The Week

■ The National Science Foundation, NASA, and the Office of Naval Research have requested $150,000 to complete a study on why monkeys clench their jaws in moments of stress. The study has already ascertained, at a cost of only half a million dollars, that monkeys get annoyed when given electric shocks, and that drunken monkeys have slower reflexes than sober monkeys. Our behind-the-scenes sources report that the monkeys themselves were going to conduct the research until they learned their Civil Service standing would have to be downgraded.

■ Among its varied side effects, the Mayaguez affair is prompting Congress to reconsider how much of the Imperial Presidency it wants to take over. On February 5, at the height of its post-Water gate fling at conducting foreign policy, both Houses voted to forbid any further shipments of arms to Turkey. Turkey’s Cyprus behavior may have been adequate reason, at the time, to suspend actual arms shipments, but translating a tactical suspension into an absolute prohibition merely hamstrung U. S. diplomacy, and removed all leverage and flexibility in our dealings with NATO’s eastern anchor. On May 19, in the aftermath of Mayaguez, the Senate voted by the barest of majorities (41 to 40) to lift the ban. It will now be up to the House of Representatives to return the conduct of foreign policy to the branch to which the Constitution assigns it.

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William F. Buckley Jr.

■ The National Science Foundation, NASA, and the Office of Naval Research have requested $150,000 to complete a study on why monkeys clench their jaws in moments of stress. The study has already ascertained, at a cost of only half a million dollars, that monkeys get annoyed when given electric shocks, and that drunken monkeys have slower reflexes than sober monkeys. Our behind-the-scenes sources report that the monkeys themselves were going to conduct the research until they learned their Civil Service standing would have to be downgraded.

■ Among its varied side effects, the Mayaguez affair is prompting Congress to reconsider how much of the Imperial Presidency it wants to take over. On February 5, at the height of its post-Water gate fling at conducting foreign policy, both Houses voted to forbid any further shipments of arms to Turkey. Turkey’s Cyprus behavior may have been adequate reason, at the time, to suspend actual arms shipments, but translating a tactical suspension into an absolute prohibition merely hamstrung U. S. diplomacy, and removed all leverage and flexibility in our dealings with NATO’s eastern anchor. On May 19, in the aftermath of Mayaguez, the Senate voted by the barest of majorities (41 to 40) to lift the ban. It will now be up to the House of Representatives to return the conduct of foreign policy to the branch to which the Constitution assigns it.