Welcome to the Deep Dive. We are really thrilled
to have you with us today. Absolutely. It's great
to be here. Our mission for this session is to
look at exactly how a remarkably small group,
I mean just 22 senators, acts as the primary
gatekeeper for America's relationship with the
rest of the world. It is a very exclusive club.
It really is. Our topic today is the United States
Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. Right.
We're basing this conversation on a comprehensive
Wikipedia article that details its vast history,
its institutional structure, and the people who
have walked through its doors over the centuries.
There's a lot of history there. Oh, totally.
Because, you know, you might think you know how
foreign policy is made. Usually we picture the
president signing a document or the military
taking action. Yeah, the executive branch gets
all the spotlight. Exactly. But the outsized
influence this specific room holds is just staggering.
Just to put it in perspective for you listening,
since its creation, this single committee has
produced eight United States presidents. Eight.
We are talking about Andrew Jackson, James Buchanan,
Andrew Johnson, Benjamin Harrison, Warren Harding,
John F. Kennedy, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden.
Wow. And both Buchanan and Biden actually served
as committee chairs. Which is an incredibly powerful
position. Right. And on top of that. It has produced
19 secretaries of state. It really is a kingmaker
of a committee. And just as a quick note for
you listening, as we track this history, we are
going to be covering figures from across the
entire political spectrum. We'll be looking at
the actions of staunch conservatives, liberal
Democrats and everyone in between. Our goal today
isn't to take a side on any of these historical
policies or endorse specific political viewpoints.
Right. No sides here. Exactly. We just want to
look under the hood at how this committee actually
functioned, analyzing the historical facts, the
structure. changes and the documented actions
just as they are laid out in the source text.
Exactly. We just want to figure out how the machine
works. Okay, let's unpack this. What does it
actually do on a day -to -day basis? Well, they
have a surprisingly broad portfolio. It seems
like a mix between, I don't know, a diplomatic
bouncer and a chief architect. That's a great
way to put it. Right, because they authorize
foreign aid programs, approve arms sales, oversee
the training of national allies, and hold confirmation
hearings for high -level positions in the Department
of State. Yeah, those confirmation hearings are
huge. But the detail that really stood out to
me is their treaty power. Oh, yes. It is the
only Senate committee that deliberates and reports
treaties. If the United States is going to make
a binding agreement with another nation, it has
to go through these 22 people first. That treaty
power is the absolute core of their influence.
And when we say they report treaties, that's
a crucial procedural step. Right. What does that
actually mean in practice? It means that after
the president negotiates a treaty, it goes straight
to this committee. If they don't report it out.
Meaning they just hold on to it. Yeah. Meaning
if they don't formally send it to the full Senate
floor for a vote, that treaty is effectively
dead in the water. They are the ultimate bottleneck.
There's a brilliant historical artifact from
our source that captures exactly how this feels
to outsiders. Oh, the 1943 memo. Exactly. Back
in 1943, a British scholar named Isaiah Berlin
wrote a confidential analysis of this committee
for the British Foreign Office. He was trying
to explain to the UK government what they were
up against. Right. Berlin wrote that the committee
keeps a close watch on foreign policy, not merely
in theory, but in practice. That distinction
between theory and practice is huge. It really
is. It implies they aren't just sitting around
debating philosophy, right? They're actively
pulling the levers. Precisely. Berlin warned
his government that the committee's power goes
far beyond the famous two -thirds majority needed
for treaty ratification. Because they hold all
these other cards. Right. Because they control
the underlying legislation, they hold veto power
over ambassadors, and they have this massive
megaphone to influence public opinion. Berlin
concluded that the committee has it in its power
to alter, delay, and, under certain political
circumstances, to veto almost any piece of major
policy in this field. To hold a veto over almost
any major piece of foreign policy, that is an
immense amount of concentrated power. It is staggering
when you think about it. But if you're listening
right now, you might be wondering why a committee
set up way back in 1816 matters to your life
today. A very fair question. If we look at the
119th Congress. As of March 2026, the scope of
what they consider foreign relations has just
exploded. It really has. We tend to think of
foreign policy as just drawing lines on a map
or negotiating peace treaties. Right. Old guys
in suits pointing at globes. Exactly. But if
you look at their current subcommittees, they
are tackling issues that affect our daily lives
directly. If you are concerned about international
cybersecurity and the safety of digital infrastructure,
there is a subcommittee for that. Which impacts
literally everyone with a smartphone. Yep. If
you care about global health pandemics, transnational
crime, civilian security, or even international
energy policy, this committee oversees it. The
modern world is so interconnected that domestic
issues are almost always foreign policy issues
now. And who is actually wielding this power
right now? Well, the makeup shifts, of course.
