Too Polite to Act

...The document proves to be another piece of evidence persuading Moakley—the head of a Task Force sent by House Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D.-Wash...

...and William H. Gray III (D.-Pa...

...Its behavior and influence tend to defy characterization by even the most conscientious scholars and journalists...

...Stephen R. Weissman brings a useful blend of long experience and critical detachment to a vital aspect of the task...

...Similarly, Congressman Stephen J. So-larz (D.-N.Y...

...Weissman shows how the posture contributed to the Iran-contra scandal, to prolonging El Salvador's civil war, to the survival of a corrupt Zairian dictatorship from which the United States should have begun todistance itself much earlier than it did, and to dubious covert operations an alert Congress might have stopped...

...In the same vein, Weissman urges a tougher stand on the classification of information, and on the Executive's selective leaking of secret information to favored members of Congress...

...To fortify legislators against Executive double-talk, he urges having nongovernmental witnesses testify on controversial foreign policy questions before White House officials...

...The Dick Lugars and the Lee Hamiltons, the William Cohens, Jim Leaches and Nancy Kassebaums may be weary, but they resist the easy cynicism of those less devoted to making constitutional government work...

...His point is reinforced by marvelous, parable-like vignettes that illustrate the resourcefulness lawmakers are capable of...

...In one...

...Whitten bows to the sort of conflicting pressure that so often affects Congressmen: "I feel that this early in the term of office of our President to fail on this small transfer of funds would be misunderstood throughout the world...

...policy onto constructive paths...

...He returns home "willing to give [him] a little bit of a chance...

...This would enable committees to arrive at an independent understanding of the relevant issues and improve their ability to evaluate the arguments of the Executive branch...

...By detailing its failures, Weissman challenges Congress to finally meet its constitutional responsibilities...

...House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jamie L. Whitten (D.-Miss...

...government...

...Unlike the Secretary of State who once compared Congress' foreign policy oversight to 535 ants floating downstream on a log, each one imagining it is steering, Weissman is exasperated by the reluctance to steer even when the capacity to do so exists...

...Because Congress lacks adequate expertise on key subjects and has little "zest" for making binding law, he argues, its oversight is ineffective...

...Glimpses of its inner workings are frustratingly fragmentary, but mere external observation misses much of its reality...

...True, most of those who win plaudits are Congressional Democrats, but other members of the party get their share of brickbats and some Republicans garner praise for being equal to their responsibilities...

...a street-wise tough guy from South Boston," is shown tricking a Salvadoran officer into handing over a crucial affidavit that had been kept from the U.S...

...It is an institution easy to caricature, hard to portray accurately...

...He admits that Congress levies burdensome reporting requirements on a wide array of U.S...

...From such historic interventions, usually in the face of Executive branch resistance, comes the author's hope that the American system of checks and balances can right itself...

...As an aside, he cautions that a Presidential line-item veto over appropriations is fraught with danger: Since Congress has almost given up formulating policies through the traditional authorization process, a line-item veto could further distort the interbranch balance of power...

...visits rebel leader Jonas Savimbi...

...Though he acknowledges his own liberalism, he does not use the book to settle old scores against ideological adversaries...

...Weissman nevertheless continues to have high ambitions for the Legislature, and he formulates a number of strategies for boosting its performance...

...funds to the country's military should be cut...

...A few are merely hortatory, as when he suggests rather vaguely that there should be limits on a President's leeway to "unilaterally take new and urgent initiatives that imply a future commitment of legislative support...

...and ranking Republican Silvio O. Conte (R.-Mass...

...Congress, led by Representatives Howard E. Wolpe (D.-Mich...

...That will take courage...

...and Senator Richard G. Lugar (R.-Ind...

...Most notably...

...Still, Weissman's analy-sis of Congress' failure of leadership adds a valuable perspective to a foreign policy literature dominated by Executive participants...

...Representative Joseph Moakley (D.-Mass...

...Citizens may take heart from the fact that many of those who know firsthand how hard it is to make Congress effective in foreign policy refuse to give up...

...His sketch of the alleged Congressional "culture" is analytically thin, but that quibble detracts little from the author's persuasive illustrations...

...an alternative culture...

...This would have the members of Congress forgo their long-winded personal disquisitions in hearings and experiment with convening joint Legislative-Executive panels where the assumptions underlying a proposed policy could be presented and debated...

...Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero —on the orders of an Army Major turned prominent far-Right politician...

