Washington By ROBERT MACKAY

CONGRESSMAN Henry Hyde, the staunch anti-abortion advocate, led the unsuccessful fight against passage of the nuclear freeze resolution in the House. In the process, the Republican representative of Illinois' 6th Congressional District lent some humor to an otherwise interminably long debate over a resolution that was more political than substantive.

After a debate that consumed 42 hours on six different days, the House approved a resolution that had symbolic importance only. The resolution instructed President Reagan to negotiate a "mutual and verifiable freeze and reductions in nuclear weapons" with the Soviet Union. Democrats called passage of the measure a victory. But Republican opponents felt they had watered down the language of the resolution enough so that the "freeze" had lost.

In particular, Republican opponents succeeded in amending the resolution so that the freeze would be revoked if it was not followed by negotiated arms reductions "within a reasonable, specified period of time." U.S. and Soviet negotiators would decide how much time is "reasonable."

"I must say that I have never been more proud of the members of my party than I have during this long extended debate," House Republican leader Bob Michel said just before the final vote May 4. "In the face of great odds we have achieved significant changes from the original resolution that was offered to us many weeks ago.

"Weeks ago when we entered this chamber, the freeze leaders and the media said that the freeze movement would roll all over us. Let history judge just who has been rolled over the last month or so. Make no mistake about it, the pure 'freeze' has lost. Nothing anyone says can change that fact. If I may paraphrase a great American from my home state, a great Republican leader, the world will note and will remember what happened here."

Much of the debate got bogged down on the question of whether the freeze resolution would be binding or non-binding on the president and his arms control negotiators in Geneva, Switzerland.

"At the beginning of the first day of debate, its chief spokesmen entered this chamber thinking all they had to do was tell us how deeply they hated nuclear war," Michel said. "Thirteen hours later they were in disarray, totally confused as to what their own resolution meant. Trying to embrace this resolution is like trying to embrace 50 pounds of jello. The more you try to grasp it, the more slippery its meaning becomes."

Hyde, 59, a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee and an eight-year veteran of the House, chided Rep. Clement Zablocki, a Republican from Wisconsin and chairman of the committee, during the debate as to whether the resolution was meant to be binding or non-binding.

"It seems to me that we have two stools that the chairman of the committee, the gentleman from Wisconsin, is standing on. One says 'binding' and one says 'not binding.' They are separating, and I fear for my chairman that he is going to get a hernia from this untoward position in which he finds himself."

Another time, Hyde said of the Democrats: "I can only say I hope their conception of what is binding and what is not never creeps into our matrimonial law. We will have more problems than we have now."

One of Hyde's colleagues wondered aloud whether the supporters of the resolution meant for it to be semi-binding, or binding under certain circumstances. Referring to that, Hyde said: "I guess the English majors would call it an oxymoron. It is kind of like a carnivorous vegetarian or a reflective Democrat; something like that."

Both sides in the debate agreed the resolution was more of a symbol than anything else. But, then politics took over. The amount of congressional time spent on the resolution was much more than it deserved. The resolution is not binding, raising doubts as to why the Democrats pushed so hard for it, but also raising doubts as to why the Republicans were so vehemently against it.

At one point, Rep. Paul Simon, Democrat from Illinois' 22nd District, said: "On the nuclear freeze resolution procedures, we are simply not proceeding as we ought to. Whatever your thinking on that resolution, the decision has been made, for all practical purposes. We know what is going to happen. Let us get on with the business. It is basically a message to the president. Let us send that message to the president and get on with other business of this House."

The main purpose of the resolution was to make the freeze a clear repudiation of Reagan's nuclear arms control policy. The premise of that policy is that the U.S.-Soviet balance is unfavorable and that Moscow will not reduce its force to an equitable level unless faced with the threat of a U.S. buildup. But the modified resolution, as it was adopted, neither endorsed Reagan's policy nor totally repudiated it.

The votes of the Illinois congressional delegation on the freeze resolution broke down according to party lines, that is, Republicans voted against the freeze and the Democrats voted for it. One clear exception was Democratic Rep. William Lipinski of Chicago and the 5th District, who voted with the Republicans against the freeze. □

July 1983 | Illinois Issues | 37