1899 



Information, a variety of agricultural institutions, and a system of 

 international stockpiles of materials. In the preamble to these pro- 

 posals the Secretary explained that they were being offered in recog- 

 nition of the growing interdependence among the world's nations. 

 However, before they can be converted from ideas to actualities, many 

 further preparatory steps will be necessary: studies of possible conse- 

 quences for United States and international economic and industrial 

 health, differential effects on various national systems abroad, magni- 

 tude and costs, allocation of costs, substantive organizational planning, 

 cost/benefit analyses at various levels of effort, justification before 

 budget analyses, negotiation with representatives of other partici- 

 pating nations on alternative approaches, and solicitation of the views 

 of the Congress, the executive branch, the informed public, and spe- 

 cialists in each particular field of concern. 



The long-range implications of the whole package of 19 initiatives 

 in relation to anticipated world trends would make a substantial 

 separate study. All these are quite evidently time-consuming matters 

 and not likely to be accomplished soon enough or vigorously enough 

 to satisfy the impatient representatives of the "Third World" nations 

 who listened to the Secretary's proposal. That it was constructive 

 and conciliatory is evident; but whether it raised unrealizable ex- 

 pectations of early action remains to be seen. 



Implications of the Study for the Congress 



The Constitution divides responsibility for foreign policy between 

 the President and the Congress. Commitments to treaties require a 

 two-thirds Senate vote to approve of ratification. International actions 

 requiring funding are subject to the legislative functions of appropria- 

 tions and oversight. Appointments of diplomats and senior officials 

 of the Department of State require that the Senate "advise and 

 consent." However, the foreign relations of the United States at the 

 time of the adoption of the Constitution and for more than a century 

 thereafter were rarely so momentous as to engage the attention of the 

 Congress. Only one of the 85 Federalist Papers (Number 64 by John 

 Jay — dealing with the treaty power) addresses the subject at all. 

 And Alexis de Tocqueville remarks on the singular incapacity of a 

 democratic republic to maintain any sort of consistent foreign policy. 

 In his view, such policy needed to be secret and in the charge of the 

 smallest possible number of leaders, who would remain durably in 

 control of it. 



Indeed, the Tocqueville formula seems to have prevailed, more or 

 less, from the early 1930s almost to the present, supported by the 

 prevailing political arrangement that "politics stopped at the water's 

 edge." 



THE INCREASING CONGRESSIONAL ROLE IN DIPLOMACY 



A number of coalescing factors have tended to excite a greater 

 congressional concern for foreign policy and to motivate an apparent 

 determination to participate in the process. These factors have 

 included': 



— A recognition that under conditions of , the nuclear deterrent, 

 the involvement of the United States in foreign policy can flow 

 almost imperceptibly from peace into war, through successively 

 deeper commitments abroad, so that the congressional authority 



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