A FEW RESIGNATIONS MIGHT HELP

O mother What shall I cry? We demand a committee, a representative committee, a committee of investigation RESIGN RESIGN RESIGN -T.S. Eliot, Difficulties of a Statesman

THERE are plenty of committees in Washington these days, but virtually no talk of resignations. Since any number of Cabinet members and lesser officials are unhappy with President Nixon's policies, one would assume that a few of them are ready to quit amid ringing pronouncements: "I am sorry that I have only one job to give for my country." But no such moves -at least not so far.

Whether to quit or not to quit, and when, in a disagreement over policy is a dilemma not confined to people in government. But it is particularly painful for the dissident officeholder: Would he have a better chance of making his case by staying on as a good team player and fighting for his ideas from within? Or would it be more effective to carry his battle to the world?

In nations with parliamentary systems, resignation from high office on a matter of principle is common. If a Cabinet member disagrees with his Prime Minister on a basic issue of policy, he normally quits and tells why. Thus, Britain's former Foreign Secretary George Brown resigned his portfolio in 1968, complaining about what he thought was Prime Minister Harold Wilson's high-handed one-man rule. Some years earlier, Wilson himself left Clement Attlee's regime in protest against an emphasis on arms over social welfare. Anthony Eden suffered similar Cabinet defections as a result of his Suez policy in 1956, even as, nearly 20 years earlier, he had repudiated Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of Mussolini by his own resignation. The British have probably best refined the notion of principled resignation -there have been more than 70 such Cabinet departures in this century. But it is also widely practiced on the Continent.

In the U.S. the concept has never taken firm hold. Indeed, it is less common today than it was half a century ago, when William Jennings Bryan so strongly disagreed with Woodrow Wilson's hostile policy toward Imperial Germany that he resigned as Secretary of State. While there have been a few low-level resignations on political principle from the Nixon Administration, no one at the Cabinet or subCabinet level has left. The last Cabinet official to leave in protest and say why was onetime Labor Secretary Martin Durkin; in 1953, after less than nine months in office, he resigned because President Eisenhower refused to support his proposed amendments to the Taft-Hartley Act.

Discretion and Soft Exits

The difference between European and American practice on political resignations is largely constitutional. In Britain, for example, a Cabinet member is appointed by the Prime Minister, but he is basically responsible to his own constituency and Parliament itself. If he quits or is sacked by the Prime Minister, he still has a seat on the back benches from which he can work against government policies. The American Cabinet member, by contrast, owes his allegiance and loyalty primarily to the President; he has no political platform from which to oppose policies he disapproves. Moreover, unlike his European counterpart, he has no chance at all of bringing down the government.

As a result, high Government officials in the U.S. tend to hang on to office grimly, despite their disagreements. Dedicated to consensus politics, not ideology, they seem to be horrified at the thought of rocking the boat or making a scene. When men do quit eventually on principle, they usually tiptoe out on stocking feet, leaving behind bouquets, smiles and warm letters. That is how Dean Acheson bowed out as Under Secretary of the Treasury in 1933 after a dispute with F.D.R. over fiscal policy. Roosevelt was properly appreciative. Some years later, when another official left with less discretion, sending the White House a sharp criticism of the President's policies, Roosevelt returned the letter with the tart suggestion that the man ought to "ask Dean Acheson how a gentleman resigns."

Many of those who stay believe that they can bring the President around to their view. Lyndon Johnson's second Defense Secretary, Clark Clifford, is proof of the value of boring from within. Coming into office only ten months before L.B.J.'s term ended, Clifford soon became convinced that the Government's Viet Nam policy was a disaster. Eventually he persuaded the President to stop the bombing of North Viet Nam and start deescalation. To many, resignation is simply unrealistic. Responding to students who wanted him to resign as a protest against Nixon's Cambodian foray, Dr. Roger Egeberg, HEW's Assistant Secretary for Health and Scientific Affairs, was totally matter-of-fact: "What on earth good do you think a resignation does?" he asked. "It would be like a moth in a flame, hardly remembered the next day."

The Effectiveness Trap

Nonetheless, there is also what Harvard Historian James Thomson Jr. calls "the effectiveness trap." Many officials decide to stay in office to combat presidential policies -only to wake up one day and discover that they have had no tangible effect whatsoever. In the Johnson Administration, for example, Under Secretary of State George Ball came to be accepted as the house dove, the devil's advocate who could be counted upon to present all the opposing arguments to the prevailing course on the war. While Ball presented his case forcefully, his counsel was more often than not discounted even before it was given. Johnson even referred to him affectionately as "Mr. Stop-the-Bombing."

It can be argued that Ball and other officials who were apparently against a hard-line policy -such as Adlai Stevenson and Arthur Goldberg -may have prevented an even more hawkish stance by their dissenting presence. But their resignations might have had a greater impact. How to choose? Lord Caradon, Britain's Ambassador to the U.N., proposes these criteria for the resignation of a Cabinet member: 1) he must be directly involved in a policy that he opposes, 2) he has suggested a viable alternative that has been rejected, 3) the issue is a continuing one.

The sad truth is that the man who stays to fight runs the great risk of losing both his case and his honor. Moreover, resignation need not necessarily mean oblivion. Even without a political base in Congress, the dissenter can find ample opportunity, thanks to modern media, to explain his position -and should do so, at the risk of seeming ungentlemanly. Looking back, Veteran Diplomat Robert Murphy could recall only one occasion when he thought he should have resigned. The single instance was the Berlin Blockade of 1948-49, which he thought the U.S. should have challenged more vigorously. "My resignation almost certainly would not have affected events," he writes in regret, "but if I had resigned, I would feel better today about my own part in that episode."

In the long run, the country would probably feel better, too, if a few more people were ready to quit for their convictions. It might be a little unsettling. But it could have a tonic effect on American politics, for it would give people the assurance that men who stay truly believe in what they are doing.

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