Vote of No Confidence

THE CONGRESS Vote of No Confidence When one of the 96 U.S. Senators wants to provoke an answer from a Cabinet officer, he usually can do it with a roar from the Senate floor. In the House, where few of the 435 members ever have opportunity for solo roaring, the same result is achieved by a device called a resolution of inquiry. A formal resolution* is introduced calling upon the Cabinet officer to furnish information, and the resolution is referred to committee. By custom, the Cabinet member hustles up to talk to the committee (usually in executive session); the resolution is then perfunctorily dropped, and everybody is happy.

Last week the House was far from happy about its resolution asking the Secretary of State whether the Truman-Churchill talks had resulted in any new U.S. troop commitments. Instead of a direct reply from Dean Acheson, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs received merely a letter and press handouts from the department. When the resolution of inquiry came back to the floor, the House shouted down an attempt to drop it, instead set up a cry of protest about the conduct of U.S. foreign policy. G.O.P. Whip Charlie Halleck, scenting an upset, scurried around to line up votes. On a roll call, the House shattered custom by voting 189 (160 Republicans, 29 Democrats) to 143 to keep the resolution alive and formally to "direct" Dean Acheson to report.

The resolution was not likely to lead to compliance; there is no precedent for the Chief Executive to divulge any of his secret reports or papers unless he chooses. But it amounted to a rare vote of no confidence, not so much over foreign policy itself as over the way Congress has often been left out of it. During the debate, some Congressmen recalled the results of the secret Churchill-Roosevelt agreements at Yalta and Teheran. Some were still smarting from Harry Truman's dispatch of troops to Korea without formally notifying Congress. The House was reminded that Churchill had hinted that the U.S. should send troops to Suez (although both Washington and London have emphatically denied that this implied any agreement).

At a press conference just after the House vote, Harry Truman declined comment. A few hours later, in grudging response to the congressional gesture of no confidence, the President issued a formal statement declaring that he had made no commitments to Britain to send U.S. troops anywhere in the world.

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