Lessons from Daniel Patrick Moynihan: The Cold War, Race, and America's International Standing

This article is the first of a two-part series. You can read part two here.

At the time of this series’ writing, the United States and the world face a specter unlike others before it—a pathogen (COVID-19) has taken hold of all aspects of life and strained the current global system. The COVID-19 pandemic unveiled, in plain sight, the lingering residue of fear and discontent for foreign nations. The United States now seemingly succumbing to the follies of its own vanity. What COVID-19 has done is open the wounds that the United States thought were fixed: this old wound happened to be a perceived weakness in American dominance and exceptionalism on the world stage. 

At a crossroads, the United States must consider its own place on the world stage: What values must American leaders consider when dealing with foreign rivals or adversaries? What values might American leaders have to sacrifice in order to obtain what they wish? Moreover, at the nexus of foreign relations to the domestic policy during crises like the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States has to consider how they conduct and project themselves on the world stage—actions that require ostentatious appearances of success on the homefront and in diplomatic relations. The former president of the United States, Donald Trump, a socialite New Yorker without any political experience, chooses to demonstrate power through simple bravado and blame setbacks on the most convenient source. In stark contrast, Daniel Patrick “Pat” Moynihan (1927 - 2003), a former Senator with a prolific academic and bureaucratic background and a quintessential New Yorker, was “a man known for the grand gesture as well as the bon mot.” A sharp tongue and some form of grandeur are customary for all New Yorkers—especially for both Trump and Moynihan—but Moynihan’s upbringing in Hell’s Kitchen and service as a Navy officer contrasts the current New Yorker Commander-in-Chief in ways that become apparent when we look into how the two men handle information and failure. Both President Trump and Senator Moynihan are good references for one another, as both are outsiders within politics: Moynihan freely permeates through two opposing forces; Trump relies on the divisive nature of American partisanship to push through his agenda. Moynihan’s famous maxim that “people are entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts,” a defining characteristic of Moynihan’s conduct as a politician and a scholar. Moynihan’s maxim has been applied time and time again by and to another New Yorker—former New York governor Andrew Cuomo during the pandemic. President Trump, on the other hand, has derided facts in favor of his own truth. Yet, comparing President Trump to Moynihan would be an unfair exercise. Pat Moynihan’s legacy is not glorious by any means: he is human in that he erred—quite often—throughout his career. 

The focus of this series is not an exercise of observing the actions of a politician, but rather to parse out the elements and contradictions of Moynihan’s decision-making in domestic and international affairs during the Cold War era that are still extant—and thriving—in the modern context. Senator Pat Moynihan’s actions as a politician have impacted our modern perceptions of foreign relations and our domestic policy in relation to foreign affairs. The “Moynihanian” approach to Cold War-era policy can best be sequenced through three distinct phases: his issue of the eponymous Moynihan report on living conditions and the welfare state during the 1960s, his paradoxical—at least on the surface—role as a diplomat during the Nixon and Ford administrations, and his defining role as a Senator for welfare and anti-Reagan foreign policy. Through these three periods, Moynihan highlights the issues from the Cold War that perhaps may never truly be resolved. Maybe the proposition that the Cold War cessation is a mere illusion. Regardless of all the possible conjectures on the nature and status of the Cold War, the lessons drawn from Moynihan’s extensive career will provide a lens through which modern political discourse becomes clearer and inform the successors of the Cold War themselves retrospectively. 

