The Making of a Majority: Safeguard and the Senate
Miller, Nathan
THE MAKING OF A MAJORITY The Senate and the ABM by Nathan Miller Two days before the Senate approved President Nixon’s plan to deploy the Safeguard anti-ballistic missile system by a singie...
...But there were increasingly clear indications that Gravel, while still giving the impression of neutrality, had already made up his mind to vote against it...
...Nixon had called the ABM “absolutely essential” to the nation’s security...
...a major ABM proponent, was and is chairman of the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, which has a large campaign kitty .at its disposal...
...They said her amendment was “consistent” with Mrs...
...As a witness put it: “That’s about as strong as one Senator ever gets with another Senator-maybe stronger...
...Within four days, nine other Senators switched from the undecided column to support of the ABM, including the late Everett M. Dirksen (D-Ill...
...Forty-five Senators were opposed to the ABM: only 25 favored it 30 were uncommitted...
...But before long, Senator Edward M. Kennedy was organizing a national movement against deployment of Safeguard...
...Now it was the Administration team’s turn to show some distress, for they realized that the Gore strategem would save her vote for a proposal similar to Cooper-Hart...
...A proposed Sentinel site in the Boston suburbs had brought Senator Kennedy into the fight, along with volunteers recruited from the Harvard-MIT complex...
...The next time around, on CooperHart, Mrs...
...Furthermore, he had just been elected assistant majority leader...
...Nixon’s stand...
...It will not harm the hair on one Russian’s head-even if it were fired off...
...But they broke up in disagreement over her motives...
...It would prevent any funds at all from being spent on Safeguard, including research and development...
...Senator Scott, a reluctant ABM supporter, agreed...
...Would she accept an amendment to her amendment, clearly spelling out that funds for radar and other components for ABM systems other than Safeguard would not be barred...
...Four of the leading anti-ABM strategists met privately to try to determine what Mrs...
...votes, with three others leaning its way...
...Fiftythree opposed the ABM and only five favored it, he told Casey...
...Meekly, the Senator rejoined the small group...
...an expert on military affairs, a “hawk” on Safeguard, and President Nixon’s first choice for Secretary of Defense...
...she shouted...
...sickened by the ABM...
...an ABM supporter, moved to suspend the debate so that he could introduce to his colleagues Horace Maybray King, speaker of the British House of Commons, who was a guest on the Senate floor...
...On the floor, the same coalition that had come within a vote of defeating Safeguard was winning a single-vote victory on an amendment introduced by several younger members to set up an auditing system for major military contract s. Amendments to curtail testing and transport of chemical and biological warfare agents were to be approved and plans laid for a massive re-evaluation of Pentagon programs...
...Russell and Stennis huddled on the floor...
...Almost as if it were on the spur of the moment, Senator Gore rose with a small piece of paper in his hand and turned toward the only woman in the Senate...
...The day before, Averell Harriman, an old friend from Truman days, had dropped by in an attempt to persuade him to oppose Safeguard...
...Both sides laid plans for a long campaign, with their most effective propaganda timed to take effect at the tail end of the debate...
...Meanwhile, with a small staff of his own and an array of Pentagon people, Belieu, a former Army colonel who lost a leg in Korea, operated what he called “an educational effort” at the Capitol...
...Besides, President Nixon is popular in Vermont, and a strong endorsement from him would help...
...Later Mrs...
...It compounds tragedy...
...The ever-tightening struggle for votes continued...
...When he came to Washington to be sworn in, it was “Scoop” Jackson who escorted him down the aisle of the Senate...
...The heat on Gravel came partly from Alaska oil men who thought a vote for Safeguard would insure federal authorization to exploit Alaska’s extremely valuable oil regerves...
...Under the bi-partisan leadership of Senators John Sherman Cooper, the highly respected Kentucky Republican, and Philip A. Hart, the liberal Michigan Democrat, opposition to the ABM had grown rapidly during 1968 and the first two months of this year...
...Mr...
...Two of the strategists said her intentions were good, if misguided...
...Smith looked thoughtfully across the chamber at Senator Gore forafewmoments, thenagreed...
...Long-time observers of Anderson’s activities speculated that he had won an IOU from the Administration that would fall due when he wanted some specific program for his constituency...
...Aye...
...Taking over for the pro-ABM forces, Senator Russell contended that the new language “will kill all the research and development of the so-called Safeguard system after Senators have stood here on the floor day after day and stated they were in favor of research and development...
