1980: United States

The Presidency

A succession of crises both at home and abroad dominated the fourth year of Jimmy Carter's presidency. As the year began, the plight of the American hostages in Iran and the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan monopolized the president's attention. However, the worst bout of inflation in recent years, followed by the onset of recession, soon pushed domestic affairs into the foreground. Carter also found himself combating charges of ineffectiveness and incompetence, along with criticism of his handling of the so-called Billygate affair.

Iran and Afghanistan.

Coming not long after the November 4, 1979, takeover by Islamic militants of the U.S. embassy in Tehran and the December 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the president's January 23 State of the Union address was devoted chiefly to foreign policy matters. Beginning with the assertion that 'it has never been more clear that the state of our union depends on the state of the world,' Carter went on to declare that the United States would not 'yield to blackmail' in the matter of the Iranian-held hostages and that his administration would 'never rest until every one of the American hostages has been released.' Turning to Afghanistan, he stated that any attempt by a foreign power to gain control of the Persian Gulf region would be considered 'an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America' and that 'such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.' Further, he called for a strengthening of U.S. armed forces and for draft registration.

After various diplomatic efforts to gain the release of the hostages had gotten nowhere, the president, on April 7, banned all exports to Iran except for food and medicine. He had already secretly ordered commandos to begin training for a possible rescue mission. When he began openly to suggest that military steps might be taken to free the hostages if nothing else worked, both Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee sent him a letter, dated April 24, pointing out that the Senate War Powers Resolution of 1973 required any president to consult with Congress before taking military action. Nevertheless, the president gave the final go-ahead for the rescue mission, and on April 24 transport planes and carrier-based helicopters (the latter stationed on the Nimitz, then on duty near the Persian Gulf) took off for Iran. After three of the eight helicopters were disabled by equipment failures en route to or upon reaching the first rendezvous point, deep in Iran, the raid was aborted; eight commandos then were killed when a C-130 transport plane and a helicopter collided while preparing for takeoff for the return trip.

The failure of the rescue mission enveloped the president in a storm of criticism over U.S. military preparedness and over his unilateral decision to proceed with the operation. A large segment of the American public, however—71 percent of those questioned in a Gallup/Newsweek poll—approved of the effort. One person who did not and who, in consequence, resigned was Secretary of State Cyrus Vance. Carter accepted the resignation on April 28, and the next day he appointed Senator Edmund Muskie (D, Me.) to replace Vance.

During the next few months, the hostage crisis appeared to fade somewhat into the background, but the Iranian Parliament finally took up the matter and, on November 2, two days before the U.S. presidential election, set forth four conditions for returning the hostages to the United States. Carter said the conditions offered a 'positive basis' for a settlement, and a formal U.S. response was conveyed to Iran in mid-November.

During the year, Carter pursued a hard-line policy vis-à-vis the Soviet Union. Following the Afghanistan invasion, U.S.-Soviet relations reached their chilliest point in two decades. During January, Carter announced that he would not push for Senate ratification this year of the U.S.-Soviet Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty, that he was ordering an embargo on all grain shipments to the Soviet Union beyond those mandated by a multiyear agreement, and that unless Soviet troops were withdrawn from Afghanistan by February 20, he would use all of his influence to either get the summer Olympics moved from Moscow (which the International Olympic Committee refused to do) or else get the U.S. Olympic Committee and the athletes of other nations to boycott the games.

The Olympic boycott was generally unpopular with American athletes. Only after much debate and with manifest reluctance did the USOC vote in April to boycott. A number of other nations also boycotted the Olympics, although the administration failed to achieve the united front it sought.

Inflation and recession.

In his January 30 economic report to Congress, President Carter declared that 'inflation remains the nation's number one economic problem.' Although he offered no detailed program for fighting inflation, he indicated that the administration would concentrate its efforts on exercising 'fiscal and monetary restraint' and on encouraging productivity gains and energy-conservation measures. The severity of the problem was underscored the next month when the official figures covering January showed consumer prices rising at an 18.2 percent annual rate. A New York Times/CBS News poll conducted early in the year found that 65 percent of adult Americans approved of government-imposed wage and price controls to slow inflation, a strategy also endorsed by some economists (including former Carter adviser Barry P. Bosworth), by House Banking Committee Chairman Henry Reuss (D, Wis.), and by Carter's main opponent for the Democratic presidential nomination, Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy. The president, however, held firm to a pledge not to resort to such controls. Instead, in a nationally televised address on March 14, Carter announced that he would propose cuts in the fiscal 1981 federal budget, would impose a fee on imported oil (later rejected by Congress), and was invoking standby powers given the president under the Credit Control Act of 1969 to limit unsecured consumer borrowing. Acting in part to implement Carter's program and in part on its own, the Federal Reserve then took several actions to restrict the money supply and credit that, among other things, forced lenders to restrain credit-card borrowing. This use of credit controls to retard inflation apparently had some effect; as consumer borrowing plummeted, the inflation rate declined to 11.6 percent in the second quarter. But the credit controls also worsened a recession already under way by March.

