Columns

Hank Meijer

America’s Senator and
the Art of Compromise

December 2, 2011

(Note: On December 8, the Gerald Ford Presidential Library in Ann Arbor will present highlights of a new documentary film examining the life of former Michigan U.S. Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg. Presenters include biographer Hank Meijer.)

Whenever partisans in Washington lead their factions — and thus our government — into dysfunction, some lonely pundit will wonder aloud where to find the Arthur Vandenberg of today. Vandenberg was the Republican senator whose collaboration — in the highest, best sense of that term — with Democrats in the late 1940s resulted in the noblest foreign policy achievements in American history.

That era of cooperation among partisans — of the possibility of consensus on the compelling issues of the time, on the inevitable need for compromise — seems shrouded today in a haze of cigar smoke and wishful thinking.

Vandenberg’s early career was marked by his hostility to foreign entanglements. But in 1945 Franklin Roosevelt knew he needed this powerful Republican to win broad support for his proposed United Nations. Vandenberg accepted Roosevelt’s invitation to join the American delegation helping organize the UN and draft its charter. The State Department of President Truman deferred to him — and depended on him to deliver Republican votes when the Senate took up ratification.

After World War II Vandenberg worked closely with Secretary of State George Marshall to recast Marshall’s proposal for extraordinary aid to rebuild Western Europe in terms the Senate — and the American people — could support. Then he listened carefully to all points of view. He trimmed and tailored the largest foreign assistance bill in history to assure its passage. Then he pushed the Marshall Plan through the Senate. A year later, with Marshall’s undersecretary, Robert Lovett, looking over his shoulder, the Michigan senator pecked out a resolution on his portable typewriter that led to the creation of NATO and an entangling alliance with European democracies.

All of these votes came with Democrats in the White House; the last two with Republicans in control of Congress.

Last month, with a Democrat in the White House and Republicans in control of one branch of the Congress, the Super Committee failed in its mission to address the budget crisis. Such was the membership — six Democrats and six Republicans — that the committee’s failure also reflected a failure to find that most elusive of governing qualities, bipartisanship. Absent was the capacity that Vandenberg described as “asking for twice what you hope for and settling for half.”

The committee itself lacked that capacity — for which we can blame any number of lamentable factors: the polarization of gerrymandering, the partisan realities of continuous campaigns, the clash of interests that are more intractable in domestic than in foreign affairs. But it was not Congress alone that lacked the capacity. Bipartisan politics did not exist for most of Franklin Roosevelt’s tenure. Democrats enjoyed overwhelming majorities in both houses of Congress. Roosevelt didn’t need Republicans. But that sway over the system sowed seeds of hostility and mistrust.

Such hostility and mistrust prevail today as well. In the late 1940s, Vandenberg had enough credibility with his Republican colleagues to deliver votes when he and the administration agreed. Is there a Republican leader today who can deliver the votes for a legitimate compromise? In the late 1940s, President Truman had the need, never felt by Franklin Roosevelt, to win Republicans over on the momentous decisions of the day. There had to be compromise.

In his first two years, President Obama could channel Roosevelt and push though big bills with big Democratic majorities. That world is gone. The president does not enjoy the reserve of affection and respect that Vandenberg and his colleagues had for Harry Truman. And, profoundly unlike Truman, he seems unable to sit down with congressional Republicans and address issues of the economy with anything like the fundamental agreement on a need to get things done that prevailed before most of us were born.

Arthur Vandenberg asked Truman to appoint what became the Harriman Commission to build a case for the Marshall Plan. Then he used its exhaustive findings to shape the legislation passed by Congress. Obama appointed the Simpson-Bowles Commission to address the budget in such a way that it might have built a case for a bipartisan bargain — and then barely mentioned it again. That congressional Vandenberg of today would necessarily have to emerge from conservative ranks to have the credibility to deliver the votes of colleagues. Vandenberg had worn his isolationism on his sleeve.

Just as important, that congressional Vandenberg of today also has to have someone with whom to negotiate. He or she needs a partner in the White House who can defy core elements of his own party.

In 1946 Vandenberg helped force Truman to fire his secretary of Commerce (and the former vice-president), Henry Wallace, for criticizing what he saw as anti-Soviet policies. Wallace was a darling of the Democratic left, and two years later mounted a third-party campaign for president that threatened Truman’s re-election. Today’s Vandenberg doesn’t have a president who can do that.

The stars aligned for Arthur Vandenberg. He had the credibility and the gravitas. He had the tides of history. He had questions of survival at the dawn of the atomic age that wonderfully concentrated the mind. And foreign policy is perhaps an easier place to find consensus. But it always takes two to tango. Harry Truman knew he needed Arthur Vandenberg.

Hank Meijer is CEO and co-chairman of Michigan-based Meijer Inc. and the author of an upcoming biography of Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg.