Congress and the Cold War

Home , Arthur Vandenberg, Boland Amendment, Frank Church, James Sterling Young, John Tower

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 prominent 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, orthodox historianstended toframe their questions in awaythat allowed themto avoid inquiringinto thetype ofdomestic political, constitutional, and legislative 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 acomparativelyminor 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, focused 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 revisionist worksthat do include Congress—such as William Appleman Williams’s TheRoots of American Empire —almost alwaysminimize congressional 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, TheDiplomacy of 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, TheMississippi Question:A Studyin Trade,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, TheRoots of theModern American Empire:A Study oftheGrowth and Shaping ofSocialConsciousness in aMarketplaceSociety (New York:Random House, 1969);Williams, TheT ragedy ofAmerican 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 exclusively 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 prominent 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 perspective. Logevall’smeticulously researchedvolume combines substantial discussion 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 administration 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 congressional Republicans towardVietnam, and JeffreyBass has recently provided 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 librariesor documents from otherexecutive agenciessorted in theNational Archives, congressional archives 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 ripsto many 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 guaranteethat these journeys would yield anything ofvalue, since thepapers ofpostwar members ofthe upper chamberare of widely varying quality.The John Culver collection includes detailedstaff memoranda, and theFrank ChurchPapers contain occasionalpersonal letters; but many ofthe other col - lections arelike thatof SenatorJoseph Clark, whosepapers consist almost entirely ofpublished background materialof no directrelationship tothesena- tor’sactivities.Moreover, whilethe Church Papers atBoise State’sAlbertson Libraryare impeccably organized—down tothe le folder—amore typical caseis thatof the Culver Papers, whichremain in theboxes sent tothe archives following the Iowa senator’s defeat in 1980. Theprevailing weakness ofspecialized studies ofCongress furtherdis- courageshistorians of U.S. foreignrelations fromstudying congressional issues. Institutional historiesof Congress, whichare quite rare in any case, mostly explore domestic affairsand rarelycover thepost– World WarII years, whichare regarded as thedomain ofpolitical scientists. 7 Instead, biographies are the eld’s most popular genre. Although biographicalstudies maynot be thehistorian ’susual fare,they canbe ofgreatuse. Thenew surgeof biographiesof key members ofthe post- warCongress is particularlyvaluable forthose studying theSenate during the Cold War.Three studies oftwentieth-century chairmen of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee—William Widenor’s Henry CabotLodge and American Foreign Policy, Randall Woods’s Fulbright, and LeRoy Ashby’s Fightingthe

7.For examplesof institutionalhistories, see Young, The Washington Community; DavidRothman, Politicsand Power:The UnitedStates Senate,1869– 1901 (Cambridge,MA: HarvardUniversity Press, 1966);Elaine Swift, TheMaking ofan American Senate:Reconstitutive Change inCongress,1781– 1841 (Ann Arbor:University of Michigan,1996); Michael Foley, The NewSenate: Liberal In uence in a ConservativeInstitution, 1959– 1972 (New Haven:Yale University Press, 1980);Fred Harris, Deadlock orDecision: The U.S.Senate and theRise of NationalPolitics (New York:Oxford UniversityPress, 1993);and Robert Mann, The Walls ofJericho:Lyndon Johnson, HubertHumphrey ,Richard Russell,and theStruggle for Civil Rights (New York:Harcourt and Brace, 1996). For ararecoverage of Congress from aforeignpolicy angle, see WayneCole, Rooseveltand theIsolationists, 1932– 1945 (Lincoln:Uni- versityof NebraskaPress, 1983).Ironically, broader coverages tend to focus onthe weaker of thetwo branches,such as CharlesWhalen, Jr., The Houseand Foreign Policy:The Irony of Congressional Reform (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1982).

79 Johnson

Odds—areall well-researchedmonographs thatprovide thebackground needed toincorporate their subjects into theforeign policy ofthe time. 8 Cam- bridge University Press hasissued an abridgedversion ofthe W oods biography thatfocuses exclusively on Fulbright’sforeignpolicy activities.The volume detailsthe transformation of the Arkansas senatorfrom a somewhat reluctantCold Warriorwho accepted executive supremacyinto anoutspoken criticof the Cold Warwhodemanded agreaterrole forthe Senate in foreign policy,and italso supplies astunning bureaucratichistory of the Senate For- eign Relations Committee, seen largely throughthe relationship between Fulbrightand thecommittee’ slongtime staffdirector, Carl Marcy .Ashby, forhis part, draws on theChurch Papers and over 100 interviewsto provide thebest coverageof the Senate of the 1970s, aperiod in whichChurch was highly inuential, rstas chair of a special committeeinvestigating theCen - tralIntelligence Agency (CIA) and then aschair of the Foreign Relations Committee. Unfortunately,too many congressional biographiesfocus so closely on thelife of the pro led gurethat they ignore thewider context thatwould be ofuse todiplomatic historians.Gilbert Fite’sstudy ofRichard Russell, the chairmanof the Senate Armed ServicesCommittee fromthe mid-1950s throughthe early 1970s, isall too typicalin itsmeager treatment of the politicsof thecommittee and thecommittee’ sbroaderrole inthedebates ofthe era.This oversight is especially problematic given Russell’sprominence atvar- ious levels. Thenewly releasedtapes from the Lyndon B.Johnson Libraryre- veal thatthe Georgia senator played aneven moreimportant role in foreign policy during theearly stages of Johnson ’stermthan historians previously realized.Within Congress itself, meanwhile, Russell wascritical in helping theArmed ServicesCommittee become themost powerfulcommittee in the postwaryears and in preventing more rigorouscongressional oversightof thenational securitystate. Thomas Becnel’ sbiographyof Allen Ellender suf- fersfrom the same dif culty .Ellender, aDemocratfrom Louisiana whocon- cluded hiscareer as chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, wasa muchless inuential gurethan Russell, but hedid wagea somewhatquix- oticcrusade against the foreign aid program, and, moreimportant, herepre- sented an antimilitarystrain in Southernthinking. Awell-rounded biography ofSenator Henry Jackson waspublished by Robert G.Kaufmanin 2000, but no full-length biographiesexist forother key members ofthe Senate during theCold War,including John Stennis, StuartSymington, and John Tower.

8.LeRoy Ashby and Rod Gramer, Fighting theOdds: The Lifeof SenatorFrank Church (Pullman: WashingtonState University Press, 1994);Randall Bennett W oods, Fulbright:A Biography (New York: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1995);William Widenor, HenryCabot Lodge and theSearch foran Ameri- can Foreign Policy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981).

80 Congress and the Cold War

Worseyet, virtually no importantHouse member hasbeen thesubject ofare - cent biography. 9 Beyond biographiesand narrowlyfocused narrative histories, most studies ofCongress during theCold Warfocusexclusively on theconstitutional strugglefor supremacy between Congress and theexecutive branch. 10 With a fewexceptions, theydescribe aseriesof events inwhichCongress eithervol- untarily yielded itspower over foreignpolicy decisions orstood by whilethe executive branchusurped it. According tothisinterpretation, the unbalanced relationship between theCongress and theexecutive culminated in theescalation ofthe U.S. commitment in Vietnam, whichin turnpaved theway for a congressional resurgencebest symbolized by thepassage of the War Powers Actin 1973. Adherents ofthe executive usurpationthesis unintentionally im- ply thathistorians interested in theactual conduct ofU.S. foreignpolicy dur - ing theCold Warshould look no furtherthan the executive branch, since it possessed the bulk of the power. 11 Thework associated with the executive usurpationschool hasother drawbacksas well. Firstof all, ittoo oftenfocuses on crisisdiplomacy ,choosing events thatby theirvery naturelead toheightened executive power.In addition, thosewho subscribe tothisinterpretation advocate a political agenda thatblurs theline between historicalinterpretation and public policy recom- mendation. Forexample, Loch Johnson, aformeraide to FrankChurch and authorof several books on Congress and theCold War,begins one ofhis vol- umes by observing thatthe book’ s“normative theme”is that“ foreignpolicy should be conducted on thebasis ofapartnershipbetween theexecutive and legislative branches.”Johnson concludes by offeringwhat he terms “ some

9.GilbertFite, Richard B.Russell,Jr., Senator from Georgia (Chapel Hill:University of North Carolina Press, 1991);Thomas Becnel, Allen Ellender:A Biography (BatonRouge: LSU Press, 1996);and Rob- ertG. Kaufman, HenryM. Jackson: ALifein Politics (Seattle:University of WashingtonPress, 2000). Seealso Gregory Olson, Manseld and Vietnam: AStudy in RhetoricalAdaptation (East Lansing:Mich- iganState University Press, 1995);and Jon Lauck, “ BindingAssumptions: KarlE. Mundtand the Vietnam War,” Mid-America, Vol. 76, No. 3 (Summer 1994), pp. 279–298. 10.For examplesof essentiallynarrative studies, see JohnT errenceRourke, “ Congress andthe Cold War:Congressional In uence on the Foreign Policy Process” (Ph.D. diss.,University of Connecticut, 1974);Gale Harrison, “ Congress andForeign Aid: A Studyof theRole of Congress inForeign Policy Making,1961– 1975” (Ph.D. diss.,V anderbiltUniversity, 1976); Edward Duane,“ Congress and Inter-AmericanRelations” (Ph.D. diss.,University of Pennsylvania,1969); and Lee Edwards, “Con- gress andthe Origins of theCold War:The TrumanDoctrine,” WorldAffairs, Vol.151, No. 1 (Winter 1988–1989), pp. 131–140. 11.For asamplingof thisliterature, see CecilCrabb, Jr., and Pat Holt, Invitationto Struggle: Congress, thePresident, and Foreign Policy, 4thed. (W ashington,DC: CQPress, 1992);Louis Fisher, Constitu- tionalCon icts between Congress and thePresident (Princeton,NJ: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1985); Fisher, The Politicsof Shared Power:Congress and theExecutive (Washington,DC: CQPress, 1993); Fisher, PresidentialW ar Power (Lawrence:University of KansasPress, 1995);Thomas Eagleton, War and PresidentialPower: A Chronicleof Congressional Surrender (New York:Liveright, 1974); and John Hart Ely, War and Responsibility:Constitutional Lessons ofVietnam and ItsAftermath (Princeton,NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993).