...Why, yes,” Gore replied...
...Senator Hart took a quick look at it and was “confused and distressed...
...Smith came to the Senate floor...
...What were the forces brought to bear on the “quiet consciences” of the individual Senators...
...John J. Williams (R-Del...
...What about Senator Howard W. Cannon (D-Nev...
...Some sources say that the oil men came into the picture at the behest of oil men from Texas, Senator Tower’s home state...
...Even though the polls favored the opposition, their leaders were cautious...
...So had another old friend, Walter Reuther, president of the United Auto Workers...
...And he confidently predicted that the final vote would be 51 to 49 in favor of the Administration...
...Pentagon briefings were arranged...
...Ironically, the Administration regarded Safeguard as a compromise...
...Senator Anderson’s aim was to produces substantialma]orityon the ABMsomewhere in the 60’s or 70’s-rather than the bare majority anticipated...
...First, an Army general informed an aircraft manufacturer in Kansas that the Pentagon might not be able to go through with a contract if Safeguard were defeated...
...Vice President Agnew traveled the country trying to persuade GOP dissidents to come to the aid of the party...
...Bellmon’s support turned on the forced resignation of a young Treasury Department tax expert, accused by the Senator of being a “highly partisan” Democrat who should be replaced by a deserving Republican...
...This team operated out of Senator Dirksen’s inner office, just down the hall from the Senate chamber...
...Nixon was personally involved in the lobbying effort much more deeply than most people realize...
...After Aiken stated his position, the ABM opponents began to take Prouty’s vote for granted...
...He went on to vote against Safeguard, he said, because the weight of scientific opinion suggested that “it may never work...
...The main point under discussion was a proposal drafted by Anderson but never introduced...
...Gravel still refuses to discuss his encounter with Jackson...
...His defection was to provide the majority of one-although no one knew it at the time...
...Thus, it was natural for Jackson to try to persuade Gravel to vote for Safeguard...
...Had anyone asked her to take a stand...
...The next day, Gravel formally announced his intention to oppose deployment by supporting the CooperHart amendment...
...Then get back in there, man...
...Two days after the debate began the opponents received their biggest psychological lift...
...Senator John 0. Pastore (D-R.I...
...Treasury officials had fought Bellmon’s demands for the removal of Paul R. McDaniel, an Oklahoman accused of “leaking” information to Fred Harris, the state’s senior Senator and chairman of the Democratic National Committee...
...The months of strain began to tell on those involved...
...He had voted against Sentinel, was thought to be under the senior Senator’s influence, and could therefore be counted upon to vote against Safeguard...
...If that failed to persuade, they told the waverers that the best policy is to follow the lead of the President on security matters...
...Administration lobbyists quickly wrote off the opponents...
...One day a federal official telephoned to warn him that his anti-ABM stand was going to cost him some patronage...
...By early May, the polls showed that the Administration was rapidly gaining votes...
...Morton denied pressuring anybody, but following the Percy protest there was a noticeable decline in overt action by the national committee...
...These turned out to be effective arguments, especially with the older members...
...You are costing the taxpayers a lot of money because I have to answer all these letters...
...The fact that he might well be the next President had no small influence on potential recruits to the antiABM forces...
...That morning, Senator John C. Stennis (D-Miss...
...Gravel’s decision left four uncommitted Senators...
...He wanted the Administration to declare a moratorium on testing...
...He told me to ‘let me know how you feel and I want to let you know how I feel.’ I told him,” the gruff old veteran said...
...energies and arguments must concentrate on the uncommitted, they agreed, and the approach must be soft sell...
...Nixon stated and restated this chief argument: that ABM deployment would carry weight in arms-limitation talks with the Russians and in dealing with the Chinese over the next decade...
...One assumption gone awry, as it turned out, involved the vote of Senator Winston L. Prouty (R-Vt...
...an ABM supporter known as the Senate’s “screaming eagle,’’ unburdened himself of a speech that seemed to be aimed at only one man-Senator Anderson, who sits beside him...
...But he did miss seven or eight days of the debate, and the loss of his influence just might have made the difference...
...Taking advantage of the line of Senators forming in the back of the chamber to greet King, Senators Smith, Hart, Cooper, Symington, and Javits moved off the floor to a small room behind the rostrum to draft a new amendment...
...Independent polls indicated an Administration defeat, or at least a stand-off...
...her position was understood...
