American Foreign Policy: Ideals and Reality

FAIN: FP-10169-78

Lincoln P. Bloomfield
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, MA 02139-4307)

Seminar for Journalists to explore, through readings, discussion and debate, major American foreign policy dilemmas. Central theme is the historic tension between expression abroad of American ideals, and the pragmatic need to face real world problems at least cost or danger to the nation. With an eye to this moral-pragmatic division, seminar will consider implications of the "no more Vietnams" syndrome, choices in nuclear strategy, North-South economic clashes, the Carter human rights drive, and the decision-making process in Washington, among other topics.