Formal Power And Prerogative: The Presidency And National Security
CSC 1988
SUBJECT AREA National Security
FORMAL POWER AND PREROGATIVE: THE PRESIDENCY AND NATIONAL
SECURITY
By
Major Fergus Paul Briggs
United States Marine Corps Reserve
9 May 1988
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Chapter 1 Introduction: "The Sharing of Power......... 1
Chapter 2 The Presidential Roots: Colonial,
Early National, and Constitutional
Overviews.................................... 23
Chapter 3 Presidential Authority: Definition
by Precedent................................. 51
Chapter 4 Congressional Reform, Pluralism,
Oversight of the President, and National
Security..................................... 83
Chapter 5 The Elite Divergence, The Mass Public,
and Presidential Leadership in
National Security........................... 105
Chapter 6 Summary..................................... 123
Notes ............................................ 126
Bibliography ............................................ 137
Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION
THE SHARING OF POWER: CHANGING RELATIONSHIPS
Who makes national security policy is not an idle
question for academic debate. How we answer that
question in practice determines the American capacity
to act in the world. That, in turn, affects not only
our ability to ensure the survival and security of the
United States, but also our capacity to affect the
future of world events.1
Former U.S. National Security Advisor Zbigniew
Brezezinski's remarks before the Federalist Society
"Symposium on Foreign Affairs and the Constitution" on 6
November 1987 evoke the fundamental topic of this paper. To
what degree do the executive and legislative branches share
the formulation and execution of U.S. national security
objectives; and to what means is the president as chief
executive and commander-in-chief limited as America's
primary agent of responsibility for the defense of the
republic and its allies? Since the Spanish-American War,
especially in the era following The Great Depression and
World War II, the executive branch, personified in the
president, is the focal point of national politics both
domestic and foreign. Correspondingly, within the
international context, the American post-World War II global
role magnifies executive branch responsibility in the
presidential roles of chief diplomat and commander in chief.
Following VJ Day in 1945 the increased peacetime
presidential authority underlying the U.S. Status as a
superpower was publicly accepted as a necessity until the
Vietnam War when the president's ability to set a coherent
course for national security to complement the U.S. role was
challenged by legislative limitations and by public
questioning of America's contemporary great power
responsibilities.
The challenges to presidential foreign policy power are
grounded within the pluralistic principles of U.S.
government with its separation of powers, within the
inherent constitutional ambiguities regarding the boundaries
between specific executive and legislative powers, and
within the interbranch sharing of certain powers such as the
warpower and the treaty power. A reading of the U.S.
Constitution shows a blending of foreign policy and war
making powers between the two branches. Counterposed to the
specific presidential powers of treaty making, commander-in-
chief of the armed forces, and all the powers of national
sovereignty not specified as congressional, the legislative
branch has the war declaration power, treaty ratification
power in the Senate, and the power of the purse originating
in the House of Representatives, which is ancillary yet
fundamental to policy implementation. The diffusion of
powers and policy functions contributes an adverse political
dimension to the pervading interbranch Constitutional
struggle over foreign policy. How this dimension is viewed
depends upon the point of view: Principled advocates of
strong presidential authority, such as Dr Brzezinski and
others contend the scales have shifted in the direction of
the legislative branch in the past fifteen years.2
Principled opponents of a strong presidency in foreign
affairs suggest that since 1950 "revisionist contentions"
concerning the power of the presidency in foreign affairs
wrongfully justify presidential power in terms of the
Constitution within the following categories: prerogative
powers, executive power, the commander-in-chief power,
foreign affairs power, and the precedents of preceding
presidential office holders.3 With the Watergate scandal of
President Richard Nixon and the American failure in Vietnam
as catalysts for increased congressional oversight of the
president, the traditionally fluid relationship between
branches experienced during the Cold War period is
increasingly adversarial, polarized, and characterized by
heated deliberation and sometimes political paralysis on the
major foreign policy questions of the day.
Advocates of presidential primacy in national security
policy suggest the legislative branch has overstepped its
proper constitutional role. William Bradford Reynolds, U.S.
Assistant Attorney General Civil Rights Division, complains
of congressional encroachment on presidential foreign policy
turf:
.... in the field of foreign relations, we have seen
since the Vietnam experience an increasingly assertive
congress, intruding broadly into the execution of
American foreign affairs through improper use of the
appropriations power, its determination to declare war,
and its advice and consent to treaties, among other
powers. But the recent story is less one of genial
constitutional power sharing than of determined
encroachment upon the powers of the executive in the
international field - encroachment that has taken its
toll on American efficacy and prestige abroad and the
bipartisan spirit that long attended foreign policy
matters at home.
Whether the bipartisan consensus of the Cold War
mentioned by Brad Reynolds was an historical aberration or
not, the constitutional framers understood the transcendent
importance of national unity in foreign relations as
underscored by James Madison's admonition that if we are to
be one nation in any respect, it ought to be in respect to
other nations. Unity and decisiveness in the international
realm dictates both a strong national government and the
vesting of executive authority in a single President.4
Clearly, World War II propelled the United States to
its position as senior partner in freeworld coalition
defense and, along with it, elevated the president to a more
dominant role in warmaking. The centrality of the president
as a commander is conconstitutionally mandated and made
possible by the speed and centralization of modern
communications means available for presidential control of
the U.S nuclear deterrent defense. Presidential command
authority, public expectation, and command and control
capability combined encourage involvement of the president
in command decisions formerly made at lower levels. Martin
Van Creveld shows that president between 1946 and 1975 was
involved in 144 of 200 crises, though the actual need for
his services occured in only 44 of those instances.5 The
Constitutional questions raised by these presidential
command responsibilities in global defense are increasingly
studied. But the framers' intent is sufficiently ambiguous
to cover all contingencies, resulting in differing
interpretations and biases among scholars concerning whether
the executive or legislature is supreme in warmaking and
foreign policy.
Presidential advocates contend the commander-in-chief
powers and the framers' substitution of the words "declare
war" instead of "make war" in the Article I congressional
powers illustrates a broad intent within the Constitution
for vigorous executive power in this area. Historical
precedent further defines this intent. By 1967, presidents
had unilaterally sent troops or arms abroad 132 times
compared to five times with congressional declaration of war
and 62 times with congressional approval short of war.
Recent presidencies show a continuation of the command
decision tradition with the Mayaguez rescue, the aborted
hostage rescue mission to Iran, the liberation of Grenada,
the air raid on Libya, the sale or provision of arms to
Iran, Nicaraugua, and Afghanistan, and the current naval
escort operations in the Persian Gulf. Also, when compared
to only 1,000 Senatorially ratified formal treaties, the
several thousand executive agreements with foreign
governments during the nation's history further demonstrate
the breadth of presidential discretion or prerogative in
national security affairs.6
One of the lessons of Vietnam is that sweeping
presidential authority cannot routinely withstand strong
public opposition. As President Kennedy stated: "The
President is rightly described as a man of extraordinary
powers. Yet it is also true he must exercise those powers
under extraordinary limitations". The president is powerful
when the citizenry allows him to be, and the public
consensus in the modern era is quioxtic. Dr Brzezinski
assesses the contemporary dearth of public consensus in
national security policy and the political dimension of the
interbranch competition between president and congress for
primacy in foreign affairs as resulting from five factors:
1. The collapse of bipartisanshipin the second half of
the forty year period of U.S. global power.
Bipartisanship meant both branches shared common
assumptions in contrast to the alternative partisan
conceptions of foreign policy in the post Vietnam era
reflecting differing views about American values, about
exercise of power, about threats to national security,
and about national priorities.
2. Americans tend to confuse strategy with tactics,
failing to define strategic priorities, failing to
differentiate central from peripheral fronts in the
struggle against Soviet hegemony, and allowing tactics
to dominate strategic considerations in both the
executive and legislative branches of government.
3. Inadequate consultation occurs between executive and
legislature in the area of strategic thought. The
National Security Council could promote a constructive
dialogue, but is institutionalized as a presidential
advisory group which does not formally appear before
congress and incurs incriminations from a turf
conscious State Department if informal congressional
liaisons occur. Unfortunately, the State Department's
diplomatic role is but one component of foreign policy
which by necessity also includes military power,
intelligence, covert activity, financial power, and
threat assessment; areas of clearly deficient expertise
at State.
4. The nature of modern warfare has compressed the time
available for critical decision making. The prospect
of nuclear conflict exacerbates the executive
relationship with congress and further concentrates
command and control in the hands of the President. The
time for deliberation in a larger forum is often
absent.
5. The need for covert operations and the requirement
for secrecy in these operations creates a security
dilemma when consultation between executive and
legislature is undertaken. Leaks jeopardize
operational success and destroy the cooperation
necessary to integrate covert activity into the
national strategy.7
One political outcome of the post Vietnam legislative-
executive struggle, The Warpowers Act of 1973, serves as a
symbol for a host of legislation in the 1970's limiting,
overseeing, and proscribing the boundaries of presidential
authority in national security policy. The Warpowers Act
raises genuine political problems not properly solved by
legislation.8 Mr. Reynolds, reflecting the Reagan
Administration point of view, feels the law is a circuitous
assertion of congressional authority and is a highly
questionable statutory reallocation of fundamental executive
discretion from the standpoint of the Constitution.9 The
"flipside" of the Warpowers Act is its explicit recognition
of presidential authority to initiate hostilities, a
concession which those who read the Constitution strictly
would never warrant.10
President Ford, the first U.S. chief executive forced
to operate within the War Powers Act provisions, and whose
views have been echoed by all subsequent presidents,
believes the law unconstitutional, impractical, and a
constraint on the President's effort to acheive or maintain
peace.11 His strongest objection is the requirement to
withdraw troops from hostilities after 90 days if Congress
simply fails to approve the deployment.
"If the Congress is mired in indecision or inaction or
lacks courage or guts - if you want to call it that -
to do anything, it can do nothing and acheives the same
result as if they had ordered it by majority vote in
both the House and the Senate."12
The Supreme Court decision in Immigration and Naturalization
Service vs Chadha rules legislative vetos unconstitutional,
and will in all probability, overule the automatic 90 day
troop withdrawal provision, should the Warpowers Act ever
face a Supreme Court test.
Ford, a congressman from Michigan before becoming
president after the resignations of Vice President Spiro
Agnew and President Richard Nixon in 1974, recounts alot of
difficulty in locating congressional leaders for
consultation in times of crisis. The inadequacy of
deliberative bodies such as legislatures to make command
decisions is particularly acute in situations where no clear
public support mobilizes toward objectives and requirements.
To cite a current example, despite U.S. naval presence
there since 1949, during the Persian (Arabian) Gulf
situation of 1987-88, congress debated at length whether
naval escort operations of American flagged Kuwaiti tankers
was a proper role for U.S. military forces. Refusing to
accept presidential initiative and autonomy in command
decisions, congress was unable to legislate quickly enough
to control the rapidly evolving and dangerous situation.
The naval role was brought to public attention in the Fall
of 1987 by an accidental Iraqi missile bombardment of the
destroyer U.S.S. Stark. Split on the wisdom of invoking the
Warpowers Act, the congress voted instead on two bills
neither giving clear policy direction, but each
incorporating some kind of presidential reporting
requirement as an oversight mechanism. Secretary of
Defense, Casper Weinberger recounted his conversations with
three U.S. Senator concerning these two bills:
Senator Bumpers states, "The resolution is carefully
designed to do nothing." Senator Weiker says "Its
better to do something than nothing. Senator Pryor
says, "I don't know what we're doing." This is not a
signal of resolve.!13
The major shortcoming of congress as a deliberative body
competing with the president in decisions concerning the
employment of forward deployed U.S. forces is best put by
president Ford: "There can be only one Commander in
Chief".14
As mentioned, although the Warpowers Resolution enjoys
the most notoriety, it is only one of several congressional
actions aimed at reigning in presidential national security
prerogative in the wake of Watergate and Vietnam.
In highlighting some of the major legislation, it is
essential to briefly review the dynamic relationship between
the legislative and executive branches. A more extensive
treatment follows in chapter 3. The nature of American
interbranch relations shifted from one characterized by
congressional dominance to one characterized by presidential
dominance with the global extension of the interests after
the Spanish American War in 1898. The development of a
public presidency commencing with Theodore Roosevelt
initiated the routine practice of modern presidents of
circumventing congress by appealing to popular support and
pressuring legislative approval of, or acquiescence to,
presidential initiatives. Teddy Roosevelt's machinations
behind the revolution seizing the Panama Canal Zone from
Columbia in 1903 illustrate the point.15 When viewed from
the perspective of 20th century presidential government, the
legislation of the 1970's, like the Senate's revocation of
the Versailles treaty after World War I, seems a
congressional attempt at turning back the clock to the
nineteenth century legislative/executive power ratio, when
iimited America foreign policy interests allowed a stronger
congressional role and a more benign presidency
Critics of wide ranging presidential discretion often
overlook the great amount of authority ceded to the
executive branch by congressional statute because of
inadequecies in the legislative process. These legislative
cessions were of vast scope especially during wartime and
during the New Deal programs of the Great Depression.
Conversely, congressional assertion of power in the 1970's
and 80's is arguably the result of congressionally perceived
presidential abuses or excesses.
From the time when President Jefferson transferred
funding authorizations for frigates to purchase coastal
vessels, president have maintained the executive power to
impound transfer, and reprogram funds. Because of repeated
congressional failures to develop an effective centralized
budgetary process, the 1921 Budgeting and Accounting Act
surrendered to the president the express legislative power
of budget formulation through the Bureau of the budget and a
presidentially appointed Director of the Budget. Later in
1933 in an executive order following the passage of the
Emergency Recovery Act, president Franklin Roosevelt moved
the director from Treasury to the executive office as part
of the organizational reforms of the Brownlow Commission.