81 Johnson modest prescriptions towardthis end.” Louis Fisherdoes likewise inhiswell- receivedbook on presidential warmaking.A formerstaff member ofthe For- eign Relations Committee, MichaelGlennon, also reects this bias, com- menting thathis book “proposes thatthe United Statesrecognize and return to its constitutional moorings in the making of foreign policy.”12 Thisagenda becomes especially problematic whenthese scholars inter- pretevents thattook placebefore the Cold War.Indeed, thekey assumption ofthis school— that, in thewords of Fisher, “ graduallythe executive branch claimed forthe President thepower to initiatewar and determine itsmagni- tudeand duration”—is oflimited utility forthe years before 1941. 13 The executive-legislative foreignpolicy relationship passed throughthree broad phasesfrom 1787 to1941 ascongressional powerincreased and decreasedac- cordingto shifts in domestic political forcesand alterationsin theinterna - tional environment. Keeping thishistory in mind allows scholarsto view the Cold Warbattles between President and Congress aspart of a broadercontin- uum ofexecutive-legislative strugglesin theinternational arenaand offersa more nuanced perspective on thecongressional role in Cold Warforeignpol- icy issues. Theexecutive usurpationschool implicitly assumes thatthe U.S. Consti- tution grantedCongress apredominant voice in theconduct ofU.S. foreign policy.However,scrutinyreveals thatthe Founding Fathersdrew very differ- ent lessons fromthe Revolutionary era.At thevery least, theframers of the U.S. Constitution seem tohave anticipated con ict between theexecutive and legislative branches in foreignaffairs as well asdomestic policy.Such conicts marked the diplomacy ofthe early Republic, whena surprisingly assertive executive branchencountered agenerally meek congressional response.14 EarlyAmerican history provided agood example ofhow a constitu-

12.Loch Johnson, The Making of InternationalAgreements: Congress Confrontsthe Executive (New York:New York UniversityPress, 1984),p. xviii;Michael Glennon, ConstitutionalDiplomacy (Prince- ton,NJ: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1990);and Fisher, PresidentialW ar Power. Indeed,an excessive amountof literatureon Congress andthe Cold Warisdevotedto what amounts to ideological argu- mentsabout the appropriateness of Congress’srolein U.S.foreign policy and whether anexpansionof thatrole aids or hampers theprosecution of foreignpolicy. For asamplingof thisliterature, see James Lindsayand Randall Ripley, “ Foreignand Defense Policyin Congress: AResearchAgenda for the 1990s,” Legislative Studies Quarterly, Vol. 27, No. 3 (Summer 1992), p. 418. 13. Fisher, Presidential War Power, p. 13. 14.Charles Lofgren, “ War-makingunder the Constitution: The OriginalUnderstanding,” Yale Law Journal, Vol.81, No. 3 (July1972), pp. 672–702; John Y oo,“ The Originsof theW armakingClause,” Paperpresented atthe Conference of theSociety for Historiansof AmericanForeign Relations (SHAFR), BentleyCollege, W altham,MA, 1994;Jack Rakove, “ Solvinga ConstitutionalPuzzle: The TreatymakingClause as aCaseStudy,” Perspectivesin American History, newseries, Vol. 1, No. 3 (Sum- mer 1984),pp. 207–248; William Banks and Peter Raven-Hansen, NationalSecurity Law and the Powerof thePurse (New York:Oxford UniversityPress, 1994),pp. 28,30; Dorothy Jones, License for Empire:Colonialism by T reatyin Early America (Chicago:University of ChicagoPress, 1982);Abraham Sofaer, War,Foreign Affairs, and ConstitutionalPower (Cambridge,MA: BallingerPress, 1976),pp. 5,

82 Congress and the Cold War tional structureevenly divided between thetwo branches quickly tipped in favorof the executive. Theprofessionalizationof U.S. foreignpolicy also con- tributedto executive power,an intriguingpoint initially raisedby Felix Gilbert in TotheFarewell Address. Twootherfactors played key roles. First,as long asthe wars of the French Revolution persisted, thistangible threatto national securitymagni ed thesigni cance of the power of thecommander-in- chief.Second, theintimate link between international issues and the rst multipartysystem ensured thatcontentious foreignpolicy questions would be debated along partisan rather than institutional lines. 15 TheW arof1812 alteredthe nature of the executive/ legislative relationship on foreignpolicy matters,creating a morepaci c situationinternation- ally but amore divisive home front.The four decades following theT reatyof Ghentwitnessed regularcongressional challenges toexecutive supremacy. Congressional powerin theinternational arenawas enhanced only afterthe Civil War,partly because presidents during thisera were willing touphold traditionand negotiatesubstantial agreementswith foreign powers as treaties. Thefailure of the three most ambitious ofthese treaties— Grant’ sschemeto annex theDominican Republic in 1870, theeffort to establish aU.S. protec- torateover Nicaraguain 1884, and Benjamin Harrison’sgambitto annex Ha- waiiin 1893—prompted futuresecretary of stateJohn Hay toobserve thata “treatyentering theSenate is like abull going into thearena; no one cantell just howor whenthe blow will fall—but one thingis certain—itwill never leave the arena alive.”16

90,212, 303; Stanley Elkins and Eric McKintrick, TheAge ofFederalism (New York:Oxford Univer- sityPress, 1993);Norman Risjord, TheOld Republicans:Southern Conservatism in theAge ofJefferson (New York:Columbia University Press, 1965);Paul V arg, NewEngland and Foreign Relations,1789– 1850 (Hanover:University Press of New England,1983); Banks and Raven-Hansen, NationalSecurity Law, p. 36;Reginald Stuart, “ JamesMadison and the Militants: Republican Disunity and Replacing theEmbargo,” DiplomaticHistory , Vol.6, No. 2 (Spring 1982),pp. 145–167; and Harry Fritz, “ The WarHawks of 1812:Party Leadership in theT welfth Congress,” CapitolStudies, Vol.4, No.1 (Winter 1976), pp. 25–42. 15.Felix Gilbert, TotheFarewell Address: Ideas of Early American Foreign Policy (Princeton,NJ: Prince- tonUniversity Press, 1961),pp. 82–83. On the partisan situation, see Young, TheW ashington Com- munity; andJoseph Charles, TheOrigins oftheAmerican PartySystem (New York:Harper andRow, 1956). 16.Piero Gleijeses, “ The Limitsof Sympathy:The UnitedStates and the Independence of Spanish America,” Journalof Latin American Studies, Vol.24, No.4 (Fall 1992),pp. 481–505; Ernest May, The Making oftheMonroe Doctrine (Cambridge,MA: BelknapUniversity Press, 1975);Thomas Hietala, Manifest Design: Anxious Aggrandizement in Jacksonian America (Ithaca:Cornell University Press, 1985);John Schroeder, Mr.Polk ’s War:American Oppositionand Dissent,1848– 1848 (Madison:Uni- versityof WisconsinPress, 1973);David Potter, TheImpending Crisis:1848– 1861 (New York:Harper andRow, 1976), pp. 177–198; Robert May, The SouthernDream of aCaribbeanEmpire, 1854– 1861 (Athens: Universityof GeorgiaPress, 1989),pp. 163–189; Richard Sewell, John P.Haleand thePolitics ofAbolition (Cambridge,MA: HarvardUniversity Press, 1965);Donathon Olliff, ReformaMexico and theUnited States: A Search forAlternatives to Annexation, 1854–1861 (Tuscaloosa:University of Ala- bamaPress, 1981),pp. 84–152; and Frederick Moore Binder, James Buchanan and theAmerican Em- pire (Selinsgrove: Susquehanna University Press, 1996), pp. 217–271.