The administration's original fiscal 1981 budget, presented to Congress in January and already labeled an anti-inflation budget, predicted a deficit of $15.8 billion. After his March 14 speech, Carter sent a revised budget to Congress that included the proposed oil-import fee and various spending cuts and that called for a $16.5 billion surplus. But in July, after Congress killed the proposed import fee and after it became clear that the recession would cause government spending for such things as unemployment insurance to rise and government tax receipts to fall below expectations, the administration once again had to forecast a sizable deficit.

Carter resisted pressures in late summer and early fall for an immediate antirecession tax cut, claiming it would fuel inflation. He did propose, on August 28, a long-term economic 'revitalization' program, including tax incentives for business and other steps intended to increase productivity, as well as a 1981 personal income tax cut.

Energy policy.

Carter's three-year-long joust with Congress over the formulation of a comprehensive U.S. energy policy continued this year, with the president winning two major legislative battles and losing one. On March 28, Congress finally passed the administration's proposed windfall profits tax on domestic oil companies. When this victory was followed on June 26 by congressional approval of a $20 billion, five-year program to develop synthetic fuels, it seemed as if the president would see his entire energy package implemented before the year was out. Only one day after the passage of the 'synfuels' bill, however, the House of Representatives voted by a wide margin to send back to committee—and thus apparently kill for this year, at least—the third major component of the administration's energy program, a bill to establish an Energy Mobilization Board to speed government approval of priority energy projects. Still, congressional enactment of the windfall profits tax and the synfuels measure presented Carter with what many considered his most important legislative victories since the Senate ratified the Panama Canal treaties in 1978.

Leadership question.

Throughout the year, the president faced doubts, both at home and abroad, about his leadership ability and even about his and the administration's competency. The European allies, notably France and West Germany, bemoaned what they considered a lack of consistency in Carter's policies and moved in some ways to dissociate their own policies from those of the United States (for example, on détente with the Soviets). Not helping the administration's image were such actions as Carter's disavowal on March 3, after heavy criticism, of a March 1 U.S. vote in the UN Security Council in favor of a resolution criticizing Israeli settlements in occupied territories; Carter claimed the vote was the result of a communications failure within the administration. By midsummer, according to a Louis Harris/ABC News poll released July 30, only 22 percent of the U.S. electorate approved of Carter's job performance. The president's standing at home revived somewhat in August, however, after his renomination.

Leaks and scandals.

The Carter administration also had to deal this year with the problem of leaks to the media and with several potentially damaging scandals. A July 17 New York Times article revealed that earlier in the year the president directed that many White House staff members, cabinet members, and other high-level officials sign affidavits swearing that they had not leaked to the press details of sensitive policy discussions. Criticized for this action, the administration soon also had to contend with a strong adverse reaction to what appeared to many to be an officially sanctioned leak in mid-August of news that the Air Force was developing an airplane virtually invisible to radar. After the press reports, Defense Secretary Harold Brown made information on the 'stealth' bomber public. Critics charged that the whole affair was politically motivated, to show that the administration was committed to a strong defense. In congressional testimony, Brown denied compromising U.S. defense secrets.

There was some good news for the Carter administration regarding allegations involving present and former administration figures. Bert Lance, the former Office of Management and Budget director who had resigned his post under fire in September 1977, was acquitted on April 30 on nine counts of bank fraud; the jury failed to reach a verdict on three other charges, which were subsequently dismissed. White House Chief of Staff Hamilton Jordan was cleared of cocaine-use charges by a federal grand jury on May 28. (Jordan later took a leave of absence to join the Carter reelection campaign, and Jack Watson became chief of staff.) In March the Justice Department decided not to follow up a Senate investigation of alleged perjury by Secretary of the Treasury G. William Miller when he denied in congressional hearings knowing of illicit payments by Textron, Inc., when he headed the firm.

Two new scandals, however, centered on persons close to the president. Another investigation of alleged cocaine use, this time involving Carter campaign manager Tim Kraft, led Kraft to take a leave of absence on September 14. A potentially much more serious scandal involved the president's brother, Billy, and his close ties with the government of Libya. In question was whether the president should have acted more forcefully to dissociate himself and the U.S. government from his brother's relationship with a regime known to finance terrorist groups and with which U.S. relations were strained, whether Billy should have been used to arrange a meeting between national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski and a Libyan official, and whether Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti and the White House had intervened improperly in a Justice Department probe of Billy's activities. The president explained and defended his actions in the affair—highly effectively, in the view of many—in a report to a special Senate investigative subcommittee on Billygate and in a nationally televised news conference on August 4. An October 2 report by the subcommittee cleared the president of any illegal or unethical conduct. However, an internal Justice Department report, released by the subcommittee November 1, charged that the president had not been fully cooperative in the inquiry, that Civiletti had 'dissembled,' and that Billy Carter had lied under oath.