...Baptism of Gravel “I’m the only freshman who is still uncommitted, and everybody seems to think that because I’m a freshman I can be muscled around...
...How was this one-vote victory won...
...Senate lore had much to do with these assumptions, for one of the unwritten rules is that you do not ceaselessly importune a Senator for his vote...
...With the voting only two days away, Senator Hart was saying the Senate was split 50 to 50, even if both uncommitted members turned out to be pro-ABM...
...N-0-0, the Senator drawled, but his eyes flashed...
...Senator Raussell, who sits beside Senator Magnuson, tried to engage him in conversation...
...It’s difficult to say that things would have been different if Kennedy had been here,” an anti-ABM strategist said of the crucial week following the accident...
...He sat back to wait until one side or the other realized that it was going to lose if it refused to compromise...
...Jim Pearson, who had originally voted for Sentinel, joined the opposition, saying deployment would be inconsistent with the spirit of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and would make “only a marginal contribution” to security...
...Mr...
...Jackson’s face looked gray...
...The Senate was readying itself to vote on her amendment...
...Did anyone have any plans to deal with Mrs...
...You know, this issue will come as close as any to turning on the quiet consciences of the individual Senators,” he told a visitor...
...Senators Cooper and Hart said they saw merit in the proposal- but in the words of Senator Hart, “we were not sure what Senator Anderson was going to do when we left his office...
...and McIntyre...
...Part of the folklore of Capitol Hill is that Congress abhors a confrontation...
...Such ABM supporters as Vice President Spiro T. Agnew and Secretary of Defense Melvin R. Laird followed up with television appearances...
...I’d say since then probably the percentage has dropped to maybe five-or six-to-cne, but it is overwhelming in opposition,” said the old Yankee, who was still uncommitteed...
...It would be better to compromise...
...So had at least six Senators...
...If that’s not progress,” he said, “I don’t know what is...
...On July 13th, Senator Cooper tried to call Prouty at home to persuade him to hold off a decision until later in the week, when the opposition would present its arguments at a secret session of the Senate...
...This year, it had spent six weeks and the end was not in sight...
...The morning of the vote, Senator Anderson drafted a brief statement saying that the ABM should be deployed “but that does not mean deployment in the next day, week, or month...
...You do not know anything more about the ABM than I know about the products you sell...
...Angry ABM foes, hotly contending that the poll results were loaded, got an unexpected crack at Casey when the President nominated him to be a member of the General Advisory Committee of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency...
...The Senate would be a powerful instrument if all the issues were debated in this manner...
...went to the White House to urge President Nixon to make a televised plea for Safeguard...
...Smith switched, amid a gasp from the gallery that sounded like air being sucked out of the chamber...
...Although Casey denied knowledge of it, an inquiry showed that defense industries were well represented among the ad’s sponsors...
...Administration witnesses were coached...
...Opponents expected Williams to vote with the Administration, but they had some hope about Anderson...
...On the Senate floor, ABM opponents, unaware that their battle had been lost, struggled to keep Senator Smith’s vote for Cooper-Hart...
...Senator McIntyre philosophically brushed off these responses...
...Jacob K. Javits (R-N.Y...
...The Vote Finally, on August 6th, the Senate prepared to vote...
...The Georgian’s argument had an effect on two Cooper-Hart supporters, Senators Joseph Montoya (D-N.M...
...Smith, a 71-year-old widow known for her independence and the fresh rose she wears every day, chatted briefly with Senator Stennis...
...But the weekend after Senator Prouty announced his decision to the President, the opponents suffered another, more unexpected blow...
...A worried Senator Barry M. Goldwater (R-Ariz...
...It would have approved funds for research and development but blocked deployment until a special blue-ribbon commission had conducted a six-month inquiry into the feasibility of the ABM...
...The schoolmasterishlooking Vermonter visited Belieu’s command post with greater frequency...
...Some members of the new Administration were convinced his anti-ABM activities were part of a grand design leading to the Presidential election of 1972...
...With the canny old Yankee saying that Safeguard was dead without modification, observers believed that a compromise was now just a matter of time...
...But other members of his Administration were active...
...Pandemonium...
...For a year, ABM opponents had been building an effective network of grassroots organizations, many of them based on opposition to the Vietnam war...
...This visit was to be critical...
...At first, I was burned up about it, but I later put it down to general ineptitude,” the Senator said...
...Senator Gore came out to talk with the press...
