JohnsonCongress and the Cold War Survey Article Congress and the Cold War C Robert David Johnson n1990 SenatorDaniel PatrickMoynihan causticallyobserved that “theneglect I ofcongressional historyis something ofa scandal ofAmerican scholarship.”1 Thehistoriography of American foreign relations forthe most partcon rms Moynihan’sobservation. Insufcient attention to congressional inuence hasyielded adistortedperspective, especially inworksdealing with theCold War.Many fundamental questions regardingthe legislature’ srole in theformation and implementation ofpostwar U.S. foreignpolicy remainun- explored. Although some ofthese questions do not yield themselves toan in- tensive exploration ofcongressional inuence, any workfocusing on theU.S. foreignpolicy decision-making process oron domestic ideological debates cannot omit the role of Congress. Thetendency tooverlook Congress hasstemmed frommany factors.For one thing, historiographicaldevelopments haveconspired againsta promi- nent place forthe legislature. Theearly luminaries ofdiplomatic history,such asSamuel FlaggBemis, Dexter Perkins, and ArthurWhitaker, focused their researchon thepresidency ,theState Department, and theforeign ministries ofthe countries with which the United Statesinteracted. In addition, ortho- dox historianstended toframe their questions in awaythat allowed themto avoid inquiringinto thetype ofdomestic political, constitutional, and legisla- tive disputes in whichCongress traditionally hasplayed amajorrole. Bemis’s book on Jay’sTreaty,whichends beforethe highly chargeddebate in the House ofRepresentatives in 1795–1796 on thetreaty’ simplementation, exemplies thepattern. Moreover, thetraditionalist historians concentrated mainly on thediplomacy ofthe early republic, whenthe power of Congress as awholewas relatively weakand thebody played acomparatively minor role in foreignpolicy . 2 Thisapproach was perhaps unsurprising given therealpoli- tik tenor ofU.S. foreignpolicy during thelate eighteenth and earlynine- teenthcenturies, but itunduly inuenced theCold Warinterpretations of- 1.Daniel Patrick Moynihan, On theLaw of Nations (Cambridge,MA: HarvardUniversity Press, 1990), p. 50. 2.Onthe weakness of Congress duringthe early republic, see JamesSterling Y oung, The Washington Community, 1800–1828 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1966). Journal of Cold War Studies Vol. 3, No. 2, Spring 2001, pp. 76–100 © 2001 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 76 Congress and the Cold War feredby orthodox historians.For instance, Herbert Feis, perhapsthe most prolic and certainlythe most insightfulof the early Cold Warscholars, fo- cused almost exclusively on state-to-staterelations in hisattempt to explain and assign responsibility for the origins of the Cold War. 3 Although revisionist historianshave sought to distinguish themselves fromtraditionalists by exploring therelationship between domestic forcesand theconduct ofU.S. foreignpolicy ,theytoo haverarely delved into theactivi - tiesof Congress. Concentrating instead on thein uence ofmore broadly based economic orideological interestsassociated with the U.S. economy’s capitaliststructure, they have generally treatedthe U.S. government asa monolithic actor.For example, TheNew Empire, WalterLaFeber’ sstudy of Gilded Age foreignrelations, essentially ignores thecongressional anti- expansionist coalition thatfrustrated almost all ofthe executive-sponsored initiatives thatthe volume details, including William Seward’sattemptto pur- chasethe Danish WestIndies, Ulysses Grant’sschemeto annex theDomini- canRepublic, and theFrelinghuysen-Zavala treatywith Nicaragua. The revi- sionist worksthat do include Congress—such as William Appleman Williams’s TheRoots of American Empire —almost alwaysminimize congres- sional inuence. Williams does not treatCongress asan independent actor, but simply asasourceof quotations that sustain hisargument on theconsen- sus supposedly behind Americaneconomic expansion. Standardrevisionist interpretationsof the early stages of the Cold War,suchas worksby LaFeber and Gabriel Kolko, sharelittle withFeis apart from a tendency tobypass Con- gressand tofocus on theexecutive branchas the key tounderstanding the U.S. approach to the Cold War. 4 Asimilarpattern of relegating Congress totheperiphery has character- izedthe reinvigorated debates now wagedover U.S. foreignpolicy and the earlyCold War.Except forthe typical obliging referencesto SenatorArthur Vandenberg, most worksthat fall into thecategory of postrevisionism give 3.See,for example,the three works bySamuelFlagg Bemis, The Diplomacyof theAmerican Revolution (New York:D. Appleton-Century,1935); Jay’s Treaty,a Study in Commerceand Diplomacy (New York: Macmillan,1923); Pinckney’s Treaty:A Study ofAmerica’s Advantage fromEurope ’s Distress,1783– 1800 (Baltimore:Johns Hopkins UniversityPress, 1926);Dexter Perkins, The MonroeDoctrine, 3 vols. (Cambridge,MA: HarvardUniversity Press, 1927);Arthur Whitaker, The Mississippi Question:A Study inTrade,Politics, and Diplomacy (Baltimore:Johns Hopkins UniversityPress, 1934);and The UnitedStates and theIndependence ofLatin America,1800– 1830 (Baltimore:Johns Hopkins Univer- sity Press, 1941). 