Dissent & Defeat

"They've had their day in court," snapped a White House aide. "The debate is over." It was not, of course. Nonetheless, the Congress returned a clear verdict last week by voting with near-unanimity in both Houses to approve President Johnson's request for additional funds to finance the war in Viet Nam.

Passage of the Administration's bill came at the end of an often intemperate debate on the Senate floor, where the authorization bill was stalled for two interminable weeks, until finally Georgia's Richard Russell was moved to say: "I feel so deeply that national security is involved that I have almost come to the conclusion that I could vote for cloture." It never came close to cloture; indeed, the vote was never in doubt, for the dissidents formed a minuscule if vocal minority. Despite his stereotyped press label as Capitol Hill's "most influential foreign policy expert," Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Fulbright had little influence on the outcome.

The Administration's noisiest critic, Oregon Democrat Wayne Morse, tacked onto the money bill a prickly amendment proposing that the Senate show its disapprobation of Viet Nam policy by voting to cancel the August 1964 resolution, passed by Congress after the Gulf of Tonkin attacks, that then--and thereafter--authorized the President to take "all necessary measures" against aggression in Southeast Asia. Georgia's Russell countered with his own rider reaffirming the Tonkin resolution. Both were potentially troublesome.

Widened Breach. Morse's addendum, amounting to flat repudiation of a President in time of war, was more than even Fulbright could swallow. And Russell's amendment, though certain to draw at least 80 Senate votes, would have set off another round of conscience-searching, party-splitting argy-bargy among the two score Democrats who have criticized the President in one degree or another. Consequently, Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield decided that he would move to table Morse's amendment, thus cutting off further debate on it, if Russell would forget his motion. Russell agreed.

Next day the move to table Morse's rider was passed by 92 votes to 5. The five votes all came from Democrats: Alaska's Ernest Gruening, Minnesota's Eugene McCarthy, Ohio's Stephen Young, Sponsor Morse and, most notably, Bill Fulbright. With that nay, Fulbright may well have widened irreversibly the breach between himself and Lyndon Johnson. White House Press Secretary Bill Moyers had gone out of his way to emphasize that the President would regard any vote to kill Morse's motion as the equivalent of reconfirming the Tonkin resolution.

Reluctance to Deprive. Fulbright did vote for the $4.8 billion money bill, which passed the Senate by 93 votes to 2 (Morse and Gruening). "None of us," Fulbright explained, "wants to deprive the armies in the field of anything they need." But he said that his dispute with the Administration was not over. "We are holding it in abeyance for a better day," he said, "when the matter of our involvement in Viet Nam as a matter of national policy can be discussed as freely as possible and without being entwined into our flag, which flies over the Capitol. Nobody wants a white flag on the Capitol."

The House took just five hours to approve the money bill 392 to 4, but 78 members who backed it also issued a declaration saying that their votes did not necessarily commit them to full support of the Administration's actions (17 Senate Democrats tried to draft a similar disclaimer, but could not agree on the wording). No sooner had the bill cleared the Hill than the White House issued a praiseful statement interpreting the vote as an overwhelming demonstration of support for the President's policy.

"I Don't Understand." Nevertheless, Fulbright's committee continued its marathon inquisition of Administration leaders, drummed a reluctant Vice President Humphrey into its presence by letting him testify on the "neutral ground" of Mike Mansfield's office, instead of in committee chambers. Effervescent Hubert defended the President's policies, talked for three hours and 15 minutes about his February trip to the Far East. At the same time, Morse stood in the Senate chamber and shouted that the Vice President had "lost his right to claim to be a liberal." The day after Humphrey's appearance, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara showed up for a four-hour closed session with the committee for yet another explanation of Administration war plans. When it was over, Fulbright shook his head and allowed: "I still don't understand."

Thus there was little likelihood that the Administration could easily dissuade those within its own party who most outspokenly oppose the war or have serious doubts about its conduct. The Capitol Hill debate proved nonetheless that neither the Congress nor the public is about to limit the American fighting man's ability to fight.

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