83 Johnson

Just whenCongress seemed dominant, events atthe turn of thecentury broughtto an end thissecond erain executive-legislative relations on questions offoreign policy ,asFareed Zakaria has argued in hisstimulating new book.17 On thedomestic front,the realignment generatedby William Mc- Kinley’striumphin 1896 ultimately paved theway for closer partisancoordi- nation between theexecutive and legislative branches, asituationreminiscent ofthe early years of the Republic. In addition, political activistsin thePro - gressive Erachampioned astrong presidency ontheassumption thatCongress wascorrupt and inherently conservative. By the rstfew years of the twenti- ethcentury ,many envisioned theUnited Statesin amoreactive, even “moral,”international role, apoint ofview thatguided not only McKinley’s Cuban and Filipino policies, but muchof hissuccessor’ sagendaas well. Exec- utive unilateralism in decision making reachedits high point during thepresi - dency ofW oodrowWilson, whenU.S. forceswere sent toMexico, Russia, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic, as well as to ght in World War I. 18 Although theGilded Age patternof congressional supremacythus came toan end, Congress remaineda key restrainingin uence. Theone clear-cut executive victory on atreatyduring thisperiod— the approval oftheT reatyof Paris—occurred only because ofMcKinley’ sdeferenceto Congress during both thenegotiations and therati cation. McKinley’ssuccessorslacked either hispolitical tactor his luck, and theystruggled with the rami cations of the treaty-makingclause. In 1905, forexample, TheodoreRoosevelt explained thathe had not submitted toCongress atreatycon rming theDominican customs receivershipfor fear that Augustus Bacon, “backed by theaverage ya- hoo among theDemocratic senators,” would block themeasure and in the process get“ alittle cheapreputation among ignorantpeople.” The Senate’ sre- jection oftheT reatyof V ersailles mighthave served asthemost spectacularas- sertion ofcongressional powerin foreignpolicy decisions, but itclearly was not an isolated example ofthe upper chamber’seffortto make itspresence felt on international matters. 19 When WoodrowWilson attemptedto bypass

17.Fareed Zakana, FromW ealthto Power: The Unusual Origins of America’s WorldRole (Princeton,NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998). 18.David Healy, Driveto Hegemony:The UnitedStates intheCaribbean, 1898– 1917 (Madison:Uni- versityof WisconsinPress, 1988);Akira Iriye, TheCambridge History of American Foreign Relations: The Globalizationof America (New York:Cambridge University Press, 1994);and William Leuchtenberg,“ Progressivism andImperialism: The Progressive Movementand American Foreign Policy,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review, Vol. 39, No. 2 (August 1952), pp. 483–504. 19.Theodore Rooseveltto Joseph BucklinBishop, 23 March1905 in EltingMorison, ed., The Letters ofTheodoreRoosevelt, Vol.4 (Cambridge:Harvard University Press, 1951),pp. 1144–1145; Richard Welch, Response toImperialism:The United States and thePhilippine-American War,1899– 1902 (Cha- pel Hill:University of North CarolinaPress, 1979),pp. 3–45; and Richard Lael, Arrogant Diplomacy: U.S.Policy toward Colombia,1903– 1922 (Wilmington:Scholarly Resources, Inc., 1987). The best coverageof theSenate debate over the T reatyof Versaillesis LloydAmbrosius, WoodrowWilson and the

84 Congress and the Cold War

Congress entirely during theabortive intervention in Russia, thelegislators threatenedto use theultimate sanction: thepower of thepurse. In 1919 ares- olution introduced by SenatorHiram Johnson tocut off funding forthe intervention failedon aperilously close tievote. Thisdemonstration ofthe “criticalspirit in Congress”convinced theacting secretary of state, Frank Polk, and ultimately theadministration as a wholethat it hadno choicebut to withdraw the troops. 20 Theintensity ofthe V ersailles battle heightenedthe importance of foreign policy pressuregroups of all ideological persuasions, and theirin uence hasgrown ever since. In apatternthat was just asevident laterin thecentury , suchgroups tended tohave a greaterimpact on Congress thanon theexecutive branch, asdemonstrated by theU.S. Army ChemicalWarfare Service’ s highly effectivelobbying campaignagainst the Chemical Weapons Treatyin 1926 and by therole ofanti-imperialists intheU.S.-Mexican crisisof 1926– 1927.21 Foreignpolicy issues remaineda point ofcontention between theexecutive and legislatureduring the fteenyears that preceded the Cold War. Franklin Roosevelt’sdomestic focusmade him reluctantto spend political capitalon international affairs,such as the protocol foradherence to the World Court,and thisenabled theNye Committee todominate public dis- courseon neutralityissues. As Cordell Hull noted atthetime, theCongress used itslegislative powersto impose sharpconstraints on thepresident, most notably by passing theNeutrality Acts of 1935 and 1936, measuresthat Hull considered “an invasion oftheconstitutional and traditionalpower of the Ex- ecutiveto conduct theforeign relations ofthe United States.”Ironically ,the most substantial expansion ofexecutive authorityon foreignpolicy issues enjoyed by Franklin Roosevelt during his rstsix yearsas president—the Recip-

American DiplomaticT radition (New York:Cambridge University Press, 1987);although see also Widenor, HenryCabot Lodge; andRalph Stone, TheIrreconcilables: The Fight against theLeague of Na- tions (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1970). 20.Polk quoted in David Foglesong, America’s SecretW ar against Bolshevism:U.S. Intervention in the Russian CivilW ar,1917– 1920 (Chapel Hill:University of North CarolinaPress, 1995),pp. 71,251; Polkquoted in UnitedStates Department of State, Papers Relating totheForeign Relationsof theUnited States,1918– 1919, Russia, Vol.4 (Washington,DC: U.S.Government Printing Of ce, 1937), pp. 245–248; and Richard Coke Lower, ABlocof One: The Political Career of HiramW .Johnson (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1993), pp. 117–132. 21.John Chalmers Vinson, The ParchmentPeace: The United States Senate and theW ashington Confer- ence,1921– 1922 (Athens: Universityof GeorgiaPress, 1955);Vinson, WilliamBorah and theOut- lawry of War (Athens: Universityof GeorgiaPress, 1957);LeRoy Ashby , The Spearless Leader:Senator Borahand theProgressive Movement during the1920s (Urbana:University of IllinoisPress, 1972); RodneyMcElroy, “ The GenevaProtocol of 1925,”in DanCaldwell and Michael Krepon, eds., The Politicsof Arms ControlT reatyRati cation (New York:St. Martin’s Press, 1991),pp. 125–166; Herbert Margulies,“ The Senateand the W orld Court,” CapitolStudies, Vol.4, No.1 (1976),pp. 37–51; and Thomas Guinsberg,“ Victoryin Defeat: The SenatorialIsolationists and the Four-Power Treaty,” Capitol Studies, Vol. 2, No. 1 (Winter 1973), pp. 23–36.

85 Johnson rocalT radeAgreements Actof 1934— occurred when Congress willingly sacriced its power over foreigneconomic policy,largely because oftheback- lash againstthe Smoot-Hawley Tariff.Nonetheless, themeasure had the long- termeffect of removing foreigneconomic issues fromcongressional discussion during the Cold War. 22 Some common patternsemerged in thecongressional approachto foreign relations in theyears before 1941. TheJohnson amendment in 1919 (discussed above) reected a generalwillingness touse roll call votes on mili- taryspending toexpand Congress’sbuilt-in powerover foreignaffairs. The prevalence oftreaties heightened the importance of the Senate’ s“advise and consent”role in theconduct offoreign policy ,even thoughthe upper chamber approved 86 percentof the 726 treatiesit considered between 1789 and 1926. Internally,Congress settled into afairlystable bureaucraticpattern whendealing withinternational questions. Withthe important exception of thetariff, the House ofRepresentatives played aminor role onmost foreign policy issues. 23 In theSenate, meanwhile, theForeign Relations Committee reigned supreme, whileits two chief rivals— the Committees on MilitaryAf- fairsand Naval Affairs—remained extremely weak.These conditions produced arelatively small “foreignpolicy elite”within the Senate, composed of themembers ofthe Foreign Relations Committee and thefew other members ofthe body whofor personal, political, orideological reasons exhibited intense interestin international affairs.This small groupof senators marshaled the body’s considerable international powers for their own ends. 24 World WarIIbroughtfar-reaching changes. The reemergence of an in- ternationalthreat, Roosevelt’ sincreasingfocus on foreignpolicy ,and thepublic reactionagainst the attempts to legislate neutralitytipped thebalance in fa- vor ofexecutive action. Perhapsno single pieceof legislation demonstrated

22.W ayneCole, Rooseveltand theIsolationists, 1932– 1945, pp. 161–178; and Robert Pastor, Congress and thePolitics of U.S. Foreign EconomicPolicy, 1929– 1976 (Berkeley:University of CaliforniaPress, 1980), pp. 73–92. 23.During one congressional session inthe 1920s, for instance,the House ForeignAffairs Committee spent aweek debatinga 20,000dollar appropriation for aninternational poultry show inT ulsa, Oklahoma,which one committee member recalled as “themost importantissue thatcame before the Committeein the whole session.” James Sundquist, The Declineand Resurgenceof Congress (Washing- ton, DC: Brookings Institute, 1981), pp. 94–102. 24.W .StullHolt, TreatiesDefeated by the Senate: A Study oftheStruggle between President and Senate overthe Conduct of Foreign Relations (Baltimore:Johns Hopkins UniversityPress, 1933);W ayneCole, “Withthe Advice and Consent of theSenate: The Treaty-MakingProcess Before theCold WarYears,” inMichaelBarnhart, ed., Congress and UnitedStates Foreign Policy:Controlling the Use of Forcein the Nuclear Age (Albany:State University of New York Press, 1987),p. 81;Joseph Martin, My FirstFifty Years inPolitics (New York:McGraw Hill Book Co.,Inc., 1960), p. 49;andJames Robinson, Congress and Foreign Policy-making: AStudy in LegislativeIn uence and Initiative (Homewood: The Dorsey Press, Inc., 1962), pp. 125–126.