Right. So in the 119th Congress, there are 22
members in total. You have 12 Republicans in
the majority and 10 Democrats in the minority.
It is currently chaired by Republican Senator
Jim Risch of Idaho, with Democratic Senator Gene
Shaheen of New Hampshire serving as the ranking
member. And for those unfamiliar with the committee
hierarchy. The ranking member is simply the highest
ranking member of the minority party. Just to
keep things somewhat balanced. Right. It ensures
there is a designated leader for the opposition,
creating at least a framework for bipartisan
oversight, even if the majority party holds the
ultimate gavel. Right. And you see that structure
applied across all these specialized subcommittees
we mentioned. You do. You have the Subcommittee
on East Asia, the Pacific, and International
Cybersecurity Policy, chaired by Pete Ricketts.
Then you have another one dealing with the Western
Hemisphere. It's a massive umbrella. It really
just highlights how they are dealing with incredibly
complex, interconnected, modern crises. So if
their jurisdiction is this massive today, how
did they build this sprawling empire? That is
a fascinating story. Was the committee always
this expansive? Not at all. For a long time,
their focus was much narrower. To understand
how they expanded their reach, we actually have
to look at a very specific window of time, roughly
between 1887 and 1907. Here's where it gets really
interesting. It does. During this era, a Democratic
senator from Alabama named John Tyler Morgan
played a leading role on the committee. Morgan
had some massively ambitious projects in mind.
What kind of projects? He was aggressively pushing
for a canal linking the Atlantic and Pacific
Oceans, a massive enlargement of the merchant
marine and the Navy, and the acquisition of new
territories like Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the Philippines,
and Cuba. That sounds like a literal blueprint
for an empire. That's essentially what it was.
But why was a senator... From a post -reconstruction
southern state pushing so hard for global expansion,
what was driving that specific agenda? If we
connect this to the bigger picture, it wasn't
about high -minded diplomacy or some desire to
spread democratic ideals. The motivations were
fundamentally economic. Money, of course. Always.
Morgan was looking directly at his home state
of Alabama. At the time, Alabama was a major
producer of cotton, coal, iron, and timber. Heavy
industry and agriculture. Exactly. Morgan realized
that the domestic market just wasn't enough to
absorb all of that. To turn those local raw resources
into immense global wealth, Alabama needed new
export markets, specifically in Latin America
and Asia. Wait, so all of this grand diplomatic
maneuvering, building a global empire, was actually
just an economic strategy to sell more Alabama
cotton and coal? Exactly that. But think about
the logistics. To get those goods to Asia cheaply
and efficiently, you need a canal through Central
America. Okay, the Panama Canal makes sense now.
Right, but then to protect those new vital traders,
routes, you need a larger navy. And to refuel
and resupply that larger navy, you need island
territories in the Pacific and the Caribbean.
It is wild to see how that domino effect works.
Just, okay, we want to sell cotton, therefore
we need Hawaii. It sounds absurd when you boil
it down, but that was the logic. By 1905, just
a few years later, almost all of Morgan's ambitions
had been realized. He really had. The canal was
secured, though it ended up going through Panama
instead of his initial preference of Nicaragua.
Right. The military was massively enlarged, and
the global map was completely redrawn with the
acquisitions of those exact territories. The
economic dreams of one state, channeled through
this specific committee, physically reshaped
global trade and borders. It perfectly illustrates
what happens when the committee's ambitions align
with the expanding industrial goals of the United
States as a whole. They essentially enabled the
building of an empire. But holding that kind
of unchecked influence didn't last forever. When
you get to a global crisis like World War II,
the dynamic completely flips. The committee doesn't
just enable the executive branch anymore. They
find themselves acting. What caused that shift?
Why did the Senate suddenly find itself on the
outside looking in during the war? It came down
to the nature of a global existential conflict.
During World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt
and the military brass were essentially running
the show. moving fast and breaking things. Exactly.
They were making rapid, monumental decisions
with allied leaders, and Congress was largely
kept in a state of ignorance. The traditional
deliberative process of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee was completely sidelined. And I imagine
a group of 22 highly influential senators did
not take kindly to being benched. No, they were
deeply frustrated. But rather than just complaining,
they made a strategic pivot. What did they do?
The committee decided they were going to reject
the traditional American stance of isolationism.
