The majority party in the House of Representatives governs; the minority simply reacts, says Hamilton. And with both sides still adjusting to their new roles in the wake of the 1994 elections that put the Republicans in charge after 40 years of Democratic control, the record of this Congress in foreign affairs has been "rather meager," he says. He portrays the Democrats' role as trying to "head off" Republican initiatives "that we thought...placed barriers in the way of American foreign policy." Hamilton, a Democrat from Indiana, is a former chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and now the senior minority member of the successor International Relations Committee. He was interviewed by USIA Staff Writer Ralph Dannheisser.

Question: How has the concept that U.S. foreign policy should somehow rise above politics worked out in an era when control of Congress and the White House has so often been split between Democrats and Republicans?

Hamilton: It is important, I think, to remember that the broad themes of American foreign policy stay very much the same from one administration to the other and are supported by both parties -- support for NATO, for example; for the Middle East peace process; for a good relationship with Japan; trying to manage the Chinese relationship. You certainly see differences of tactics, you see a lot of strong rhetoric from time to time, but the bipartisan tradition with regard to the major themes of American foreign policy since World War II is fairly impressive. Now that's not to say we don't have some differences. We have a lot of them, but there is something to the claim that, in the case of foreign policy, "politics stops at the water's edge."

Q: You mentioned some of the areas of compatibility -- regarding NATO and so on -- but you also alluded to differences. Where do you see some of those?

Hamilton: You see differences today -- I think the Republicans generally are pushing harder for NATO enlargement, for example, wanting the President to go faster. There's a lot of criticism of the President's China policy that comes from both Democrats and Republicans, concern about human rights and most favored nation trade status for China.

You see a lot of differences with regard to the support for international institutions -- by and large, the Republicans being less willing to support money for peacekeeping, international financial institutions and the like. You certainly see a move by the Republicans today to cut back on the total number of resources going to international relations. We've had a sharp drop, for example, in foreign aid that has really gone on for almost a decade now -- cutbacks in monies for embassies, for peacekeeping, for international institutions, for consulates -- declining resources.

Q: That certainly affects the situation with the United Nations.

Hamilton: Very much so. We have a major concern in the Congress today, shared by both Democrats and Republicans, about the role of the United Nations, and there is much support for fundamental change or reform, and a willingness to link the payment of U.S. assessments to the United Nations to such reform.

Q: You referred to differences within the party, as well as between the parties, on China policy and other issues. To what extent do those intraparty differences come into play, and how do they get resolved?

Hamilton: Well, I think that unanimity on foreign policy is very difficult to achieve and the differences sometimes break on partisan lines. But not always, and you frequently will find differences within a party. In the Democratic Party today you find very wide differences on the trade issue, for example. You don't resolve those issues immediately. There are strongly held feelings on both sides. NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement) was an issue that split the Democratic Party rather decisively. So was GATT (the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade). Those things happen within the parties. How do you resolve them? Well, you resolve them by debate and discussion within the caucuses and endless numbers of meetings among ourselves, and between ourselves and the administration. And sometimes you don't resolve them. There are a lot of problems that cannot be solved through discussion and dialogue. You just keep at it. And those differences carry over into public debate and into the elections.

Q: The House was consistently in Democratic control from your first term in 1964 through the 1994 election. During that time you worked up to the chairmanship of the Foreign Affairs Committee. Suddenly now you find yourself on the minority side; how has that shift affected the way you work and what you're able to accomplish?

Hamilton: It's a difficult adjustment, having spent my congressional life in the majority and then suddenly being put into the minority. I don't know that we've worked through that adjustment even yet. The majority controls the agenda. In the House of Representatives, I think probably more than in the Senate, the majority governs. The minority does not initiate anything; the minority reacts. That's the difference. And so we've had to try to adapt to the role of reacting to the Republican proposals. I'm not sure we've done it all that effectively, but I think that's the difference.

Q: How do you find the Republicans have handled the job of being in the majority and dealing with a reactive minority?

Hamilton: I think they, too, have gone through a period of adjustment. They have had to deal not just with the minority in the House, they have had to deal with a Republican majority in the Senate that often times doesn't agree with them, and they've had to deal with an administration which is of a different party. Looking back over the last year or two, it has not been a terribly productive period in terms of foreign policy legislation, as both of us have tried to adjust to our new roles. The record is rather meager. A lot of things passed one house or the other -- a lot of rhetoric, a lot of activity, but in terms of bills enacted into law, very few really that have had any impact of consequence.

Q: What do you see within this meager context as some significant achievements -- if any -- during the current session?

Hamilton: I really don't see any significant foreign policy achievements in the Congress recently. From my standpoint, we (Democrats) have been playing defense. We've been trying to head off a lot of things that we thought were destructive and that placed barriers in the way of American foreign policy. The resources issue is one of these -- in other words, this constant effort to cut back resources that go into international relations I think has made the conduct of American foreign policy more difficult.