86 Congress and the Cold War thedepth of the changes more than the Lend-Lease Act, whichpassed despite congressional recognition thatthe measure greatly weakened theinstitution ’s foreign policy powers. 25 It thusbecame clear,even beforethe emergence of U.S.-Soviet tensions, thatthe balance ofpower between thecongressional and executive branches in theinterwar period would not be sustained intheimmediate postwar era. Thebipolar international system and intense ideological rivalry thatcharac - terizedthe Cold Warcon rmed the point. Internationally,theseemingly all- encompassing natureof the Communist threatafter the outbreak ofthe Ko- reanW arplaced thegovernment on whatamounted toa permanent warfoot- ing, whilethe advent ofnuclear weapons createdthe need forinstant decision making thatwas lacking in previous challenges toU.S. national security.This situationgave rise to a new interpretationof constitutional theorythat sought toincrease the power of the presidency throughthe commander-in-chief clause. On thedomestic front,there was awidespreadperception thatthe late 1930s hadrevealed thedangers of an overactivecongressional role, and this allowed theT rumanadministration to sti e congressional dissent by equating itsown foreignpolicy principles withthe concept ofbipartisanship. TheSen- ateForeign Relations Committee chairman,T om Connally,equatedopposi- tion tobipartisanship withisolationism; and Dean Acheson observed more colorfully thata bipartisanforeign policy allowed thepresident toarguethat any criticwas “ason-of-a-bitch and not atruepatriot.” “ If people will swallow that,” Acheson noted, “then you’re off to the races.”26 Congress embracedcalls forbipartisanship mostly becausethe two branches agreedon thedesirability ofvigorously prosecutingthe Cold War. 27 Indeed, attimes Congress seemed positively eagerto expand presidential authority.Representative Elden Spence arguedin 1949 that“ in thesehighly im- portantinternational affairs,he [thePresident] oughtto have the same powers

25.For World WarII matters,see RobertDivine, Second Chance: The Triumphof Internationalismin Americaduring WorldW ar II (New York:Atheneum, 1967), pp. 93–113; W arrenKimball, The Most Unsordid Act:Lend-Lease, 1939–1941 (Baltimore:Johns Hopkins UniversityPress, 1969);and Banks and Raven-Hansen, National Security Law, p. 102. 26.Acheson quotedin Thomas Paterson,“ PresidentialForeign Policy, Public Opinion, and Congress: The TrumanY ears,” DiplomaticHistory, Vol.3, No. 1 (Winter1979), p. 17;Connally quoted in HenryBerger, “Bipartisanship,Senator T aft,and the Administration,” PoliticalScience Quarterly, Vol. 90,No. 2 (Summer 1975),p. 221.That bipartisanship worked totheadvantage of Republicanpresi- dents as wellas Democratswas conrmed intheEisenhower administration. Anna Nelson, “ JohnFos- terDulles andthe Bipartisan Congress,” PoliticalScience Quarterly, Vol.102, No. 1 (Spring 1987), pp. 43–64. 27.Thomas Mann,“ MakingForeign Policy: President and Congress,” in Thomas Mann,ed., A Ques- tionof Balance: ThePresident, the Congress, and Foreign Policy (Washington,DC: BrookingsInstitu- tion, 1990), pp. 10–12.

87 Johnson astheexecutives ordictatorsrepresenting theenslaved peoples in thetotalitar - ian governments.”28 Suchsentiments all but guaranteedapproval ofinitiatives suchas the National SecurityAct, theNorth Atlantic TreatyOrganization (NATO), and theexpansion ofthe defense budget following theonset ofthe KoreanW ar.In thewords of Arthur V andenberg, thefact that issues rarely reached“ Congress until theyhave developed toa point whereCongressional discretionis patheticallyrestricted” was of further bene t tothe president. TheKorean W arwas one suchexample— atthe time, several senior members expressly asked Trumannot toinvolve Congress inthedecision tointervene. 29 Moreover, asDuane Tananbaum hasillustrated, events suchas the“ GreatDe- bate”of 1951, in whichthe Senate conceded thepresidential rightto send U.S. troops toEurope without its consent, and theBricker Amendment of 1953, whichsought to scale back thepower of the executive toenterinto in - ternationalagreements without congressional consent, represented setbacks forthose attempting to assert Congress’ sformalpowers. In theCold Warera maintaining arigidbalance between Congress and theexecutive seemed simply impractical. 30 Theexecutive usurpationschool thereforehas a substantial body ofevi- dence favoringthe view that congressional inuence on foreignpolicy issues declined in theperiod from1941 tothemid-1950s. Postwarpresidents fur- thercircumvented Congress by relying on executive orstatutory agreements ratherthan formal treaties. 31 Another standardbarometer of congressional inuence— the frequency of attempts to legislate foreignpolicy throughreso- lutions orby attachingpolicy-related ridersto appropriations bills— also de-

28.Barbara Sinclair, “ CongressionalParty Leaders in the Foreign and Defense PolicyArena,” in RandallRipley and James Lindsay, eds., Congress Resurgent:Foreign and DefensePolicy on CapitolHill (Ann Arbor:University of MichiganPress, 1993),p. 208.Spence quoted in William Long, U.S. Ex- portControl Policy: Executive Authority V ersusCongressional Reform (New York:Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 22. 29.James Lindsay, Congress and Politicsof U.S. Defense Policy (Baltimore:Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), pp. 147–152. 30.Duane T ananbaum, TheBricker Amendment Controversy:A Testof Eisenhower’s PoliticalLeadership (Ithaca:Cornell University Press, 1988).On lower-prole issues, though,such as humanrights treaties,congressional recalcitrance remained an importantfactor. See Natalie Henever Kaufman, Human Rights Treatiesand theSenate: A Historyof Opposition (Chapel Hill:University of North CarolinaPress, 1990). 31.John Norton Moore, “ ExecutiveAgreements andCongressional Executive Relations,” in U.S. House of Representatives,Committee on International Relations, Subcommittee on International Se- curity, Congressional Reviewof InternationalAgreements: Hearings, 94thCong., 2nd sess., 1976, pp. 207–219; and Johnson, Making ofInternationalAgreements. Afew statisticsunderscore theshift. In1930 the United States concluded 25 treaties,as comparedto only nine executive agreements. With theimportant exceptions of NATO andthe Southeast Asian T reatyOrganization, however, presidents duringthe Cold Warincreasingly turned to executive or statutoryagreements rather than treaties whenembarking on new foreign policy ventures. By 1968 the United States entered into just sixteen treaties as opposed to 266 executive agreements.

88 Johnson clined during theearly stages of theCold War.The rise of the national secu - ritystate spread defense spending around thecountry ,leaving members of Congress whosought to reduceit vulnerable tothecharge of subverting national securityas well asignoring theeconomic interestsof their constituents. Moreover, in theanti-Communist mindset associatedwith the McCarthy era, castinga vote againstdefense spending wasoften considered apolitical risk. In thedecade from the end ofthe Korean War to the end ofthe Kennedy presidency,defense bills passed withan averageof less thanone negative vote in both chambers. Moreover, thisdecade featured only fteenroll call votes (in theHouse and Senatecombined) onamendments todefense appropriations bills, most ofwhich addressed insigni cant issues, suchas an amendment topermitrather than mandate the relocation of an armymunitions de- pot nearHouston. 32 Some foreignpolicy roll call votes, suchas thoseon joint resolutions seeking advance congressional approval forpolicy decisions, had theeffect of compromising futurecongressional power.As an outgrowthof Truman’sbipartisanship strategy,the rstsuch resolution occurredwith the TaiwanStraits crisis in 1955 and culminated withthe T onkin GulfResolu- tion in 1964. 33 WithinCongress, thealtered environment resulted in aloss ofhegemony forthe Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Thecommittee came under challenge fromthe newly createdJoint Committee on Atomic Energy,the SenateArmed ServicesCommittee, and theSenate Appropriations Commit- tee, eachof which proved less thanzealous inchallenging executive policies. Withthe expansion ofthe defense budget, theArmed ServicesCommittee became particularlyimportant. Its strongly pro-defense members aggressively soughtto funnel defense projectsto their constituents. Mendel Rivers, arep- resentativefrom South Carolina who chairedthe Armed ServicesCommittee, wasperceived asso zealous in securingprojects for his district that many joked thatthe state capital, Charleston, would fallinto thesea with the weight ofthe concrete poured formilitary bases there.But as Rivers noted in the mid-1950s, thecommittee viewed itselfas “theonly voice, of-cial voice, the militaryhas in theHouse ofRepresentatives.” The committee often gave

32.Ann Markusen, Scott Campbell, Peter Hall, and Sabina Deitrick, TheRise of theGunbelt: The Mil- itary Remapping of Industrial America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991). 33.For theFormosa Resolution,see Gordon Chang, Friends and Enemies:The United States, China, and theSoviet Union, 1948– 1972 (Stanford,CA: StanfordUniversity Press, 1990);and Robert Accinelli, Crisisand Containment:United States Policytoward Taiwan, 1950–1955 (Chapel Hill:Uni- versityof North CarolinaPress, 1996).For Congress andthe T onkinGulf Resolution,see William ConradGibbons, The U.S.Government and theVietnam War:Executive and LegislativeRoles and Rela- tionships, Vol.2: 1961– 1964 (Princeton,NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984);and Edwin Moise, Tonkin Gulfand theEscalation oftheVietnam War (Chapel Hill:University of North CarolinaPress, 1996), pp. 252–255.

