Leach's more recent intersection with political scandal occurred in 1995, when, as chairman of the House Banking and Financial Institutions Committee, he headed an investigation of Whitewater, the Arkansas land deal involving Bill and Hillary Clinton. His committee had oversight on the matter because Madison Guaranty, a Little Rock savings-and-loan association, had lost $70 million through questionable loans. Although Republicans controlled the committee, in this and other cases Leach was scrupulous about its acting in a nonpartisan manner: it had previously reviewed the practices of other S&Ls, including one in Colorado that counted among its directors Neil Bush, a son of former President George Bush.
The Whitewater hearings were restricted to five days of tightly scheduled testimony. The record of the hearings was handed over to prosecutors and subsequently resulted in the conviction of 24 people, including Governor Jim Guy Tucker, of Arkansas, and Clinton friends Jim and Susan McDougal. Leach notes with satisfaction that his one week of hearings was compact and conducted without any grandstanding on the part of committee members. By contrast, the Senate's Whitewater hearings stretched over nine months and were accompanied by highly charged political rhetoric. Observes Leach, "It's the legal system's responsibility, not ours, to determine guilt. ... It was our job to lay the facts on the table but not to dwell on them."
In the interest of avoiding a circus atmosphere, Leach chose not to call as a witness Hillary Clinton, despite what appeared to be her involvement in some of the more questionable aspects of the case. Information the committee was seeking could be had from other sources, and he saw no need to embarrass the First Lady. "There are times," he says, "in which you can go too far, even if you might be right."
Since the Banking Committee's hearings three years ago, of course, the Whitewater investigation under Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr has evolved into an examination of other wrongdoings alleged of the Clinton administration -- most recently and spectacularly the messy business surrounding Bill Clinton's admitted affair with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky. In part, perhaps, because his district is split between Republicans and Democrats, Leach has played the Lewinsky matter in a decidedly evenhanded way. In an official statement, he said, "While elements of the President's personal life, if accurately presented, are reprehensible, the Office of Independent Counsel's decision to cite all of the details of the President's relationship with Miss Lewinsky in such a graphic matter is unfortunate."
LIMITS ON FUND-RAISING
Watergate had a profound influence on Leach's career in government service. In 1974, a year after he resigned from the State Department, he ran for Congress from his home state's First Congressional District, which covers eight counties in eastern Iowa, including the cities of Cedar Rapids and Davenport, his home since childhood. Believing that fund-raising excesses were at the heart of Watergate, he set strict standards for himself: Leach accepted no contributions in excess of $500 and took contributions only from Iowa residents. He lost that election, but campaigned again in 1976 -- a tough year for Republican candidates -- and won, the first of his 10 consecutive victories. In each of his recent campaigns he has raised about $300,000, most of it through letter solicitations and small meetings with potential donors. A typical contribution is a check for $25.
(For years, Leach was the sole alumnus in the House of Representatives, while the Senate boasted five Princetonians. In 1996, he was joined in the House by Robert Ehrlich '79, a Maryland Republican. Alumni currently serving in the Senate are Paul Sarbanes '54, a Maryland Democrat; Christopher "Kit" Bond '60, a Missouri Republican; and Bill Frist '74, a Tennessee Republican.)
One of the more centrist Republicans in the House, Leach is generally conservative on fiscal issues, moderate on social issues -- and unyielding on ethical issues. In January 1997, when the current Congress was organizing, he was one of only nine members of his party who did not vote to reelect Newt Gingrich as Speaker of the House. His reason: a report by the House Ethics Committee had concluded that Gingrich had misappropriated campaign funds, then had misled the committee in accounting for them. Leach says the negative vote did him no lasting harm: "I have a professional working relationship with the House leadership."
Whether dealing with ethics or other public matters, Leach's speeches often reflect an intellectual bent. He peppers them with references to such seminal thinkers as philosophers John Locke and Thomas Hobbes, theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, and poet William Butler Yeats. His choice of heroes is surprisingly varied. In the anteroom of his office in the Rayburn Building are wooden silhouettes of individuals he admires, including Eric the Red, a Viking explorer; Black Hawk, a Sauk and Fox chief who in the 1830s fought to regain his ancestral lands in Iowa; Jeanette Rankin, the first woman elected to Congress; and Confucius. His heroes' gallery also features more conventional figures -- Mahatma Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, and Winston Churchill.