Congress

The second session of the 96th Congress, which convened January 22, tried to legislate with one eye on the November election and the other on the economy. Except for a leap in defense spending in reaction to heightened international tension in the Persian Gulf region—which was approved without any significant dissent—Congress subordinated its legislative agenda to serious as well as cosmetic efforts to balance the budget. Costly and unpopular measures were shunned.

Few new domestic programs were proposed by President Jimmy Carter or pushed in Congress. After the higher spending approved for defense and the increased cost of existing programs caused by inflation, there was little money left for new or expanded domestic programs in the social welfare or consumer area. Indeed, the politically popular but exceedingly difficult effort to cut the budget demonstrated that, instead of Congress setting priorities and shaping the budget to fit them, the budget had begun to control Congress.

The president won some important, if not altogether complete, victories, particularly on energy legislation. But the spadework on these measures had been done in earlier years, for the most part. Inside the halls of Congress, the resurgence of a more militant Republican minority, which was first evident in 1979, continued. Democrats had difficulty retaining day-to-day control of legislation, particularly in the House. Major bills were delayed or pulled from consideration after crippling amendments offered by the minority were adopted. The GOP, by rallying behind a core of popular bread-and-butter issues, was able to entice enough Democrats to join them on many issues.

Congress got some unwanted publicity this year when a number of its members were implicated in the FBI's so-called Abscam probe.

The economy.

The state of the economy dominated lawmakers' attention for much of the session. To the recurring problems of inflation, unemployment, and high interest rates was added the fervor for a balanced budget. Carter submitted in January a proposed fiscal 1981 budget that showed a deficit of only $15.8 billion (compared to an actual deficit of $59 billion for the fiscal year 1980). Then, after inflation had worsened, Carter revised his budget in March to actually show a surplus. Pressured by Republicans, who used the issue as a successful election-campaign tactic, the Democratic majority joined in approving a preliminary budget resolution in June that showed a modest surplus. As the economy went into recession, however, while inflation continued (although at a somewhat lesser rate), Democrats realized there was no way to retain a balanced budget in 1981. But to vote for a deficit just before the November election was perceived as political suicide. Thus, the Democratic leadership by late summer decided to deal with several major economic measures (including the final budget resolution), as well as other politically sensitive subjects, after the election. By law, final action on a fiscal 1981 budget was supposed to have been completed by September 15, and all funding bills for government departments enacted by October 1, the beginning of the fiscal year. An emergency appropriations bill kept federal departments running until December 15.

Election-year politics also surrounded a tax-cut initiative sponsored by two congressional Republicans, Representative Jack F. Kemp of New York and Senator William V. Roth, Jr., of Delaware. Senate Democrats succeeded in heading off the measure after Majority Leader Robert C. Byrd (D, W.Va.) appealed for party unity. On a 54-38 vote, the Senate put off consideration until after the election, at which time Senate Democrats sidetracked it again.

Other controversies sidestepped until the lame-duck session included budget reconciliation, an accounting procedure intended to keep appropriations in line with the preliminary budget resolution. The reconciliation bill called for savings of some $10 billion. The difficulty was that popular programs such as health care, child nutrition, and civil service cost-of-living adjustments would have to absorb some of the cuts.

Probably the most crucial economic program left in limbo was general revenue sharing, which funnels federal money to states and localities without strings. Congress technically allowed the program to expire on September 30, by not enacting a renewal bill before recessing for the election. Under consideration was $4.6 billion for local governments and $2.3 billion for the states. And attached to the bill was $1 billion in antirecession money requested by the president.

Congress did clear, in March, an omnibus banking reform bill, authorizing interest-bearing checking accounts ('NOW' accounts), phasing out interest rate ceilings on savings accounts, and tightening the Federal Reserve's control over banks. Congress also came to the rescue of the Chrysler Corporation, clearing a bill in December 1979 providing up to $1.5 billion worth of loan guarantees for ten years for the nearly bankrupt auto firm. Efforts to roll back a large increase in social security taxes scheduled to take effect January 1, 1981, failed.

Energy.

Facing the 96th Congress in the energy field this year were many of the proposals in Carter's 1979 national energy program. Although its achievements in the energy field were modest in 1979, Congress in 1980 approved two of Carter's three key proposals: a windfall profits tax on the increased profits of the oil companies that resulted from price decontrol begun in 1979, and a synthetic fuels corporation to develop alternative energy sources such as oil from shale and gas from coal. The excess profits tax was expected to bring in over $227 billion in the 1980's—the largest tax ever levied on an American industry. Gasohol was exempted from the tax. Congress started the synthetic fuels program with a $20 billion authorization and said it could eventually go as high as $88 billion. Apparently left for dead at the election recess was the third part of the energy package: a new Energy Mobilization Board that would have virtually unlimited powers to bypass federal, state, and local laws and agencies that did not meet deadlines for speeding up approval of priority energy projects.