...The vote, “No !” “No !” 72 with the Vice President joining in, was 51 to 50 against the quickly fashioned compromise...
...Cherchez La Femme Could it be Senator Edward W. Brooke (R-Mass...
...Particularly angered was Senator Charles H. Percy (R-Ill...
...Magnuson had been under strong pressure to vote for Safeguard to insure continued funding for the SST being built by the Boeing Company, the largest employer in his home state...
...Thus, the ABM further underscored the widening generation gap in the Senate: of the 21 newest Senators, 12 were to oppose the ABM...
...Smith he would support the Smith-Gore amendment but that the word leaked out and Senator Jackson had a quiGk conversation with the New Mexican in the cloakroom...
...The White House said the President rejected the notion of a compromise...
...It’s pretty hard to exert pressure on me...
...Their job was to sell the ABM to a reluctant nation and a recalcitrant Senate...
...Then he was hot given advance noticea standard courtesy for Senators-when the Administration acted favorably on his request that some federal offices not be moved out of Kansas...
...Senator Pearson also had several brushes with the Administration...
...Immediately after the Presidential announcement, Senator Hugh A. Scott (R-Pa...
...Scientific witnesses appeared before various committees, where they gave conflicting views based on the same evidence...
...Mr...
...The Republicans had been telling me all along that they had 30 votes on their side, but I could count only 29,” said an elated “Scoop” Jackson...
...By nightfall, there was a gnawing fear among anti-ABM partisans that their chances for any kind of victoryeither the moral victory of a tie vote or the actual victory that Senator Anderson’s vote would bring- were evaporating...
...said that if the President decided to use the full weight of his office, it was his guess “that as of now there would be enough votes to uphold the President’s decision...
...Pressure on older members was never so strong...
...There was no need for it this time: all 99 men and one woman were in their places...
...The amendment, he discovered, went much further than the Cooper-Hart proposal...
...Smith distributed a letter to her colleagues, saying (a) that she had “no confidence in Safeguard” and (b) that Cooper-Hart, by supporting research and development on the project, “merely postpones the time of decision...
...The committee confirmed the Casey nomination, but not until its members had discredited the advertisement...
...But it was Sunday morning, and Senator Prouty was out...
...A secret session of the Senate, which turned into a noisy duel of charts between Jackson and Symington, changed no minds...
...A newsman ran into Senator Gore under the steps of the Capitol where he was awaiting a luncheon guest...
...Without such a proposal, Aiken said, he favored an amendment by Cooper and Hart that would limit spending to research and development at Kwajalein but bar deployment...
...Even opponents were to call it “one of the most sophisticated and professional jobs of lobbying we’ve ever seen...
...Could the President have secured his vote with such a promise...
...On the other side, William J. Casey’s pro-ABM lobby began to swing into action, with full-page newspaper advertisements proclaiming that “84 per cent of all Americans support an ABM system...
...Before the battle was over, the President, the White House staff, the Pentagon, individual Senators, the scientific community, defense contractors, and the public participated in what became the most passionate struggle in recent legislative history...
...It stated that no funds could be used for any work on Safeguard but that research and development would be permitted on other advanced ABM systems...
...The Administration forces, trying to reorganize, endeavored to raise doubts in the minds of some CooperHart supporters about the meaning and extent of the new amendment...
...floor manager of the militaryprocurement authorization bill which contained $759.1 million for the first phase of Safeguard, came to the press gallery for the first time in 22 years...
...Now, an Associated Press poll showed 44 Senators firmly opposed to Safeguard, 35 for it, and 21 uncommitted...
...The opponents finally got wind of this...
...Not since the summer of 1941, when the House approved continuation of the draft by one vote, had a President’s decision on an issue of national security been so narrowly supported...
...Smith would do...
...Yet he remained one of the few Senators to resist the President’s moonlit arguments on the Sequoia...
...It was not surprising, then, that some members became seriously concerned by the prospect of the Senate and the White House drifting out of control toward a collision...
...Senator Percy’s staff reported that there was considerable “heat” on him from home...
...So he lost the chance to take credit at home...
...he tried to block the addition of new language to the existing Smith amendment...
...the vigorous new chairman of the Republican National Committee, moved to drive a wedge between the opponents by raising the issue of party loyalty...
...But to many Senators, it had become the symbol of misplaced priorities - priorities that allocated $79 billion for military spending while civilian needs went begging...
...So I called him up and said, ‘Why do you write me a letter about this...
