September 12, 1973
Page 29432
SENATOR MUSKIE DEFENDS SENATE WATERGATE HEARINGS
Mr. MANSFIELD. Mr. President, last evening, in a speech to students at Georgetown here in Washington, our distinguished colleague from Maine (Mr. MUSKIE) put into focus the relationship between the legislative work of the Congress, and the Watergate hearings being conducted by the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities.
His analysis concluded that the Watergate inquiry is "a vital exercise of one of the legislative branch's most important functions: to inquire into all aspects of Government, to expose official impropriety, to inform the Nation and to lay out a record on which we can build new safeguards for the democratic process."
But he also pointed out that the Senate inquiry "does not preclude constructive legislation for a stronger society" – the kind of work we in Congress have been performing throughout this year, and which we expect to continue.
Mr. President, I commend Senator MUSKIE's speech to my colleagues and ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the speech was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
SPEECH BY SENATOR EDMUND S. MUSKIE
The Watergate affair is an essential part of the public business. It is not a wallow for partisans; it is a revelation for all Americans of the danger that unchecked executive authority inevitably poses to individual liberty. And until all its facets have been uncovered and understood, we will not be in a position to correct the damage that has been done to our confidence in ourselves and in our leaders.
The President and the Vice President would like you to believe that the Senate inquiry into the complex of political corruption that goes by the name of Watergate is somehow more damaging than the corruption itself. Their attitude is simple: the fault is not with those who abused power but with those who want that abuse investigated and corrected.
The tactic is an old one – discredit your critics when you can't contest their facts – but it is a hollow evasion of responsibility. It reminds us of the Bourbon Kings of France of whom Talleyrand reputedly said: "They have learned nothing and they have forgotten nothing."
The President's long message to Congress yesterday was part of the same political exercise. His legislative laundry list was apparently meant to remind us of his priorities, but, if that was the purpose, the effort miscarried.
In the year that Watergate has shown us how urgently we need substantive changes in the way we finance political campaigns, the President urges us to establish a commission to study campaign reform.
We know the illness; what we need is a cure, not another diagnosis.
In the year that Watergate has revealed the deception with which government secrecy infects our system, the President urges us to enact new secrecy laws that risk establishing a degree of official censorship never known in the United States. We have seen how officials can cover up their misbehavior; what we need is positive steps for disclosure, not more protection for wrongdoing.
In the year that has given us the highest rate of inflation in our history – because the President mismanaged the wage and price control authority Congress gave him to use – we do not need more pious lectures on economy in government. And we do not need programs that ask the poorest Americans – those worst hit by price increases – to bear an even greater sacrifice.
Finally, in a year that has seen the President treat Congress only as an obstacle, not a responsible partner in government, we do not need any more homilies about "the preservation of the requisite powers of the executive branch." What is at issue is the preservation of the constitutional balance between the branches of government.
A President who refuses to execute the laws Congress enacts and who questions the authority of the courts to judge the legality of his actions is a President who seeks to place himself above the law. The President can call for cooperation with the Congress as much as he likes, but he will have to understand if we treat his promises with a measure of skepticism.
A long time ago John Mitchell asked observers of the Administration to "watch what we do, not what we say." The President's real willingness to work together with the Congress has yet to be tested. When the test comes, his actions are going to count far more than his words, even if the words now are lightly flavored with honey.
Until he decided that the separation of powers doctrine made a convenient cloak for him to hide behind. President Nixon was far more interested in monopolizing power than separating it.
Impounding funds Congress had appropriated – to gut programs he had opposed but failed to stop; sending bombers to devastate Cambodia in secret – because he knew Americans would not tolerate such actions if they were known; withholding information from Congress – in order to paralyze the legislative branch by denying it knowledge; and destroying the Office of Economic Opportunity by putting at its head a man whose name he would not even send to the Senate for confirmation – in all these ways the President attempted to usurp authority. And in all these attempts, the Congress and the courts forestalled him.
The impoundments have been invalidated by court order. The Cambodian bombing has been halted by order of Congress. The illegally appointed head of the OEO has been forced out of office. And the courts are now considering a congressional subpoena against the President for the tape recordings he thinks only he and H. R. Haldeman have the right to hear.
So the system designed in 1789 has proved that it can still respond to crisis. The response comes slowly and many of us may think it comes imperfectly. But compromise has been the genius of American politics since the Constitution was written. Over time, consensus – not confrontation – has been the guarantee of our liberty.
Of course, we are not going to move completely out of our impasse unless the President now undertakes a more responsible course. First of all he must stop blaming Watergate for the collapse of his other policies.
The cost of living is not going to go down by making Watergate go away. Our reservoirs of fuel are not going to fill up by deflating the interest in Watergate. High prices – high interest rates – high pollution levels – high stakes in the Middle East – have nothing to do with the low political practices of the Committee to Re-elect the President or the insistence that those practices be uncovered and punished.
