BIG CHANGE IN AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY MADE REFUGEE FUTURES BETTER

Inside Book 1-Awake and Rise: The International Geneva Conference on Boat People

For readers interested in, yet not familiar with, refugee issues of the 1970s and '80s, links are provided for some of the information below. 

A Geneva Conference
on Indochina-photo en.wikipedia.com

In the early times of World War II, President Roosevelt called for a meeting in Evian, France, to focus on refugee plight. However, the U. S. sent an unofficial representative, unlike other governments. Engagement or isolation remained two opposing principles of United States foreign policy.

Evacuations during Saigon, South Vietnam's chaos of 1975, as North Vietnam troops advanced toward Saigon and the U.S. embassy, were not the end as some hoped. A sea of refugee numbers swelled, and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher proposed the Geneva Conference on Boat People for two days in July 1979.  

Unlike the Evian Conference in 1938, when Europe was already at war against Hitler, the Geneva conference related to aftershocks of the Vietnam War attracted big actors on the international scene, including the American vice president. A British Parliament afterward praised the meeting's success:

 "In concentrating international attention on the plight of the refugees and on the urgent need to help them and the countries in which they have sought refuge, the conference was humanitarian. But it was widely agreed that the problem could not be solved unless attention was also given to its root causes and that these have been the inhumane policies of Vietnam.
      "The conference resulted in a massive increase in offers of resettlement places, from 125,000 to 260,000, and in new pledges of additional financial support for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees' activities amounting to 190 million United States dollars…." (emphasis added; 1979 dollars)

U.S. Vice-President Walter F. Mondale said that the Geneva conference was intended to "turn the heat up" on the crisis of refugee boat people. He led the American delegation and gave an emotional speech, paying attention to the fact that the Geneva conference marked the highest level government delegation ever to attend an international refugee meeting.  In Mondale's view, engagement was and should be the guiding principle of the immediate post-Vietnam War era and into the future. 

"I would have loved to be there," Jim Purcell said. He stayed in Washington, DC, under the rationale that the new U.S. refugee organization was shaky, in early stages, and he wanted to be in place, in case. An official congressional decision and State Department announcement of the new refugee program's 'home,' its capacities and roles, had only recently been made firm. As the conference met, the bureau's launch from Washington's State Department was made official. 

Historically, State had been either uninvolved in running programs or assessed as unsuccessful in their operation. The new bureau for refugees would be a test on many levels, and eyes were on it from the nation's capital, to towns where volunteer citizens lived, and across the international community. 


At home, the State Department and Capitol Hill would need to address urgent budgetary needs on behalf of refugees. The proverbial ball had finally started rolling, and Jim Purcell was to be the point person, watchman on the wall, and planner for the long haul, although he did not yet realize it. 

Well-known appointees would come and go as directors of the program, some seeming to have more commitment than others. As a deputy, manager, and acting director in an unavoidable see-saw fashion between appointees, Jim was made the official director by appointment of Secretary of State George P. Shultz in 1983, four years after the program's launch. 

In early days organizing State's refugee program, one of Jim Purcell's chief interests was the history of U.S. policy and action regarding refugees. The unsuccessful Evian-les-Bain conference seemed, to him, to be a missed opportunity for the U. S. to avoid repeating later. The Geneva Conference on Boat People formally marked a major shift in U. S. foreign and refugee policy.  As one reader has put it, "significant change in American involvement."

Update

  Beginning with "Awake and Rise"

It was at the U. S. Department of State (State), the summer of 1979, four years after the "Fall of Vietnam," April 30, 1975. 

Top-floor State brass summoned Jim to help with a growing crisis. Urgent appeals from foreign service officers in Southeast Asia told of thousands more former Vietnamese allies--and their families--at risk, barely surviving as refugees. 

Approval to build within State a new U.S. refugee program--almost from the bottom up--had finally come through. Work had to begin at once, or State might lose this critical foreign affairs role to a group of agencies outside State.

Jim faced serious career and personal challenges when the summons came. He did not want more problems to deal with; yet, there must have been a reason why he listened to the needs that day. 

Learning about the enormous project they wanted him to take on--to design and build this new program-- Jim's mind formed one question:

"If  I take on this role that rumor calls a 'career wrecker,' will State keep its word to back me up for what I'll need to make such a program work?"

*****

 Motivation to write this book

What do you do when you say 'yes' to a tough job that affects your country's and your life's history?

In 1969, 10 years before State's top-floor summons, Jim had been present at a White House press conference (Ron Zeigler, press secretary) when reporters' question focused on him, a "lowly budget analyst," amid rumors of  Nixon's "secret plan to end the war in Vietnam";  

...a decade later Americans woke up to reports of post-Vietnam refugees and Cambodian "killing fields" survivors and drowning 'boat people.' 

No one could have guessed that these crises were prologue in the global refugee decade. 

Old White House Press Room 

From the internet: "Until 1969, the Press Corps Offices space was occupied by the White House Gymnasium and Flower Shop. Prior to that, ...a room in the northwest corner of the West Wing."

In those days, members of the press were eager to scoop any sign of Richard Nixon's "secret plan" to end the war in Vietnam. 

Jim's role in preparing a military supplemental led the press to question him about its significance as a signal of the war's end. 




Disclosure: Jim Purcell, my husband, has encouraged my interest in creating and posting on JNP Book blog. 



I am thankful for people that have offered their enthusiasm and input to his efforts.