...To him, the threat to peace of the ABM was secondary to the multiple warhead (MIRV...
...Senator John G. Tower (RTex...
...Material was prepared for Senators who wanted clarification of various points...
...Over coffee in the State Dining Room after the service, Senator Prouty told the President he had made up his mind...
...Then she asked Senator Fulbright for “30 seconds” of his time, quickly dropped her amendment on the clerk’s desk, and walked out...
...However, this caution did not extend to some middle-level government officials, who took up free-lance lobbying for the ABM on their own...
...But this White House meeting was to produce a carefully orchestrated campaign directed by Herbert G. Klein, the Administration’s director of communications...
...Or so the assumption went...
...It’s the final vote that counts...
...He received a briefing at the Pentagon, and, more importantly, he accepted invitations to four Potomac cruises with the President...
...I checked on this guy and he didn’t have a damn thing to do with patronage...
...Some who say they’re for research, they’re going to have red faces when they see what they’ve done...
...Tragedy...
...Last year, Senator Hart noted, he had failed in an attempt to reduce the Pentagon’s research budget to the level of the previous year...
...George D. Aiken (R-Vt...
...Nixon as Lobbyist While Harlow and his deputy, Kenneth Belieu, prospected for votes on Capitol Hill, President Nixon was becoming by far the most effective Administration lobbyist...
...The move drew quick protests from Republican opponents of Safeguard...
...Seeing him in the lobby, Mary McGrory, of the Washington Evening Star, asked: “Are they working something out in there...
...We made the system work...
...He had-and still has-the prospect of a tough fight for re-election next year...
...Had she taken a stand on CooperHart...
...Jackson had long since adopted the role of mentor to his young colleague...
...Paper Warfare Now both sides began to set off the propaganda salvos they had been preparing for months...
...I’m voting for it...
...According to all of the standard Racing Forms, the Senate was almost equally divided...
...But as everyone at the meeting was aware, far more than the fate of another weapons system was at stake...
...disclosed that when he called a regulatory agency about a problem, he was told: “We might give more attention to your ideas if you would get on the team...
...He emphasized the flexibility of his approach to the ABM...
...Then There Were Two The opposition received one last boost: McIntyre and Magnuson came out against the ABM...
...As one senatorial staff member muttered at the time: “We’re deluged by the ABM...
...Boys,” he said, “I feel like I’m going to war...
...Former Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey, an ABM foe, had called earlier...
...And then, “no...
...Barry Goldwater sprang to his feet to protest...
...Finally, the clerk began to call the roll...
...A seat on the Maritime Commission may also have been involved...
...Smith’s previous position...
...He had gone to the White House for church services...
...Administration lobbyists began calling defense contractors around the country urging them to put in a word for the ABM with uncommitted Senators...
...ABM opponents, who saw the McIntyre plan as “a disguised deployment,” said they would vote funds only for continued research and development at the Kwajalein test area in the Pacific - and not for deployment of any kind...
...In 1961, moreover, Jackson had married Miss Helen Hardin, a secretary in Anderson’s office...
...Forty-three Senators now favored the ABM, 47 were opposed, sad 10 remained uncommitted...
...Aiken...
...We decided that if the system was worth anything at all it would sell itself-but we had to make sure that our side of the story got told...
...To win, then, the opposition needed four of the five publicly uncommitted votes...
...Since almost every Senator favored continued research and development, the Administration emphasized to the uncommitted that deployment of Safeguard at missile sites in Montana and North Dakota should be considered “applied research...
...The Administration can win by one or two or three votes,” said Mike Mansfield, “but that’s what they called in Roman days a Pyrrhic victory...
...As Senator Magnuson put it, “I’ve been around here for 33 years...
...but of the 19 most senior, only five would...
...With the Nixon Administration being given a respite on Vietnam, such prominent “doves” as Senators J. William Fulbright (D-Ark...
...Allott...
...Allen...
...Over in the New Senate Office Building, Senator Anderson’s telephone rang with a call from President Nixon...
...THE MAKING OF A MAJORITY The Senate and the ABM by Nathan Miller Two days before the Senate approved President Nixon’s plan to deploy the Safeguard anti-ballistic missile system by a singie vote, Senator James B. Pearson, a thoughtful Kansas Republican, discussed the significance of the marathon debate...
...But Senator Prouty had problems of his own...
...Senator Packwood’s decision was interpreted as a declaration of independence of Oregon’s senior Senator, Mark 0. Hatfield, a leading Republican foe of the ABM...