A standby gasoline rationing plan, an early Carter proposal that had a long and tortuous route through Congress, was approved in July. Carter's first plan was rejected in 1979, which forced Congress to rewrite a 1975 law setting guidelines for rationing. Congress went home in October without giving the president authority to force electric utilities to switch from oil and natural gas to coal, which the United States had in abundant amounts.

Carter suffered one of the worst defeats of his presidency on another oil conservation measure. On June 6 both houses blocked imposition of an oil import fee that would have resulted in a 10-cent-a-gallon increase in gasoline prices. Carter had vetoed a resolution killing the fee, announced in his March budget revisions, but Congress overwhelmingly overrode the veto. It was the first override of a Democratic president since the Truman administration.

Heavy lobbying deterred Congress from enacting a controversial bill to prohibit the 18 largest oil producers from acquiring or merging with other corporations. The measure was intended to force producers to plow all their profits back into energy development. Legislation to accelerate development of nuclear fusion was approved easily.

Environment.

Congress instituted the first reforms in nuclear safety since the 1979 accident at the Three Mile Island power plant in Pennsylvania. Tougher penalties were imposed for safety violations, and emergency planning was mandated at nuclear energy sites.

Pending at the time of the election recess was legislation to create a 'superfund,' to pay for cleaning up hazardous chemical waste dumps, such as the infamous Love Canal in New York State.

The most contentious environmental issue of the year was the long-delayed Alaska lands bill, setting aside and generally closing to commercial development millions of acres of wilderness. After almost two years of squabbling, the Senate passed the bill in August. The House had passed a more conservation-oriented bill in 1979, but in this year's postelection session, it accepted the Senate version. The new law sets aside 104 million acres as either national parks, wildlife refuges, or conservation areas.

Earlier, Congress passed an Idaho wilderness bill that set aside in central Idaho the largest wilderness tract in the 48 contiguous states.

Congress and Carter were not able to agree on another early initiative of the administration: water policy reform. Carter had vetoed a 1978 public works bill, saying it contained 'pork barrel' projects that were not needed. The House retaliated in 1980 by refusing to give him a new Water Resources Council to review proposed water projects to ensure they were economically justified. Instead, Congress approved money for several projects that were on Carter's 'hit list,' including the $1.8 billion Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway.

Health, education, and welfare.

The president again failed to persuade Congress to move on national health insurance, an annual issue since the early days of the Nixon administration. A truncated proposal for insurance against 'catastrophic' illnesses was briefly revived by the Senate Finance Committee, chaired by Russell B. Long (D, La.). But deliberations over the federal budget soon ended that effort. Other health measures pushed by Carter that failed to win approval were mandatory controls on hospital costs, an overhaul of federal drug regulation statutes, and a medicaid bill for poor children. Far-reaching revisions of the government's medicare and medicaid programs were attached to the budget reconciliation bill.

The government's primary higher education assistance program was extended for five years. The $48.4 billion bill increased the interest rates on student loans and imposed penalties for fraudulent use of student aid.

Like health insurance, Carter's revised welfare reform plan died a quiet death because of budgetary pressure. The watered-down version, drafted in 1979 and passed by the House that November, would have cost about $6 billion and was opposed by Senator Long's Finance Committee. With the food stamp program almost out of money, threatening to end subsidies for nearly 22 million Americans in June, Congress on May 15 voted an extra $2.56 billion to keep it operating and raised the funding ceiling for 1981 to $9.7 billion.

Housing.

Congress cleared a comprehensive housing and community development bill. Over $31 billion was authorized for public housing and low-income rent subsidies, as well as $11.8 billion for community development block grants. The bill revised Federal Housing Administration (FHA) mortgage rates and gave some protection to condominium owners. A controversial program of federally subsidized rental housing for middle-income families was dropped.

Deregulation.

Proposals to deregulate the trucking and railroad industries, backed by the administration and introduced in 1979, won congressional approval this year. As in the successful airline deregulation act of 1978, Carter's goal was to increase competition and efficiency and to permit the industries to respond better to changing market conditions. Also approved was a measure reducing regulation of the household movers industry. Proposed deregulation of the telecommunications industry died, however. That plan, which also would have restructured the American Telephone & Telegraph Company, was rejected by the House Judiciary Committee.

National security.

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan sealed the fate, for this year, of the second strategic arms limitation treaty (SALT II) with the Soviet Union. Senate ratification of the treaty was already uncertain, and Carter declared he would not press for ratification in 1980.