4.WilliamAppleman Williams, The Rootsof theModern American Empire:A Study oftheGrowth and Shaping ofSocial Consciousness in aMarketplaceSociety (New York:Random House, 1969);Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy (Cleveland:Globe Publishing Company, 1959); W alterLaFeber, The NewEmpire: An Interpretationof American Expansion, 1860–1898 (Ithaca:Cornell University Press, 1961);and Gabriel Kolko, The Politicsof War:The Worldand UnitedStates Foreign Policy (New York:Random House, 1968).For acritiqueof revisionismon this issue, see DavidPletcher, “ Carib- bean `Empire,’ Planned and Improvised,” Diplomatic History, Vol. 14, No. 4 (Fall 1990), p. 458. 77 Johnson shortshrift to the complexities ofsecuring congressional support fornovel and expensive initiatives, including the1946 loan toGreat Britain, the Mar- shall Plan of1947, thecreation of the national securitystate, and thefunding ofthe remarkable expansion ofthe defense establishment afterthe outbreak of theKorean W ar.Congress virtually never appearsin thework of John Lewis Gaddisor other leading postrevisionists. Melvyn Lefer’ s Preponderance of Power justiably attractedwidespread praise, but it, like thepioneering works ofrevisionism and postrevisionism ofthe 1960s and 1970s, focusesalmost ex- clusively on theexecutive branch. Indeed, thebook’ sbibliography includes only one congressional manuscriptcollection, thatof H. Alexander Smithof NewJersey— athoughtful, moderate Republican. Moreover,reecting the sharedbias oftraditionalists, revisionists, and postrevisionists alike, no promi- nent review of the volume mentioned this oversight. 5 Among recentstudies ofU.S. foreignrelations, FredrikLogevall’ s ChoosingW ar, whichexplores U.S. policy towardVietnam from mid-1963 to mid-1965, demonstratesthe bene ts of incorporating the congressional per- spective. Logevall’smeticulously researchedvolume combines substantial dis- cussion ofthe international perspective ofthe war with an equally detailed analysis ofthe political and legislative situationthat confronted Lyndon John- son. Logevall not only offersextensive coverageof the congressional role in thewar, but also uses thewidespread skepticism inCongress about theJohn- son administration’spolicy tostrengthen his argument that the administra- tion and Johnson himself deliberately chosewar ,spurning alternativessuch as negotiation orneutralization. It is encouragingto see thatsome younger scholarsare also beginning topay more attentionto therole ofCongress. An- drewJohns, one ofLogevall’sstudents, hasbeen studying theattitudes of con- gressional Republicans towardVietnam, and JeffreyBass has recently pro- vided the rstsustained analysis ofthe views espoused not merely by anti-war Democrats but by the entire Senate Democratic caucus. 6 Practicalreasons havecontributed totheweak coverage of Congress. Un- like materialhoused inthevarious presidential libraries ordocuments from otherexecutive agenciessorted in theNational Archives, congressional ar- chives arespread out across the country ,usually in thehome statesof the vari- ous senatorsand representatives. Graduatestudents facingdecisions about possible dissertationtopics, and even senior scholars, understandably prefer 5.MelvynLef er, APreponderanceof Power:National Security, The Truman Administration, and the Cold War (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1992). 6.Fredrik Logevall, Choosing War:The LostChance forPeace and theEscalation of War in Vietnam (Berkeley:University of CaliforniaPress, 1999);and Jeffrey Bass, “Wellspringof aConnecticutCru- sader:Thomas J.Dodd andthe Nuremberg Trial,” ConnecticutHistory, Vol.37, No. 1 (Spring 1996), pp. 31–45. 78 Congress and the Cold War themore centralized access that presidential librariesafford. T rips tomany out-of-the-wayarchives can be expensive and inconvenient. Toinvestigate even ten ofthe senators most activeon foreignpolicy issues during the 1960s—J.William Fulbright, RichardRussell, FrankChurch, W ayne Morse, GeorgeMcGovern, ErnestGruening, Henry Jackson, John Tower,John Stennis, and StuartSymington— ascholar would haveto travelto theUniver- sitiesof Arkansas, Georgia,Oregon, Washington, Alaska-Fairbanks, and Mis - souri, Boise StateUniversity ,Mississippi StateUniversity ,Southwestern (Texas) University,and Princeton University.Moreover, therewould be no