...policies and activities abroad, but shows that there is actually Less Than Meets the Eye, as the title of Barbara Hinckley's recent study has it, to the image of an intrusive, thousand-eyed Capitol Hill...

...I shall vote for the transfer on the narrow basis that we need to show the world that we too back up the President to this point...

...swallow their misgivings and cast decisive votes in support of President Reagan's 1981 decision to increase aid to the Salvadoran military...

...as well as Solarz and Lugar, helped forge a national consensus that contributed to the end of apartheid by imposing sanctions on South Africa...

...Within months, as the Salvadoran death squads continued to kill, both Whitten and Conte were regretting their deference...

...Currently a consultant at the Agency for International Development, he is a former university professor and served a dozen years in the legislative trenches—the last six as staff director of a House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa...

...That passage has led him to a distinct perception of the perpetual struggle between the Executive and Legislative branches over foreign policy...

...He sees the Legislature so bound by a "powerful set of internal norms and attitudes, customs and institutions" that it is generally too timid to rein in an Executive prone to error and excess...

...The author further indicts legislators for their inattention to specific outrages like the 1980 assassination of El Salvador's most influential opposition spokesman...

...In addressing the familiar charge that Congress engages in excessive micro-management of foreign policy, Weissman adds weight to his rebuttal by drawing on recent reputable scholarship...

...Among members of Congress, in fact, it is widely conceded that for all the aggressive poses struck in televised encounters between Legislative and Executive branch officials, the pattern of deferring to the White House on foreign pol icy matters persists...

...Council on Foreign Relations CONGRESS is often the despair of its friends and the whipping boy of those less friendly...

...In Angola, Congressman Bill Richardson (D.-N.M...

...A wise President will recognize them as allies, not adversaries, in the mission of framing a world role worthy of support by Americans...

...A third parable unfolds when Senator Lugar leads a mission to observe elections in the Philippines and, finding fraud, convinces a reluctant Ronald Reagan to denounce Ferdinand Marcos' unscrupulous efforts to retain power...

...The cautionary "to this point" was lost on the Reagan Administration...

...But some of the author's proposals could have real impact, beginning with his call for Congress to "wield its weapons against Executive deception" by resorting more frequently to subpoenas, and to swearing in Executive witnesses—thereby making them vulnerable to perjury charges...

...Weissman's view will not go down readily with those who begin from a different constitutional premise—namely, that foreign policy is the province of the Chief Executive...

...Nor will it please anyone who deems it impractical to involve a large, pluralistic body in complicated international issues that must be decisively resolved...

...The turnabout in Congress' stance on El Salvador afterthe 1989 murder of six Jesuits and two others, for example, gave decisive momentum to the negotiations that ended the civil war there...

...Against the conventional wisdom that Congressional assertiveness disrupts effective Executive leadership, Weissman marshals a considerable body of evidence suggesting the problem is exactly the opposite...

...it also in a sense chose not to know...

...Yet because it embodies our core commitment to representative government, the search for insight into this complex political universe is essential to a healthy civil society...

...As if to demonstrate that their sins of omission need not be the norm, Weissman cites several instances when legislators, individually and collectively, acted as catalysts in moving U.S...

...Most of us would undoubtedly welcome the adoption of at least one aspect of what Weissman labels "the basic elements of...

...It is a strength of Weissman's critique that he maintains a consistently temperate tone...

...Then, while channel-surfing one evening, he catches Savimbi on a Pat Robertson TV show from South Africa and hears him singing the praises of the apartheid regime...

...A Culture of Deference telegraphs its central theme right up front: "Congress?Democrats and Republicans alike—has largely lost its will to co-determine American foreign policy with the President...

...In that case, he writes, "Congress was not only manipulated...

...played pivotal roles in rescuing the Philippines from dictatorship in the mid-1980s...

...A single book does not a revolution make—not in Capitol Hill-White House relations anyway...

...Above and beyondany sense of inadequate information or inferiority in foreign policy making, many on Capitol Hill preferto let the President assume the large political risks and to reserve for themselves the option of damning the Executive if things go sour...

...A Culture of Deference also includes illuminating moments of poignancy and chagrin...

...In so lofty an endeavor, deference must be earned?and reciprocated...

...to investigate human rights abuses in El Salvador—that U.S...

...The lawmakers' "Obsessive 'micromanagement' thus appears not as a counterpoint to the culture of deference but rather as its ironic and perverse fulfillment...