The invasion also led to demands for much higher defense spending. A $52.8 billion weapons procurement bill was passed, providing a huge—$11.4 billion—increase over the previous year's bill. Carter had requested a $5.5 billion increase over 1979, and Congress added another $5.9 billion.

Congress and Carter agreed on the need to go forward with the controversial MX missile, at a cost of $1.6 billion in 1981. The cost of the entire system in the 1980's was estimated at over $30 billion. Money was appropriated to develop a new airplane to replace the aging B-52 bomber, although there was no agreement on what the new plane should be. Congress approved most of the Pentagon's plans for a rapid deployment force that could be mobilized quickly and sent to trouble spots around the world. The plans included a new cargo aircraft, designated C-X, to carry tanks and other heavy equipment. Although Congress had not yet given its okay to military-base agreements the administration signed with Oman, Somalia, and Kenya during the year, money to modernize and expand air and naval facilities in those countries was approved anyway, as was money to expand a strategic U.S. base on the Indian Ocean island of Diego García.

Military personnel won an 11.7 percent pay raise, as well as a variety of career incentives intended to revitalize the allvolunteer armed forces. Concern about the adequacy of the armed services led to a request for renewal of draft registration. Reversing his previous opposition, Carter, in his State of the Union address in January, said registration was needed to show the Soviets that U.S. resolve to resist its enemies was strong. Congress enacted implementing legislation, and in July and August, 19- and 20-year-old men were registered.

Foreign policy.

The president found it increasingly hard to get Congress to approve his foreign policies. One example was aid to Nicaragua. Carter's plan to assist the new leftist government that in 1979 had replaced the Somoza regime (assistance aimed at least in part at competing with Cuba for influence in Latin America) was bitterly opposed by congressional conservatives. Carter won that battle, which involved only $75 million in economic aid, only after months of lobbying, during which aid opponents employed every delaying tactic possible. The Nicaragua dispute reflected the president's more basic problem of trying to convince Congress to look more favorably on leftist Third World countries in Africa and Latin America. Congress' reluctance was both ideological and financial.

Aid to international financial institutions, such as the World Bank, ran into the same problem. Although the Senate approved over $3 billion for an agency of the bank, the House had not acted as of the October recess. A $3.6 billion contribution for the African, Asian, and Latin American development banks was approved only after Congress made the first cut ever in the U.S. commitment to those banks.

Carter narrowly avoided a major foreign policy embarrassment in September when the Senate went along with his proposed sale of nuclear fuel to India, culminating one of the hardest-fought battles since consideration of the Panama Canal treaties (which narrowly won Senate ratification in 1978). The nuclear fuel sale had to be disapproved by both houses to be blocked, and the House did reject the sale. The Senate, however, approved it by a two-vote margin. India had exploded a nuclear device in 1974, and the Indian government has refused to allow international inspections of its nuclear facilities. To many, Carter's advocacy of the fuel sale, aimed at improving relations with India, violated his own anti-nuclear proliferation policy, announced in 1977.

Early in the year, Congress approved a most-favored-nation trade agreement with China. It was extended a year in July.

Refugees.

Congress approved legislation in March nearly tripling—from 17,400 to 50,000—the number of refugees allowed to enter the country each year and establishing new procedures for admitting refugees and resettling them once they arrived. However, the new law was soon overwhelmed by the influx of tens of thousands of Cuban refugees. In June the president asked Congress to resolve the permanent status of these new entrants, as well as of thousands of Haitian 'boat people.'

Congressional wrongdoing.

Congress was rocked by scandal in February when a well-organized FBI undercover operation implicated eight of its members in criminal wrongdoing. FBI agents, posing as representatives of 'Abdul Enterprises,' tried to bribe unsuspecting members in return for legislative favors or influence peddling. The 'sting' operation, which became known as Abscam, had led to the conviction of one House member by the time Congress recessed in October: Michael O. Myers (D, Pa.), found guilty of bribery, conspiracy, and interstate travel to aid racketeering. Myers' behavior led the House to expel him, making him the first congressman to be expelled since the Civil War and the first ever for corruption. Representative John W. Jenrette (D, S.C.) was convicted of bribery and conspiracy shortly after Congress recessed.

The Abscam probe also resulted in indictments against four other House members as of the recess: Richard Kelly (R, Fla.), Raymond F. Lederer (D, Pa.), John M. Murphy (D, N.Y.), and Frank Thompson, Jr. (D, N.J.). Kelly, under pressure from his party, resigned from the Republican Conference in February. A seventh House member, John P. Murtha (D, Pa.), was named in one indictment but was not actually indicted. The only senator implicated in the probe, Harrison A. Williams, Jr. (D, N.J.), was indicted October 30 on charges of bribery and conspiracy.