He also further expanded the function of the bureau to one
of legislative clearance of the budget. In 1970, President
Nixon reorganized the bureau into the Office of Management
and Budget, further centralizing executive control of the
federal pursestrings, and to expand the role of the agency
in budget preparation and legislative clearance, he added
program assessment.16
The unraveling of presidential power in budgetary
concerns began when Nixon's command prerogative in the
unpopular Vietnam conflict, and the implicit belief of
presidents that congressional budget passage grants
legislative sanction of presidential actions, led congress
to reclaim a stronger budgetary role. Specifically,
congress opposed Nixon's transfer of 255 million in economic
and military assistance to Cambodia after the 1970 U.S.
incursion into that country to destroy North Vietnamese Army
sanctuaries.17 Later, as a result of Nixon's impoundment
of ten billion dollars in Office of Economic Opportunity,
funds and six billion dollars in water pollution control
funds, enactment of the Budget Reform and Impoundment
Control Act of 1974 placed procedural restrictions upon the
president's fiscal discretion. Among the provisions is a
legislative veto of transfers or impoundments through joint
resolution. Also, to check the president's Office of
Management and Budget and assume stronger policy oversight,
the Budget Reform and Impoundment Control Act created the
Congressional Budget Office and congressional budget
commitees superimposed upon the existing appropriations
committees and taxation commitees in both houses. This
measure restored stronger legislative influence by
reestablishing congressional budgetary competition with the
president, but significantly slowed the budget cycle through
the lengthy deliberative process engendered.
Habitually, beginning each fiscal year, congress runs
the nation on continuing resolutions while engineering a
compromise budget bill acceptable to a majority coalition.18
To underscore the inefficiency of the appropriations process
and lobby for a presidential line item veto, President
Reagan mocked congress in his 1988 State of the Union
Address by displaying the heavy and cumbersome FY 88
Appropriations Bill and the subsequent compromise bill while
admonishing members to expedite the process in future
budgets. Additionally, though more procedural than
substantive, a 1974 amendment to the Budget and Accounting
Act of 1921 requires Senate confirmation of the powerful
Director of The Office of Management and Budget.19
Nothing has the universal effect on all policy areas
like the federal budget and the fiscal policy it
represents.20 The presidency in the 1970's lost its
monopoly on the control of budgetary and program information
along with the power and flexibility that such a monopoly
carries with it.
Even before the reform legislation, the power of
puree was a "long suit" for congress in influencing policy.
Using their appropriation power during the Vietnam conflict,
congressional constraints on the president included measures
to limit widening the war to neighboring countries, despite
the problem of persistant attacks by the North Vietnamese
Army from neutral sanctuaries in Laos, Cambodia, and
Thailand. In 1970 the Defense Appropriations Act prohibited
financing the introduction of U.S. ground combat troops into
Laos and Thailand.21 Using his command prerogative,
President Nixon continued to bomb Laos and accomodated the
troop restriction by substituting mercenary and CIA equipped
paramilitary forces.22 In 1971, in response to Nixon's
transfer of foreign assistance funds to prosecute operations
in Cambodia previously mentioned, the Cooper-Church
Amendment to the supplemental appropriation to the Foreign
Assistance Act forbade financing of U.S. ground combat
troops, or providing U.S. advisors to, or for, the Cambodian
military forces in Cambodia. Circumventing the intent if
not the letter of this provision, the Nixon administration
tasked military equipment delivery teams to advise the
Cambodian field commanders.
In the face of stiff congressional opposition Nixon
also continued bombing of the sanctuaries in Laos and
Cambodia. Attempts by antiwar legislators to stop the
bombing, such as the Gravel Amendment to a defense
procurement bill, and the Proxmire Amendment to a defense
appropriations bill were defeated until after the Paris
Peace Accords between the United States and North Vietnam
had been signed and American combat involvement in Indochina
had ended.23
In total, Congress took 113 role call or teller votes
between 1966 and July 1973 (94 occured during the Nixon
years alone) upon legislation to limit or end U.S. combat in
Indochina. Defeated were the most drastic "end the war"
amendments such as the Hatfield-McGovern Amendment to the
Military Procurement Act of 1971, proposing to cut funding
for all military operations, save the orderly withdrawal of
U.S. troops. Using a different approach, the Mansfield
amendment to the Defense Procurement Authorization Act of
1972 dictated in a broad statement of policy the termination
of all military operations in Indochina, and the withdrawal
of all U.S. military forces at the earliest possible date.
Though the Mansfield Amendment never faced a Supreme Court
test, Nixon viewed the amendment an unconstitutional
exercise against the commander-in-chief power because it set
policy for forces in the field.
Nixon refused to announce a withdrawal date or to
negotiate under the congressional procedures.24 Later,
facing the prospect of a general congressional resolution
limiting presidential warpowers, the first attempted War
Powers Act, Nixon signed a bill accepting a cutoff of future
operational funding to Indochina. Despite Nixon's
acquiesce, largely as a result of the disputes over the
operations in Laos and Cambodia, congress passed the War
Powers Resolution in the Autumn of 1973 over Nixon's veto.
Passage of the Warpowers Act, at the time Nixon was
embroiled in the Watergate scandal, and the Yom Kippur War
crisis in the Middle East, is testimony to the political
weakness to which Nixon had fallen. The inopportune timing
demonstrates the extreme congressional discontent caused by
their inability to control Nixon's command prerogative, in
the prosecution of the Indochina conflict.
Another piece of presidentially restrictive
legislation, the National Emergencies Act of 1976 targeted
the huge amount of unrevoked emergency power legislatively
authorized the President, especially since the Great
Depression in the 1930's. Below is described the vast scope
of emergency laws:
Emergency powers have permitted a president to control
the economy, regulate imports and exports, impose
rationing, intervene in labor disputes, freeze wages
and prices, suspend civil liberties, impose censorship,
and otherwise control the information the free press
can publish.25
Presidents have been far more willing to declare
emergencies than to end them, so emergency periods and
the laws operative in them typically have lasted many
years beyond the end of the original emergency.26
For example, using a dated but unrevoked congressional
emergency grant, Woodrow Wilson approved the arming of
merchant ships prior to the U.S entry into World War I.
Similarly, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, John Kennedy
froze Cuban assets in U.S. banks using a statute passed
during the Korean War. Concerned not so much with the fact
of emergency powers as with the nontermination of latent
presidential authority existing beyond the period of the
emergency, the National Emergencies Act places limitations
upon emergency powers and allows a legislative veto of
emergency declarations through concurrent resolution. The
effect or the bill is to leave the 470 existing emergency
acts in place (congress cannot revoke them because they
originate from presidential declarations), but to limit
executive prerogative in declaration of national emergencies
in so far as the president must inform congress of emergency
actions through a formal entry in the Federal Register and
the congress must meet every six months to reconsider the
necessity of the emergency. The president, under this law,
may declare a state of emergency to run for a year,
renewable upon 90 days notification to congress. This is a
significant lessening of a formerly almost unlimited
prerogative.27
Another major area of executive prerogative in national
security affairs since the end of World War II, the
unfettered authority to conduct covert activities given the
President by the 1949 amendment to the National Defense Act
of 1947, was checked by the 1974 Hughes Ryan Amendment to
the Foreign Assistance Act. Hughes Ryan responded to
congressionally perceived abuses in CIA operations which in
the 1970's contributed to the overthrow of Chile's communist
president Salvatore Allende. The law requires the President
deliver a Scope Paper detailing the size, cost, and purpose
of each covert activity. Until the Reagan Administration,
it also prohibited the CIA from utilizing funds for covert
operations, limiting the agency to intelligence collection
activities only. As an additional control mechanism during
the Carter administration, the House and Senate established
inteiligence oversight commitees empowered to demand
information, review budgets, subpoena information and
require testimony from the intelligence establishment
through the Director of Central Intelligence. The
congressionally perceived urgent need for legislative review
of intelligence community operations was spurred in part by
the Watergate burglars use of CIA voiceboxes, burglar tools,
and disguises, all in the name of national security.28
Unfortunately, the effect of bringing congress "into the
know" on covert actions is the compromise of some operations
and the blockage of others by hostile legislators who
threaten to leak operational information. In many cases the
result has been to confuse the need for oversight with a
need for congressional consensus in secret operations.29
To regulate the President in foreign arms sales,
congress amended section 36 of the Foreign Military Sales
Act requiring executive notification to congress of military
sales in excess of $25 M, later amended downward to $7 M.
Congress can disapprove any regulated sale by concurrent
resolution within 30 days, unless there is an emergency such
as the 1973 Yom Kippur War in which Israel was aided.30
From a commander-in-chief perspective, security assistance
funds are a cornerstone of the Containment Policy, offering
the president the capability to respond flexibly to third
world low intensity conflicts around the golbe.
Congressional strictures in this area prevent prudent,
timely, and economical measures to support U.S. allies, as
exemplified in the detailed language limiting the
construction of airfields and roads in Honduras in recent
security assistance bills.
With the war in Vietnam in progress, the Senate in 1969
passed a William Fulbright sponsored resolution to limit
presidential executive agreements by forbidding binding
national commitments to use military force on behalf of
another country unless commited by means of treaty, statute,
or concurrent resolution of both houses of congress.
President Nixon successfully defended executive orders,
establishing U.S. military basing in Spain and Portugal and
claiming that a congressional resolution could not strip an
executive order of its legally binding effect in the case of
Spain; nor could it in the case of Portugal require an
executive agreement's formalizion by treaty .
The Case Act of 1972 goes a step further, requiring the
reporting of secret executive agreements, one of which
congress felt responsible for their "being had" in the Gulf
of Tonkin incident and for their near unanimous resolution
to enter the Vietnam War (Congress rescinded the Gulf of
Tonkin Resolution in 1971).31 From the legal standpoint the
presidential practice of secret executive agreements was
determined constitutional by the Supreme Court in U.S. vs
Belmont, upholding Franklin Roosevelt's diplomatic
recognition of the Soviet Union prior to U.S. entry into
World War II.32
In 1976, determined to keep the U.S. out of an "African
Vietnam", congress passed the Clark Amendment to the
International Security Assistance and Arms Export Control
Act to prohibit the use of V.S. funds for military
operations in Angola, unless approved by joint resolution.33
Years later, during the Reagan Administration, Congress,
recognized the error of a flat ban on covert aid to Angola,
and acknowledged that the Cuban Soviet surrogates had not
departed the country within a year as the bill's proponents
had promised. The law was repealed to allow limited support
to UNITA rebels under Jonas Savimbi. Another outcome of the
Clark Amendment experience is the legally circumspect
wording of the Boland Amendments of the 1980's, which sought
not to restrict the president, but only the intelligence
community, from supporting the democratic resistance in
Nicaraugua.34 The congressional intent of these amendments
is a central issue in the criminal prosecution of former
National Security Advisor William Poindexter and National
Security Assistant Oliver North, defendants in the Iran -
Contra affair. Both men were members of the executive
branch, not the intelligence community. Iran-Contra was
investigated under the Special Prosecutor Act, a legacy of
the Watergate scandal authorizing congress to investigate
allegations of criminal misconduct independent of the
Justice Department. The constitutionality of this law is
heatedly debated.
From this brief overview one can surmise as Dr.
Brzezinski does:
Congress is more involved, more central in the shaping
of national security policy. This has resulted from a
variety of factors, but it is a fact of life.... 19
I mention this to highlight the fact that over the last
fifteen years a pattern in executive-legislative
relations has developed which does create serious
difficulties. These cannot be finally resolved by
legislation or formal agreements. Repealing the War
Powers Act would not solve the problem . Alone, that
would not automaticalLy restore a proper balance. The
difficulty arises not from a deficiency in the
statutes. It is instead a political problem. What is
needed is a process of political accommodation and
adjustment that takes into account the global
circumstances of the United States and political
realities at home.35
The purpose of this paper is to the sources of presidential
power and to analyze the political problems of the
presidency in U.S. national security policy originating from
two sources: One, the nature of U.S. political institutions
mandated in the Constitution with its eighteenth century
liberal view that tyranny is best avoided through the
separation of powers and its countervailing checks and
balances. Edwin Corwin alludes to this feature of the U.S.
Constitution as establishing "an open invitation to
struggle".36 The expansion of pluralistic, interest group
norms in the national security bureaucracy and congress
increases the number of participants in the struggle. The
conflict between the president's national security
responsibility and the modern regime values of participatory
democracy are covered in chapter 4. The other political
problem is the post-Vietnam public attitude and competing
belief systems which question the propriety of U.S. great
power responsibility in world affairs. These attitudes,
mirrored in the neoisolationist congressional approach to
national security policy and, arguably, even that of the
Department of Defense, are discussed in chapter 5. Next,
chapter 2 will analyze the colonial, early national, and
constitutional background of the presidential office, with
emphasis on the Commander-in-Chief and foreign policy
functions. Following that, Chapter 3 traces the evolution
of power which resides in the modern presidential office.
In this introduction is outlined the major legislative
restrictions on presidential power resulting from the
Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal. The overall scope
of the paper is simply political analysis of presidential
power and executive prerogative in national security policy
with emphasis on the political environment in the modern
era.
Chapter 2
THE PRESIDENTIAL ROOTS: COLONIAL, EARLY NATIONAL, AND
CONSTITUTIONAL OVERVIEWS
Gaining a meaningful perspective upon current issues
surrounding the presidential power in national defense and
foreign affairs requires a study of the basis for unity in
the presidency emanating from American colonial U.S. early
national, and U.S. Constitutional history.
