President became more moderate in his opposition to Peking and his support of Taiwan by "facing the reality of Peking's importance to us," Thomson said. "When you consult a map, you discover our number-one natural partner against Russia is the People's Republic of China," he added.