In an unrelated case, Representative Charles H. Wilson (D, Calif.) was censured in June by the House for financial misconduct. He had been found guilty of improperly converting almost $25,000 in campaign funds to his personal account and of accepting money from a person with a direct interest in legislation pending in Congress.

Billy Carter probe.

A special Senate subcommittee investigating the relationship of Billy Carter, the president's brother, with Libya issued a report October 2 concluding that he had not influenced U.S. government policy and was not involved in criminal wrongdoing. But the panel severely criticized Billy Carter's behavior and the handling of the affair by the president and his staff.

Supreme Court

In its 1979-1980 term, the Supreme Court continued its trend of expanding, contracting, or explaining past landmark decisions rather than handing down new ones. The one exception to this trend was the Court's decision on the patentability of new microorganisms.

Patentability of life.

On March 17, 1980, the Supreme Court heard arguments on an issue that until a few years ago belonged to the realm of science fiction. In Diamond v. Chakrabarty, an inventor contended that he had a right under United States law to obtain a patent on a new strain of microorganism that he had genetically engineered and thus, in his view, had 'invented.' (The microorganism was a petroleum 'eating' bacterium that could be used to clean up oil spills.) The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office had denied Ananda Chakrabarty's patent application on the grounds that one could not obtain a patent on a 'living thing.' An intermediate court reversed the government's decision and declared the patent could be awarded.

The Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision handed down June 16, also rejected the government's position and upheld the inventor's view. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Warren Burger noted that the scope of the patent law has always been interpreted broadly, both because of the expansive wording used by Congress in drafting the statute and because of the purpose of Congress in enacting the law. Since Congress wished to encourage the creation of new devices, the court rejected the notion that man-made bacteria should not be patentable merely because genetic engineering was unknown at the time that the patent law was passed. The majority also rejected the government's argument that because a separate patent statute was passed to allow the patentability of crossbred plants, Congress could not have intended the general patent law to include bacteria.

The dissenters, through Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., argued that the overriding concern of preventing monopolies should temper the interpretation of the scope of what is patentable. The dissenters would have denied the patent, finding persuasive the government's argument on the special plant patent statute.

Regardless of how one feels about the merits of the elaborate statutory interpretation arguments on which the Diamond decision turned, the decision will make substantial research and development in the area of genetic engineering economically viable, since duplication by rival firms of the new organisms thus produced can be prevented by patent protection.

Abortion.

In Harris v. McRae, the Supreme Court, in an unusual alliance of majority and dissenting justices, decided, 5-4, that government funding of even medically necessary abortions is neither statutorily nor constitutionally required. In 1973 the Court had held, in Roe v. Wade, that under the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, a woman had a qualified right, depending on the chronological stage of a pregnancy, to decide to terminate that pregnancy. In Maher v. Roe, in 1977, the Court held that the Wade case only protects a woman from unduly burdensome interference with her right to decide; this constitutional freedom did not mean that a state could not favor childbirth over abortion by providing welfare benefits for child delivery but denying them for nontherapeutic abortions. In McRae, Justice Potter Stewart, writing for a majority that also included Chief Justice Burger and Justices Byron White, Lewis F. Powell, Jr., and William Rehnquist, held that a congressionally imposed ban on federal medicaid payments for virtually all medically necessary abortions was analogous to the funding decision upheld in the Maher case. Justice Stewart noted that the federal funding ban 'places no governmental obstacle in the path of a woman who chooses to terminate her pregnancy,' but rather merely encourages an alternative.

Several bitter dissents were written, based on different provisions of the Constitution. Justice Brennan dissented on the grounds that the protection granted in Wade was freedom from governmental interference with the qualified right of a woman to have an abortion and that denying medicaid funding to poor women indirectly interferes with that right. Justice Thurgood Marshall, in his dissent, argued that the government, in allocating funds to other medically necessary procedures but denying them to therapeutic abortions, effectively discriminated against women needing an abortion for medical reasons and thus violated the equal protection clause. Justice Harry A. Blackmun dissented as well, embracing the views of Justices Brennan and John Paul Stevens, who also found impermissible equal protection restrictions in the statute.

Minority hiring.

In July the Court took one more step in the line of cases involving minority preference. In the Bakke case in 1978, the Court invalidated a state medical school admissions plan that reserved a specific number of places in each entering class for minority applicants. In the Weber case in 1979, the Court upheld a private company's affirmative action program that sought to correct a manifest racial imbalance in the work force in a given locale. This year, in Fullilove v. Klutznick, a divided Court upheld a 1977 federal law requiring that 10 percent of any federal funds contributed to a state or local construction project be paid to minority business enterprises (that is, enterprises owned by blacks, Hispanics, Orientals, Indians, Eskimos, or Aleuts, according to the statute). Six justices, including Chief Justice Burger, agreed that the federal law did not violate any constitutional provisions, mainly because the objective of Congress was to hinder perpetuation of the effects of prior discrimination, which had effectively foreclosed minority entrepreneurs from the construction industry. Two of the six plurality justices filed concurring opinions, elaborating their reasons for agreeing in the judgment of the Court. Justice Powell emphasized the propriety of a temporary racially drawn remedy to counter past discrimination, and Justice Marshall emphasized the propriety of racially drawn remedies where, as here, the remedies advance 'important governmental objectives.' Justices Stewart and Stevens wrote separate dissenting opinions. Justice Stewart adhered to his oft-stated position that any governmental action against an individual based solely on race is constitutionally impermissible. Justice Stevens attacked the federal law on the grounds that its remedies need not have been based on race but instead should have been based upon a special objective characteristic, like economic disadvantage, which could justify special treatment.

