JOURNAL OFFICE OF LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL FRIDAY - 2 OCTOBER 1970

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP72-00337R000400120049-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 1, 2006
• Sequence Number: 49
• Publication Date: October 2, 1970
• Content Type: NOTES

Approved For Release 2006/08/01: CIA-RDP72-00337R000400120049-9
Approved For Release 2006/08/01: CIA-RDP72-00337R000400120049-9
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THE WASHINGT ON POST
Joseph Alsop
DATE ZDC-4-70 PAGE
Cooper-Church Fizzle
FOR MONTHS, the titanic
drama of the Cooper-Church
amendment absorbed the
Senate, convulsed Washing-
ton, and covered the front
pages with acres of breath-
less, though not deathless
prose. Its final passage, by
a narrow majority, was ful-
somely saluted as a decisive
triumph for the fashionable
forces of neoisolationism. It
was all very beautiful, all
very moving.
After this positively Wag-
nerian clamor, one does not
like to be deflationary. But
common honesty compels
the report that the Senate's
passage of the Cooper-
Church amendment has now
turned out to be the super-
non-event of 1970. The
amendment is dead in con-
ference-so dead that the
House-Senate Conference
Committee ceased to meet
some time ago.
This was predictable, and
was indeed predicted by one
or two small and unheard
voices, while the titanic
drama was still in progress
in the Senate. The real
feelings of "the great rancid
American people" (as the
late Sam Blyth used to call
us) are rather more accu-
rately represented in the
House than in the Senate.
THE HOUSE is also much
more remote from the elo-
quence of editorial pages,
whose kind words affect
most senators as a dramatic
critic's unlooked-for praise
affeEts a broken down actor
with dyed hair and
bunions.
,The House leaders were by
no means intransigent. The
chairman of the House For-
eign Affairs Committee,
Rep. Thomas Morgan of
Pennsylvania, is a gentle,
kindly man. He genuinely
longed for a compromise
that the House might con-
ceivably approve. But in
the Conference Committee,
Representative Morgan had
to deal with the chairman
of the Senate Foreign Rela-
tions Committee, J. W. Ful-
bright.
Senator Fulbright rather
resembles Cato-except that
instead of endlessly repeat-
ing, "Carthage must be de-
stroyed," the Senator's pet
theme (if you understand
his speech-writers correctly)
is that the United States
had better be destroyed. With
Catonian sternness, the sen-
ator refused the smallest
change in Cooper-Church's
language to conciliate the
House.
Senator Fulbright is said
to be pleased by the dead-
lock, because he thinks it
will kill the military sales
bill, to which the Cooper-
Church amendment was at-
tached. But here, he is al-
most certain to be wrong.
WHEN THERE is dead-
lock over an amendment, an
existing statute can always
be renewed-without the
amendment of course-by
what is called a continuing
resolution. A continuing
resolution will eventually be
introduced in the House,
and will pass with hardly
a dissenting vote. That
leaves the Senate, which
gave a majority to Cooper-
Church. Logically, the Sen-
ate, ought to reject a mili-
tary sales bill lacking even a
token fragment of Cooper-
Church.
But logic does not always
apply. Cooper-Church con-
tains money for beleaguered
Israel, besides several of
this country's more direct
allies. And Israel, nowa-
days, is a very tender nerve
for the liberal Democrats.
No wonder the nerve is
tender! As events are in-
creasingly proving, in' a
most terrible manner, Israel
depends upon this country
for her protection against
the Soviet Union. To protect
Israel against the Soviet
Union, this country in turn
depends upon its own mili-
tary strength. Whoever dis-
mantles America's military
strength, in fact, dismantles
Israel's ultimate line of de-
fense.
Who, then, are the
dismantlers? You would not
logically expect the lib-
eral Democrats to play this
role. With the possible ex-
ception of Sen. Edward Ken-
nedy no liberal Democrat
gets less than 50 per cent of
his campaign financing from
the Jewish community. In
certain cases, the percent-
age reaches a very much
higher figure.
BUT IN REALITY, they
are also the most active dis-
mantlers of U.S. power; and
the decline of our power has
now reached the stage where
Israel's very survival is di-
rectly threatened by the
Soviets.. If Israel does not
in fact survive-as is tragi-
cally imaginable today-the
Americans chiefly responsi-,
ble will be liberal Demo-
cratic senators and their
supporters on the intellec-
tual left.
A dim consciousness of
these extremely grim but in-
disputable facts is beginning
to percolate through liberal
Democratic ranks in the
Senate. Voting for a reso-
lution, continuing the mili-
tary sales bill will at least
be voting for money for Is-
rael, even if it displeases
Senator Fulbright.
C) 1970. Los Angeles Times
Approved For Release 2006/08/01: CIA-RDP72-00337R000400120049-9