The invention and establishment of the American
Presidency took place over an almost twenty year
period, between the years 1775 and around 1795. During
this time a variety of factors and influences shaped
American political thought. No one explanation
suffices. The excesses and deficiencies of legislative
government caused people to reconsider the executive
institutions they had earlier rejected. Thus the
British crown and even the detested royal governors
served as models. The example set by General George
Washington provided another. The framers learned also
from the crucial experiences of trying to make their
new governments work both at the state level and under
the (Articles of) Confederation. Finally, the writings
of political theorists, historians, and legal scholars
informed them as they went about the practical work of
devising a new national government.
Some of the dreamers of the day dreamed dreams of
an entirely new form of government, one led and
organized only by legislators who would constitute
representative government. But both history and
experience pointed to the need for a single executive
who would complement legislative policymaking. Thus
separate institutions, a presidency included, were
agreed upon; separate institutions that would share
various policy and rulemaking powers necessary to make
a large growing nation work. The challenges of
governance and leadership encouraged first the design
and then the functioning of a strong executive.
Considerable debate and uncertainty existed at first.
With George Washington elected and in office for
awhile, however, the shape of the institution became
increasingly clear. The presidency continues to evolve
today, but its creation and chief characteristics were
plainly cast in the last quarter of the eighteenth
century. Unique, dangerous, yet necessary, the
creation or invention of the American presidency was
one of the most important acheivements of the
Constitutional Convention. A brilliant fusion of
theory and experience, and a major political gamble,
the American presidency served us well for our first
two hundred years.1
In the forgoing summary Thomas Cronin capsulizes the
historical currents underlying the American chief executive
concept. A thorough analysis of presidential power and
executive prerogative had its anchor in the rudimentary
intellectual and experiential millieu of revolutionary
America and the initial experience as a nation.
Using the Declaration of Independence of 1776 as a
statement of foreign policy, the American founding fathers
succeeded in winning independence against three tyrannies:
kings, courts, and parliaments. The most significant
perceived tyranny was that of the King of England, George
III, who through his royal governors, and supported by acts
of a budget conscious Parliament, taxed the colonies in the
Stamp Acts and the Townshend Act in order to pay colonial
expenses which were an increasing drain on the Royal
Treasury. Though approved by parliament, the colonists
interpreted these measures as kingly taxation without due
process, contrary to the democratic control in British
taxation matters instituted by Oliver Cromwell.
Consequently, the colonists saw themselves as Englishmen
whose rights were abridged because of their colonial status.
Calling the King "The Royal Brute of Britain", Thomas
Paine's written aspersions, indicative of his somewhat
demogogic didain for authority, crystallized the emotion
mobilizing a large percentage of American colonists toward
independence, and symbolized the negative public attitude
regarding executive power in government.2
When relieved from the governmental template imposed by
the British Crown during the American Revolution, the
colonial popular assemblies were free to concoct methods of
controlling their executives. With the exception of New
York, this control included a diversity of provisions to
subordinate government to the legislative bodies; the
legislature was supreme. The Continental Government
operated for five years with no Constitution or documentary
authority until the ratification of The Articles of
Confederation in 1781. Originally proposed as a so-called
Council of State the Articles of Confederation provided a
weak executive to assume limited functions. But the
Continental Congress, regarded the semantics of the word
"council" as connoting excessive central power and
substituted the weaker name "Commitee of States".
Deficient both executive and unified power, the initial
presidency both before and under the articles served as a
presiding officer and a delegate with terms of one year and
eligibility to serve one year in three.3 Continuity or
duration in office was obviously considered a liability and
not an asset. From the First Continental Congress in 1774
to the 1st session of the Second Continental Congress in
1789, fourteen presidents served terms averaging only a year
each. Of these early presidents John Hancock holds,
perhaps, the most renown for his presiding over the
Declaration of Independence, to which is boldly affixed his
famous signature. The pre-constitutional presidents
comprise a portion of the conceptual and experiential base
for the constitutional framers as noted by Richard Morris:
Since these presidents exercised the first glimmerings
of executive power under the central government, and
since six presidents preceded the actual formation of
executive departments, their role foreshadowed, however
dimly, the presidency under the federal constitution,
which assumes a separation of powers unknown to the
congress of the pre-confederation or the confederation
years. Whatever authority the president exercised
emerged out of the necessities of the case and rested
on slight legal foundation, but what they did and how
they did it depended in no small measure on their
personalities, their own conception of their roles in
office, and the political situation which confronted
the respective incumbents.4
The personality dependence of power in the early presidency
illustrates the paucity of presidentiai authority absent
express legal grounding and longevity of term.
The Congress of Confederation, as it was called under
the Articles, was structured similar to the Continental
Congress, with a unicameral body of between two and seven
delegates from each state elected every three years by each
state's legislature.5 It served executive as well as
legislative functions, appointed a committee of states to
manage affairs of union while the congress recessed, and was
empowered to create commitees to conduct the national
business. Inadequate to perform the executive tasks, but
opposed to central authority, congress assigned the
portfolios of foreign affairs, war, navy, and treasury to
committees rather than individuals. When the committees
exhibited shortcomings in unity of effort, congress
compromised its preference for commitees by appointing
secretaries of the various departments as replacements.6 A
symbol of legislative primacy in the national scheme prior
to the Constitution, the United States government was known
as "The Congress" until 1781, when, with the advent of the
Articles of Confederation, the name was changed to "The
United States in Congress Assembled". Though vastly
different in substance, The Articles of Confederation are
the national predecessor to the U.S. Constitution,
representing the "American learning curve" regarding the
necessity for a strong central government.
Supremacy of states over the national government under
the Articles of Confederation was the major feature of the
early federal structure deriving from the colonial period
when only two of the charter colonies were allowed a
popularly elected governor, thereby making the popular
assemblies integral to colonial self-expression as a check
against the royal governor and his power of absolute veto.
Royal governors, though not in every case appointed by the
king, were always answerable to him and not to the popular
assemblies. The importance of the popular assemblies as an
outlet for grievances was magnified by the restriction of
franchise to property owners only. When the royal governors
dissolved the mandated popular assemblies per the terms of
the colonial charter, the colonists devised their own
representative assemblies connected by an informal national
network.
Virginia, in 1774, initiated the Committees of
Intercolonial Correspondence in response to the 1773 British
Coercive Acts. In successive steps the First Continental
Congress of 1775 was originally proposed by the Virginia
Committee of Correspondence, and the Continental Congress,
in turn, legitimized the provincial congresses by calling
for their creation and for the drafting of their
constitutions prior to the Declaration of Independence.
With representative government effectuated despite its
dissolution by the royal governors, Americans viewed their
homegrown assemblies favorably, believing sovereignty to
reside in the people and their representatives; whereas
central government and executive power experienced under the
royal governors were each synonymous in the colonial mind
with monarchy, tyranny, and the usurpation of popular
sovereignty.
In reaction to the British colonial rule, the first
state constitutions provided a skewed balance between the
branches by subordinating the executive to the legislature.
The governors in all states, except New York, Rhode Island,
and Connecticut, were elected by the legislature and the
latter two were strongly subordinated to the legislature.
Terms of office were one year, except for New York and
Delaware where terms lasted three years, and South Carolina,
where it ran two years. Governors had neither final veto
power, power to adjourn the legislature, nor extensive, if
any, appointive power.7 To ensure diffusion of authority
Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts
substituted an executive council for the office of
governor.
A model for the U.S. Constitution, the constitutional
government of New York State benefited from the negative
experience of governmental fragmentation in the other states
and, not least of all, upon a dangerous military situation
within the state during the Revolutionary War, necessitating
the features of unity and continuity in the governor's
office. Shaping the New York executive design were a group
of pro-active conservative thinkers, including John Jay and
Gouverneur Morris, who would later form the nucleus of
nationalists, or federalists, in the 1787 Philadelphia
Convention. Favorably impressed with the success of New
York's chief executive, Massachusetts replaced its plural
executive with a single governor.8
The adoption of the Articles of Confederation in 1781,
was an initial move to codify federal governmental
relationships initiated in part through the ascendance
within the Continental Congress of the nationalists, whose
expansive vision of the nation's future was interwoven with
their fidelity to the cause of a strong national government.
The nationalists included Alexander Hamilton, James Madison,
Gouverneur Morris, James Duane, John Jay, and Robert Morris,
among others. The influence of these men initiated an
extraordinary shift in public philosophy toward support of a
more positive government characterized by central authority.
This differed markedly with the main tenets of the American
Revolution opposing monarchy and authoritative national
power. Those opposed to strong national government were
among the notable patriotic heros of the American
Revolution, including whigs, or traditional republicans like
Samuel Adams, Richard Henry Lee, and Patrick Henry.
The nationalists advocated not only strong central
power, but broad discretionary power in the national
government, especially the executive branch. For them the
meaning of republicanism had evolved since the Revolution,
and the concepts of "civic virtue" and liberty were defined
in new ways particular to an emergent science of politics
which was capable of accomodating democracy, not only in
small polities of agrarian composition, but in a larger
extended republic of commercial enterprise. The whigs, or
traditional republicans, also called "antifederalists"
during the Constitutional ratification maintained weak
central power with strictly interpreted limited powers were
fundamental to individual liberty. In their opinion, the
Philadelphia Convention, by deviating from a mere
modification of the Articles of Confederation to the
drafting of a new a constitution, betrayed the republican
principles of the Revolution, lacked civic virtue, and
ignored the basis of liberty in favor of a politics devoted
to the pursuit of riches and glory.9
The divergence of philosophy between the two early
national competing schools of American republican thought
have flavored the nation's political culture for more than
two hundred years with their divergent viewpoints concerning
the limits of presidential power and the role of national
government. While the American Civil War solved through
violent means the smoldering issue of state nullification of
national sovereignty, the questions surrounding the limits
of executive prerogative are a recurring source of
discussion and argument.
In September, 1780, after the nationalists gained a
prevailing political influence in the Continental Congress,
Alexander Hamilton wrote a letter to fellow New Yorker James
Duane prescribing a nationalist agenda in which he proposed
the Articles of Confederation, then in drafting, authorize a
rational power to tax and make war. Because Hamilton felt
the power of the purse the essence of governmental power, he
advocated that the states provide perpetual funds to
congress, reasoning that high taxes are the mark of a free
people because:
"The obedience of a free people to general laws, no
matter how hard they bear are ever more perfect than
the obedience of slaves to the arbitrary will of the
Prince."
To Hamilton a weak executive meant weak ineffective
government:
"In our case the problem is that the common sovereign
will not have power sufficient to unite the separate
parts together and direct the common forces to the
interest and happiness of the whole."10
When the states did not expressly agree to authorize
national taxation, the Articles of Confederation were
approved minus the taxation power. Hamilton subsequently
argued for the discretionary power to tax consonant with a
power implied, in his view, by national sovereignty in the
prosecution of a war. His rationale was that undefined
powers are limited only by the object for which intended.
The idea of discretionary powers as the axiom of all
political power, or a principle from which all subsequent
reasoning descends, was later spelled out in The Federalist
Papers # 31 during the Constitutional ratification debates
and is fundamental to an understanding of executive
prerogative.11 Having failed to persuade the states on the
taxation issue, and the Continental Congress on the
propriety of discretionary taxation, Hamilton proposed
strengthening the Articles through a constitutional
convention in order to overcome the disunity and the
corresponding national weakness existing in the governmental
structure.
An illustration of the truth in Hamilton's premise that
taxation is the source of government power unfolded with the
creative scheme to finance the Continental Army during the
Revolution. Lacking a national treasury and the coercive
power to develop one, Revolutionary War finances depended
upon the voluntary graces of the states. To rectify the
absence of central revenue raising, the Continental Congress
appointed the independently wealthy Robert Morris to the
post of Financier. Enlisting his credit to secure
governmental financing, the Continental Congress gave Morris
absolute discretion in purchasing foreign goods and ceded to
him many congressional functions such as controlling loans
and assuming authority for all national appointive offices,
with the exceptions of General Washington and the Secret
Service. In executing his official duties, Morris added to
his personal fortune and enjoyed vast personal fiat in
government, unequivocally demonstrating the logic of
Hamilton's position vis-a-vis the power of the purse and its
relationship to power and efficacy.
With the American victory at the Battle of Yorktown on
19 October 1781, revolutionary hostilities with the British,
in essence, ended. The prospect of peace, although ten
years in the making, struck a blow to the nationalists who
felt the continuance of the conflict necessary for the
nation to acquire both the habit of paying taxes and the
vigor and confidence to provide a common defense.
Gouverneur Morris summarized nationalist sentiments:
"War is a ride wet nurse to infant states. States
either die or grow vigorous."12
Nationalist frustration was increasingly evident in a
political misjudgement which occured during the peace
negotiations. While awaiting the Treaty of Paris,
eventually signed on 3 September 1783, disgruntled
Continental Soldiers, garrisoned in Newburg, New York,
petitioned congress for their pay with a veiled threat of
insurrection. Alexander Hamilton, Robert Morris, and
Gouverneur Morris saw in "The Newburg Conspiracy" a
political opportunity to force national taxation. On his
own, Hamilton recklessly endorsed the endeavor to the
delight of his political opponents, the traditional
republicans. The episode climaxed when the conspirators
invited George Washington to become their military dictator
and the General responded with a reprimand, ending the
episode and temporarily dashing the aspirations of those who
favored national taxation.