The unwillingness of the Congress to approve the deployment of forces to Bosnia is another example. We didn't block it, we didn't approve it. We just didn't do anything, in fact. I think American foreign policy is stronger, sturdier, if you have agreement between the executive and the legislative branches. We didn't have that on Bosnia. We really did not have it on Haiti. The President acted on his own in putting American forces into Haiti. The Republicans never really agreed to that, and they still don't like it. They're trying to find ways to reduce the impact of the President's policy in Haiti. So I think the Democratic role here has been to try to reduce what we see as the harmful consequences of Republican foreign policy efforts.

Q: What are the main priorities you and your party have at this point in the foreign policy area?

Hamilton: I think the President has grown into a foreign policy leader, and he protects the national interest of the United States. I think he's had a string of foreign policy successes -- in Russia, in Bosnia, in Haiti, in China, in the Middle East, in Korea, in Mexico to name a few. All of these victories are fragile. I don't know that there's any such thing as a permanent victory in foreign policy; any of them could unravel. But it seems to me he's had a string of rather impressive foreign policy achievements. Coupled with that, I think, are the successful efforts he's had to open up the world economies and trade.

At the G-7 meeting (of the heads of state of the seven major industrial countries) recently, he was looked upon as the dominant figure at that meeting. That certainly was not true a year or two or three years ago. But the world leaders now recognize that he has grown in the job, and I think he has.

Q: What are the things on Congress' plate that haven't been dealt with and need to be done?

Hamilton: I think it's an ongoing effort. I don't look upon it as a radical change, but we want to see reforms continue in Russia. So far so good, but always recognize the fragility of the situation in Russia today. So American policy confronts real challenges there. I think managing the Chinese relationship is probably the most difficult foreign policy challenge that we have. And we have to keep the Middle East peace process going, today under very different circumstances with a new Israeli prime minister. I think managing the relationship with Japan has gone through a period of considerable improvement in the past few months, but that will require vigilance as well. And I think we've made a lot of progress on halting the spread of nuclear weapons, but that's an ongoing effort too. So when I look at the agenda today, I see more the opportunity to build on what I think are some significant advances in the recent past, but we've got to keep at it, we've got to keep building on it.

Q: Do you realistically see much of this sort of bipartisan building effort in the immediate months ahead, with the presidential election looming?

Hamilton: I think American foreign policy will go into a kind of a period of abeyance almost for the next few months as we go through this (election year) debate. The President may be called upon to act in emergency situations that arise, but you're not going to see any major changes in American foreign policy on these areas that I've talked about in the next few months. I'd be surprised if you did.

Q: On the one hand, you say Congress has been largely stalemated; meanwhile you're giving the President good marks in a number of areas for advancing American interests. Does that suggest that the executive branch can act effectively on its own in a lot of these areas without anything happening in Congress?

Hamilton: Presidents always have very wide discretion in the conduct of American foreign policy, but it is not a total discretion. The President is the chief actor in American foreign policy. He always has been, and he will be. But he must pay attention to what goes on in the Congress, and he is in a stronger position if he proceeds with the support of the Congress on any given foreign policy initiative. It is difficult for him to succeed if he has the strong opposition of the Congress. If he has a Congress that is split, as has been the case, for example, on Bosnia, or Haiti, then he can proceed.

Congress often likes to second-guess the President on foreign policy. In other words, we don't like to vote to authorize troops to go into Bosnia, or to Haiti, or to Somalia, or almost anyplace else you can mention, with the exception of the Gulf War. What we like to do is to let the President take the lead and then we say to him if he succeeds, "Good work, Mr. President," and if he fails, we criticize him.

Congress doesn't want, in my view at least, to step up to its responsibility under the Constitution and be a partner in the foreign policy-making process.

Q: That's kind of the flip side of something Senator (Richard) Lugar mentioned about the need for the President to take Congress into the process early on when he's devising a policy.

Hamilton: I think that's a very important part of the President's job. He has to try to lead not just the country but lead the Congress. And sometimes the Congress can't be led. Take the Mexico bailout situation. He came to the Congress, he pleaded with the Congress, he got the support of the leadership of the Congress -- Republican and Democrat -- but he couldn't get a majority support for what he tried to do. That, I don't think was a failure of his leadership. It was a failure of followership by the Congress, and I think the President has turned out to be right about the judgment on Mexico. The Congress was wrong.

So there are times, I think, when the President has not consulted as closely as he should with the Congress, and it is his obligation to consult and to try to bring along the leadership. There are many times the Congress doesn't want to be brought along. We certainly didn't want to be brought along on Bosnia. He had dozens and dozens of meetings with members of Congress on Bosnia. At the end of the day, the Congress stood aside and said, "We're not going to approve it, we're not going to stop it. Go ahead." And he did.