89 Johnson open-ended authorizationssuch as “ theSecretary of the Army may procure materialsand facilitiesnecessary to maintain and support theArmy ...including guidedmissiles,” an arrangementthat ensured the“ inviolability”of executive branchdefense proposals, asSamuel Huntington lamented in his acclaimedbook on thepolitics ofdefense budgeting. 34 Theoversight of other aspectsof the national securitystate, especially theintelligence community, wasequally lax. TheCIA referredto the informal system asBOGSA T (“bunch ofguys sittingaround atable”), whileAllen Dulles once admitted thathe would “fudgethe truth to theoversight committee,” though he would “tell thechairman the truth— ifhe wants to know.”Generally,thechairmen did not. SenatorRichard Russell called forCongress totake CIA statements “onfaith,”while his committee’ sranking Republican, LeverettSaltonstall of Massachusetts,commented thathe would prefernot toknow thedetails of CIA activities.The senator’ sadmission, ironically,helped beatback a1956 at- tempt to establish a formal Senate committee to oversee the CIA. 35 Clearly,thesedevelopments provide fodderfor the executive usurpation school. Butthey also obscure Congress’sability toinuence U.S. foreignpolicy in less traditionalways even attheheight of the Cold War.For instance, al- thoughthe postwar committee structure generally yielded aless prominent congressional role inpolicy making, thereverse occurred in some cases.The clearestexample camewith nuclear diplomacy ,whenthe Joint Committee on Atomic Energy,largely spurredby thepersonal ambitions ofits chair, Brien McMahon,successfully pushed throughlegislation restrictingU.S. effortsto sharenuclear technology withallied states. 36 In addition, asSenator Frank Churchlater noted, thedecline ofthe Foreign Relations Committee increased “therole ofdissent aswell astheadvocacy of alternative courses to individual senators.”It allowed senatorswho were not onthecommittee an opportunity toin uence foreignpolicy decisions, and ithelped producea multitude of subcommittees dealing withforeign policy matters.On domestic issues, sub-

34.Barbara Hinckley, Less Than Meetsthe Eye: Foreign PolicyMaking and theMyth oftheAssertive Con- gress (Chicago:University of ChicagoPress, 1994),p. 51;BarryBlechman, ThePolitics of NationalSe- curity:Congress and U.S.Defense Policy (New York:Oxford UniversityPress, 1990),pp. 23–32; Her- bertStephens, “ The Roleof theLegislative Committees in the Appropriations Process: AStudy Focused onthe Armed ServicesCommittees,” WesternPolitical Quarterly , Vol.24, No. 2 (Spring 1971),p. 146;and Christopher Deering,“ DecisionMaking in the Armed ServicesCommittees,” in Lindsayand Ripley ,eds., Congress Resurgent, pp. 156–170, 177. Rivers quoted in James Lindsay, “Congress andDefense Policy,1961 to 1986,” ArmedForces & Society, Vol.13, No. 4 (Fall 1987), p. 378. 35.Frank Smist, Congress Overseesthe Intelligence Community (Knoxville:University of Tennessee Press, 1990),pp. 1–24; Thomas Paterson,“ Oversightor Afterview? Congress, theCIA, andCovert Actionssince 1947,” in Barnhart, ed., Congress and UnitedStates Foreign Policy, pp. 157–158; and Blechman, Politics of National Security, p. 141. 36. Loch Johnson, A Season of Inquiry: Congress and Intelligence (Chicago: Dorsey, 1988).

90 Congress and the Cold War committeesserved asone ofthe key avenues forindividual members ofCon - gressto shape legislation, and thispattern held onforeignpolicy issues aswell. Senatorswith as diverse ideological viewpoints asJoseph McCarthy,Henry Jackson, ErnestGruening, and Hubert Humphrey all used subcommittees of therelatively weakGovernment OperationsCommittee toestablish themselves asauthoritieson variousinternational questions. McCarthyobviously wasthe most prominent ofthese gures,but hisactivities are perhaps best viewed aspart of a broadertrend, namely thedecentralization of power withinCongress on national securitymatters. Overall, thenumber offoreign policy subcommittees intheSenate alone grewfrom seven in 1945–1946 to thirty-one by 1965–1966. 37 Therewere thus many waysin whichdevelopments during theearly years ofthe Cold Waractuallymagni ed thecongressional presence in foreignpoli - cy decision making. Increased public attentionto foreign policy issues gave Congress moreopportunities toframe discussions ofthese issues. Dean Acheson lateradmitted that T rumanrefrained from seeking congressional approval ofthe Korean War in partbecause hefeared that public hearingsmight produce“ one more question incross-examination whichdestroys you.”Once outof power, the Democrats remembered thislesson, and Averell Harriman in 1954 encouraged“ oursenators and congressmen topursue thetactic of asking questions whichit will be difcult forthe Administration toanswer satisfactorily.”Withinthe new subcommittee structure,meanwhile, senators suchas McCarthyand Jackson also proted from the greater public interestin national security matters. 38 Othercongressional actionsin theearly Cold War,suchas theresound- ing votes formeasures like theGreek and Turkishaid packages and the Formosaand Middle EastResolutions, also engendered amorecomplex rela-

37.Frank Church toRobert Farning, 12 January 1966, Frank Church Papers,Albertson’ sLibrary, BoiseState University ,Series2.2, Box 9; RogerDavidson, “ SubcommitteeGovernment: New Chan- nelsfor PolicyMaking,” in Thomas Mannand Norman Ornstein, eds., The NewCongress (Washing- ton,DC: AmericanEnterprise Institute, 1981), pp. 99–133; and Leroy Reiselbach, Congressional Re- form:The Changing ModernCongress (Washington,DC: CongressionalQuarterly Press, 1994), pp. 94–146. For alistingof theSenate subcommittees which convened hearings on foreign policy issues, see CongressionalInformation Service (CIS), U.S.Congressional CommitteeHearings Index, PartV ,79thCongress– 82nd Congress, 1945– 1952 (Washington,DC: CIS,1983), pp. 988–998; CIS, USCongressional CommitteeHearings Index, PartVI, 83rd Congress– 85th Congress, 1953– 1958 (Wash- ington,DC: CIS1983), pp. 876–892; and CIS, USCongressional CommitteeHearings Index, PartVI, 89th Congress–91st Congress, 1st session, 1965–1969 (Washington, DC: CIS, 1983), pp. 814–835. 38.Robert Grif th, Politicsof Fear:Joseph McCarthy and theSenate (Amherst, MA: Universtiyof Mas- sachusetts Press, 1987)p. 231;Dorothy Fosdick, ed., HenryJackson and WorldAffairs (Seattle:Univer- sityof WashingtonPress, 1990)p. 53;Paterson, “ PresidentialForeign Policy,” p. 19;Harriman quoted inGaryReichard, “ Divisionsand Dissent: Democrats and Foreign Policy, 1952– 1956,” PoliticalSci- enceQuarterly, Vol.93, No. 1 (Spring 1978),p. 56;and Kenneth Entin, “ InformationExchanges in Congress: The Caseof theHouse Armed ServicesCommittee,” WesternPolitical Quarterly, Vol. 26, No. 4 (Winter 1973), pp. 427–439.