At the Revolution's ending the limited impetus for
coalition among states represented by the common British
enemy was lost and the Continental Congress was rendered
useless, as it could hardly function. Nine of thirteen
states were the quorum to conduct business; but the real
political leadership, resident in the state legislatures,
was disinterested to the point of seldom sending
representatives to the national assemblages.
Depending on the point of view, the years 1783 to 1788
were either a critical period for the United States because
of the weak central government, or, as the traditional
republicans claimed, the nationalists magnified the problems
of the day to justify a stronger national government.
Among the substantial problems were: rampant inflation in
the Continental paper currency, British banning of American
ships from the West Indies, and British restrictions to
trade. The British also refused to remove troops from the
northwest garrisons under the valid justification that
nonpayment to British concerns of private debts incurred
prior to the war's outbreak violated the Treaty of Paris.
Because of deficient national coercive power in the federal
relatiorship, some states passed laws actually impeding the
collection of these pre-war British debts. When congress
sent John Adams as emissary to England to protest the
continued manning of the British garrisons in the northwest,
the nonexistent American military backing left the British
completely unconcerned.
Beside the private debt problem, the provision
requiring unanimous consent of the states for raising
nationai revenue resulted in the nonpayment of the national
war debt. The fledgling nation's economic difficulties
acceleraLed when, in Spain, John Jay failed to negotiate
American rights of navigation on the Mississippi River, and
both Britain and Spain embargoed trade, forcing The United
States further into post war recession.
Because of the ominous economic nationwide difficulties
owing to trade and currency, a national convention was
planned for Annapolis, Maryland in 1786 but was disbanded
before it convened with the rationale that postponement of
the convention would allow a more serious addressal of
national issues in Philadelphia the following year, 1787.
In fact, for reasons of no clear self-interest, the New
England states had opted not to attend the Annapolis
gathering and other states were poorly represented. To
conduct the convention with such a weak representation would
have defeated any initiatives taken.
During the year's interim between the Annapolis and
Philadelphia Conventions, financially pressed citizens in
western Massachusetts called a number of local conventions
to demand changes in the state government, such as abolition
of the senate and cessation of heavy land taxation, lawyer's
fees, and county court costs. Later, during the winter of
1786-87, in protest of farm foreclosures, mobs prevented
Massachusetts county courts from holding session, and about
two thousand farmers rose in armed rebellion under the
leadership of a former Continental Army Captain named Daniel
Shays. Though suppressed by the Massachusetts State
Militia, Shays Rebellion raised national fears of widespread
anarchy in other indebted areas of the United States.
Shays' threat to seize the U.S. Arsenal at Springfield,
Massachusetts had raised concerns that the militia might
need assistance from a national army which the congress was
incapable of expeditiously providing.
The shock of Shay's Rebellion mobilized a strong and
representative turnout of concerned state delegations at the
Philadelphia Convention, but the panic and insecurity were
not universally shared. Thomas Jefferson, speaking for the
traditional republican viewpoint expressed skepticism toward
of Secretary of War Knox for having greatly exaggerated the
numbers of Shay's adherents. Furthermore, he suggested that
the Americans were once again being duped by the British
with their constant rumors of anarchy, and that the
nationalists in their plans for a strong central government
would set up a kite to guard the hen yard.13 Jefferson's
thoughts notwithstanding, the Post Revolutionary War
depression and the experience of Shay's Rebellion in 1786
underscored public perceptions of the inadequecy of national
military means, adding a grassroots sense of urgency to the
quest to form a strong central government and a credible
common defense.
In tune with political thought of the times, the
Constitutional Convention in 1787 created the unprecedented
office of president with an inherent conflict deriving from
the colonial and early national experiences in parallel with
the traditional republican - nationalist divergence of
viewpoints. Rationalizing a strong national government
while guarding against potential monopoly of power, the
Philadelphia Convention initiated a system of checks and
balances among three branches: the legislative, the
executive, and the judiciary. Conservative in outlook, the
convention rejected eighteenth century notions of the
perfectability of man and excessive expectations about the
possibilities of political action. The constitutional
separation of powers embodies a belief in political
engineering and a propensity to pursue diverse, even
controverting goals through the implementation of a complex
governmental structure.14 In terms of national security the
president was designated commander-in-chief of the armed
forces with undefined and therefore expandable or limitable
authority; however, the congress would provide for the
common defense through declaration of war, raising and
supporting armies, providing and maintaining a navy, and
providing for calling forth a militia to execute the laws of
the union. Jean S. Holder distills the inherent
presidential conflict in the Constitutional arrangement:
Americans have characteristically held ambivelant views
toward power - particularly presidential power. In the
decade that began in 1970 the pendulum moved full swing
as critics of various stripes first deplored the
"imperial presidency" of Richard Nixon and then
rejected the leadership of Jimmy Carter who tried to
strip the presidency of its regal trappings. The
present day ambivelance is, in part, a legacy from the
Founding Fathers who resolved their own inner and
interpersonal conflicts in regard to power by creating
an executive office of minimal definition in the
Constitution. These men who had fought to free
themselves from what they perceived to be the threat of
enslavement to royal tyranny were caught between their
fear of creating a quasi-regal leader and their belief
that strength in the executive was essential to
effective, balanced government. In providing a merely
skeletal description of the presidential role, the
framers of the Constitution skirted their own dilemma
but set the stage for a power struggle that would
essentially begin with the second American presidency.
As the idol of the entire nation, George Washington
conducted a magisterial administration; his personal
prestige and stature made his word fiat among
contemporaries.15
State experience under the Articles of Confederation
underscored the necessity for a vigorous, responsible, and
singular president, emphasizing emergent tendencies toward
confidence in the executive and distrust of the legislature.
New York, under the Governorship of George Clinton for
eighteen years, provided the model for the U.S. Presidency
within a constitutional separation of powers, and is
noteable for limiting the power of the legislature.
Executive independence, election by the people instead of
the legislature, command of the military, qualified veto,
unlimited three year terms, and executive equality with the
legislature were factors at variance with other states, most
of which had plural executives of extremely limited power
Clinton largely influenced the New York constitution with
his aversion to councils and his feeling that executive
energy and responsibility are inversely proportional to
reponsibility. Ironically, Clinton felt monarchy was more
likely to occur with strong executive power on the national
than on the state level, and his letter to the people of New
York during the ratification debates stands as one of the
most articulate traditional republican arguments against the
constitutional presidency.16 That the governor with the
strongest formal power among the states should oppose
similar authority at the national level epitomizes the
contradictions inherent in the American ambivelance toward
central government.
With the persuasive leverage of the nationalists over
the traditional republicans in Philadelphia, the convention
changed course from a modification of the Articles of
Confederation to a redesign, or more accurately, the
creation of a new government. This resulted in a completly
new Constitution, simultaneously shifting governmental
structural from a system with legislative primacy to one
where sharing of power among three branches would be the
design. The notion of the sovereign legislature had been
discredited and replaced with the realization that national
survival depended also upon an energetic presidency. To
this end the founders were explicit that presidential power
have a Constitutional and not a statutory foundation of
formal power.
Judith A. Best suggests the founders construction of
the presidency grew out of an overriding fear of legislative
tyranny and the confident belief in an energetic executive
as the cure. Supporting this fear was a new and more
sophisticated philosophical conception of tyranny as the
accumulation of powers, legislative, executive, and judicial
in the same hands growing out of the political theories of
Baron Charles Secondat De Montesquieu and John Locke, as
opposed to the precept of tyranny as one man rule conveyed
by Aristotle. Ingrained in the Constitution, this divergent
conception holds that a republic improperly balanced can be
as tyrannical as an unbenevolent monarchy. Specifically, a
legislative body unchecked in its power can wield the
tyrannical reign of a single despot. On the Philadelphia
Convention floor James Madison suggested the popular faith
in legislatures as the only source of good government,
devolving from the American colonial years was, perhaps,
misplaced:
"Experience had proved a tendency in our goverments to
throw all power into the legislative vortex. The executives
of states are in general little more than cyphers; the
legislatures omnipotent. If no effective check be devised
for restraining the instability and encroachment of the
latter, a revolution of some kind or other would be
inevitable."
Incorporating a so-called "check" against legislative
tyranny, Article II of the U. S. Constitution designates the
president commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the
United States and of the militia of the several states, when
called into actual service of the United States. He is to
act as a chief diplomat in receiving ambassadors and other
public ministers and to make treaties with the advice and
consent of the Senate.17
In Article I the congress is empowered to "provide for
the common defense" and to regulate commerce with foreign
nations. This sharing of foreign affairs functions between
congress and the president reflects the design to prevent
the accumulation of power in the same hands, the equivelant
of tyranny. At the same time, power sharing was a
compromise, a countervailing of the modern conception of
tyranny against a parallel belief that strength was
essential to balanced government.18 The legislative -
executive construct with its division and sharing of power
also documents the interplay between the nationalists, who
greatly admired the British governmental model and the
traditional republicans, many of whom were satisfied, given
small modifications, with the Articles of Confederation.
The presidency, thought by the founders to be the weaker of
the two when paired against congress, is an office, a
position of undefined and therefore expandable power,
whereas the congressional powers are much more carefully
delineated in Article I under the assumption the legislature
will by nature predominate in government. One of the main
poitical divisions between the traditional republicans and
the nationalists was their opposing views of executive
power. The nationalists were victorious in Philadelphia and
their view defines the presidency as it developed.19
In practice and precedent the presidency has grown via
the commander-in-chief power to dominate in foreign policy
and national security policy, both in the nation's early
history, but increasingly in the twentieth century with
exponential growth following World War II. Alexander
Hamilton, denied an active part in the Philadelphia
Convention when the New York delegation left prematurely in
protest of the decision to draft a new Constitution, played
a large role in the turf battle for executive power through
his ideas contained in The Federalist Papers, which were
originally newspaper articles supporting ratification of the
Constitution. Later, as President Washington's Secretary of
the Treasury, Hamilton's advise was instrumental in sizing
the office to the dimensions intended by the Nationalists.
In "Federalist #70" Hamilton argues for unity,
duration, adequate provision for support, and competent
power for the president. The destruction of unity can
result from either a plural executive or by making a single
executive subject to the control and cooperation of others
within the political spectrum. By duration he advocated a
sufficiently long tenure in office to allow continuity and
firm institution of policy. Provision for support meant
divorcing the president's salary from the congressional
purse strings for obvious reasons of executive independence,
and competent power meant the power to effectively execute
the laws and lead the nation. Hamilton felt the greater
danger lay in not exercising enough presidential power. He
advocated virtu or energy in the executive against ambitious
individuals, against seditious classes of the community, and
against the invasion of external enemies.20 It is fairly
clear that Hamilton was a monarchist and a strong advocate
of executive prerogative in the kingly sense. His arguments
for executive energy in The Federalist Papers downplay this
leaning, compromising his strong views concerning the
primacy of foreign affairs over domestic and the
corresponding primacy of executive function over
legislative. For example, "Federalist # 69" aims to win
over Constitutional opponents of strong executive power by
delineating why the president is not a monarch.21
The expansion of vaguely defined formal power first
occured when the primacy of the president in foreign affairs
was recognized by congress in 1789. The first congress
chartered a Department of Foreign Affairs, later the State
Department, under complete executive control. Foreign
expeditures and their disclosure were placed in the
president's charge, and when the Senate created the Foreign
Relations Committee in 1816 a commitee report stated: "The
president is the constitutional representative of the United
States with regard to foreign relations. He manages our
concerns with foreign nations; for his conduct he is
responsible to the Constitution."22
U.S. history, national security interests, and
expanding foreign policy concerns have produced more than
two centuries of incrementally increasing presidential power
with many presidents availing themselves of discretionary
powers implied by the skeletal constitutional nucleus.
Discretionary measures, or prerogative, as described by the
political theorist John Locke, entail actions to ensure the
spirit if not the letter of the law. Prerogative parallels
Hamilton's virtu, derived from Niccolo Machiavelli's The
Prince. Contained within this treatise, considered one the
western world's first works of modern political science, is
Machiavelli's advise to Florentine ruler Lorenzo Medici.
The intent was to advise Lorenzo in the ways of acquiring
power and uniting a large portion of present day Italy to
ensure survival of the state through good arms, which, in
turn, bring forth good laws. Since fortune and pride should
dictate success, the Prince should act as though half lion
to frighten away wolves and half fox to avoid snares.
Ideally impetuous and unpredictable, he should never confuse
virtu with virtue. Virtu is the accomodation, or the
appearance of virtue, necessary to appease subjects, to
acquire, and to hold power. Because politics are constantly
in motion they parallel the laws of physics. Consequently,
virtu (energy) accomodates politics (motion), while virtue
is by contrast, stagnant. A Prince with virtu will stay in
power while a Prince with virtue is doomed to failure.23
In agreement with Machiavelli's notion that success of
the state involves the goodwill of its subjects, John Locke
advises that citizens will allow, in fact demand prerogative
actions by the sovereign as long as the actions do not
interfere with property and life. Because laws are fixed
but politics are in motion, a legislative body as a
deliberative organization is not suited to the immediacy of
command decision. On the other hand, the capability of
executive prerogative to provide flexible responses to
various emergencies and state survival issues justifies its
exercise. The sovereign can also use prerogative to enforce
the spirit or intent of laws, in so doing exceeding positive
law or domestic law as we know it.24
Locke's definition of "executive prerogative" is the
power to act according to discretion, for the public good,
without the prescription of the domestic law, and even
sometimes against it.25 Stated another way, the Lockean
reasoning in defense of executive prerogative is this: The
legislature is incapable of completely fulfilling
governmental functions, particularly where protection
against external threats is concerned, therefore, sovereign
power must extend beyond the mere execution of the laws.
