ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines a growing number of congressmen and their associates have a stake in seeing that Congress performs the functions. In the Congress of the United States, that mixing bowl of interests and affections, arms control has long been the object of a love-hate relationship. Personal preference and ideological inclination weigh substantially in congressional decisions on arms control, but increasingly those preferences and inclinations are molded by more or less thorough analysis of national security matters. Disillusionment with the modern performance of the principal national security committees largely accounts for widespread resistance in Congress to recurring proposal to create a joint committee on national security. Members of Congress have been groping extensively for improved early warning of impending arms control problems. Arms control policy and a healthy legislative-executive relationship both require further improvement in Congress’s institutional mechanisms for action in this field, continued tolerance for the myriad efforts of individual legislators on a host of complex problems.