...This is a tragedy...
...With Senators confused by conflicting technical arguments, the lobbyists used the argument that it would weaken the President’s hand to go to disarmament talks without the ABM...
...Smith wanted to vote against the ABM and for the Administration...
...He was going to vote for the ABM...
...and Stuart Symington (D-Mo...
...And when Jackson had taken over the Interior Committee from Anderson, he had kept Anderson appointees on the payroll...
...Senator Hatfield had given at least tacit support to Wayne L. Morse, Packwood’s Democratic opponent in 1968...
...Almost as if by design, Senator John Sparkman (D-Ala...
...drowned by the ABM...
...The Senate majority leader, Mike Mansfield (D-Mont...
...There cannot and must not be a loyalty test...
...He saw many members in private-many of them alone, without even a staff member present, so that the Senator involved was free to keep the conversation to himself if he chose...
...During the hearing, Senator Symington reported that he had received a letter from a business acquaintance questioning his opposition to the ABM, then told Casey: “It was, I thought, a very unusual letter...
...Senator Kennedy’s car plunged into a Cape Cod pond under bizarre circumstances, taking the life of a young secretaryand much of the Senator’s influencewith it...
...The response was less than enthusiastic...
...It was one of the Senate’s finest hours,” he said...
...Finally, the Department of Agriculture, after having given its private blessing to a bill Pearson hadproposed, abruptly changed its mind...
...He pointed out that a plan can’t progress until you try it, and this thing (the ABM) has been researched to death,” Harlow recounted...
...Mrs...
...In any case, the most important pro-ABM influence on Gravel was Senator Henry M. Jackson (D-Wash...
...The news engulfed the ABM opponents in gloom...
...The next day, Senator Hart sat in a brown leather chair in the President’s Room off the Senate chamber and discussed the implications of the vote...
...The opponents picked up a vote, too...
...What had he received in exchange...
...Then came a breathing space...
...This year, the Armed Services Committee itself had cut it by more than $1 billion, Last year, the Senate had spent only three days on the military procurement bill...
...There were reports that $11 million trimmed from a Nevada water project might be restored if he voted right...
...and Cannon...
...While he was ostensibly looking out for the interests of his constituents, nothing that Kennedy did could be divorced from national politics...
...thundered Senator Stennis...
...As they returned to the floor, they shook hands and smiled...
...Clinton P. Anderson (D-N.M...
...Shortly before the President’s March 14th decision to deploy Safeguard, a small group of men met with Bryce N. Harlow, the Administration’s chief Congressional lobbyist, in his office down the corridor from Mr...
...One of the surprising things about the running series of nose counts taken by both sides was that some potential votes were based on assumptions...
...that strangles it in its crib...
...Mr...
...Unable to get the Administration, now sensing victory, to accept his plan, McIntyre said he would vote for the Cooper-Hart proposal...
...Secretary Laird produced the claim that the Russians were trying for “a first strike” that would knock out unprotected Minuteman missiles in their silos...
...Warren G. Magnuson (D-Wash...
...Smith, he was asked...
...Twisting arms and wrenching sockets would leave too much scar tissue,’’ said one of the men who attended the White House staff meeting...
...Well, I guess I am, too.’’ “This system is not aimed at people,” declared an irate Senator Tower...
...Senator Tower had gotten his‘51-to-49 vote...
...Without him, it’s extra innings...
...The term of James V. Day, a Maine man supported by Senator Smith, had expired, and the West Coast, which was unrepresented, was demanding the spot...
...At almost the exact time the “Kennedy report” came out, the ASC issued its own analysis of the ABM, contending that Safeguard was part of a system “designed to give the American people a seamless garment of security in an age of nuclear danger...
...the newly named minority whip, switched from opposition to support of the ABM...
...it extended back to the days when Jackson had come to the Capitol as an Anderson prothgh...
...But Mansfield emphasized that a vote was still months away...
...joined in the fight against the ABM...
...A tie would give the Administration a victory- but it would be a moral victory for the opposition...
...Senator Fulbright was addressing a nearly empty chamber...
...He began scurrying from Senator to Senator, applying his own brand of friendly persuasion...
...Now there appeared to be just five: Senators Mike Gravel (D-Alaska...
...He had originally voted for Sentinel but had voted against Safeguard in the Armed Services Committee...
...That was Herb Klein’s job...
