LEAD: Japan is continuing to violate a semiconductor agreement with the United States, and the Reagan Administration's planned sanctions to enforce it would "strengthen the credibility of the U.S.," a Congressional watchdog agency said today.

An independent Congressional watchdog, if approved, would be a major break with tradition.

Self-styled Congressional watchdogs have long clamored for independent review of the conduct of members of Congress, saying lawmakers have shown an inability to hold their colleagues accountable in all but the most egregious cases.

News media reports about abuses of human subjects in West Los Angeles unleashed the fury of Congressional watchdogs, who asked the General Accounting Office to assess the safeguards for veterans who serve as research subjects.

Indeed, that oversized price tag now has Congressional watchdogs working on legislation to ban all non-essential foreign travel by Presidential appointees in the weeks after an election where control of the White House changes party hands.

Our real-life Congressional watchdogs are just as impotent as the whorish politicians Mr. Gelbart satirizes.

"The Congressional watchdog remains fast asleep, and we intend to wake it up," Senator Byron L. Dorgan of North Dakota, who is chairman of the Democratic Policy Committee, said at a news briefing.

In doing so, he has called into question the the relationship between intelligence agencies and Congressional watchdogs.

Congressional watchdogs call Kime's role a conflict of interest and defense experts state that his position may give the Marines greater leverage over contracts and earmarks in the Appropriations Committee.

On screen was Robert Aldrich's "Kiss Me Deadly," now a cult noir classic but in 1955 nothing but a menace in the eyes of Congressional watchdogs concerned with the country's moral fiber.