The Logan Act: Paper Tiger or Sleeping Giant?

1966 ◽  
Vol 60 (2) ◽  
pp. 268-302 ◽  
Author(s):  
Detlev F. Vagts
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
Foreign Relations ◽  
The United States ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
Foreign Government ◽  
Hands On ◽  
Criminal Statute ◽  
The Government

For 167 years the shadow of the Logan Act has fallen upon those Americans who trespass on the Federal monopoly of international negotiations which it creates. In theory, up to three years’ imprisonment and a $5,000 fine await those Americans who, without authority, communicate with a foreign government intending either (a) to influence that government with respect to a controversy with the United States or (b) to defeat the measures of the United States. Though only one indictment and no trial have taken place under the Act, who can tell when a new Administration, thinner skinned or harder pressed than its predecessors, may in its irritation call into play this sleeping giant? Now, at a time when domestic opposition to certain aspects of our foreign policy has reached a pitch unknown for many years, it would be well to reflect upon this curious product of the confluence of criminal law and foreign relations law before we are in fact confronted by a test of its strength. All could be the losers from an unpremeditated encounter—the defendant by finding himself, perhaps to his very great surprise, the first person subjected to the Act’s severe criminal penalties, the Government by finding itself stripped of its long accustomed protection by a ruling that the statute as it now reads is unconstitutionally vague or restrictive of free speech. Despite its long desuetude as a criminal statute, the Act represents a principle which I cannot help but think is, at its core, a salutary one; that America in sensitive dealings with other governments “speaks with one voice.” It embodies the concept of bipartisanship, that quarrels about foreign relations are fought out domestically and not with the adversary. It deters sometimes very ill-advised attempts to take the conduct of foreign affairs into foolish and unauthorized hands. On the other hand, it cuts into freedoms which we regard as having the highest value, and many of the situations in which its use has been suggested clearly involve no danger that would justify such a restraint.

I. Organizing the Government for Participation in World Affairs

1944 ◽  
Vol 38 (5) ◽  
pp. 913-930 ◽  
Author(s):  
Walter H. C. Laves ◽  
Francis O. Wilcox
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Relations ◽  
Political Stability ◽  
The United States ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Public Servants ◽  
Authoritarian State ◽  
The Government ◽  
Post War

Looking at the post-war period, it seems obvious that the government of the United States will give more attention to foreign affairs than it has in any comparable period of American history. How can the machinery for conducting foreign relations best be organized to meet these increasing responsibilities?The conduct of foreign relations in the modern world is no simple matter. Technical experts, intelligence systems, ability to negotiate, national political stability, a large and loyal staff of public servants—these are but some of the national requisites for effective participation in world affairs. The mobilization and organization of the best staff resources in the country, the negotiation of national policies, and then of international agreements, constitute a formidable task under any system of government.The conduct of foreign relations is, of course, easiest in a completely authoritarian state. It is made immeasurably more difficult by any division of authority. In most non-authoritarian governments, some division of authority has been found desirable, even at the expense of occasional awkwardness of procedure, because thereby the dangers of usurpation of power are minimized. The United States has gone farther than any democratic country in dividing responsibility in foreign affairs. Not only is there the usual distinction between legislative and executive authority, but the independence of the two branches has been so far underlined that the achievement of over-all government policies (as distinct from legislative and executive policies) is extremely difficult unless the party relationships are just right between the two ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.

Popular Culture and US Foreign Relations

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew J. Falk
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Popular Culture ◽  
Foreign Relations ◽  
The United States ◽  
Consumer Products ◽  
Information Campaigns ◽  
The World ◽  
American Foreign Relations ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Third World

Americans in and out of government have relied on media and popular culture to construct the national identity, frame debates on military interventions, communicate core values abroad, and motivate citizens around the world to act in prescribed ways. During the late 19th century, as the United States emerged as a world power and expanded overseas, Americans adopted an ethos of worldliness in their everyday lives, even as some expressed worry about the nation’s position on war and peace. During the interwar period of the 1920s and 1930s, though America failed to join the League of Nations and retreated from foreign engagements, the nation also increased cultural interactions with the rest of the world through the export of motion pictures, music, consumer products, food, fashion, and sports. The policies and character of the Second World War were in part shaped by propaganda that evolved from earlier information campaigns. As the United States confronted communism during the Cold War, the government sanitized its cultural weapons to win the hearts and minds of Americans, allies, enemies, and nonaligned nations. But some cultural producers dissented from America’s “containment policy,” refashioned popular media for global audiences, and sparked a change in Washington’s cultural-diplomacy programs. An examination of popular culture also shows how people in the “Third World” deftly used the media to encourage superpower action. In the 21st century, activists and revolutionaries can be considered the inheritors of this tradition because they use social media to promote their political agendas. In short, understanding the roles popular culture played as America engaged the world greatly expands our understanding of modern American foreign relations.

scholarly journals Spinning War and Peace: Foreign Relations and Public Relations on the Eve of World War II

2017 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 223-251 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANDREW JOHNSTONE
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Public Relations ◽  
Foreign Relations ◽  
The United States ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
War And Peace ◽  
World War ◽  
The Face ◽  
Global Events

The eve of World War II saw the development of direct connections between public relations experts and issues of foreign affairs in the United States. Public relations professionals assisted both internationalists and noninterventionists to spread their arguments across the nation, helping them to hone their messages, to organize, and to raise money. All of the main citizens’ organizations created during this period sought public relations assistance in the face of growing popular awareness of global events, and with an awareness of the need for public relations counsel in the face of an increasingly measurable concept of public opinion.