Lockean prerogative would permit the executive to act,
exceeding the laws in those cases where action by the
legislature would be impossible or ineffective. Regarding
the federative power which concerns affairs in the
international realm, distinct from positive (domestic) law,
the sovereign has no limitations.26 Locke's notion of dual
spheres for domestic and international affairs is a commonly
held postulate of modern political philosophy.
The Lockean intellectual disposition of the founding
fathers raises the question: Does the President have the
duty to violate the Constitution under some circumstances
especially when he judges it necessary to preserve the
Constitution? Some presidents, like Thomas Jefferson,
Abraham Lincoln to a degree, and Harry S.Truman, have
claimed emergency powers for which there seems to be no
constitutional basis. An overview of presidential
prerogative comprises part of the following chapter.
Charles Secondat Baron de Montesquieu, whose book The
Spirit of the Laws provides the basis for the constitutional
separation of powers conceptions expressed by James Madison,
was referred to more often by name than any other political
philosopher at the Constitutional convention. He articulates
a parallel to Locke's federative power, calling it "the
executive power".27 The "dual sphere of foreign and
domestic affairs underpinning the Constitution is often
misconstrued, denied or ignored in the modern American
approach to foreign policy, which by its nature treats
foreign policy as an extension of domestic politics.
Constitutional history shows a clearcut intent by the
framers to endow the presidential office with energy,
reflecting as previously alluded, a shifting in beliefs
about the aims and nature of good government, at least among
the American propertied elite responsible for the
Philadelphia Convention outcome and the eventual
ratification of the Constitution. The assumption of
traditional republicans (antifederalists) that the ideal
polity consisted of small, agrarian republics with tightly
limited governments lost in the competition of ideas with
the nationalists, or federalists, who envisioned the common
good arising in a polity characterized by large size,
diversity, and economic development. To compensate for
potential rule by factions, narrow interests would be
rendered ineffective in an extended republic by the
plentitude of competing and, countervailing interests.28
Encapsuled in the properly constructed constitution was
an expansive economic vision which foresaw a strong national
government and a vigorous president to acheive that
vision.29 James Wilson, educated in Scotland and an
adherent of the Scottish school of political economy was
largely responsible for shaping the presidency in the
Constitutional Convention through his writing of the first
Constitutional draft and his subsequent influence with the
commitees of style and detail which were responsible for the
final smooth document. He felt a strong Constitutional
presidency essential to commercial growth and reasoned that,
given a properly designed republican system, a president
would more likely act benevolently than corruptly in order
to increase his constituents good will.30
In terms of presidential power it also important to
reflect upon what the revolution and the establishment of
the national government was not: It was not a radical
revolution, but an evolutionary modification of familiar
modes of governance.
Even though it was born of a war of independence
the establishment of the American nation involved no
sharp break with the past.31
It did not reject the British example, but more
accurately, reaffirmed it.
The American revolution left the nation firmly
anchored in the English political tradition.
Government should be strong but limited by law, the
consent of the governed and individual rights; and -
representation is the approprate institutional
mechanism for limiting power and securing government.32
The founders did not favor popular control of
government, in fact they feared it.
Though esconced in the liberal traditions of
Locke, Hume, and Montesquieu, the Constitutional
framers put their faith in the orderly processes of
government. They feared volatile and radical
majorities and recognized the role of authority and
even of elites.33
The virtue of the people was not adequate to the
task of controlling the political effects of human
weaknesses. Only a properly constructed constitution
could have that happy effect.34
The American Revolution did not represent a transition
from monarchy to mass rule. Because the founders feared the
volatility of the public, the original Constitutional
framework envisioned elite rule with mass participation,
which explains the election of presidents by electors and
the election of the senate originally by the state
legislatures. The power and influence of the mass public in
the United States politics developed in gradual steps over
the nation's history.
In summary, the American nation, after shedding the
British colonial yoke, experimented with state and
legislative primacy, but, after the negative experience of
disunity in the Continental Government, attempted to
centralize government, liberate executive power from
legislative tyranny, and insulate government from popular
passion through elite rule, while resting ultimate power
with the people. The Construction of the U.S. national
government and the Constitution was designed to do all of
this.
U.S. political history from colonial times reflects a
shifting of relationships among the branches and levels of
government. In the post Vietnam era a renewed perception of
potential executive tyranny is responsible for the congress
circumscribing presidential authority and rejecting a
portion of the sovereignty it validly possesses in affairs
external to the nation.
Chapter 3
ENERGY AND UNITY
PRESIDENTIAL AUTHORITY: DEFINITION BY PRECEDENT
The scope of the American presidency as it is known in
the modern era is evolutionary, resting upon the custom and
practice of former presidents as a shaping influence within
the political constraints, the power relationships and
circumstances of given eras of U.S. history, and the
interpretation of individual presidents regarding the scope
of their formal and discretionary powers. As Woodrow Wilson
stated in a lecture series he presented while at Princeton:
Greatly as the practice and influence of the Presidents
has varied, there can be no mistaking the fact that we have
grown more and more inclined from generation to generation
to look to the President as the unifying force in our
complex system, the leader both of his party and of the
nation...His is the only national voice in
affairs.(Constitutional Government)
The presidents position as both commander of the armed
forces and head of state make him the logical purveyor of
American authority in international dealings. It is fair to
say that without the relatively unrestricted presidential
use of prerogative powers in the arena of foreign policy
this nation would be unrecognizable today.
The first president, George Washington, aided by
Alexander Hamilton (Secretary of Treasury) and Thomas
Jefferson (Secretary of State) established several
precedents effecting presidential roles in national security
policy when he established a cabinet and mobilized the
militia in quelling the Whiskey Rebellion, a revolt in
Pennsylvania against federal taxing authority. By the power
of his personal prestige he was spared addressing many of
the interbranch powersharing concerns caused by
Constitutional ambiguity in the Article II definitions of
presidential authority. Washington thusly, incurred no
protest when he initiated the practices of executive
privilege, the confidentiality of presidential
communications, and the pattern of presidential nonconferral
with the Senate on treaty formulation. The first president
drew heavily, not on the model of the colonial governors or
the ideals of British republicanism, but rather on his
experiences as Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army.
The lessons of generalship guided him in making the
presidency a symbol of nationalism, an advocate of energy
and unity, and a focus for administrative centralization and
responsibility.1
Owing to his Revolutionary war experience, national
security ranked as Washington's highest priority. Within
the broad category of security, specific issues of concern
were the U.S. commitment by treaty to guarantee French
possessions in the Americas, the presence of British forts
in the Northwest territory, and British and Spanish efforts
to incite disruption and secession in the states bordering
the territories. Additionally, U.S. navigation rights on
the Mississippi were at the mercy of the Spaniards, a factor
limiting national commerce
With the nation encircled by European adversaries and
uncertain of congressional support for diplomatic
initiatives, Washington relied upon prerogative powers in
foreign policy, and in so doing, established the foundation
for presidential assertion of authority in national security
issues. In a highly popular decision Washington opted for
strict neutrality in the British - French Naval War,
ignoring treaty observance with the French and favoring the
British, partly as a result of Alexander Hamilton's
Anglophilic proclivities.
In the ensuing Constitutional debate over the
neutrality proclamation Hamilton defined the issue as one of
diplomacy, an inherent power to the executive foreign policy
power, while James Madison, a member of the House of
Representatives, maintained that the proclamation dealt with
issues of war and peace, an implied congressional power
pursuant to the enumerated power of war declaration. When
congress opted against challenging the executive by passing
supporting legislation, Washlngton's edict initiated an
historical pattern where presidential foreign policy
initiatives are legitimized by congressional affirmation.
The contrast in Washington's neutrality proclamation in 20th
Century terms is that in this case, the president advocated
neutrality while congress prefered war. This pattern of
congressional war initiation repeated itself in the War of
1812 and the Spanish American War.
Washington also established the presidential practices
of recognizing foreign governments, and of breaking
diplomatic relations. His discretion in foreign policy
averted war's escalation from Europe to North America,
secured the U.S. Northwest Territory, and facilitated the
evacuation of British posts, in the Northwest Territory. In
dealing with Spain he negotiated commercial rights on the
Mississippi River and settled the issue of the Spanish
Florida boundary.2
Devoid the heroic warrior image of his predecessor,
John Adams, the second President of the United States was
handicapped politically when he agreed to retain
Washington's cabinet. His authority was challenged
particularly by Alexander Hamilton's effort to command the
U.S. Army against the French, an intrigue in which George
Washington, always popular and still highly influential,
played a passive but important role. Using his formal power
as commander-in-chief Adams was able to field a navy, fight
an undeclared war with France from 1798-1800, and delay
formation of an Army until the need for force passed,
foiling Hamilton in the press. The attempt by Hamilton to
politically manipulate Adams using his affinity with
Washington, threatened the independence of the executive
office for which he and the nationalists had diligently
labored in the Philadelphia Convention. An uncharismatic
leader, Adams illustrated at a critical juncture in U.S.
history the Constitutional strength of formal executive
power and the command prerogative available to even a
politically weak president.3
The strength of the president's voice in national
security affairs is related to the U.S. geopolitical
position and the American foreign policy and warmaking which
are both geopolitically and event driven. The 19th century
was characterized by a U.S. foreign policy of continental
expansion. The greatest perceived security threat was
territorial encroachment, or the possibility of being
surrounded by colonies owing allegiance to one of the
European Crowns. Accompanying the gradual dissolution of
the Spanish Empire during the Napoleanic Wars, the
retrocession of the Louisiana Territory from Spain to France
aroused U.S. fears of additional European colonies changing
hands as a result of European Wars.4 President Jefferson,
who followed Adams in office, took advantage of Napolean's
European war difficulties and France's unrealistic designs
for Haiti as an advance naval base to control the American
interior via the Mississippi Valley. Using executive
discretion as chief diplomat, in 1803 he purchased the vast
western tract of the Louisiana Territory against the wishes
of congress.5 This action he acknowledged as extra-
Constitutional, but as supportive of the long range security
interests of the nation.
In addition to the measures mentioned, Jefferson also
engaged in a covert operation in Tripoli, transferred monies
appropriated by congress for frigates to small gunboat
construction, and waged an undeclared war against the
Barbary pirates from 1801-1805. It is no small irony he
had been a vocal critic of both Washington and Adams for
exceeding their strictly interpreted Constitutional powers
in foreign policy. He would not be the last president to
take a more expansive prerogative view upon assuming the
office.
The Great Lakes were demilitarized by an executive
agreement with the British by President James Monroe in 1817
and, later, in 1819, when General Andrew Jackson entered
Spanish Florida in hot pursuit of Seminole Indians,
Secretary of State John Quincy Adams negotiated for West
Florida and Spain's claim to the Oregon Territory.
In 1823 the Monroe Doctrine, part of an annual message
to congress by President James Monroe which was named cost
facto, became a documentary manifestation of a deliberate
U.S. policy to exclude Europe from the Western Hemisphere.6
The proclamation, had no legal standing but expressed the
continental security sentiments of the Senate's No Transfer
Doctrine passed in 1811 to protest the possibility of
Florida falling into British hands the way Louisiana had
been transferred to the French. The Monroe Doctrine
forbade: further colonization in the Western Hemisphere by
the Europeans, the transfer of existing colonies from one
European power to another, and attempts by Europeans to
extend their system of government to the Western Hemisphere.
The brains behind the Doctrine belonged to Secretary of
State John Quincy Adams, responding to a perceptive view of
the world situation. In 1821 the Czar of Russia, Alexander
I, had issued a Ukase, or edict claiming American
continental territory on the west coast, south to the 51st
parallel and forbidding ships to sail near this claim.
Adam's fear was that the Czar had aims for a further
southern thrust into the Oregon Country and possibly
California.7
The younger Adams also had an expansive view of the
prerogative inherent in the executive exercise of war power.
In a speech delivered May 25, 1836 he commented:
The war power is limited only by the laws and usages of
nations. This power is tremendous; it is strictly
constitutional, but it breaks down every barrier so
anxiously erected for the protection of liberty, of
property, and of life. The powers of war are all
regulated by the laws of rations, and subJect to no other
limitations.8
The other factor driving the Monroe doctrine was the
Latin American "Age of Emancipation", which began in 1821
based upon the U.S. and French revolutionary models. With
the fledgling Latin American Republics separating from
Spain, they were potentially easy prey for other European
powers, especially France. The Americans had not sufficient
naval power to enforce the idea of the "separate sphere",
but were able to get the British to go along with the idea
and to subsequently ward off French western hemispheric
ambitions through the Provisions of the British - French
Poligniac Agreement. John Quincy Adams wisely counseled
Monroe to make his edict concerning the separate spheres a
unilateral one despite the collusion with Britain.9 In a
separate action without congressional approval, Monroe
conducted a ruthless war with pirates in the Caribbean which
involved shore landings on Spanish Territory. The policy,
albeit risky, was effective from the stand-point of
Caribbean security.10
During the administration of President Tyler steps
were taken to protect so called "inchoate interests" of the
United States in Texas without legislative approval. Tyler,
awaiting Senate ratification of the Texas Annexation Treaty,
signed on April 12, 1844, gave his assurance to Texas
commissions on May 15, 1844 that he would, as Commander in
Chief of the U.S. Armed Forces, defend Texas against foreign
invasion. The Senate protested this executive agreement as
an usurpation of the legislative war function, but to no
avail.11
In 1845 President James Polk restated the Monroe
Doctrine in his inaugural address in order to discourage
suspected British ambitions toward possession of Mexican
owned California. When the Annexation of Texas was
approved, Polk ordered General Zachary Taylor into disputed
territory between the Nueces and Rio Grande Rivers to repel
possible invaders,instigating a Mexican Army attack on
Taylor's force, following which Polk asked congress for
antecedent recognition that a state of war with Mexico
existed. The congressional war declaration which followed
set a precedent in presidential initiation of war through a
defensive fait accompli. The "spoils" of the Mexican war
included the Mexican Cession of present day Arizona, New
Mexico, and California. With the later addition of the
Oregon Territory following an 1846 agreement with the
British, and the Gadsden Purchase from Mexico in 1853 the,
present day U.S. continental boundaries were secure,
fundamentally altering the course of American foreign police
to a preoccupation with the U.S. Civil War, the events
surrounding the war, and the reconstruction period
following the war. In the 1890's economic conditions of
would shift the American political debate to foreign trade
and potential foreign territorial acquisition.
