The Congress: The Quiet Junketeers

There was a time when any Congressman traveling abroad was automatically labeled a junketeer, when an Adam Clayton Powell might wind up on the shores of the Aegean with a couple of pretty secretaries, and an Allen Ellender might inflame all of black Africa with tartly phrased racist comments. No more—or hardly any more.

Partly as a result of such well-publicized escapades, the congressional traveler nowadays is more likely to head for the Quai d'Orsay than the Folies-Bergère. In 1965 more than 100 Senators and Congressmen—roughly one-fifth of the combined membership—will have traveled outside the country, ranging round the globe from Warsaw to Wellington, Delhi to Danang.

The year's most publicized delegation was led by Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield. With a group of four other Senators, two Democrats and two Republicans, Mansfield circumnavigated the world on a "fact finding" mission for President Johnson, in 37 days touched down for talks with high officials in 16 countries. Main topic of conversation: Viet Nam. Last week Mansfield's band returned to the capital and the majority leader reported his still secret findings to L.B.J., later talked with Secretary of State Dean Rusk and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara.

In all, some 70 tourists from Capitol Hill found their way to the war that will occupy so much of the next session's business. With rarely more than 120 first-class (hot and cold running water) hotel rooms available in Saigon and logistics and manpower problems in the field, U.S. officials were often hard pressed to take care of the Congressmen. Nonetheless, most Saigon hands appreciated the visitors' eagerness to learn about the war at firsthand.

"The whole American effort is dependent on public knowledge," reasoned one U.S. official. "If the public gets a phony idea, it would put dangerous pressure on the whole mission. The war needs understanding. Simplistic ideas are dangerous." His remarks received quiet but fervent applause from a Vietnamese official who asked for more Congressmen "to see for themselves the actual face of our war."