Job safety.

In a February decision affecting employment in a different sense, the Court, in Whirlpool Corporation v. Marshall, unanimously upheld the right of an employee to refuse to perform an assigned task because of a reasonable apprehension of death or serious injury. The right was contained in a regulation promulgated by the secretary of labor under the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA). The Court held that the regulation was valid, despite the absence of any direct authority in OSHA, because the regulation 'clearly conforms to the fundamental objective of the Act—to prevent occupational deaths and serious injuries.' The Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, in December 1979, had upheld a similar right to refuse work for safety reasons as being within the protection of the Taft-Hartley Act, which grants employees the right to organize for mutual aid and protection.

Press access to trials.

In the latest case involving the right of the news media to be present in a courtroom, the Supreme Court, in Richmond Newspapers v. Virginia, decided that the First Amendment provides a right to attend criminal trials, despite the court's ruling last year, in Gannett Company v. DePasquale, that the Sixth Amendment's grant to a defendant of a right to a public trial did not provide a right to attend pretrial hearings. Six of the seven justices who joined in the judgment of the Court in Richmond wrote separate concurring opinions. It is, however, probably fair to say that the post-Gannett series of lower court cases that permitted trials to be closed on relatively weak grounds was disapproved and that criminal trials now, in Chief Justice Burger's words in Richmond, will be open 'absent an overriding interest articulated in findings' made by the trial judge. Justice Powell was the lone dissenter, maintaining that neither the First nor the Sixth Amendment gave the press or the public the right to insist on a public trial if both prosecutor and defense consented to a closed trial.

Freedom of information.

In another case affecting the public's right to be informed, the Court in March decided that various communications of Henry Kissinger are not subject to disclosure under the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which gives citizens the right to see certain federal agency records. The Court held that transcripts and notes of telephone conversations Kissinger had while secretary of state are exempt from disclosure because, while the State Department is an 'agency' within the scope of the FOIA, Kissinger had donated the materials to the Library of Congress, an agency not within the scope of the act, before the request for the material under the FOIA was made. The Court also held that similar materials created while Kissinger was national security adviser to the president are exempt from the FOIA because the Office of the President is also not an agency covered under the act.

The Court's rulings relating to Kissinger were mere ripples in the ocean of litigation surrounding FOIA requests since the act went into effect in 1967. In representative cases during the past year alone, lower courts have made the following rulings: Actress Jane Fonda was not entitled to receive all materials concerning her in the possession of the National Security Agency. The public was not entitled to the release of the legal bills and fee arrangements between the Central Intelligence Agency and private attorneys providing services to it. A public interest group was not entitled to the answers given by United States senators to the attorney general's questionnaire on recommendation procedures for judicial nominations. The public was entitled to all general counsel's memoranda, actions on decisions, and technical memoranda of the Internal Revenue Service. And finally, the public was entitled to release of the agent's manual of the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Treaty power.

In December 1979 the Court refused to hear a case challenging President Jimmy Carter's unilateral termination of a national defense treaty with Taiwan. The position of Senator Barry Goldwater (R, Ariz.) and other legislators in bringing the suit was that since the Constitution requires Senate approval before such a treaty can be entered into, similar approval is required before a treaty can be terminated. Six justices voted not to hear the case and ordered a lower court to dismiss it. Four of the six felt the controversy was not justiciable because the judicial branch of government should not consider political questions involving the executive and legislative branches. The other two majority justices were Justice Powell, who felt the case was prematurely before the Court, and Justice Marshall.

Criminal law.

Several important cases involving criminal law were decided by the Supreme Court. In Payton v. New York, a 6-3 decision, the Court held that police violated a suspect's Fourth Amendment right to protection from unreasonable searches and seizures when, without an arrest warrant and without exigent circumstances or the suspect's permission, they entered a suspect's home to make an arrest. The impact of this decision is expected to be substantial, as most states that had considered similar situations had allowed warrantless entry into the home to make an arrest in nonemergency circumstances.

