Editing Bayard Rustin (section)

===Foreign policy===
Like many liberals and some socialists, Rustin supported President [[Lyndon B. Johnson]]'s [[containment policy]] against [[communism]], while criticizing specific conduct of this policy. In particular, to maintain independent labor unions and political opposition in [[Vietnam]], Rustin and others gave critical support to U.S. military intervention in the [[Vietnam War]], while calling for a negotiated peace treaty and democratic elections. Rustin criticized the specific conduct of the war, though. For instance, in a fundraising letter sent to War Resisters League supporters in 1964, Rustin wrote of being "angered and humiliated by the kind of war being waged, a war of torture, a war in which civilians are being machine-gunned from the air, and in which American napalm bombs are being dropped on the villages."<ref>Rustin 2012, pp. 291–292.</ref>

Along with [[Allard Lowenstein]] and [[Norman Thomas]], Rustin worked with the [[CIA]]-sponsored Committee on Free Elections in the Dominican Republic, which lent international credibility to a 1966 ballot effectively rigged against the socialist former president, [[Juan Bosch (politician)|Juan Bosch]].<ref>[[Nathan Glazer|Glazer, Nathan]], [https://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/20/books/review/Glazer-t.html?pagewanted=print&_r=0 "A Word From Our Sponsor: Review of Hugh Wilford's The Mighty Wurlitzer"], ''The New York Times'', January 20, 2008. {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150909023200/http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/20/books/review/Glazer-t.html?pagewanted=print&_r=0 |date=September 9, 2015 }}.</ref>

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Rustin worked as a human rights and [[Election monitoring|election monitor]] for [[Freedom House]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=249|title=Freedom House: A History|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110823010319/http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=249|archive-date=August 23, 2011}}</ref>

In 1970, Rustin called for the U.S. to send military jets in the fight against [[Arab states]] by Israel; referring to a ''New York Times'' article he wrote, Rustin wrote to Prime Minister [[Golda Meir]] "...I hope that the ad will also have an effect on a serious domestic question: namely, the relations between the Jewish and the Negro communities in America." Rustin was concerned about unity between two groups that he argued faced discrimination in America and abroad, and also believed that Israel's democratic ideals were proof that justice and equality would prevail in the Arab territories despite the atrocities of war. His former colleagues in the peace movement considered it to be a profound betrayal of Rustin's nonviolent ideals.<ref>Arlyck, Matthew, [http://forusa.org/fellowship/2013/summer/book-review-i-must-resist/12390 "Review of I Must Resist: Letters of Bayard Rustin"], Fellowship of Reconciliation website. {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160419182230/http://forusa.org/fellowship/2013/summer/book-review-i-must-resist/12390 |date=April 19, 2016 }}.</ref>

Rustin maintained his strongly anti-Soviet and anti-communist views later in his life, especially with regard to Africa. Rustin co-wrote with [[Carl Gershman]] (a former director of [[Social Democrats, USA]] and future [[Ronald Reagan]] appointee) an essay entitled "Africa, Soviet Imperialism & the Retreat of American Power", in which he decried Russian and Cuban involvement in the [[Angolan Civil War]] and defended the military intervention by [[apartheid South Africa]] on behalf of the [[National Liberation Front of Angola]] (FNLA) and National Union for the Total Independence of Angola ([[UNITA]]). "And if a South African force did intervene at the urging of ''black'' leaders and on the side of the forces that clearly represent the ''black'' majority in Angola, to counter a non-African army of Cubans ten times its size, by what standard of political judgment is this immoral?" Rustin accused the Soviet Union of a classic imperialist agenda in Africa in pursuit of economic resources and vital sea lanes, and called the [[Carter Administration]] "hypocritical" for claiming to be committed to the welfare of blacks while doing too little to thwart Russian and Cuban expansion throughout Africa.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://archive.org/download/AfricaSovietImperialismAndTheRetreatOfAmericanPower/SDP2.pdf |title=Africa, Soviet Imperialism & The Retreat Of American Power |publisher=Social Democrats, U.S.A.|first=Bayard |last=Rustin |author2=Carl Gershman |date=October 1977|access-date=November 1, 2013}}</ref>

In 1976, Rustin was a member of the anti-communist [[Committee on the Present Danger]] (CPD), founded by politician [[Paul Nitze]]. Nitze was a member of [[Team B]], the independent analysts commissioned by [[George H. W. Bush|George Bush]] to scrutinize the [[CIA]]'s assessments of the Soviet nuclear threat. CPD promoted Team B's controversial intelligence claims about Soviet foreign policy, using them as an argument against arms control agreements such as [[SALT II]].<ref>John Ehrman, [https://books.google.com/books?id=_JX04sBnEWUC&q=bayard+rustin&pg=PA112 The Rise of Neoconservatism: Intellectuals and Foreign Affairs], 1945-1994 (Yale University Press, 1996), pp. 107–114. {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160610060721/https://books.google.com/books?id=_JX04sBnEWUC&pg=PA112&lpg=PA112&dq=committee+on+the+present+danger+members%2C+rustin&source=bl&ots=McPgDKvLmg&sig=XNcW-pyaNXbU4KoEwBa57v54vl4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=viQcVfa_LYqSsQS0l4CYCw&ved=0CE8Q6AEwCQ |date=June 10, 2016 }}.</ref>