Under the leadership of figures like Republican
Senator Arthur Vandenberg, they took the initiative
to design a brand new internationalist foreign
policy for the post -war world. Okay, this is
where the United Nations comes into play, right?
Yes. They started pushing for a new global organization
to replace the old discredited League of Nations.
But wait. Was pushing for the U .N. really about
ensuring global peace or was it just a power
grab by a Senate committee tired of being ignored
by the president? Honestly, it was undeniably
a mix of both. Really? Yeah. They genuinely recognize
that the United States could no longer hide behind
its oceans. The world had changed. But there
is also a very explicit. Self -interested concern
at play. Job security. You could call it that.
The committee insisted that Congress must play
a central role in post -war foreign policy. By
legally tying the United States to a permanent
international body like the UN, which requires
treaties, funding, and confirmed ambassadors,
they were guaranteeing that the executive branch
could never shut them out again. Wow. They were
permanently cementing their own seat at the table.
They essentially built a global institution that
structurally required their ongoing permission
to function. Yes, they did. That is brilliant
political maneuvering. Yeah. And that demand
for control only seemed to intensify as the Cold
War set in. It did. And the Cold War shows us
a different side of the committee's power. They
didn't just pass laws or ratify treaties. They
started using their platform to fundamentally
change the American public narrative. How so?
Well, a perfect example of this took place in
1966, right as the Vietnam War was escalating.
The committee was chaired at the time by Democratic
Senator J. William Fulbright. Fulbright. Yeah.
He decided to set up formal hearings on relations
with communist China. Exactly. At the height
of Cold War tensions, with a war raging in Vietnam,
holding hearings on communist China sounds incredibly
provocative. What was he trying to achieve? He
was trying to break a diplomatic freeze. Fulbright
brought in academic specialists on East Asia
to testify. These weren't just politicians arguing.
These were experts systematically making a case
directly to the American public. What's fascinating
here is what they actually argued, right? Yes.
What's fascinating here is they introduced a
concept they called containment without isolation.
Containment without isolation. What did that
actually mean in practice? It meant acknowledging
reality. The argument was that the United States
could continue to resist the spread of communism.
That's the containment part without pretending
that the massive government in Beijing didn't
exist. Right. Because before that, we just kind
of ignored them officially. Exactly. They were
arguing that you can still talk to your adversary.
You can have diplomatic channels and perhaps
even trade without endorsing their ideology.
And did these hearings actually move the needle
with the public? I mean, people were pretty entrenched.
Massively. These hearings facilitated a measurable
shift in American public opinion, moving it away
from outright hostility and toward a cautious
willingness to cooperate. That's huge. And that
public shift provided the exact political runway
that Richard Nixon needed a few years later to
discard strict containment and begin a policy
of detente with China. which means an easing
of strained relations. So the committee essentially
warmed up the crowd so the president could eventually
walk out and shake hands. That's a perfect analogy.
But recognizing the Beijing government created
a massive new diplomatic puzzle. If you formally
recognize Beijing, how do you simultaneously
deal with the Chinese government on Taiwan, which
the U .S. had been supporting? It is one of the
most complex balancing acts in modern diplomacy.
And the executive branch struggled with it. So
the committee stepped in. They drafted the Taiwan
Relations Act of 1979. How does a piece of legislation
actually solve that? How do you write a law that
threads that impossible needle? The act essentially
created a legal framework for an unofficial relationship.
It allowed the United States to formally recognize
Beijing as the sole legal government of China,
while at the same time mandating that the U .S.
maintain robust, unofficial relations with Taiwan,
including selling them defensive weapons. That's
quite the workaround. It really is. The committee
literally wrote the specific legal code that
allowed the United States to have it both ways,
a policy architecture that is still holding that
region together today. That shows incredible
finesse. So what does this all mean when they
don't want to be subtle? What happens when they
decide to just drop the hammer and flex that
veto muscle Isaiah Berlin warned about? When
they decide to use their veto, it is usually
very public and very decisive. A prime example
of this is from 1981. The Reagan era. Right.
Newly elected President Ronald Reagan nominated
a man named Ernest W. Lefevre for the position
of Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights
and Humanitarian Affairs. Reagan was facing pressure
from conservatives who felt the State Department
lacked hardliners. But every high level State
Department nominee has to sit in front of those
22 senators. Exactly. And Lefevre's confirmation
hearings did not go well. Oh, boy. He faced intense
bipartisan pressure. pushback regarding his views
on human rights and his past associations. The
committee didn't care that he was the president's
handpicked guy. They ruthlessly rejected his
nomination by a vote of four to 13. Well, a four
to 13 vote is a brutal public repudiation. It
is. That forced Lefevre to withdraw his name
entirely, and the administration had to bring
in Elliott Abrams to fill the position instead.