In Rhode Island v. Innis, decided in May, the Supreme Court announced a definition of 'interrogation' for the purposes of deciding whether the right to a so-called Miranda warning (of one's rights to remain silent and to have counsel) had been triggered. The Court held that, in addition to 'express questioning,' interrogation includes 'any words or actions on the part of the police' (other than those normally attendant to arrest and custody) 'that the police should know are reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response from the suspect.' There have already been, not surprisingly, a number of lower court decisions applying the 'Innis test' to custodial situations, and many more will surely follow.

The court, in December 1979, decided in Ferri v. Ackerman that federal law does not prevent a state court from entertaining a legal malpractice case filed by an unsuccessful defendant against the court-appointed lawyer who represented him in a federal criminal trial.

The Brethren.

A controversial book published in late 1979 discussed the Supreme Court in intimate detail—humanizing it, according to some, misrepresenting it, according to others. To write The Brethren: Inside the Supreme Court, a detailed account of how the Court reached decisions from 1969 to 1976, reporters Bob Woodward (of Watergate fame) and Scott Armstrong interviewed 170 former Supreme Court clerks and read reams of internal documents to come up with an unflattering picture of infighting and office politics.

Justice Douglas.

Former Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, 81, died on January 19, four years and two months after his reluctant retirement (because of ill health) from the Court. He had served for 36 years, longer than any other justice, championing individual liberties and equal rights. In October, Douglas' memoir The Court Years, 1939-1975 was posthumously published.

Title change.

Beginning in November, opinions and other official Court documents referred to members of the Court simply as 'Justice' rather than 'Mr. Justice.' The honorific 'Mr.' had been in use since the early 19th century.

Social Welfare

In 1980 the combined impact of a recession and a continued high rate of inflation generated a substantial increase in the number of people receiving benefits from social welfare programs. Simultaneously, Congress and the Carter administration faced an increasing public demand to control federal spending. What happened was consistent with the pragmatic American political tradition. While spending in social welfare programs rose substantially, steps were taken to modify or eliminate a number of specific benefits that were considered to go to persons who did not need that much, or any, assistance. Also coming under close scrutiny were benefits thought to be unfair because some people received them at the same time that other equally deserving people could not.

Social Security.

The pragmatic trend of budgetary restraint but avoidance of major program reductions was evident in the treatment in 1980 of social security, the largest U.S. social welfare program. Just three years before, Congress had approved, in the Social Security Act Amendments of 1977, major changes in the methods of computing benefits and a series of payroll tax increases. These actions were intended to put the social security system on a sound financial footing, at least through the rest of this century. But by 1980, it had become evident that unless immediate action was taken to shore up the finances of the program, the largest trust fund (the old-age and survivors insurance fund) would be unable to meet its monthly benefit payments sometime late in 1981 or early in 1982. This deterioration in the financial prospects of the social security system had occurred because inflation caused benefit levels, and thus spending, to be higher than had been projected at the time that the 1977 amendments were enacted. Making the problem even worse was the fact that the tax revenue to finance this spending was less than had been anticipated because the rate of real growth in the economy was lower than had been projected. Congress acted to forestall a financial crisis through the temporary expedient of transferring revenue from another component of the social security system, the disability insurance fund. However, Congress made it clear that this was only a stopgap measure. A presidential commission on pension policy recommended late in the year that the age at which a retiree becomes eligible for full social security benefits be raised from 65 to 68, effective in the 21st century. The commission's final report is scheduled to be released in early 1981.

Despite the financial problems of the social security system, Congress did not modify in any way the commitment included in the Social Security Act Amendments of 1972 that beneficiaries should receive automatic annual cost-of-living increases, reflecting the rise in the Consumer Price Index over the past year. The automatic increase provided in July 1980 was 14.3 percent, the largest such increase ever granted.

Although the purchasing power of current recipients was protected, steps were taken to restrict future benefits in the disability component of the program. In May the Social Security Disability Amendments of 1980 were enacted. These amendments imposed a ceiling on family benefits, which was intended to lessen the likelihood that future public officials would find, as had former Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) Secretary Joseph Califano, that '[b]enefits in approximately 6 percent of all cases actually exceed the disabled person's net earnings.' This situation had arisen because the social security benefit formula is based on the assumption that an individual works with few, if any, interruptions from his or her early 20's until retirement at age 62 or 65. Younger workers who become disabled receive benefits as if they had worked a full career. What in fact happened, however, as Secretary Califano noted, was that younger workers received benefits that exceeded their predisability disposable income. Such a situation provided financial disincentives for a disabled person to return to work even if his or her health improved.

The new bill also provided other incentives for individuals to return to work if physically able to do so. Previously, a person who attempted to return to work could lose medicare protection, which for a disabled person could present a major financial catastrophe. The 1980 bill allowed an individual to keep medicare protection for three years after returning to work and, for an additional three years, to be able to regain medicare benefits immediately if the disability required another period without working (instead of again going through the two-year waiting period).

Unemployment compensation.