Tyler's "inchoate agreement" with the Texans and Polks
subsequent fait accompli making inevitable the Mexican War,
represent actions which involved Americans in a war at the
direction of one man with no legislative accountability. It
is precisely the parallel between the fait accompli of the
Mexican War and the perceived fait accompli represented by
the Gulf of Tonkin incident in Vietnam which underlie the
congressional concerns represented by the host of
contemporary legislation aimed at limiting the president in
warmaking. Though initially supportive, many questioned the
morality of the Mexican War because of the circumstances
surrounding its initiation. Civil War Union Army Commander
and U.S. President Ulysees S. Grant would claim the U.S.
Civil War to be God's judgement against America for it's
methods in Mexico. Future President Abraham Lincoln, a whig
member of the U.S. House of Representatives, following the
war declaration voted with the majority, 85-81 in a House
resolution condemning the war as unnecessarily and
unconstitutionally initiated by President Polk.12 Vocally
criticizing the war for its initiation despite the absense
of an apparent threat, Lincoln demanded to know the exact
spot where the armed forces clashed.13
But Polk's pursuit of territory in fact was security
oriented in the same fashion as the Louisiana Purchase of
Thomas Jefferson, and, more importantly, was popularly
motivated. The national attitude of the period included a
public belief that it was a God given American destiny to
occupy the continental landmass from coast to coast. This
attitude was named by newspaper editor John L. O'Sullivan,
"Manifest Destiny".
Ironically, in light of Lincoln's criticism of Polk, he
took drastic and unprecedented, almost dictatorial
prerogative measures with the outset of the civil war. With
the congress out of session Lincoln mobilized the militia,
declared a blockade of southern ports (the legal equivalent
to a declaration of war), suspended writs of habeus corpus,
and declared martial law. Using a corroborative opinion of
Attorney General Edward Bates Lincoln claimed the necessity
of the situation required swift and bold action "whether
strictly legal or not and, further, that he felt congress
would "readily ratify" his actions. The Prize cases later
confirmed the constitutional legality of Lincolns actions.
Later in the war, following the Battle of Antietam and
Union General McClelland's failure after a tactical victory,
to destroy the Confederate Army, Lincoln's Jan. 1, 1863
Emacipation Proclamation freed black slaves in the States of
the Confederacy by executive order as the Commander-in-
Chief. Though never legally challenged,14 when questioned
by a reporter in 1864 concerning the discretion authority
exercised in excess of strict Constitutional powers, Lincoln
penned this famous response, now entitled "The Prerogative
View".
Executive Mansion, April 4, 1864
My dear Sir: You ask me to put in writing the
substance of what I verbally said the other day in your
presence, to Governor Bramlette and Senator Dixon. It
was about as follows:
"I am naturally antislavery. If slavery is not wrong,
nothing is wrong. I cannot remember when I did not so
think and feel, and yet I have never understood that
the presidency conferred upon me an unrestricted right
to act officially upon this judgment and feeling. It
was in the oath I took that I would, to the best of my
ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution
of the United States. I could not take the office
without taking the oath. Nor was it my view that I
might take an oath to get power, and break the oath in
using the power. I understood, too, that in ordinary
civil administration this oath even forbade me to
practically indulge my primary abstract judgment on the
moral question of slavery. I had publicly declared
this many time's, and in many ways. And I aver that, to
this day, I have done no official act in mere deference
to my abstract judgment and feeling on slavery. I did
understand, however, that my oath to preserve the
Constitution to the best of my ability imposed upon me
the duty of preserving, by every indispensable means,
that government-that nation, of which that Constitution
was the organic law. Was it possible to lose the
nation and yet preserve the Constitution? By general
law, life and limb must be protected, yet often a limb
must be amputated to save a life; but a life is never
wisely given to save a limb. I felt that measures
otherwise unconstitutional might become lawful by
becoming indispensable to the preservation of the
Constitution through the preservation of the nation.
Right or wrong, I assume this ground, and now avow it.
I could not feel that, to the best of my ability, I had
even tried to reserve the Constitution, if, to save
slavery or any minor matter, I should permit the wreck
of government, country, and Constitution all together.
When, early in the war, General Fremont attempted
military emancipation, I forbade it, because I did not
then think it an indispensable necessity. When, a
little later, General Cameron, then Secretary of War,
suggested the arming of the blacks, I objected because
I did not yet think it an indispensable necessity.
When, still later, General Hunter attempted military
emancipation, I again forbade it, because I did not yet
think the indispensable necessity had come. When in
March and May and July, 1862, I made earnest and
successive appeals to the border states to favor
compensated emancipation, I believed the indispensable
necessity for military emancipation and arming the
blacks would come unless averted by that measure. They
declined the proposition, and was, in my best
judgment, driven to the alternative of either
surrendering the Union, and with it the Constitution,
or of laying strong hand upon the colored element. I
chose the latter. In choosing it, I hoped for greater
gain than loss; but of this, I was not entirely
confident. More than a year of trial now shows no loss
by it in our foreign relations, none in our home
popular sentiment, none in our white military force -
no loss by it anyhow or anywhere. On the contrary it
shows a gain of quite a hundred and thirty thousand
soldiers, seamen, and laborers. These are palpable
facts, about which, as facts, there can be no caviling.
We have the men; and we could not have had them without
the measure.
"And now let any Union man who complains of the
measure test himself by writing down in one line that
he is for subduing the rebellion by force of arms; and
in the next, that he is for taking these hundred and
thirty thousand men from the Union side, and placing
them where they would be but for the measure he
condemns. If he cannot face his case so stated, it is
only because he cannot face the truth."
I add a word which was not in the verbal
conversation. In telling this tale I attempt no
compliment to my own sagacity. I claim not to have
controlled events, but confess plainly that events have
controlled me. Now, at the end of three years'
struggle, the nation's condition is not what either
party, or any man, devised or expected. God alone can
claim it. Whither it is tending seems plain. If God
now wills the removal of a great wrong, and wills also
that we of the North, as well as you of the South,
shall pay fairly for our complicity in that wrong,
impartial history will find therein no cause to attest
and revere the justice and goodness of God.15
The strength of Lincoln's precedent is substantial as
detailed in this description:
Between 1789 and 1861, presidents regarded their
role as commander-in-chief as purely military in nature.
Faced with a civil war, however, President Abraham Lincoln
began to expand the presidential war power beyond that
original concept. He found constitutional justification for
the exercise of broad discretionary by fusing the powers of
the commander-in-chief with the executive's general
coonstitutional responsibility to take care that the laws
are faithfully executed. The national emergency of
secession and war, Lincoln said, required the swift and firm
exercise of extraordinary powers by the chief executive.
In two world wars in the 20th century, Presidents
Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt took a similar view of
presidential war powers as they further expanded the sphere
of those powers in wartime.16
With the post civil war presidents the executive
experienced its weakest period in U.S. history.17 Some
foreign policy initiatives were attempted to expand the U.S.
domain: President Grant, certain that great benefit would
befall the United States with acquisition of Santo Domingo
(The Dominican Republic) submitted a treaty of annexation in
1870. The treaty was defeated in the Senate but Grant both
pending the Senate vote and afterwards, in the hope of
renegotiating after a congressional study, deployed the U.S.
Navy to defend U.S. "inchoate interests" against invasion
pursuant to the presidential treaty making power. The
Senate debate which resulted demonstrated the futility of
attempting to limit the president's protective function to
the merely the repelling of invasion or immediate physical
attack.18 Santo Domingo was never annexed but the commander
in chief power remained unchallenged in Grant's employment
of the Navy.
The Presidency began to come back into the primacy
enjoyed under the first presidents in the 1890's when
another corollary to the Monroe Doctrine was added in 1893
through President Grover Cleveland's squaring off with Great
Britain and insisting on U.S. arbitration of the Venezuelan-
British Guyana border dispute, despite a U.S. Navy woefully
inadequate to back up any threat of force.19 Fortunately,
for Cleveland and the nation, the British were involved with
the German supported Boers in South Africa and, having in
the process cultivated some international ill will, could
not afford to lose the U.S. as an ally. The British got
their way despite Cleveland's bluster, but U.S. national ego
soared as a result of this successful ultimatum to British
naval power inspired by Secretary of State Richard Olney.20
The Olney corollary to the Monroe Doctrine expanded the
U.S. sphere of influence in Latin America as an honest
broker for European disputes occurring within the Western
Hemisphere.21 Robert Ragazzo opines Cleveland's "moralism"
with the British was a gross distortion of the Monroe
Doctrine expanding its meaning well beyond the original
intent, but the Olney Corollary was a clear statement of
executive prerogative in foreign policy.22
In election of 1896 imperialism vs anti-imperialism was
a pivotal campaign issue, one which would shape the course
of the nation and the role of the executive. William
Jennings Bryan, the anti-imperialist candidate lost and the
imperialist point of view, essentially represented by
William McKinley and the ideas of the "New Manifest Destiny"
won the presidency. After a year in office, yielding to
public and congressional pressure to annex Cuba from the
declining Spanish empire, Mckinley used the sinking of the
USS Maine in Havana Harbor as a pretext to send to congress
his war message against Spain. For his action Mckinley was
roundly criticized by former President Cleveland, who had
resisted similar congressional pressure - "the country
cannot go to war without the president". When Admiral Dewey
attacked the Spanish Fleet in Manila Harbor, The Phillippine
Islands, his easy and decisive victory yielded the United
States a colonial empire including Puerto Rico, The
Phillippine Islands and Guam. Cuba became a protectorate
and Hawaii was subsequently annexed as a naval coaling
station. With a Pacific empire to defend, and U.S. economic
interests in the Pacific emerging the role of the U.S.
presidency was forever changed with the addition of the
increased defense and foreign affairs responsibilities of
the United States as a global power. McKinley ended the war
through an executive agreement and proceeded to shore up
U.S. interests in the far east through other executive
agreements, such as the Boxer Indemnity Protocol and the
"open door notes" guarateeing Chinese sovereignty and great
power spheres of influence within that country for trade
purposes. He also sent troops to China to protect the
American legation during the Boxer Rebellion.23
The advent of navalism in the United States beginning
in the late 19th century in concert with the newly acquired
U.S. Pacific holdings combined to focus President Theodore
Roosevelt's attention upon the construction of a
Transisthmian canal across the neck of Central America as an
economy of force measure, allowing limited naval shipping to
defend either Pacific or Atlantic coasts as well as the
Pacific territories. The canal had been thought necessary
for continental naval defense since the Mexican Cession of
1848 immediately followed by the statehood of California in
1849. When Colombia asked too high a price for canal real
estate, Roosevelt initiated a revolution, quickly recognized
the independent State of Panama, provided U.S. Marine
protection to the new government, and negotiated a
satisfactory treaty, all with no congressional approval.23
Authorized in the Naval Construction Acts at the turn
of the century and complimenting the U.S. Panama Policy, a
strong U.S. fleet stood ready to protect the Canal Zone and
the Carabbean approaches. In 1904 President Theodore
Roosevelt issued his famous corollary to the Monroe
Doctrine, which proclaimed U.S. responsibility for Latin
American debts owed to European nations, even at the expense
of U.S. forcible intervention on the European's behalf.24
The Roosevelt Corollary was a response to the international
law of the early 20th century which recognized the legality
of nations forcibly collecting their debts. A key to
understanding the many U.S. interventions of the period, its
purpose was essentially to prevent European pretexts for
intervention in an area geopolitically vital to the U.S..
Announced after the election in 1904, the necessity for the
pronouncement followed a 1902 incident between Germany and
Venezuela, in which Venezuela defaulted on her debts and a
German, British, Italian task force blockaded the Venezuelan
coast, sank several gunboats, and bombarded a coastal fort.
Concerned mainly with German intentions in the region, U.S.
deployment of the Caribbean fleet persuaded arbitration by
the Europeans.25
Soured by the memory of sending the Army to occupy Cuba
following the Spanish American war and to the Phillipines to
extinguish the Phillipine Insurrection in the aftermath of
the Spanish American War, Roosevelt favored using the Navy
and its Marine detachments to achieve the limited military
objectives necessary to maintaining U.S. interests inthe
Caribbean. Use of Naval Forces was also politically safer
than dispatching an occupying army.26 During the time frame
of the Roosevelt administration the British Navy
relinquished its role in the Caribbean in order to meet the
nascent naval expansion of Germany. The United States could
no longer secure her Caribbean interests under the umbrella
of Pax Brittanica. The Roosevelt Corollary, to the Monroe
Doctrine like the Olney which preceded it, represented a
significant expansion beyond the original meaning of the
Doctrine. However, the basic rationale of hemispheric
security was consistent.