It proves that their advice and consent roll
is not just a rubber stamp. And they aren't afraid
to use that same blunt force on international
organizations either. Really? Like who? In the
late 1990s, the committee was chaired by Republican
Senator Jesse Helms, who was a staunch conservative
and a fierce critic of the United Nations. He
believed the U .N. was bloated, inefficient and
encroaching on American sovereignty. So how does
a committee chair force an entire international
body to reform? By using the power of the purse,
Helms flat out blocked the payment of hundreds
of millions of dollars in U .S. membership dues
to the U .N. He just refused to pay. He held
the money hostage in committee until the United
Nations agreed to specific administrative reforms
and a reduction in the U .S. assessment rate.
He leveraged the committee's procedural power
to bend a global institution to his will. It
is just a staggering amount of leverage. And
the maneuvering hasn't stopped. even if the leadership
has seen quite a bit of turbulence in recent
years. Very true. Looking at the last few Congresses,
the gavel has changed hands multiple times under
difficult circumstances. Democratic Senator Bob
Menendez of New Jersey chaired the committee
from 2021 to 2023, but he had to step down from
the chairmanship after facing federal corruption
charges. Right. Following that departure, Democratic
Senator Ben Cardin of Maryland took over in late
2023, steering the committee through the end
of the 118th Congress. Yeah. And then as the
political winds shifted, Jim Risch assumed the
chair in 2025 for the current 119th Congress.
The majorities flip, the scandals come and go,
but the institution itself rolls on. Which brings
up a really important aspect of all this. We
spend so much time talking about the famous senators,
you know, the Morgans, the Vandenbergs. the Fulbrights,
the Helms. But the institution doesn't just run
on politicians. Who is actually keeping the lights
on and doing the day -to -day work? That's a
great point. There is a wonderful profile of
a man named Bertie Bowman in our source material
that really grounds this history. Tell me about
him. Bowman was a staffer who literally got his
start sweeping the Capitol steps in the mid -20th
century. From those humble beginnings, he worked
his way up and served as a staffer on the Foreign
Relations Committee from 1966 all the way to
1990. Wow. Just think about the history he witnessed
in that room. He would have been there for the
Vietnam hearings, the drafting of the Taiwan
Relations Act, the rejection of Ernest Lefevre.
And his career didn't end there either. He later
returned to serve as the hearing coordinator
for the committee from 2000 until 2021. That
is an incredible run. When he passed away at
the age of 92, he was remembered as a revered
aide. Men like Bertie Bowman are the ones who
hold the actual institutional memory of American
foreign policy. They coordinate the hearings,
draft the memos, and ensure that the machinery
of diplomacy functions across decades, regardless
of who is holding the gavel. It is a vital reminder
that government is ultimately made of people
showing up to work every day. To briefly recap
the journey we've taken with you today, we started
in 1816 with a brand new committee. We watched
them manipulate their power to physically reshape
the globe with the Panama Canal and New Island
territories. We saw them demand a central role
in the post -war world by pushing for the United
Nations. Right. We watched them navigate the
incredibly tricky waters of the Cold War by drafting
the Taiwan Relations Act. And we saw them confirm
or destroy the careers of top diplomats with
their absolute veto power. From sweeping the
Capitol steps to shaping the global order, this
room of 22 people truly acts as the eye of the
storm for American foreign policy. It is a phenomenal
history, but this raises an important question
for us to consider today. What's that? We've
talked extensively about their power to block
treaties and confirm ambassadors, but we are
increasingly living in an era where presidents
of both parties bypass the treaty process entirely.
Right. They just do it themselves. They use unilateral
executive orders or sign executive agreements
with foreign nations that never require a two
-thirds vote in the Senate. If the executive
branch can simply bypass the committee to enact
major foreign policy changes with the stroke
of a pen, does the deliberative body designed
in 1816 still hold the same gatekeeping power?
Or are we watching the slow obsolescence of the
Senate's most powerful room? That is a fascinating
dynamic to consider. If the president can just
walk around the gatekeeper, does the gate even
matter anymore? We will leave that for you to
explore on your own. Thank you so much for joining
us on this deep dive. We hope you walk away with
a richer understanding of how the world works
behind closed doors. Keep questioning, keep exploring
the hidden instructions that shape your world,
and we will catch you next time.