91 Johnson tionship between thebranches thanis apparentat rstglance. Becausethe ideological natureof the Cold Warstruggle seemed todemand unity athome (and thusoverwhelming votes ofapproval), congressional opinion, eitherac- tualor anticipated, could affectexecutive branchdecision making. Thiswas thecase when the question ofwhether to aidthe French in Vietnamcame up in 1954 and whenthe Formosa Straits crisis erupted the following year.At the time, Hubert Humphrey commented on theexistence ofa“remarkable differ - ence ofopinion in theSenate, waybeyond thedifference shown by thevote on theresolution.” The importance of the faç ade of bipartisanunity strength- ened theposition ofthose within the Eisenhower administration who were ar- guing forrestraint. 39 Theresolutions in 1954–1955 testied tothe ways in whichindirect congressional inuence affectedthe conduct ofU.S. diplo- macyduring theearly Cold War.Nuclear policy revealed thesame pattern— BernardBaruch owed his appointment tohis close relationship with Vandenberg—and so did theoutcome of the British loan debate: British ofcials, not “inclined torisk furtherdebate with Congress,” informed the StateDepartment oftheir willingness tonegotiate the loan tomeet congressional concerns. Thistype ofrelationship could workthe other way as well. CharlesBohlen laterasserted that executive branchof cials who favored a harderline againstthe Soviet Union citedthe need toplacateCongress asara- tionale for their preferred policy. 40 In addition, theproliferation of U.S. bilateral and multilateralsecurity commitments (reected in theexpansion ofthe foreign aid program), the growingnumber ofmilitary bases, and thesurge of executive agreementsin- creasedthe opportunity forcongressional oversightand thusprovided new tools forCongress toin uence theconduct offoreign policy . 41 Thevastinter- national role oftheUnited Statesalso encouragedtransnational alliances link- ing congressional blocs withforeign governments. Thistype ofarrangement, itshould be noted, wasnot peculiarto the postwar period. As earlyas the 1830s theBritish government hadretained Daniel Webster, then in theSen-

39.Reichard, “ Divisionsand Dissent,” pp. 62–63; and Robert Accinelli, “ Eisenhower,Congress, and the1954– 1955 Offshore IslandCrisis,” PresidentialStudies Quarterly, Vol.20, No. 3 (Fall 1990), pp. 329–344. 40.Hoyt Purvis, “ Tracingthe Congressional Role: U.S. Foreign Policy and T urkey,”in HoytPurvis andSteven Baker, eds., Legislating Foreign Policy (Boulder: WestviewPress, 1984),pp. 26–29; Charles Bohlen, Witness toHistory (New York:Norton, 1973), p. 261;and John T errenceRourke, “ Congress andthe Cold War:Congressional In uence on the Foreign Policy Process (Ph.D. diss.,University of Connecticut,1974), pp. 9,141, 163– 164. This typeof informaldiplomatic in uence appeared with particularfrequency on tradeissues. SeeRobert Pastor, “ Congress andU.S. Foreign Policy: Coopera - tive Advantage or Disadvantage,” Washington Quarterly, Vol. 14, No. 4 (Autumn 1991), p. 105. 41. Lindsay, Congress and the Politics of U.S. Defense Policy, pp. 30–31.

92 Congress and the Cold War ate,to help shapeU.S. public opinion on theCanadian boundary dispute. 42 TheChina Lobby ofthe late 1940s and early1950s remains themost com- prehensively studied ofthese Cold Waralliances. Therepresentatives of the Dominican Republic and Israel also became well known fortheir in uence. ArthurV andenberg’scomment in 1949 thatbipartisanship “did not apply to everything—for example, not toPalestine orChina,” is thereforenot surpris- ing. In addition, theincreasing frequency of congressional overseas trips, whichtotaled nearly twohundred perannum by theend ofthe 1950s, provided another opportunity for legislators to conduct personal diplomacy. 43 Finally,theforeign aid program was largely shapedby Congress through itspower over appropriations. Congress enjoyed far-reachingin uence on thismatter for the simple reasonthat foreign aid never enjoyed thepublic support thatdefense spending did. Theprogram allowed thebody in which all scalmatters originate, the House ofRepresentatives, toplay agreaterfor- eign policy role thanwas usually thecase before W orld WarII. OttoPassman, thechair of the Foreign Operations Subcommittee, regularlysecured a reduc- tion of20 to25 percentof the total requested by theexecutive. Moreover, beginning inthelate 1950s, Congress also began attachingpolicy ridersto foreign aidlegislation, muchas ithad done withdefense bills inthepre– W orld WarII era.The riders dealt with issues asdiverse aseconomic nationalism, militarycoups, and thehuman rightspolicies ofLatin Americangovern- ments, and thismeant thatthe foreign aid bill developed into whatone com- mentatordescribed as“thenearest thing Congress hasto a `Stateof the W orld Message.’”44 Suchefforts demonstrated how Congress adjustedto the altered Cold Warenvironment. Buthow signi cant were these actions? Determining congressional inuence on international affairshas never been easy.In pathbreakingstudies ofthe turn-of-the-century imperialist surge in the United States,Ernest May appropriately has con ned himselfto the vague

42.Howard Jones, TotheWebster-Ashburton T reaty:A Study in Anglo-American Relations,1783– 1843 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977), pp. 36–43. 43.Henry Berger, “Bipartisanship,Senator T aft,and the T rumanAdministration,” PoliticalScience Quarterly, Vol.90, No. 3 (Fall 1975),p. 224;John Tierney ,“InterestGroup Involvementin Congres- sional Foreign and Defense Policy,” in Ripley and Lindsay, eds., Congress Resurgent, pp. 89–90. 44. Congressional QuarterlyW eeklyReport, 26February 1960, pp. 298–307; Rudolph RobertRous- seau,“ FactorsAffecting Decisionsof theUnited States Senate on Bilateral and Multilateral Foreign AssistanceLegislation, 1965 to 1974,” (Ph.D. diss.,Fletcher School of Lawand Diplomacy, 1976); RobertPastor, “ Copingwith Congress’ ForeignPolicy,” Foreign ServiceJournal, Vol.52, No. 12 (De- cember1975), pp. 15–18. For variouspolicy-related riders, see 109CR, 88thCong., 1st sess., pp. 21840–21842 (14 November 1963); 113 CR, 90thCong., 1st sess., p. 22968(17 August 1967); andLars Schoultz, Human Rights and UnitedStates Policytoward Latin America (Princeton,NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981) , p. 193.

93 Johnson statementthat “ Congress played alargebut ill-dened role.”45 Apart from analysis ofroll call votes, an assessment ofthe role ofCongress on foreignpol- icyrequires a scholarto explore theintentions ofcongressional activists,to as- certainwhether procedural changes mandated by Congress increasedlegisla- tive inuence, togauge the effect of speeches and open hearingson Congress’s ability toframe the discussion offoreign policy issues, and todetermine whetherfear of congressional retaliationrestrained executive branchof cials fromundertaking foreignpolicy initiativesthey might otherwise have launched.46 In addition, skirmishes between committees, tacticaldivisions among opposition legislators about howforcefully to assert congressional power,and thenetwork of alliances between thenational securitybureau- cracy—especially themilitary— and members ofCongress make itdif cult to speak ofCongress asaunied body on any foreignpolicy matterafter 1945. Precision about thecongressional role intheearly stages of theCold Waris also thwartedbecause the Cold Warmadeclear measurements ofcongressional inuence, suchas roll call votes, inherently unreliable guides. 47 Diplo- maticcrises and thedecline offormal powers like warmakingor treaties do not illuminate themore subtle waysin whichthe Cold WarCongress inuenced foreignpolicy issues. Historians need tomove beyond suchmea- surements in evaluating thelegislature’ simpacton U.S. foreignpolicy . 48 The appropriationspower played anespecially importantrole, since armstransfers and militaryaid often became substitutes forformal defense treatiesduring the Cold War. 49 Acloser examination ofCongress’ srole in theearly Cold Waris needed foranother reason. Astheforeign aid “ revolt”of 1963 revealed, thepattern of congressional deferencehad begun tobreak down well beforethe surge of

45.Ernest May, ImperialDemocracy: The Emergence of Americaas aWorldPower (New York:Harcourt, Brace & World, 1961), p. 225. 46.James Lindsay, “ Congress, ForeignPolicy, and the New Institutionalism,” InternationalStudies Quarterly, Vol. 38, No. 3 (August 1994), p. 287. 47.For instance,in analyzing T ruman’sforeignpolicy, Thomas Patersonhas observedthat Congress set “verybroad and imprecise limits on presidential activity in international affairs.” Paterson, “ Presi- dential Foreign Policy,” p. 2. 48.Reichard, “ Divisionsand Dissent,” pp. 51–55; James Lindsay, “ CongressionalOversight of the Departmentof Defense: Reconsideringthe Conventional Wisdom,” ArmedForces & Society, Vol. 17, No.1 (January1990), pp. 15–16; and Christopher Gerard,“ Onthe Road to Vietnam:` The Loss of ChinaSyndrome,’ Pat McCarran, and J. EdgarHoover,” Nevada HistoricalQuarterly, Vol.37, No. 4 (Fall 1994),pp. 247–262. For thelimited usefulness of ananalysisfocused heavilyon roll call votes, see JamesMcCormick and Eugene Wittkopf, “At theW ater’sEdge:The Effects of Party,Ideology, and Issues onCongressional Foreign Policy Activity, 1947– 1988,” American PoliticsQuarterly , Vol. 20, No. 1 (Spring 1992), pp. 26–53. 49.Blechman, ThePolitics of NationalSecurity, pp. 77,118; Blechman, “ The New CongressionalRole inArms Control,”in Mann, AQuestionof Balance, p. 110;and Lindsay, “ CongressionalOversight of the Department of Defense,” pp. 9–18.