Roosevelt appoached the presidential office with what
he called "The Stewardship Doctrine":
My view was that every executive officer, and above all
every executive officer in high position, was a steward of
the people bound actively and affirmatively to do all he
could for the people, and not to content himself with the
negative merit of keeping his talents undamaged in a napkin.
I declined to adopt the view that what was imperatively
necessary for the nation could not be done by the president
unless he could find some specific authorization to do it.
My belief was it was not only his right but his duty to do
anything that the needs of the nation demanded unless he
could find such action was specifically forbidden under the
Constitution or by the laws.... I did not usurp power, but I
acted for the public welfare, I acted for the common well-
being of all our people, whenever and in whatever manner was
necessary, unless prohibited by direct constitutional or
legislative prohibition .... 27
Roosevelt's successor, William Howard Taft, encouraged
U.S. businesses to invest heavily in Latin America and then
employed the Navy and Marines to protect American captial
under the "American lives and property" rationale. This
policy, known as "Dollar Diplomacy", was more meddlesome in
world opinion than Roosevelt's "big stick. Dollar
Diplomacy sowed immense ill will and encouraged the anti-
Yankee perception that U.S. Marines intervened to protect
American business pure and simple. The true significance of
the geopolitical connection often tended to get lost.
Taft, who later became Chief Justice of the Supreme
Court, in contrast to Roosevelt, held what he called a
"Restricted View of the Office":
The true view of the executive, is, as I conceive it,
that the president can exercise no power which cannot be
fairly and reasonably traced to some specific grant or
justly implied and included within such express grantas
proper and necessary to its exercise. Such specific grant
must be either in the federal Constitution or in an act of
congress passed in pursuance thereof.28
The contrast between Roosevelt and Taft is remarkable,
mirroring the fundamental nationalist/whig dichotomy in
questions of government addressed at the Constitutional
Convention. Generally speaking presidents with the
stewardship or prerogative view fair better in the
historical treatment they receive. For example, who
appplauds the James Buchanans and the Herbert Hoovers for
their restricted view of the office in the face of clear and
pressing national exigencies? On the other hand the two
Roosevelts, Lincoln, Wilson and Truman are lionized. And
presidents like Polk and McKinley at least command respect.
The downfall of Lyndon Johnson and particularly the demise
of Richard Nixon might be considered a revolution in
American thinking about the heroic image of prerogative
presidencies. Arthur Schlesinger Jr's 1973 book, The
Imperial Presidency seems to indicate so.
The protection of the Panama Canal and the Carribbean
against German ambitions toward the Caribbean in World War I
was the rationale for the many Latin American interventions
undertaken at the direction of President Woodrow Wilson.
Several Wilsonian interventions, including Haiti, Santo
Domingo, and Nicaraugua involved long term occupations, even
complete takeovers of government by Naval and Marine
Officers. This practice turned Roosevelts limited objective
logic for using Naval Forces on its head. (Banana Wars)29
Wilson, more idealistic and less pragmatic than either
Roosevelt or Taft, objected to business playing such a
strong role in U.S. Latin American policy. Ironically, with
his crusading attitude, he intervened militarily in the
Caribbean more than any other president.30 The Wilson Plan,
implemented with the Haitian intervention in 1915, was to
"teach these Latin American's to elect good people. The
concern then, as in the present day, is not only a fair
election, but a fair election that elects the "right
people", people not averse to democracy, stability, and U.S.
security interests.31 Despite the hegemony of Wilson's
actions the occupations accomplished the security of the
Caribbean against German naval power during World War I at a
relatively small cost in military manpower and national
treasure.
In one of the largest Latin American interventions
prior to World War I, Wilson ordered U.S. troops to Mexico
both in pursuit of bandits across the southern U.S. border
and in a landing at Vera Cruz during Mexico's revolution and
her subsequent search for stable and democratic government.
As World War I in Europe also engulfed the United States and
American troops entered the conflict in 1917, Wilson sought
and obtained from Congress comprehensive delegations of
power to prepare for war and to mobilize the home front.
During the war, Wilson managed the nation's economy by
delegating power to a series of war management and war
production boards created to coordinate domestic production
and supply. "It is not an army that we must shape and train
for war, Wilson explained; "it is a nation."
Wilson commandeered plants and mines; he requisitioned
supplies, fixed prices, seized and operated the nation's
transportation and communications networks, and managed the
production and distribution of foodstuffs. The Council of
National Defense, an umbrella agancy created by Wilson,
administered the economy during the war. Wall Street broker
Bernard Baruch, who headed the War Industries Board, became
the nation's virtual economic dictator. The board had no
statutory authority whatsoever; Wilson simply created it
under his authority as commander in chief.
Wilson's exercise of the war power went unchallenged by
the Supreme Court. In part, this was the result of Wilson's
obtaining prior congressional al for all his actions.
Issues that raised constitutional questions, moreover,
reached the court only after the armistice, when they no
longer possessed urgent significance. All three branches of
the government seemed to assume that the broad powers
exercised by Lincoln during the Civil War carried over for
use in foreign wars.
The delegation of legislative power by Congress to the
president reached unprecedented heights during World War I.
Many statutes simply stated their general objectives and
left it to the president to interpret those goals and
administer the measures he felt necessary to achieve them.
Modern day executive departments operate under the same
general mandates in peacetime. When the Senate attempted to
form a watchdog committee to oversee management of the war
Wilson opposed the measure as a check on his leadership.
The House of Representatives then killed the proposal.
The closest the court came to questioning executive war
power during World War I came with its 1921 decision
declaring unconstitutional a portion of the Lever Food
Control Act unconstitutional. The Lever Act provided for
federal control of the distribution and production of
foodstuffs and the marketing of fuel. The bill subjected
the nation's economy to whatever regulations the president
mandated to guarantee Allied victory. It authorized the
president to license the manufacture and distribution of
foodstuffs and to seize factories and mines to ensure
continued production of defense-related commodities.
Section 4 of the act made it a criminal offense to charge
excessive prices for commodities. The court invalidated
that section of the law because it set no ascertainable
standard of guilt, failed to define unjust or unreasonable
prices, and was therefore in conflict with the
constitutional guarantees of due process of law and of
adequate notice to persons accused of crime regarding the
cause of the charge against them.32
In an act rejecting U.S. great power responsibility and
presidential initiative after the Armistice, several
powerful senators, called irreconcilables, including William
Borah and Henry Cabot Lodge, orchestrated the defeat of the
Versailles Treaty, causing the war settlement in Europe to
be less then fair and, some critics contend, fomenting World
War II twenty years later. The United States fell into a
state of familiar isolationism and a naive foreign policy
which included laws passed with blind hopes of eliminating
war: the Kellog Briand Act and the Neutrality Acts.
Convinced that it had been dragged into the Great War
by arms merchants and allies, the nation legislated its
disillusions of Neutrality Acts during the 1930s. These
forced the president to announce U.S. neutrality when other
nations fought, prohibited arms sales to belligerent States,
banned travel by U.S. citizens on belligerent ships, and
allowed belligerents to buy commodities like raw materials
on a cash and carry basis only (The Johnson Act of 1934
had already prohibited loans to countries with outstanding
World War I debts - just about all of Europe.)33
The concept of expanded presidential powers in wartime,
tested in the civil war and expanded upon in World War I
with congressional approval, underwent their greatest
expansion during the 3 terms of President Franklin
Roosevelt. With the emergency of the Great Depression
Roosevelt's New Deal programs employed emergency measures
only experienced during the Civil War and World War I. The
Supreme Court was initially nonsupportive of many of these
actions, because of their domestic content.
When the rise of fascist dictators in Japan, Germany,
and Italy changed the national focus, Roosevelt circumvented
the Neutrality Acts of 1935, 1936 and 1937 by committing the
U.S. to a neutrality weighted toward Great Britain against
the expansionist fascists. Declaring emergencies in 1939
and 1941 Roosevelt assumed almost dictatorial powers in his
prosecution of the war effort. By executive agreement on
Sept. 3, 1940, he traded 50 U.S. destroyers for long term
leases on six British Western Hemispheric bases. Roosevelt
called those who advocated congressional approval
"legalists".34 He ordered the occupation of Iceland and
Greenland in 1941, and without public knowledge on April 24,
1941 instructed U.S. ships in the Atlantic in Hemispheric
Defense Plan No.4 to trail Axis vessels and aircraft and
broadcast their positions every four hours.35 Later, on Oct
11, 1941 Hemispheric Defense Plan No.5 was ordered without
public knowledge. Its guidance was: "The operations which
will be conducted under this plan are conceived to form a
preparatory phase for the operation of Navy basis War Plan
No.5". the Plan for open and declared war. Executing this
order American surface combatants engaged German submarines
on several occassions, sometimes provocatively. Roosevelt
hoped to gain a congressional declaration of war from one of
these naval confrontations but did not sense a climate
politically favorable to do so. Consequently, the attack by
the Japanese on Pearl Harbor on 7 Dec. 1941 only finalized
U.S. entry into the war Roosevelt had incrementally moved
the nation toward through Presidential prerogative.36
Woodrow Wilson's management of the economy during World
War I lessened reservations constitutional about broad
federal war power. When the U.S. entered the Second World
War, Congress again delegated vast federal powers to the
president to prosecute the war. Roosevelt and Congress
developed a partnership to win the war with the legal
assumption that war powers exercised by Lincoln and Wilson
carried over to the new emergency. The Supreme Courts view
on executive power was different, however, in 1936 took a
more Lockean view of presdential authority in affairs
external to the state. A war between Paraguay and Bolivia
and an embargo Roosevelt placed on arms shipments evoked one
of the most extensive Supreme Court precedents concerning
presidential plenary power in foreign affairs:37
Congress on May 24, 1934, approved a joint
resolution that authorized President Roosevelt to embargo
these arms shipments if, in his judgment, an embargo would
contribute to ending the war. The resolution provided for
fines and imprisonment, or both, forthose who violated the
embargo. Roosevelt signed the resolution into law May 28,
1934. The resolution in no way restricted or directed his
discretion in instituting the embargo.
Roosevelt soon declared an embargo in effect.
Curtiss-Wright Export Corporation and two other
companies were subsequently convicted of selling
aircraft machine guns to Bolivia in violation of the
embargo. They challenged the constitutionality of the
resolution, arguing that it was an improper delegation
of congressional power to the president.
The Supreme Court already had envinced sympathy
for such challenges, striking down several major New
Deal initiatives in 1936 on that basis.
The Curtiss-Wright Decision
The court upheld the embargo resolution. The vote
was 7-1. Justice Harlan Fiske Stone took no part in
the case. Justice James McReynolds dissented.
Justice George Sutherland's opinion, written for
the majority, upheld sweeping executive powers in
foreign affairs. The majority distinguished between
external and "internal" powers of the federal
government - foreign policy and domestic policy. Based
on his reading of the historical evidence and on his
own previous studies of the foreign affairs power,
Justice Sutherland concluded that the source of
national authority in foreign relations was the British
crown, not the separate state. This placed the foreign
affairs power on an extra-constitutional footing
different from that of the internal powers which passed
from the states to the federal government.
Sutherland's opinion elaborated on the theory of
external sovereignty argued in 1795 by Justice William
Paterson. Sutherland wrote:
The broad statement that the federal
government can exercise no powers except those
specifically enumerated in the Constitution, and
such implied powers as are necessary and proper to
carry into effect the enumerated powers, is
categorically true only in respect of our internal
affairs. In that field, the primary purpose of
the Constitution was to carve from the general
mass of legislative powers then possessed by the
states such positions as it was thought desirable
to vest in the federal government, leaving those
not included in the enumeration still in the
states... That this doctrine applies only to
powers which the state had is self-evident. And
since the states severally never possessed
international powers, such powers could not have
been carved from the mass of state powers but
obviously were transmitted to the United States
from some other source.
As a result of separation from Great Britain
by the coionies, acting as a unit, the powers of
external sovereignty passed from the Crown not to
the colonies severally, but to the colonies in
their collective and corporate capacity as the
United States of America.... Rulers come and go;
governments and forms of government change; but
sovereignty survives. A political society cannot
endure without a supreme will somewhere.
Sovereignty is never held in suspense. When,
therefore, the external sovereignty of Great
Britain in respect of the colonies ceased, it
passed to the ......... It results that the
investment of the federal government with the
powers of external sovereignty did not depend upon
the affirmative grants of the Constitution. The
powers to declare and wage war, to conclude peace,
to make treaties, to maintain diplomatic relations
with other sovereignties, if they had never been
mentioned in the Constitution, would have vested
in the federal government as necessary
concomitants of nationality.
Sutherland then, echoing John Marshall's
phrases, asserted the key role in foreign affairs for
the president:
... The President alone has the power to speak as a
representative of the nation. He makes treaties
with the advice and consent of the Senate; but he
alone negotiates. Into the field of negotiation
the Senate cannot intrude; and Congress is
powerless to invade it.
It is important to bear in mind that we are here
dealing not alone with an authority vested in the President
by an exertion of legislative power, but with such an
authority plus the very delicate, plenary and exclusive
power of the President as the sole organ of the federal
government in the field of international relations - a power
which does not require as a basis for its exercise an act of
congress, but which...must be exercised in subordination to
the applicable provisions of the Constitution.38
The Curtis Wright Decision, sometimes disputed by
opponents of presidential power, acknowledges the awesome
plenary powers in foreign affairs which the executive would
exercise in the U.S. assumption of global Power after World
War II.
