The Way to Go

By Gerald Clarke

RESIGNATION IN PROTEST by EDWARD WEISBAND and

THOMAS M. FRANCK

236 pages. Grossman/Viking. $10.

Unlike their counterparts in Britain, who often depart noisily for reasons of political principle, resigning American Cabinet members and high Washington bureaucrats tend to leave the Government like guests who have been to a bad party but are too polite to say so. They smile gamely; they send the President thank-you notes.

Such soft-shoe exits, say the authors of this persuasive book, are unhealthy for the U.S. The reason: they often help turn misguided policies into national disasters without ever bringing them to public issue from within the Government itself. The war in Viet Nam is the best recent example. Though plenty of public opposition to U.S. policy in Viet Nam developed, the dissidents were deprived both of essential information--which the Government said it alone possessed and could not release for reasons of security--and of a respectable Establishment figure to rally around. Former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, Weisband and Franck claim, was one of the insiders long tortured by doubts about the war. If he had resigned and openly turned against U.S. Viet Nam policy the formidable mental powers that he had originally used to analyze the war, the fighting might have ended far sooner.

Another Cabinet member too loyal to the President to express his doubts in public was Under Secretary of State George Ball. Inside the Johnson Administration, Ball was known as "Mr. Stop the Bombing." Outside, he was the perfect gentleman, his lips sealed against his own misgivings. Even today Ball says, "Why should I have resigned in protest over Viet Nam policy just because I disagreed with it? My main responsibility and my principal interest was Western Europe." Yet Ball was the No. 2 man in the State Department. If he and others in powerful positions had made a public issue over their opposition, Franck and Weisband contend, the antiwar movement might not have had to take its case into the streets.

Genuine personal loyalty, of course, is often involved in a decision to go along with bad policy, as well as a worldly knowledge that no policy will work without compromise. But the authors believe that official silence and mouselike retirement are often the result of a national emphasis on team play at all costs. Resignation argues that "not rocking the boat," "not blowing the whistle," and a dozen similar cliches have become part of the psyche of many Americans.

Other reasons for the silent exits are more self-serving. Dissidents do not prosper in Washington. The man who makes his opposition known quietly, then leaves without a fuss is likely to be rewarded with another high-level post later on. If he publicly tells why he is leaving, however, he is, the authors say, almost always left out in the cold thereafter. "Further prospects of service in the Executive Branch are out of the question. Appointments to the Judiciary are unlikely to be proffered. Election to Congress is virtually precluded."

Complainers and Cranks. Worse still, the dissenter may be relegated to the list of complainers and cranks. William Jennings Bryan quit as Wilson's Secretary of State in 1915 because he thought Wilson was leading the U.S. into war against Germany. He argued his isolationist case with reason and eloquence--and he proved right about the result of Wilson's policies. Yet papers hinted at "a befuddled mind," and Bryan's political career was ended. Elliot Richardson, now Ambassador to Britain, is the rare example of a successful American dissenter. But if his public resignation as Attorney General in 1973 had not been accompanied by great publicity and public anger at the President--Richardson too would probably now be a political has-been.

Weisband and Franck are, respectively, a professor of political science and a professor of law. Their analysis of the problem is more convincing than the cure they suggest--a constitutional amendment requiring not only that Cabinet members be picked exclusively from Congress but keep their congressional seats even while serving the Administration. This is similar to the British Cabinet system under which ministers are also Members of Parliament. If they leave the Cabinet, they remain M.P.s with a prestigious forum in which to plead any case, and may also be looked upon as leading critics of government policy--and so be among the first called to power if that policy fails.

Among the prominent past and present residents of 10 Downing Street who publicly resigned Cabinet posts on issues of policy are Winston Churchill, Anthony Eden and Harold Wilson.

Such a system would at best be a mixed blessing in the U.S. It would bar from the Cabinet men of great talent outside the Congress. It would also blur the separation of Executive and Legislative powers set forth in the Constitution, a distinction that is basic to the American system of government. There is no guarantee, either, that giving Cabinet members a political home to retreat to after resignation would alter what appears to be a basic reluctance of Americans in power to resign publicly on an issue of principle.

If such reluctance has become an acquired national characteristic, it may be best to hope that the twin disasters of Viet Nam and Watergate will encourage Americans to think better of the dissenting man of principle, to be less easily taken in by hypocritical talk of team play. Because that kind of re-evaluation seems a faint hope, Resignation in Protest is a melancholy as well as a disturbing book.

--Gerald Clarke

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.