94 Congress and the Cold War congressional activityin thelate 1960s and early1970s. Theclash over for - eign aiditself derived fromincreasing doubts about many ofthe assumptions ofthe containment doctrine, particularlyamong asmall but articulateband ofSenate liberals. Moreover, thechanges within Congress werenot conned tothe foreign aid program. In 1959, forinstance, anamendment sponsored by RichardRussell torequireauthorization for some aspectsof the military procurementbudget provided the rstsigni cant enhancement oftheSenate Armed ServicesCommittee’ sauthorityover thedefense budget. Five years later ve members ofthe House Armed ServicesCommittee, dubbed the “FearlessFive,” led the rstminority reportin thecommittee’ shistory. 50 Bi- partisanshipalso became less common, and criticssuch as Jackson, Humphrey,StuartSymington, and even MajorityLeader Lyndon Johnson be- camemore assertive, as theEisenhower administration discovered in thelate 1950s.51 Becausecongressional reformersin the1960s and 1970s generally employed tacticspioneered earlier,an understanding ofthe bureaucratic sys- temthat Congress established during theearly Cold Waris criticalto analyzing thewave of activism after 1965. Unfortunatelyfor historians, virtually all workon therelationship between Congress and thenational securitystate has been done by political scientists. Forthe most part,historians who have looked atthe post-1965 period havefocused mainly on whathas been described asCongress’s“glorious revolution”:theattempt by thelegislature to reclaim a greaterrole in foreignpoli- cyfunctions thatit shared with the executive branchunder theterms of the Constitution. 52 As withother shifts in thebalance between presidency and Congress, thisone also resulted froma new domestic and international cli- mate,which in turnshook theideological underpinnings ofpostwar foreign policy.If judged intermsof legislation passed, theaccomplishments ofthe era seem tocon rm thetechniques used by proponents oftheexecutive usurpation thesis, suchas measuring congressional inuence throughissues like warmakingand treaty-making. 53 Ultimately,though,these changes did sur-

50.Kenneth Entin, “ The House Armed ServicesCommittee: Patterns of Decisionmakingduring the EisenhowerY ears,” Journalof Politicaland MilitarySociology, Vol.2, No.1 (Spring 1974),pp. 83–89; and Stephens, “The Role of the Legislative Committees,” p. 148. 51.Thomas Gaskin,“ SenatorLyndon B. Johnson,the Eisenhower Administration, and U.S. Foreign Policy,1957– 1960,” PresidentialStudies Quarterly, Vol.24, No. 4 (Fall 1994),pp. 341–348; and Blechman, The Politics of National Security, p. 25. 52.Thomas Franckand Edward Weisband, Foreign Policyby Congress (New York:Oxford University Press, 1979), p. 84. 53.U.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, UnitedStates SecurityAgreements and Commitments Abroad:Hearings, 91stCong., 1st sess., 1971;Franck and Weisband, Foreign Policyby Congress, pp. 149–151; Ashby and Gramer, Fighting theOdds, pp. 305–329; W oods, Fulbright, pp. 410–470; and Michael Glennon, Constitutional Diplomacy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990).

95 Johnson prisingly little toalter the fundamental balance between thetwo branches, in partbecause thelegislation placed sucha highpriority on abstractconstitu- tional concerns. Legislation still could not restrictthe executive’ sforeignpol- icypowers, asthe era’ smoreambitious undertakings on theconstitutional frontillustrated. Thesponsors ofthe Cooper-Church Amendment, whichcut offfunds forthe Nixon administration’ssecretincursion into Cambodia, re- peatedly denied thatthe amendment would constrain thepowers of thecom - mander-in-chief. Moreover,theydeclined tocall foran instant cutoffof funding forthe incursion, and theyconsented toa modifying amendment that would uphold thepresident’ spowerto “ actin emergency situations”when events “madeit impracticable for him torstconsult withCongress.” Similar complications frustratedcongressional attemptsto pass arestrictivewar pow- ersmeasure. Negotiations between theHouse and Senateproduced alawlim - itingthe amount oftime the president could unilaterally deploy U.S. troops overseas in hostile situations(90 days), but thelaw contained no discussion of justications for such action. The bill also enabled thepresident todecide whentroops wereintroduced into harm’sway,thusallowing theexecutive branchto establish thestart of the time limit. An amendment toinclude the CIA under the terms of the bill failed. 54 Many ofthesame dif culties prevented Congress fromassuming anac- tive role throughoutthe 1970s and 1980s. Congressional investigations ofthe intelligence community produced less comprehensive reformsand morepo- liticalproblems forthe investigators than was anticipated when the hearings werelaunched in 1975. 55 Although both chambersultimately formedcom- mitteesto oversee theCIA and otherintelligence agencies,old attitudeslin- gered.William Casey,Ronald Reagan’srstdirector of the CIA, assertedin 1984 that“ thebusiness ofCongress is tostayout of my business.”As inear- lier years,many members ofCongress agreed.Senator Barry Goldwater, using therhetoric of Leverett Saltonstall threedecades earlier, declared that “ there aremany bits of[intelligence] informationthat I would rathernot know.”56 Theseproblems culminated in theIran-contra scandal, but even whenthis af-

54.Thomas Eagleton,interview ,22October1996; Ashby and Gramer, Fighting theOdds, pp. 305– 329;Fisher, PresidentialW ar Power, pp. 114–133; Franck and Weisband, Foreign Policyby Congress, pp. 117–131; Smist, Congress Overseesthe Intelligence Community, pp. 167–201; and Sundquist, The Decline and Resurgence of Congress. 55.Kathryn Olmsted, Challenging theSecret Government: The Post-W atergateInvestigations of theCIA and FBI (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996); and Johnson, A Season of Inquiry. 56.Casey quoted in Hinckley, Less than Meetsthe Eye, pp. 4,54. Goldwater quotedin Michael Glennon,“ InvestigatingIntelligence Activities: The Process of GettingInformation for Congress,”in Thomas Franck,ed., TheT etheredPresidency: Congressional Restraintson ExecutivePower (New York: New York University Press, 1981), pp. 144–146.

96 Congress and the Cold War fairhighlighted the executive’ sdisregardfor congressional authority,Congress sharply limited the scope of its own inquiry. 57 Meanwhile,the W arPowers Act, whetherbecause of the compromises necessaryto ensure itspassage or the unwillingness ofpresidents toaccept its constitutionality,failedto restore a balance between thebranches in the warmakingpower, a point conrmed by suggestions in early1991 that GeorgeBush was preparedto gotowarwith Iraq regardless of the congressio - nal vote.58 In line withprecedent, moreover, theSupreme Courtproved un- willing toinvolve itselfin foreignpolicy battles between thetwo other branches. Thefew decisions thatthe Court has rendered on thematter, such as I.N.S. v.Chadha in1983, whichstruck down theso-called legislative veto included in numerous statutes,have weakened congressional inuence in foreign policy making. 59 At thesame time, however,thepost-Vietnam eradid see Congress build on thetactics pioneered in theearly stages of the Cold Warto wield oftende- cisive inuence on awidearray of foreign policy issues. Mostfrequently ,congressional members used thepower of the purse. During the1970s, thebreadth breadthof pro-human rightsamendments sponsored by congressional reform- erssuch as Representatives Donald Fraserand TomHarkin causeda European diplomat toobserve that“ itisn ’tjust theState Department orthePresident anymore. It’sCongress now.”60 Thehuman rightslegislation hadits greatest impacton U.S. policy towardLatin America,as shown in asomewhatdated but nonetheless penetratingbook by LarsSchoultz. 61 By the1980s decreases in funding and difculties in passing legislation rendered foreignaid bills less

57.Theodore Draper, AVeryThin Line:The Iran-Contra Affairs (New York:Hill and W ang,1991); andTimothy Cole, “ CongressionalInvestigation of AmericanForeign Policy: Iran-Contra in Perspec- tive,” Congress and the Presidency, Vol. 21, No. 1 (Spring 1994), pp. 29–48. 58.Jean Edward Smith, GeorgeBush ’s War (New York:H. Holt,1992); and Robert Gates, From the Shadows: TheUltimate Insider’s Storyof FivePresidents and HowThey W ontheCold W ar (New York:Si- mon and Schuster, 1996), p. 499. 59.Lindsay, Congress and thePolitics of U.S. Defense, p. 144;and Thomas Franckand Clifford Bob, “The Returnof Humpty-Dumpty: ForeignRelations Law after the Chadha Case,” American Journal ofInternationalLaw, Vol.79, No. 4 (Fall 1985),pp. 912–960. As oneHouse staffer concededafter RonaldReagan’ srefusal toinvoke the W arPowers Act whensending the Marines to Lebanon in 1983, “WarPowers isalawthat simply doesn’ twork inconventionalterms. If itworks atall,it does so in mysterious ways.” Blechman, Politics of National Security, p. 183. 60.Paul Sigmund, The UnitedStates and Democracyin Chile (Baltimore:Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989),pp. 88–107; Patricia Fagen, “ U.S.Foreign Policy and Human Rights: The Roleof Con- gress,”in Antonio Cassesse, ed., NationalControl over Foreign PolicyMaking (Leyden:Sijthoff and Noorhoff, 1979);Lars Schoultz, Human Rights and UnitedStates Policytoward Latin America (Prince- ton,NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981),pp. 195–197; David Forsythe, Human Rights and U.S. Foreign Policy:Congress Reconsidered (Gainesville:University of FloridaPress, 1988),pp. 36–60; and Pastor, Congress and the Politics of U.S. Foreign Economic Policy, pp. 265–317. 61. Schoultz, Human Rights.

