Word: congressmen
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...outcome of the bill to make desecration of the flag a federal offense was as predictable as the summer solstice. No less predictable was the House debate on the measure, which consumed 5 hrs. 12 min. and was almost wholly devoted to the oratorical flights that Congressmen usually relegate to the file drawer marked Independence Day. Among the bill's few critics were those who considered its proposed penalties -one year in jail, $1,000 fine, or both -too mild by half for such offenders...
Only when the Congressmen had talked themselves out, and passed the bill by 385 votes to 16, did they realize that the specific intent of the measure had somehow been overlooked in the patriotic talkfest. Though it had originally been framed as a response to the burning of a U.S. flag in Manhattan's Central Park last May, the bill as passed covered "publicly mutilating, defacing, defiling or trampling upon" the banner but did not in fact mention the act of flag flammation. That form of desecration will doubtless be reproscribed, with appropriate oratory, in the Senate...
...sympathy for Israel was strong.* Of 438 Congressmen who replied to an Associated Press poll, an overwhelming 364 urged that Israel be given assurances of national security and access to the Gulf of Aqaba and the Suez Canal before withdrawing its troops from occupied Arab lands. The other 74 qualified their answers or refused to state a position, but not one urged Israel to withdraw without guarantees. U.S. officials-at least in private-also sympathize with Israel's demands for recognition by the Arab nations and a territorial realignment giving Israel defensible borders...
...Viet Nam doubts that the stubby, black-stocked M-16 is a dangerous weapon. Of late, however, newsmen, fighting men and Congressmen alike have suggested that the wicked little (7 lbs., 39 in.) automatic rifle can be as dangerous to friend as it is to foe. Though-at the urging of General William Westmoreland-it has become the standard weapon for U.S. combat troops in Viet Nam, its critics charge that the M-16 tends to jam during the intensive firing for which it was designed, leaving many an infantryman helpless in close-up combat...
...version, and chuck out the veto. It is unlikely, of course, that both houses of Congress would veto the Presidentially sponsored FAIR system within the 60-day time limit set by the bill, even if the House version won out. But the threat of such a veto would give Congressmen--particularly a small minority of committee chairmen and party leaders--confusing and capricious influence over the White House...