...There are reports that at this point Senator Anderson privately told Mrs...
...It was to include all former Secretaries of Defense as well as others to be designated by the President...
...Albert Gore (D-Tenn...
...First out was the “Kennedy report,” which concluded that the ABM “cannot perform effectively the missions suggested for it” but could launch a new arms race...
...At 11 o’clock, the session opened with a prayer by the Rev...
...A pause...
...The experience of Senator William B. Saxbe, a freshman Republican from Ohio who opposed Safeguard, was typical...
...The others speculated that the Administration had been unhappy with her anti-ABM vote in committee and that Mrs...
...Nixon’s own Oval Office...
...But in talking about the effect his decision may have on his relations with the Administration, he shrugs and says, “I can see the situation where I will want something badly and reach out for it-and then the meat cleaver will come down on my hand...
...Another freshman, Senator Charles McC...
...Edward L. R. Elson, the chaplain, “to deploy the strength of our true character, so that as a people we may send forth missiles of friendship and goodwill to all mankind...
...But even more important to the pro-ABM campaign, the ASC mounted a massive direct-mail operation which flooded Senate offices with thousands of letters...
...We don’t count moral victories around here,” snapped Senator Tower...
...one of the earliest ABM foes, who declared that “this is not a clear-cut case of party loyalty but a national issue...
...By now it was late afternoon...
...There appeared to be a strong possibility that she would vote for her amendmentwhich iinder the rules would be taken up before Cooper-Hart-and then, out of some twist of feminine logic, vote against Cooper-Hart because she was opposed to research and development, even if this meant approval of deployment...
...Smith was to say she was surprised that no one from the opposition had been i.n touch with her...
...As soon as she put in that amendment I knew she was the 30th...
...It’s not your line of work.’ He said, ‘Well, I have been slugged into writing a few people,’ and I said, ‘Who slugged you?’ and your name was mentioned first...
...This was Senator Mike Gravel, a 39year-old Alaskan, describing his misadventures as the only new Senator who had taken no position on the ABM...
...Already in the works since February was what was to be known as the “Kennedy report,” a book of 16 articles by leading scientists and other experts contesting the necessity and feasibility of the ABM...
...If his tally were correct, it meant that one of the members being counted upon to vote for the Cooper-Hart amendment was actually opposed to it...
...Senators Hart and Symington moved in with quick explanations, holding them in line...
...How much influence did those forces have on the result...
...But they finally yielded when the White House passed the word that Senator Bellmon was threatening to vote against Safeguard...
...In a stage whisper, Magnuson turned to Senator Mansfield and asked: “How are you going to vote, Mike...
...Twenty-two companies in 16 states had a financial stake in the ABM, and most were careful to avoid open Congressional lobbying...
...He took him to the White House and provided briefcases bulging with information supporting deployment...
...Party Loyalty The first dividends of the Administration’s campaign were not long in accruing...
...from my point of view, there must be some program controlled by our military which could check carefully what other nations were doing and keep us fully safeguarded...
...Although he was to remain open to compromise, he felt it improper for one of the Administration’s own floor leaders to oppose the President on an issue of national security...
...After all, Anderson had expressed some concern that an issue of such importance would be decided on such a close vote...
...After an angry discussion, Senator Jackson declared: “If you vote against the ABM, it’s going to cause you problems around here...
...One observer, listening to the flattery directed at her, commented: “Not since Cleopatra have so many Senators listened to one woman’s proposition with such interest...
...It distributed 20,000 copies of the report...
...In early June a poll showed 48 votes against Safeguard and 47 for it...
...Within hours of the President’s announcement of his Safeguard plan, newspapers all over the country received thick packets of information supporting Mr...
...then minority leader...
...One of them put their situation in baseball terms: “If we had Prouty, the ball game would be over...
...This narrowed down the “uncommitted” to only two: the ailing and uncommunicative Senator Anderson, 73, and lame-duck Senator Williams of Delaware, who had already said he would not run for re-election in 1970 because he thinks people should retire at 65...
...She had sponsored an anti-ABM amendment in committee, and, in 1968, contending that the system wouldn’t work, had voted to strike all funds for deployment of Sentinel...
...Anderson...
...The Uncommitted Five At long last, floor debate on the ABM got underway on July 8th...
...Party loyalty, rather than the issue itself, persuaded Senator Scott...
