The painful debacle in Vietnam that officially ended in 1975 led many Americans to conclude that the United States should avoid fighting in far away jungles and swamps alongside dubious local allies in the name of defeating global communism. Growing inflation sparked by Vietnam War spending and the first “oil shock” in 1973, and the searing Watergate domestic political scandal that brought down Richard Nixon's presidency were two of many other factors that weakened the American public's confidence in their government's competence and honesty. Most notably in the 1975 hearings chaired by Democratic senator Frank Church, congressional revelations about the CIA's involvement in seemingly morally dubious covert operations that unseated sitting governments in countries from Iran (1953) to Chile (1973) only further weakened Americans’ self-given identity as a beacon of freedom and transparency.

The United States endured a period of “imperial presidency” following World War II when anti-communism fears inclined Congress to defer to presidential prerogatives in places like Vietnam. Now, by contrast, it was as if an imperial Congress sought to use its powers to check the Executive Branch. One way Congress attempted to redress these excesses was to focus on the internal nature of regimes receiving American aid, especially military.