At Princeton, Leach majored in politics, writing a senior thesis entitled Right to Revolt: John Locke Contrasted With Karl Marx. He was a Chapel deacon and served as vice-president of his class and the Undergraduate Council. He also played rugby, captained the lightweight football team, and was a star wrestler in the 147-pound class, winning all but one dual meet during a four-year career interrupted by injuries. Wrestling, he says, taught him two important principles that have served him well throughout his life -- the necessity of thorough preparation, and the need to play by the rules. "Most extracurricular activities teach the same lessons," he says. "It's no different for a fine violinist."
As a member of the State Department, which he joined after earning a master's degree in foreign relations from Johns Hopkins and studying economics and Soviet politics at the London School of Economics, he was assigned to the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. He played a leading role in negotiating several treaties, most notably the Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention of 1972. Given his background in foreign affairs, he was a natural to serve on the House International Relations Committee, a position he has held since 1980.
An ardent internationalist, Leach has favored the NAFTA free-trade agreement, full funding of the United Nations, and an additional $18 billion appropriation for the embattled International Monetary Fund. During the Reagan years, he opposed aid to the Nicaraguan Contras but argued for the START I and START II nuclear-arms treaties and the extension of most-favored-nation status to China. Leach supports free trade virtually unconditionally: "The U.S. is very much a part of the world, and we prosper because of it."
Conversely, he has been reluctant to commit U.S. troops abroad. Leach did not favor sending American soldiers to Bosnia, although once they were in place he voted to keep them there. "For us to send troops overseas, the case has to be overwhelming," he says. He believes we should not take such action unilaterally but should act through the United Nations.
In 1992, Leach was elected to serve as the ranking Republican of the House Banking and Financial Institutions Committee; he has chaired the committee since 1994. In the past year the committee has approved what Leach regards as four important pieces of legislation: a major revision of the Glass-Steagall Act; permitting banks to engage in insurance underwriting; a housing bill that promotes home ownership for low-income families; a bill protecting the privacy of bank and credit-card customers; and a series of bills designed "to resolve by the end of this century monetary issues related to the Holocaust."
In dealing with the Holocaust issue, Leach held broad-based hearings, gathering testimony from historians, economists, central bankers, art dealers, and two religion professors from Princeton, Mark Larrimore and Leora Batnitzky. The issue evokes deep outrage in Leach, whose congressional district has few Jews. "The Holocaust," he says, "was not only the greatest murder in history, it was the greatest theft in history." In some countries, he adds, Jews were killed so that Nazis and their collaborators could steal their financial assets.
Addressing reform of the Glass-Steagall Act, Leach showed his legislative skills when a majority of his committee, over his objections, favored reform that would allow banks to invest in commercial businesses -- a change that in Leach's view threatened the financial stability of banks. Nonetheless, he allowed his committee to move the bill to the floor. Once the legislation was before the full House, he was able to muster a one-vote majority to strip the bill of this provision.
MARCHING TO HIS OWN DRUM
Referring to his fiscal conservatism and moderation on social issues, Leach says, "I represent something for which there is a major American constituency. Unfortunately, there are some activists in my party who think otherwise." He was appalled by two Republican-sponsored bills, introduced last summer, that he describes as "gay bashing." One would have denied gays the protection of federal antidiscrimination regulations, and the other would have overturned municipal statutes extending health-care benefits to unmarried (including same-sex) partners. He also opposed legislation to cut funds for birth control from foreign-aid grants. "Family planning," says Leach with a touch of exasperation, "avoids the dilemma of abortion."
Leach's relatively liberal voting record has made him the target of sniping from within his own party. Two years ago, some members of the House Republican Caucus tried to strip him of his Banking Committee chairmanship, but the attempted coup fizzled as Leach's financial expertise and record of integrity overwhelmed those who favored a less independent chairman.
Those qualities should help him on November 3, when voters go to the polls to elect a new Congress. His opponent, a Cedar Rapids lawyer named Bob Rush, gave him a tough fight in 1996, when Leach won by a margin of 53 percent to 47 percent. This election could be equally tight, but the betting is that come February, Leach will begin his 12th term in the House of Representatives.
Marvin Zim '57 lives in Washington, D.C.