97 Johnson useful vehicles forasserting congressional power,but aggressivemembers of Congress by then hadalready turned theirattention to defense appropriations measures.62 Perhapsthe most spectacularexample ofthe use ofthe defense ap- propriationsbill toinuence broaderforeign policy concerns camein 1975, whenan amendment sponsored by SenatorJohn Tunney cutoff funding for theU.S. covertoperation in Angola. Similarmeasures were proposed throughoutthe 1980s, most obviously withthe Boland Amendment tohalt covert aid toanti-Communist rebels in Nicaragua. 63 In addition, amore exible defense authorizationprocess generatedan explosion ofooramendments concern- ing both policy and funding matterson defense bills, ending once and forall the days of the “inviolability” of executive requests on such matters. 64 In theaftermath of Vietnam the political consequences offoreign policy activismwere signi cant. A perception ofexcessive interestin international is - sues continued topose political risks. AfterHubert Humphrey lefta hearing in themid-1970s on U.S. covertoperations in Chile, heannounced thathe hadto go try “ toget jobs forfour hundred people in Minnesota today,”atask “agreatdeal more importantto merightnow thanChile.” 65 Butthe growing powerof the peace and defense lobbies also tforeignpolicy issues “into the breadand butterof routine political business,”as John Culver laterdescribed it.66 Increased public attentionon foreignpolicy mattersenhanced Congress’s

62.James McCormick, “ DecisionMaking in theForeign Affairs andForeign Relations Committees,” inRipleyand Lindsay ,eds., Congress Resurgent, pp. 118–148; and Blechman, ThePolitics of National Security, p. 106. 63.Cynthia Arnson, Crossroads:Congress, the Reagan Administration, and CentralAmerica (New York: Pantheon,1989), chas. 3– 5; and Neil Livingston and Manfred von Nordheim, “ The U.S.Congress and the Angolan Crisis,” Strategic Review, Vol. 5, No. 1 (January 1977), pp. 1–11. 64.Hoyt Purvis and T uraCampanella, “ Congress, CountryX, andArms Sales,”in Purvis and Baker, eds., Legislating Foreign Policy, pp. 107–126; Robert Art, “Congress andthe Defense Budget: En- hancingPolicy Oversight,” PoliticalScience Quarterly, Vol.100, No. 2 (Summer 1985),p. 234; Lindsay,“ CongressionalOversight of theDepartment of Defense,”p. 60.A few statisticsillustrate the startlingnature of theshift. From 1976to 1983 the two armedservices committees and defense ap- propriationssubcommittees alone made over 10,000 changes in dollar gures submittedby the president.From 1969to 1985 the number of reports requestedby Congress from thePentagon increased by1,778 percent, the instances of directedactions escalated by 922 percent, and changes in provisions to defense-related laws soared by 255 percent. 65.Humphrey quotedin Paterson,“ Oversightor Aftervision?”p. 167.Perhaps themost obviousin- stanceof congressionalparochialism came after the Pueblo incident in 1968, when Senator John Stennissent an urgent message toLyndonJohnson in the White House SituationRoom. Expressing concernabout the political damage of theoperation to Democrats in anelection year, the senator de- liveredthe following advice: “ For God’ssake,do something.”Johnson looked up andmuttered toan aideto “please thankthe senator for hishelpful advice.”Blechman, Politicsof National Security, p. 202. 66.Culver quoted in Blechman, Politicsof National Security, p. 114;Blechman, “ The New Congres- sionalRole in Arms Control,”pp. 121–122; Lindsay, “ Congress andDefense Policy,”pp. 385–387; andEileen Burgin, “ The Inuence of Constituents:Congressional Decision Making on Issues of For- eignand Defense Policy,”in Ripley and Lindsay, eds., Congress Resurgent, pp. 68–76. The old rules concerningoveractivity on foreign policy issues, of course,were notentirely superseded. For instance, inanunsuccessful bidfor reelectionin 1978, Dick Clark, the Senate’ smost persistentcritic of U.S.in-

98 Congress and the Cold War traditionalability toframe consideration ofdiplomatic issues. Twosenators withdiverse ideological viewpoints became especially activein foreignpolicy debates: ChristopherDodd, aliberal Democratfrom Connecticut, wholed theopposition toRonald Reagan’spolicy in Central America,and Richard Lugar,amoderateRepublican fromIndiana, whoplayed akey role inending U.S. support forFidel Marcos’sregimein thePhilippines. 67 Questions suchas thenuclear “ freeze”also demonstratedCongress’ sability tobring domestic culturalissues and ideological forcesinto theforeign policy-making appara- tus. Thisrole expanded during the1970s, asnewly energizedgroups, suchas civil rightsactivists, began turning theirattention to international affairs. 68 In addition, congressional debates illustratedthe ability oftransnational alliances toaffect the day-to-day conduct ofU.S. diplomacy.Withthe decline ofthe Chinese and Dominican lobbies, Israeli interestsemerged as themost power - fulforeign lobby on Capitol Hill, wherethey frequently succeeded in either blocking orscaling back executive requestsfor arms sales toArab states.Other foreignand ethniclobbies hoped toimitate the success of organizations like theAmerican Israel Public AffairsCommittee. Roughly 125 formergovern- ment ofcials represented Japan aslobbyists in themid-1980s, and Kuwait paid 12 million dollars for a public relations rm in 1990. 69 At themost basic level, then, diplomatic historianscannot aspireto pro- ducean adequatesynthesis ofAmericanforeign policy during theCold War withoutincluding thecongressional perspective. Theconstitutional powersof Congress havegiven ita role toplay in virtually all foreignpolicy decisions. At thevery least, Congress actedto modify executive policies on thedomestic scene in muchthe same way that the policies ofU.S. allies did in theinternational arena.At most, aswithhuman rightspolicies and otherinitiatives in theimmediate aftermath of Vietnam, Congress imposed majorrestrictions on volvementin Angolaand champion of amoreliberal U.S. policy toward Africa, came under attack as the“ senatorfrom Africa.”See Patsy Mink, “ InstitutionalPerspective: Misunderstandings, Myths, and Misperceptions,” in Franck, ed., Tethered Presidency, p. 65. 67.Lindsay, Congress and thePolitics of U.S. Defense, pp. 119–135; and Bruce Jentleson, “ American Diplomacy:Around theWorld andAlong PennsylvaniaAvenue,” in Mann,ed., AQuestionof Balance, p. 197. 68.David Meyer, AWinterof Discontent: The NuclearFreeze Movement and American Politics (New York:Praeger, 1990); and Stephen Metz, “ Congress, theAntiapartheid Movement, and Nixon,” Dip- lomaticHistory , Vol.12, No. 2 (Spring 1988),pp. 166–196. In general, Congress has beenan underused resource for historianswho exploredomestic actors such as peacemovements or women andforeign policy. For thelack of attentionto Congress insuch literature,see “Culture,Gender, and ForeignPolicy: A Symposium,” DiplomaticHistory , Vol.18, No. 1 (Winter1994), pp. 47–124; and LawrenceWittner, “ PeaceHistorians and Foreign Policy: The Challengeto Diplomatic Historians,” Diplomatic History, Vol. 11, No. 4 (Fall 1987), pp. 355–370. 69.Tierney, “ InterestGroup Involvement,”pp. 95–109; and Melvin Small, Democracyand Diplo- macy:The Impact of Domestic Politics on U.S.Foreign Policy,1789– 1994 (Baltimore:Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), p. 135.

99 Johnson executive actions. In eithercase, historians need togobeyond citingsuch an - ecdotesas ArthurV andenberg’sadviceto HarryT rumanthat the best wayto obtain congressional support forU.S. aidto Greece and Turkey wasto “ scare thehell” out of theAmerican people. (Whetherthe Michigan senator actually utteredthe phrase is unclear.) As ErnestMay recently observed, key congressional shiftsin policy fromthe late 1940s and early1950s remaina “mys- tery.”70 But, asSenator Moynihan recognizeda decadeago, this type ofover - sightshould come asno surprise. Despite theproductive workon thetopic thathas been done in thelast ten to fteenyears, historians of U.S. foreignrelations arestill along wayfrom solving themystery ofCongress’ srole in U.S. Cold War policy.

70.Ernest May ,Address tothe Charles W arrenCenter Seminar on InternationalHistory, Cambridge, MA, 20 March 1998.

100