...That night, Senator Margaret Chase Smith (R-Maine), the ranking minority member of the Armed Services Committee who had consistently opposed the ABM in any form for over a year, quietly met with William C. Lewis, her administrative assistent, and drew up what she was later to call “a simple amendment” to the procurement bill...
...Senators Cooper and Hart professed to be unalarmed...
...But three major ABM contractors-Motorola, General Electric, and Lockheed-contributed to the American Security Council, a conservative organization financed by private industry that took an active part in the fight for the ABM...
...Since such a nomination requires Senate confirmation, Casey had to appear before Senator Fulbright’s Foreign Relations Committee, where the anti-ABM sentiment was strong...
...A steady stream of Senators had breakfast, lunch, dinner, and countless cups of coffee with him...
...The locus of such talks varied, but most of them occurred in the President’s office, or in the family dining room on the second floor of the White House, or in the East Room after Sunday services, or on evening cruises down the Potomac on the Presidential yacht, Sequoia...
...Opponents were to talk of a Pyrrhic victory, but just as the draft could be continued or suspended by a single vote, so could an ABM system...
...Their relationship was also close...
...Nevada voters were worried that ABM deployment could mean continued nuclear testing in the state, which might frighten away tourist business...
...Senator Aiken announced that he was opposed to immediate deployment of the ABM and urged the President to compromise to save his plan from defeat...
...Observers combed their lists in search of a likely suspect...
...Three previously uncommitted Republican freshmen swung behind the President at this point-Robert W. Packwood of Oregon, Robert Dole of Kansas, and Henry Bellmon of Oklahoma...
...The sermon that day was “The Great Adventure,” linking the imminent moon shot with President Nixon’s upcoming Asian tour...
...We all knew we had a long road and a hill ahead,” Harlow was to say later...
...When the session resumed, the Senators voted down the original Smith motion, 89 to 11, and the new SmithGore proposal was called up...
...After Gravel won the Democratic nomination last year, both Jackson and Magnuson held a fund-raising affair for him in Seattle...
...The next afternoon, as Herb Klein was making a final call to newsmen to tell them George Meany, president of the AFL-CIO, was willing to make a proABM statement if asked, Mrs...
...At this point, the opposition was counting on 47 solid votes and figured that the Administration had 45 certain...
...On the other side, Senator Jackson exerted the most influence on the old man...
...From up in New Hampshire, where Republican Senator Thomas J. McIntyre had gone on a speaking trip among his constituents, came a proposal that looked like a workable compromisedeployment of the computers and radars at the sites in Montana and North Dakota would go through, but there would be an indefinite delay on establishing missile launchers and acquiring land for 10 other planned ABM complexes...
...The drama had ended...
...On August 4th, he and Jackson met in the Senate cloakroom...
...President Nixon maintained a low profile during this stage of the maneuvering, limiting himself to a few telephone calls and personal chats with uncommitted Senators...
...To combat anti-ABM organizations, the Administration set up its own lobbying groups, the most prominent being the Citizens Committee for Peace and Security, headed by William J. Casey, a New York lawyer with White House connections...
...The day in which a Defense Department request for a weapons system meant automatic approval had clearly passed...
...Determined to hold onto the dozen or so Republicans who were against the ABM, the opposition had carefully nutured a bi-partisan approach...
...The room came with a private entrance, leather club chairs, a yellow sofa of faintly Empire antecedents, a well-stocked bar, and a large picture of the host with his hair as tangled as if he had just stepped out of a speeding convertible...
...Nixon might compromise if he wanted unified Congressional support - the type Scott felt was needed “from the standpoint of influencing world opinion...
...Within two months, it was to sell 13,000 copies in hardback and 150,000 in paperback...
...Senators Cooper and Hart had spent an hour with him...
...Although he maintained that the President would win, Scott suggested that Mr...
...the Senate’s senior Republican, told Casey he had received 58 letters after the ad had appeared in three Vermont papers...
...They began to search for a way out...
...Mathias, Ti.., (R-Md...
...Unlike the Sentinel system approved by President Johnson for deployment in the suburbs, Safeguard was to protect the nation’s nuclear deterrent out on the Great Plains...
...Backed by scientific briefings and staff memoranda, aided by the growing outcry from the suburbs, their support had widened to the point where it approached a majority of the Senate...
...They regarded the loss as critical but not fatal...
...There was no stretching out of names so that members could get to the floor...
...But Representative Rogers C. B. Morton (R-Md...
Vol. 1 • October 1969 • No. 9
