Global Courant
Congressional “hearings” occupy only a portion of what lawmakers take up on Capitol Hill.
However, hearings, especially blockbuster hearings, are what the public is often aware of when they think of Congress.
Watergate Hearings. Iran-Contra Hearings. Confirmatory hearings for Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh. Even the recent House Judiciary Committee hearing with former Special Counsel John Durham. A major hearing is scheduled for mid-September before the judicial panel with Attorney General Merrick Garland.
It’s far from clear whether Congress is genuinely interested in hearings or investigating what went wrong with the Titan submarine, which imploded 1.5 miles underwater while on a mission to explore the Titanic.
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Debris from the submarine Titan, salvaged from the ocean floor near the wreckage of the Titanic, will be unloaded from the ship Horizon Arctic at the Canadian Coast Guard pier in St. John’s, Newfoundland, on Wednesday, June 28, 2023. (Paul Dale)
However, it will be ironic if Congress were to investigate the deadly Titan disaster. That’s because the model for the first modern sensational congressional hearing was the inquest into the 1912 Titanic sinking.
Congress has always held hearings. Such conclaves date from the formation of the republic. Lawmakers conducted an investigation in 1792 after the defeat of American troops under the command of General Arthur St. Clair by Native Americans in what was then the Northwest Territory, near present-day Fort Recovery, Ohio.
President Washington ordered St. Clair to “execute an effective battle plan”. More than 1,000 members of the Shawnee, Miami, and Delaware tribes encountered American troops at the Battle of Wabash. It is considered the worst ever defeat of American troops by Native Americans.
Congress wanted to look into it, but there was no precedent and the concept of congressional oversight is only implied in the constitution. There was even talk of President Washington leading the investigation. However, lawmakers rejected that idea and established one of the current models of congressional oversight that persists to this day.
The House, in effect, called for “papers” as part of the investigation, and President Washington allowed access to the documents. Cabinet chiefs and several legislators testified before the committee. Lawmakers determined that the military failed to recruit enough troops before going into battle. There were also delays in delivering supplies to American soldiers.
This file image from OceanGate shows the Titan submarine being towed in the Bahamas. (OceanGate Expeditions)
Congress held other major hearings over the following decades, including some serious post-Civil War inquiries.
However, the hearings that examined Titanic established a new paradigm – enabled in part by new construction on Capitol Hill.
Congress opened the “Senate Office Building”—now the “Russell Senate Office Building”—across the street from the Capitol in 1909. The Capitol itself lacked a giant space to accommodate large groups of people in addition to the House and Senate chambers. Building” – now Cannon Building – had a huge, gaping room on the third floor. The same goes for the new Senate facility.
Just two days after the Titanic sank, Senator William Alden Smith, R-Mich., proposed a special investigation.
Smith acknowledged that the Titanic sailed under another nation’s flag, but he argued that “it was vital that the whole matter be heard before a United States tribunal if legislative action was to be taken for future guidelines for international maritime safety. ” He noted that “many of our own compatriots had been sacrificed and the safety of many had been put in grave danger”.
From left to right, Suleman Dawood, Shahzada Dawood, Stockton Rush; Paul-Henry Nargeolet and Hamish Harding were aboard the submarine OceanGate Titan. (Engro Corp. | Reuters/Shannon Stapleton | @OceanGateExped/Twitter | Felix Kunze/Blue Origin via AP | Ocean Gate/Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
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Smith was particularly interested in hearing from J. Bruce Ismay, the senior official of the White Star line who survived the accident. Messages sent from the Carpathia (which rescued some of the Titanic’s passengers in the water) indicated that Ismay and others tried to rush back to England and never set foot on American soil. So they would never be subject to any investigation by the US
Smith issued subpoenas to Ismay and others who escaped to the Carpathia.
The hearings began just a week after the Titanic sank — not on Capitol Hill or in the new Senate office building, but in New York City’s posh Waldorf Astoria.
The hearings then moved to the giant hearing room in what is now the Russell Senate Office Building. That room was known as the “Russell Caucus Room” for decades. The Senate named the room the “Kennedy Caucus Room” after the death of the late Senator Ted Kennedy, D-Mass.
The audience was captivated by the story of the Titanic. People poured into the hearing room to personally witness the proceedings. In fact, the attention focused on the Titanic during the congressional investigation likely cemented the mythos of the accident into an iconic episode. That’s to say nothing about how the hearings later drove the popularity of the Titanic in pop culture — ranging from the panned 1980s movie “Raise the Titanic” to the late-1990s financial juggernaut “Titanic.”
Smith held a total of 17 hearings and took testimony from 82 witnesses, including 34 crew members and nearly two dozen passengers. The hearings alternated back and forth between Washington and New York. The investigation found that the Titanic ignored ice warnings and did not have enough lifeboats. Lawmakers also learned that other ships failed to respond to distress calls from the Titanic.
In this undated photo, Paul-Henry Nargeolet poses for a photo next to OceanGate’s Titan submarine in 2022. (@OceanGateExped/Twitter)
The hearings helped establish an accurate account of what happened to the Titanic. It also gave impetus to maritime law. Some believe Smith’s investigation dissuaded the British from either condoning the episode or not investigating at all.
The hearings formed new laws about how many lifeboats and life jackets were needed on ships. The incident is also one of the reasons Congress passed the Radio Act of 1912, which required ships to maintain radio alert while at sea and be prepared for distress calls.
A plaque in the Kennedy Caucus Room indicates the significance of the Titanic hearings that took place there more than a century ago. Other major hearings followed, including: Teapot Dome, Watergate, Iran-Contra, and numerous Supreme Court confirmation hearings.
A congressional inquiry into the Titan submarine disaster is far from clear.
“Could this have been resolved differently if leadership acted sooner and actually put options on the table instead of just assuming, ‘Well, it doesn’t matter because they’re dead?'” asked Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Tex. , before it was clear what happened to the Titan.
A U.S. Coast Guard ship arrives at the port of St. John’s, Newfoundland, on Wednesday, June 28, 2023, following the arrival of the ship Horizon Arctic carrying debris from the submarine Titan. The OceanGate Expeditions submarine imploded on its way to the Titanic wreckage. (Paul Dale)
Crenshaw characterized this as “an epic failure in leadership by the US military”, specifically calling out the Navy and Coast Guard.
The top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., wasn’t so quick to blame the military, however.
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“We’re not omnipotent. We can’t solve every problem that arises,” Smith said. “If there is a certain skill that someone is missing in an emergency anywhere in the world and we can help them, I would like us to look into it. (But) it is not always possible.”
Congress may not get involved in the Titanic’s failed mission to explore the Titanic, but the sinking of the Titanic forever changed the landscape of blockbuster Congressional hearings and how we feel about them today.
Chad Pergram is currently senior congressional correspondent for FOX News Channel (FNC). He joined the network in September 2007 and is based in Washington, DC