In 1965, Pat Moynihan, then serving as Assistant Secretary of Labor under the Johnson administration, published a controversial report on poverty and the welfare state titled The Negro Family: The Case For National Action. The report, colloquially referred to as The Moynihan Report, was an analysis of the status of economically disadvantaged communities—especially black Americans—and family structure. Moynihan’s report poignantly noted the inherent inequities faced by blacks: “the statistics on nonwhites generally understate the degree of disorganization of the Negro family and underemployment of Negro men.” However, The Moynihan Report placed particular emphasis on the relationship between welfare reliance and the deterioration of black American families—either through divorces or wedlock births. Claiming that “adult conduct in society is learned as a child” in delinquent behavior, but also acknowledging that “the education and opportunity gap between the offspring of [black] families and those of stable middle-class unions is not closing, but is growing wider” opens up Moynihan’s report to numerous (mis)interpretations. Unsurprisingly, the reception springing forth from the misconceptions of Moynihan’s motives garnered negative press, although a closer reading of his research does illustrate Moynihan’s liberal inclinations. Critics on both the left and the right scrutinized the report: the former asserts that the emphasis on the family structure was nothing more than victim-shaming. At the same time, the latter surmised that the welfare system is unfairly assisting black Americans. The Moynihan Report, if anything, highlighted some gross inequities in the American system. In international affairs during the Cold War, the appearance of such disparities factored into increased pressures of reducing the perception of racism by American administrations.

The monumental decision in Brown v. Board (1954) and the integration of schools, at first glance, was a victory for civil rights proponents because it paved the way for equality by leveling the playing field in education. The elimination of separate schools afforded black Americans and other previously disparaged ethnic minorities a pathway to quality education. The issue of education and opportunity, two of the dynamic social elements that Moynihan highlighted as a hindrance to black social mobility, was beginning to change. However, the backlash from socially conservative—racist—forces evinces a fundamental issue for America on the international stage, in addition to its traditional domestic dimension. As the United States portrays itself as a capitalist democratic bastion, violating opportunity and liberty seems sacrilegious. From a foreign policy standpoint, the United States is yielding to the supposed moral supposition of racial equality. In an amicus brief for the Brown v. Board case, Dean Acheson, a Secretary of State under President Harry Truman, noted that the United States was “hypocritical in claiming to be a champion of democracy while permitting practices of racial discrimination.” Committed and prospective allies alike to the United States view the lack of sensitivity on racism as unconducive and even harmful against Soviet soft power. Countries that the United States hopes to influence are hesitant, if not unwilling, to cooperate in the face of overt discrimination and racism. 

In the case of the Little Rock Nine in Arkansas, the coverage of the protest and harassment of school children was broadcasted around the world, and it further eroded the case of American hegemony—for both allies and belligerents—on the world stage. The international headlines reinforced the Soviet case of American inequality, much to the chagrin of American officials. Likewise, the United Kingdom, in which the United States chastised its practices of colonialism, expressed “cynicism” due to the United State’s inadequate resolve to address their own problems of repression of an ethnic group under their jurisdiction. News media outlets in Nigeria expressed the double standard of America in trying to decolonize while enforcing Jim Crow; incidentally, ethnic Asian minorities in African countries used the Little Rock Nine incident to rally for their rights. Although the events of the Little Rock Nine incident eventually led to decisive action by President Dwight Eisenhower and patched up the disastrous foreign public relations view of the United States, the incident exposed an immediate concern with the institution of segregation on the image of the United States. 

Coupling foreign concerns about racial inequality, Moynihan asserts in The Moynihan Report that neglecting the issue of racial equality will allow for social unrest to fester for generations in the United States. Under the Republican Richard Nixon’s administration—despite being a liberal Democrat—Moynihan pushed for the enactment of the Family Assistance Plan (FAP), a validation in addressing some concerns laid out in his eponymous report. However, the measure failed under the intense scrutiny of conservative forces in the Senate: race and the idea of the welfare handouts became focal points of attack against the measure. The Cold War made it possible for the necessary conditions—or more accurately, pressures—to encourage social change in the United States. However, the issue of institutional racism in the United States and the arguments asserted by Moynihan are, in essence, the same anachronisms debated by policymakers in domestic and international circles today. The issue of racism has become more subtle. The Nixon administration saw the beginning of welfare against the poor; overt discrimination was traded with anti-welfare and minimum government intervention. No longer is it about Jim Crow, but instead on broader economic issues on the domestic and international stage.

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