few would deny that the desire to be re-elected exercises a strong brake on
independent courage
- John F. Kennedy, Profiles in Courage
It’s no revelation to note the dearth of genuine courage in public figures these days, be they elected officials or other high profile individuals. All too often reticence, self-interest (and self- preservation), among other factors, carry the day. It’s all buttressed by a well-connected donor class and compliant mass media, further obfuscated by carefully worded public statements. Apropos then to pay homage to two exceptions, both from the public sphere, who exhibited forthrightness and principle, in a word, courage, sometimes at the expense of their careers and often to the detriment of their party. These are U.S. Senators Robert Taft and Frank Church, both towering figures, alas largely forgotten today by all but hardcore political junkies (though Church may be getting a revival, discussed further below).
An odd coupling, Church and Taft: despite some similarities in philosophy, the two men were basically cut from different cloths, both politically and personally. They hailed from different regions of the country, and were of different parties, moreover of different generations, though both had a world view shaped by World War II, and later, inevitably, by the Cold War that followed. Church relished in and sought out the political limelight [1], Taft did not, preferring to stay in the background and do what needed to be done. Both alas passed on at the (by today’s standards) youthful ages of sixty-three and fifty-nine respectively.
Church first entered the senate in 1957, four years after Taft’s death, and there’s no evidence the two men ever met [2]. Further, there’s no hints in the record, either public or private, what Church’s opinion was of Taft. In any case neither was exempt from criticism in their own lifetimes, and there remain naysayers even today. Still, both are highly revered by a wide swath of the political spectrum. Taft entered the pantheon long ago, but Church is more a Johnny-come-lately (incidentally he was considered such for much of his political career, even, especially, by his colleagues in the Senate). But most important, both said what they meant and meant what they said, a quality sorely lacking in public officials today, and both stuck to their guns when convinced their position was just, but neither was averse to modifying a stand or outright changing his mind based on evidence and sound judgement, and not on which way the wind was blowing.
But Taft wasn’t a knee jerk libertarian conservative: he supported progressive causes such as social security, public housing, and federal aid to education. Moreover, he was one of the few elected officials who spoke out against the internment of Japanese-Americans in WW2. In these contexts it’s instructive to consider Taft’s comment on liberalism:
“Liberalism implies particularly freedom of thought, freedom from orthodox dogma, the right of others to think differently from one’s self. It implies a free mind, open to new ideas and willing to give attentive consideration to them … When I say liberty, I mean liberty of the individual to think his own thoughts and live his own life as he desires to think and live.” [Profiles in Courage, p205].
And this from a self-described conservative!
In any case, and for better or worse, Taft’s big moment occurred on Oct 5, 1946, in a speech at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, as part of a three-day symposium on ‘The Heritage and Responsibility of English-Speaking Peoples.’ The topic of Taft’s speech was Anglo-American Law and Justice, a subject dear to his heart. In his speech Taft criticized the Nuremberg war crimes trials that had just taken place. Taft stunned the political world by objecting to the trial, conviction, and execution of 11 prominent Nazis including the number-two Nazi, Hermann Göring, who committed suicide at the last moment to avoid hanging. Taft asserted that the trials were conducted in the spirit of vengeance, and that vengeance can never be justice.
Legal commentators noted that the trials were an example of the principle of legal positivism, as well as the unrestrained use of judicial power, pointing out that the crimes for which the Nazis were tried had no legal precedent and were not outlawed with the death penalty by the international community, i.e. they were a classic example of ex post facto laws. Moreover, Taft cautioned that the trials would not necessarily discourage countries from waging aggressive war, for no country or group wages a war without the expectation of victory. If world events since 1946 have taught us anything it’s that the so-called Nuremberg Principle has not discouraged countries, individuals and groups from committing aggressive acts, war or otherwise, in pursuit of political or military agendas.
Be that as it may, JFK recounts in Profiles in Courage that there was a firestorm of protest from all sides of the political and journalistic spectrum as sources savagely criticized the senator for his impolitic stand. One attack was typical: “ … on this issue, as on so many others, Senator Taft shows that he has a wonderful mind which knows practically everything and understands practically nothing.” Take that! [3] However, the passage of time has given us a more nuanced perspective. Taft biographer James T. Patterson writes that “the trials so clearly rested on ‘victor’s justice’ that many experts later conceded the essential correctness of Taft’s position and that Taft’s ‘outspoken view of the trials … revealed the depth of his convictions on crucial issues’.” [Patterson, Mr. Republican, Houghton Mifflin, 1972, p. 328.] It would be misleading, however, to suggest that Taft’s position has been universally vindicated by history. To be sure, a substantial number of historians and non-historians agree with Taft’s views, but conversely a large number disagree and support the Nuremberg Principle.
In any event, one of the results of the controversy was that Taft did not win the Republican presidential nomination in either 1948 or 1952. Eventually all the huffing and puffing calmed down and Taft’s stature rose to where today he’s considered one of the giants in the history of the Senate [4]. Senate chronicler Allen Drury called Taft one of the Senate’s “strongest and ablest men” and used Taft as the model for the few virtuous lawmakers in his 1959 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Advise and Consent, later made into a much praised motion picture. Not for nothing then was a separate chapter devoted to Taft in Kennedy’s Profiles in Courage. Incidentally, Taft was the most recent of the eight senators included in the book, and the only one Kennedy ever met personally.