The 1953 Coup D'Etat in Iran

1987 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 261-286 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark J. Gasiorowski
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Activity ◽  
Critical Event ◽  
Iranian Revolution ◽  
Covert Action ◽  
Coup D'etat ◽  
Salvador Allende ◽  
Foreign Government ◽  
The Government

In retrospect, the United States sponsored coup d'état in Iran of August 19, 1953, has emerged as a critical event in postwar world history. The government of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq which was ousted in the coup was the last popular, democratically oriented government to hold office in Iran. The regime replacing it was a dictatorship that suppressed all forms of popular political activity, producing tensions that contributed greatly to the 1978–1979 Iranian revolution. If Mosaddeq had not been overthrown, the revolution might not have occurred. The 1953 coup also marked the first peacetime use of covert action by the United States to overthrow a foreign government. As such, it was an important precedent for events like the 1954 coup in Guatemala and the 1973 overthrow of Salvador Allende in Chile, and made the United States a key target of the Iranian revolution.

Claims Against Turkey

1934 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 346-349
Author(s):  
E. Russell Lutz
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
High Commissioner ◽  
The Government

In connection with the war conditions which existed in Turkey from 1914 to 1922, a number of international claims arose against the Government of Turkey, including a large number on behalf of citizens of the United States. Negotiations with respect to these latter claims were undertaken by American and Turkish representatives, and on December 24, 1923, the American High Commissioner at Constantinople (Rear Admiral Mark L. Bristol), and the delegate of the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Dr. Adnan Bey), entered into a claims agreement by an exchange of notes which provided.

A Tale of Two Leaders: German Methodists and the Nazi State

2001 ◽  
Vol 70 (2) ◽  
pp. 199-225
Author(s):  
Roland Blaich
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Foreign Relations ◽  
The United States ◽  
German Society ◽  
The Political ◽  
Nazi Regime ◽  
Confessing Church ◽  
The Government ◽  
German People

Nazi foreign policy was hampered from the start by a hostile foreign press that carried alarming reports, not only of atrocities and persecution of the political opposition and of Jews, but also of a persecution of Christians in Germany. Protestant Christians abroad were increasingly outraged by the so-called “German Christians” who, with the support of the government, gained control of the administration of the Evangelical state churches and set about to fashion a centralized Nazi church based on principles of race, blood, and soil. The militant attack by “German Christians” on Christian, as opposed to Germanic, traditions and values led to the birth of a Confessing Church, whose leaders fought to remain true to the Gospel, often at the risk of imprisonment. Such persecution resulted in calls from abroad for boycott and intervention, particularly in Britain and the United States, and threatened to complicate foreign relations for the Nazi regime at a time when Hitler was still highly vulnerable. In order to win the support of the German people and to consolidate the Nazi grip on German society, Hitler needed accomplishments in foreign policy and solutions to the German economic crisis. Both were possible only with the indulgence of foreign powers.

Mexico-United States: Protocol Relative to Claims Presented to the General Claims Commission, Established by the Convention of September 8, 1923.

1938 ◽  
Vol 32 (S1) ◽  
pp. 57-63
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United States Of America ◽  
The United States ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
Manuel Puig ◽  
The Government

Josephus Daniels, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Government of Mexico, and Jose Manuel Puig Casauranc, Secretary for Foreign Affairs of the United Mexican States, duly authorized, have agreed on behalf of their two governments to conclude the following protocol:

scholarly journals What is Foreign Relations Law?

2019 ◽  
pp. 2-20
Author(s):  
Curtis A. Bradley
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Relations ◽  
The United States ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
Military Force ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Foreign Governments ◽  
Domestic Law ◽  
Distinct Field

This chapter considers what is potentially encompassed by the term “foreign relations law,” and what it means to think about it as a distinct field of law that can be compared and contrasted across national jurisdictions. The term “foreign relations law” encompasses the domestic law of each nation that governs how that nation interacts with the rest of the world. Many issues of foreign relations law concern allocations of authority between political actors, such as the authority to represent the nation in diplomacy, to conclude and terminate international agreements, to recognize foreign governments and their territories, and to initiate or end the use of military force. But foreign relations law also encompasses issues relating to the role of the courts in transnational cases, such as whether certain issues are “nonjusticiable” and thus subject entirely to political branch determination, whether courts should take into account considerations of international comity when interpreting and applying domestic law, and whether and to what extent courts can apply international law directly to decide a particular case. The chapter describes the historical development of foreign relations law as a field of study within the United States and considers why it has not been treated as a field in many other countries. The chapter concludes by highlighting a central question for foreign relations law, which is the extent to which it should be treated differently than other types of domestic law—referred to in the United States as a debate over “foreign affairs exceptionalism.”

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