Secondly, the President must see that he can only regain the people's confidence if he moves to restore confidence in the integrity of the institutions his associates perverted. As long as he continues to condemn his critics – instead of the criminal behavior they attack – and to blame them for all his troubles, he will also continue to deny dissent its rightful place in our political tradition.
If he gives only lip service to the notion that campaign practices – particularly campaign financing – must be reformed, he leaves the door open to a future of fraud in our political life.
If he refuses to put new restraints and adequate outside supervision on the agencies which are supposed to enforce the laws, he cannot free the government's power to tax, to investigate and to regulate from the threat of political influence.
His power to harm our system has been curbed by exposure of that power's misuse. But his power to strengthen the system and to redeem his errors is limited only by his ability or willingness to see the need for action.
Without the Senate investigation into the Watergate scandal, we might not know how close we came to tyranny. And we might not have found within the system the strength to resist. But the hearings have educated Americans again to the value of their liberties and to the constant danger that government poses to individual freedom.
For that educational function, if for no other, the Senate hearings must continue. Until we know the full story of the corruption Watergate symbolized in our political process, we will not know enough about how to prevent another near calamity. Until Americans understand fully how their right to vote – their voice in shaping policy – can be stifled by electoral fraud, they will not know how to protect that power from another attack.
The work the Senate committee is doing – and must finish – is not, as President Nixon claims, a partisan scheme to destroy him or a debilitating obsession with minor misconduct. It is, rather, a vital exercise of one of the legislative branch's most important functions: to inquire into all aspects of government, to expose official impropriety, to inform the nation and to lay out a record on which we can build new safeguards for the democratic process.
It is possible, of course, that the committee will hear new and conclusive evidence that either exonerates the President of charges of conspiracy or implicates him so deeply that impeachment becomes necessary. It is possible, as well, that the committee will obtain proof that men in the Democratic Party broke the rules of fair political conduct in the 1972 campaign. Perhaps such evidence will deepen public cynicism about all politicians.
But the committee's work, as I see it, must inevitably strengthen the resolve of citizens to take part in politics, to clean it up if necessary, to monitor the behavior of those who win office, to make the concerns of ordinary men and women heard and felt in government. For the main lesson of Watergate is that remote and isolated rulers become oppressors, that only an open political process can produce a government the people trust.
The overriding job of the Watergate investigation is to make the truth known and by doing so to restore the public's confidence in the institutions of government.
The Senate committee is not a perfect instrument for determining all the truth. Issues of criminal guilt or innocence can only be resolved in court. But the truth about official conduct that is grossly improper – if not technically illegal – can only be made known through a congressional investigation that has captured America's attention.
I do not think the process hurts us; we can stand to know the truth about ourselves because our basic decency is far stronger than our temporary wrongdoing.
While the investigation proceeds, of course, the Congress and the President have every opportunity to work out their other differences and to enact legislation that will help us meet our pressing social needs. Continuing the investigation does not foreclose any other options.
We can tackle our energy problems constructively if the President will recognize that conservation of existing fuel supplies is as important as the development of new ones. We can bring government spending under control if the President will recognize that the defense of our freedom depends as much on sound government programs in our cities as it does on military force abroad.
We can build the schools, the hospitals, the housing and the transportation systems we need if the President will recognize that the Federal Government's obligation to ensure a fair distribution of the revenues it collects is as important as the desire to make that distribution more responsive to varied local conditions.
Energetic investigation of wrongdoing does not preclude constructive legislation for a stronger society. The President poses a contradiction that is not real. If he will drop that pose and implement his promises of cooperation, the Congress will respond to fair treatment, as it will not respond to threats.
I was moved and deeply disturbed when one young man who had worked in the White House told the Senate committee that he would advise others considering careers in Washington to "stay away." I can appreciate his personal despair, but I cannot share it.
I would hope that four years from now when you are ready to graduate, government work will appear to many of you as it does to me – an honorable choice, an opportunity to engage private energies in making public choices, a chance for dedication to translate ideals into practice.
If the Watergate scandal were to contribute only to greater citizen apathy in America, it would have done greater damage to our system than the actual attempt to subvert one political campaign or sidetrack one criminal prosecution. But my reading of the reaction to Watergate is more hopeful.
It has reaffirmed the ability of the Congress, of the courts and of an aroused citizenry to check the abuse of executive power. And it has reconfirmed our duty as Americans – the duty of demanding the truth from those who hold public trust and the duty of participating vigorously and critically in the process of choosing policy and the individuals who make it.
It may even have taught us the patience Emerson urged on his countrymen 125 years ago when he wrote: "Eager, solicitous, hungry, rabid, busy-bodied America: catch thy breath and correct thyself."