In 1965, Mark Hatfield cast a lone and risky vote against President Johnson’s Vietnam policies at the National Governors Convention; and recently in 1989 he voted against the Senate’s sanction of the Panama invasion, again alone.
His stands have confounded liberals, angered conservatives, and sometimes earned him disfavor with his fellow Christians. Whether denounced as a radical or praised as a prophet, however, Hatfield stands by his convictions.
During the last year of the Reagan administration, Hatfield published an article sharply critical of that administration’s foreign policy, which was built on containing the spread of communism in our hemisphere. So when President Bush asked for thoughts on a postcontainment strategy, Senator Hatfield was eager to give him a draft version of the paper, which begins on page 29 of this issue.
Senator Hatfield’s books have described the day-to-day difficulties of the faith-politics interaction. Like those books, this essay is vintage Hatfield: rooted in faith, recognizing the limitations of the world, yet offering a bold vision for change.
In a recent letter to CT, senate chaplain Richard Halverson wrote of “a remarkable situation unfolding” in which “the Executive and Legislative branches of our government are engaging in an increasingly polite public dialogue regarding how best to secure the breathtaking promise of peace that this moment in history seems to afford.” As we publish this essay, we encourage all Christians to participate in this remarkable time of dialogue.
DAVID NEFF, Senior Associate Editor