One positive result of the committee’s investigations was the passage of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in 1978, which established procedures for the surveillance and collection of foreign intelligence on domestic soil As a result at least some limits were placed on intelligence agencies’ ability to spy on ordinary citizens. There were other reforms as well, such as the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which would monitor overseas corporate bribery. In other words, the big three intelligence agencies were brought under the rule of law for the first time. Alas, the past half century has revealed that said agencies haven’t been exactly scrupulous in following either the spirit, or the letter, of the law.
As much as Church’s work on the committee has assured his place in political history, an even greater, albeit much less well-known, moment occurred on February 21, 1968, in a speech on the Senate floor, in which Church specifically criticized American involvement in Vietnam. He also cautioned against the trends of U.S. imperialism and militarism generally, and the ascendancy of a national-security state [5]. Ergo the U.S. was acting more like an empire than a republic. Senator Ernest Gruening of Alaska, a fellow Vietnam skeptic, immediately proclaimed Church’s speech as one of the greatest made on the Senate floor since Daniel Webster. The speech is extensively quoted in Risen’s book and space precludes our inclusion in detail here, but perhaps we might be allowed to reference an especially prescient passage:
“ … in the face of all this, I wish I could express some confidence that, by an act of our own volition, we might soon commence to alter this country’s foreign policy from one of general, to one of selective, involvement. But I have no such confidence. Like other nations before us that drank deeply from the cup of foreign adventure, we are too enamored with the nobility of our mission to disenthrall ourselves. Besides, powerful vested interests now encrust and sanctify the policy. Were we to wait for the hierarchy of either political party to advocate a change of course, I fear we would wait indefinitely.”
What is most remarkable about the speech, and this passage in particular, is not its soaring eloquence, but that it could be delivered today, in 2024 over a half century later, and be just as on the money, perhaps more so given recent events and the, frequently misguided, American response to said events. Church cautioned we might wait indefinitely for our leaders to change course, and today, nearly six decades later, it seems we’re still waiting.
Church did not lack for critics, in his day or even today, but he and the committee he headed remind us of the possibility of abuses and excesses, however (ostensibly) well-intended, by official agencies, and the need for constant vigilance. One of the results of the committee was the mechanism to hold said agencies, especially the CIA, accountable and to restrain such unbridled excesses for which they became infamous. But such an assessment may be too sanguine in light of documented (and perhaps not so documented) abuses. As much as Washington’s spy apparatus came under tighter oversight and control, at least for a time, even a casual perusal of the five decades after the Church committee’s findings will reveal a plethora of “national security” operations carried out against foreign governments and ordinary American citizens.
Church was once again uncannily prescient as he mused on such dangers in remarks delivered a half century ago:
“The United States government has perfected a technological capability that enables us to monitor the messages that go through the air.… That capability at any time could be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything - telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn’t matter. There would be no place to hide. I don’t want to see this country ever go across the bridge … That is the abyss from which there is no return.” [6]
[1] There’s a certain ironic justice at work here: much as Taft commands greater stature historically, Church today is getting more attention by way of James Risen’s recent book The Last Honest Man: The CIA, the FBI, the Mafia, and the Kennedys – and One Senator's Fight to Save Democracy.
[2] JFK is, perhaps appropriately so, the connecting thread of Robert Taft and Frank Church, in the case of Taft most conspicuously through Profiles in Courage (it’s actually unclear how well Kennedy knew Taft either personally or professionally, as his tenure in the U.S. Senate had been barely six months on when Taft died). In the case of Church the connection to Kennedy is more direct, and better documented, perhaps best recalled in Risen’s above-mentioned book, The Last Honest Man.
[3] Some would say Kennedy’s deft sidestepping the substance of Taft’s position – i.e. whether he was right or wrong in his criticism of the Nuremberg trials – is typical of JFK’s tendency to evade, equivocate or procrastinate on controversial topics instead of facing them head-on. Fair enough. But if we read between the lines there’s at least some sympathy for the Taft point of view, and besides, to be perfectly technical, JFK chose his ‘profiles in courage’ not necessarily for the wisdom or praiseworthiness of their ideologies or actions, but to acknowledge that they stood up for principles that, although highly unpopular, simply couldn’t be compromised. To wit, Taft was famously touted as being one of the few politicians able to say ‘no’ (even to his friends and supporters), and in JFK’s defense he seemed to have adopted this Taft principle (at least some of the time).
[4] Indeed, a 1957 Senate committee (incidentally headed by JFK) named Taft as one of America's five greatest senators, along with Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, John C. Calhoun, and Robert M. La Follette Sr., and portraits of the "famous five" are displayed in the Senate Reception Room. Taft was the most recent inductee, and, along with La Follette, the only representative from the Twentieth Century.
Given the proclamation’s more than half century vintage only the most myopic, or cynical, of politics junkies would argue that no worthy names have emerged post 1957, and sure enough, in 2004, Arthur H. Vandenberg (Michigan) and Robert F. Wagner (New York) were added. In 2006, a mural commemorating the Connecticut Compromise (also known as the Great Compromise of 1787) was added with Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut, resulting in the group's informal name becoming the "famous nine." There’s certain injustice (or is it justice?) that none of the four additions were active in the senate post 1957.
[5] The full text of the admittedly long winded speech, titled ‘The Torment in the Land,’ can be found in the Senate Congressional Record, Wed. Feb 21, 1968.
[6] NBC Meet the Press, August 17, 1975.
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