"Feckless!"

The opposition opposes

Getting Senate Republicans to agree on anything is generally only slightly less difficult than getting Senate Democrats to agree on anything. But the 38 upper chamber Republicans were unanimous on one thing last week: they agreed to disagree with Jimmy Carter's foreign policy.

A 29-page manifesto shrilly criticized the "feckless handling" of the situation in the Horn of Africa, the abandonment of the B-l bomber, the withdrawal of ground troops from South Korea, the 'neverending series of gaffes" in Middle East policy, and the "placating" of militants in southern Africa. Charged the Republicans: "In 15 short months of incoherence, inconsistency and ineptitude, our foreign policy and national security objectives are confused, and we are being challenged around the globe by Soviet arrogance."

Senators John Tower and Howard Baker added SALT to the wounds by criticizing negotiations toward a Strategic Arms Limitation treaty that, Tower said, "would place the United States at a strategic disadvantage." The manifesto lays the groundwork for a Senate debate on SALT that could surpass in intensity the Panama Canal battle. Tower and Baker agree that any proposed SALT agreement will be a fall election issue.

Ironically it was the Democratic Senators who partly inspired the Republican manifesto. "What really triggered it," said one top Senate Republican, "was listening to Democratic Senators grumbling on the Senate floor and in the cloakrooms about Carter's foreign policy." Said another: "Hell, if we offered [the manifesto] to the whole Senate, we could have got 75 Senators." The widespread carping prompted Senate G.O.P. Leader Baker two months ago to appoint Texan Tower to head a six-Senator committee to draft a Republican policy statement. They produced a hard-line document that Baker toned down with the help of Republican liberals and moderates.

Due to the broad Republican spectrum that signed it, the report makes little attempt at formulating a comprehensive alternative foreign policy. Commented State Department Spokesman Hodding Carter III: "The purpose of the opposition is to oppose, and such resolutions I don't find particularly surprising nor do I think they are particularly edifying" (see ESSAY). Added a high Administration official: "It is pure boiler plate ... Its partisanship is transparent and it doesn't begin to tell us what we ought to be doing instead." If such an attempt had been made, presumably the unanimity among Republicans as diverse as Clifford Case and Barry Goldwater would instantly have dissolved.

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