The Lend-Lease Act of March 11, 1941, granted Roosevelt
the power to enter into executive agreements to manufacture
in government arsenals or "otherwise procure" defense
articles and "to sell, transfer, exchange, lease, and lend
those war materials to the governments of any country deemed
vital to the defense of the United States." More
interestingly, however, Roosevelt prior to lend lease had
unsuccessfully used his persuasive skills to convince the
public of the need to take national action against facist
Germany and Japan.39
To deal with congressional intransigence Roosevelts'
use of executive agreements made that procedure a primary
instrument and nearly replaced the treaty making power
because of its effect. The force of law accruing to
executive agreements was upheld in the cases of U.S. vs
Belmont and U.S. vs Pink, both rulings concerning Franklin
Roosevelts secret recognition of the Soviet Union prior to
U.S. entry into World War II.40
Roosevelts expansive use of presidential authority and
prerogative have set the pace for the modern presidency.41
With the advent of the U.S. - Soviet Cold War between 1945
and 1947, a permanent state of emergency underlay
presidential authority in National Security.42 Multilateral
treaty making engaged the U.S. in the coalition defense of
the Western world. But executive agreements, many of them
secret, facilitated the control and direction of foreign
policy. John Foster Dulles, Seretary of State under
Eisenhower, in 1953 estimated 10,000 executive agreements in
connection with the NATO treaty alone. The NATO treaty was
also cause for the deployment by executive order of U.S.
forces which remain in Europe today. It is important to
note, however, that many executive agreements are
legislatively authorized.43
President Truman unilaterally entered the Korean war in
1950, six months after the communists took power in China,
basing his action on a U.N. Security Council Resolution.44
He might have based it upon the NATO treaty of 1949 since
the Korean invasion was perceived as a prelude to a Soviet
thrust into Western Europe.
Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson received
initial congressional carte blanche for their foreign
policies because of the state of permanent emergency caused
by global communist agression and later heightened by
advances in Soviet nuclear capabilities. Eisenhower
received Congressional approval to defend the Nationalist
Chinese Government on Taiwan and to block Communist
aggression in the middle east resulting in the 1958
deployment of Marines to Lebanon.
President Kennedy, during the Cuban missile Crisis of
1962, obtained a joint resolution authorizing him to prevent
the spread of communism in the Western Hemisphere, by force
if necessary. After Kennedy's assassination, and the war in
Indochina involved the U.S. increasingly more, President
Johnson responded to a reported patrol boat attack on U.S.
destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin by requesting and receiving
congressional passage of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution,
which he would rely upon as congressional legitimation of
his ensuing war effort there. The resolution read, in part,
...the United States is...prepared, as the President
determines, to take all necessary steps, including the
use of armed force, to assist any member or protocol
state of the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty
requesting defense of its freedom.
The vote in support of the Southeast Asia Resolution (Tonkin
Gulf) was 88-2 in the Senate and 416-0 in the House.45
Certainly, Johnson could have deployed troops to Vietnam
without congressional sanction but he had learned from
Eisenhower's experience in Lebanon about the political value
of such sanction.
Eisenhower ordered a CIA directed covert operation to
help overthrow a communist government in Guatemala in 1954,
beginning the use of unconventional measures to enforce the
Monroe Doctrine, which like the global Containment Policy
took on an anticommunist twist. The success of the
operation convinced Ike of the economy and efficiency of
such operations, making them the operation of choice in the
3rd World from that time on, especially in Latin America. 46
President Johnson employed U.S. ground forces against a
communist threat in Latin America, when he dispatched 22,000
troops to the Dominican Republic in 1965. This action
contravened the nonintervention provisions of Franklin
Roosevelt's Good Neighbor Policy of 1933. His rationale for
intervention was to prevent another Cuba. President Reagan
would take a similar prerogative in the 1983 Grenada
operation. Both of these involvements carried the
multilateral sanction of allied neighboring countries.
Concentration of power in the presidency has been
evolutionary depending upon historical circumstances of war,
military threat or emergency for their expansion. Until
Lincoln, and the U.S. civil war presidents viewed their
commander-in-chief role as military in nature. By fusing
the commander-in-chief power with the executive power to
meet various national exigencies, Lincoln initiated the use
of extraordinary prerogative which would later reemerge in
the same, or stronger form under later presidents,
especially Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt. These two
presidents operationalized the total control of the nation
in global war efforts. The power they added to the
presidential repetoire became available to post World War II
presidents when the nuclear age and the threat of global
communism thrust the nation into a perpetual state of
emergency. These powers carried into the Cold War, as
Roosevelt had revolutionized the national government and the
presidency, and they were available to the presidential
office during Vietnam.
As detailed in Chapter 2 the consensus supporting the
freehand of presidents collapsed beginning with the decision
of Richard Nixon to extend the Vietnam War another four
years, a decision which, given the public opposition to U.S.
involvement, surprised even General Bruce Palmer who
commanded the Army Component in the Military Assistance
Command Vietnam (MACV).47 The U.S. South Vietnamese Allies
meanwhile had never considered the power of congress in
their estimates of the wartime situation.48 Their
assumption, in line with the reasoning of Curtis Wright was
based upon president plenary power in warmaking and foreign
policy. The U.S. egress from Vietnam ending with the North
Vietnamese invasion of 1975. demonstrated conclusively that
congressional power could overrule a presidentially
quaranteed security commitment.
In the modern era the congressional assertion of their
shared role in foreign policy directly conflicts with the
context of security commitments and forward deployed forces
which drive U.S. foreign policy and global posture and with
it, the necessity for unity of command in the presidential
office. Essentially, the presidentially restrictive
legislation of the 1970's diminishes authority without
diminishing presidential responsibility. U.S. treaty
commitments for coalition defense are the law of the land
and the president is obliged to execute them.
Chapter 4
THE FORCES OF DISUNITY:
CONGRESSIONAL REFORM, PLURALISM, OVERSIGHT OF THE PRESIDENT,
AND NATIONAL SECURITY
Article II of the American Constitution vaguely defines
executive power. By substituting a framework as opposed to
a careful enumeration of powers the nationalists on the
Philadelphia Convention committees of style and detail
accomplished two things: They overcame traditional
republican opposition to the presidency, and they charged
the presidency with a great deal of latent power, which over
the course of U.S. history has been exercised and
incorporated by precedent into the executive when necessary.
The cumulative effect of these incremental power accretions
is the modern robust American presidency.
To understand the shifting relationship between the
president and congress it is necessary to analyze the
various political factors and their contribution. A good
beginning is to reconsider the foundations of the U. S.
presidency and how they impact present day political issues.
Philosophically, Niccolo Machiavelli invented executive
power as we know it and John Locke constitutionalized it.
But the Nationalist argument which made executive power
acceptable to a public fearful of tyranny was James
Madison's Federalist #10, the basis for which is contained
in Montesquieu's ideas on governmental organization and his
celebration of diversity as a virtue. In this essay Madison
argued that tyranny devolving from the influence of factions
in a large, extended republic, could be neutralized by the
countervailing number and diversity of competing factions.
Were there enough of these interests and were they
given adequate representation in the government, they
would in fact cancel each other out by their mutual
conflict, and the sovereign would remain a sort of
umpire and policeman maintaining rules of the game, but
giving special advantage to none of the players. The
"policy" of the government would thus be the resultant
of the clashing forces within the society which was
governed.1
The separation of powers at the national level, the
federal relationship between the states and the national
government, and the multiplicity of factions, or competing
interests and levels permeating American government is
called pluralism. So while the Constitutitional Convention
incorporated the executive energy and unity of Hamilton,
Madison and his argument of countervailing interests
assuaged concerns about reckless presidential actions
resulting from excessive power in the hands of a single
person. Within the pluralism of American republican
government and a constitutional framework open to
interpretation rests the dilemma of the modern presidency in
national security affairs. The War Powers Act and the
several other major acts of congress since the 1970's
represent only a fraction of the congressional seizure of
the presidential initiative and prerogative. The total
number of legislative measures, in excess of 150, signals
possible realignment of interbranch power relationships.2
The events of Vietnam and the assertion of presidential
command power in the execution of an unpopular war created a
congressional backlash against the twentieth century trend
toward increasing centralization of power in the executive
branch. The lesson of Watergate and Richard Nixon's
resignation is this: The president has at his fingertips
almost unlimited power. But to exercise that power he must
eventually win public support for his action or else risk
repercussions from the countervailing power of congress. As
Leonard Garment elaborates, Watergate tells us two sorts of
things about political evil:
Some of Watergate's crimes were political crimes and
deserve to be examined as such. Watergate, secondly
marks a backlash against wrongdoing and evil in public
life, and with it the congressional efforts to promote
virtue and rectitude in the country's public life.
Put another way, the lesson of Vietnam and Watergate,
followed by the backlash of an assertive congress gives
credence to Richard Neustadt's view of presidential power:
Ultimately, the only real power of the president is the
power to persuade.4 Implicit in Neustadt's reasoning is
the fact that the voting public in the final analysis holds
the reigns of power in America. In the modern era, with
executive power hindered but presidential responsibility
unchanged, there are national systemic difficulties with the
U.S. national role as a global power.
The 1970's legislation has the effect of exacerbating
the institutional weakness of a republican government in
regard to strategy formulation. In general Americans do not
think strategically and their system of government with its
checks and balances is designed to echew the long range
factual approach complementary to strategic designs in favor
an item by item approach.5 Additionally, Americans do not
have a systematic, rational, coherent concept of warfare.6
Absent systemic strategic foundations, presidential
leadership and the inherent flexibility it wields in the
commander-in-chief role serves as a logical substitute for
strategy. With an assertive congress intent on oversight,
the item by item approach to U.S. security is conducted in a
political construct optimized for resolution of domestic
issues, a system which allows multiple access points and
chokepoints where deliberation, stagnation, or outright
strangulation of national security related issues can occur.
Despite their working against consistency and firmness in
U.S. dealings internationally, these deliberative norms are
an expression of the public valuing of proper process and
participation in government. The influences of foreign
policy fragmentation within American politics are: lack of
strategic thought, elite dissensus in national security
policy, congressional inadequacy as an initiator in foreign
affairs, an expansive national security bureaucracy with
competing organizational goals, and public opinion factors.
The lack of strategic thought in America is attributed
sometimes to factors of national character:
As a nation, Americans are pragmatic problem
solvers rather than systematic long range thinkers.
Our whole experience tells us that it is best to narrow
down complicted matters so as to isolate the practical
problem at hand and then to get on with finding a
solution. Strategy by contrast, is the one practical
pursuit that requires a contrary method: to connect
the diverse issues into a systematic pattern of things;
then to craft plans...often long range...for dealing
with the whole. In the life of this nation, it has not
been strategy, but rather pragmatic problem solvers
that have created a society wealthier than most and now
also have just more than virtually all others...and it
has not been long range planning, but rather the
impatient dynamism of a hard working people that has
allowed so many to pursue happiness as well.7
Edward Luttwak, in the foregoing statement, describes
The United States as a nation characteristically averse to
long range planning. Arguably, for a strategist like
Luttwak, this emphasis on short range pragmatism over long
range calculation results from U.S. geopolitics and history.
The U.S. is a maritime power which until the start of the
twentieth century enjoyed the classic prerogatives of the
great sea powers of history. "It could take as much or as
little of the world's affairs as it wanted." U.S. trade and
international prerogatives were subsumed under the
geopolitics of Pax Brittannica, which amounted to an
undeclared strategy based upon a unique Anglo-American
relationship and British maritime superiority, superimposed
upon the balance of multipolar power extant in nineteenth
century Europe. The objective of British strategy was
maintenance of sea power supremacy through the use of
diplomacy and the balancing of warlike equilibrium among the
land armies of the European continent.
Two World Wars taught Americans the truth contained in
the paradoxical words of James Madison and Alexander
Hamilton.
Madison: "The means of defense against foreign
dangers have always been the instruments of tyranny at
home" 8
Hamilton: "No government could give us tranquility and
happiness at home, which did not possess sufficient
strength abroad."9
As Mackubin Thomas Owens suggests, despite the necessity of
maintaining strength abroad, argued by Hamilton, the U.S.
political structure in keeping with Madison's warning
subjects national security policy to the constraints of
politics in the domestic environment.10
Because U.S. geopolitical insularity allows the luxury
of a maritime approach to foreign threats, adhoc solution
formed around temporary domestic political coalitions have
historically been sufficient to meet most contingencies.
With the end of World War II the U.S. adhoc approach changed
to an institutional one. In 1947 the new national defense
establishment based upon the Cold War foreign policy
consensus and realigned global power relationships formally
organized national security policy. Owing to the
president's status as commander-in-chief the U.S. defense
establishment presumed the executive branch lead in national
security policy formulation.11 The president's
responsibility for execution of the laws was extended to the
coalition defense of the free world with the initiation of
the Containment Policy as a strategic framework and the
entry of the nation into numerous bilateral and multilateral
defense agreements as a senior partner. The plenary power
of the president in foreign affairs and the status of
treaties and executive agreements as legal equivelants to a
national legislative act and superior to state law, allowed
the executive branch enhanced initiative and prerogative in
a national security policy encompassing the free world. The
use of executive agreements prior to the post World War II
period had been significant in issues of war and peace but
became the primary instrument for obtaining foreign policy
objectives starting with their extensive wartime use by
Franklin Roosevelt.12
But the unity acheived in shifting from adhoc to formal
organization in national security following the global
conflict rested upon the bedrock of the Cold War consensus,
and with its demise following Vietnam, American policies
increasingly have failed to operationalize a strategic
approach to national security interests. Instead of
contributing to a concentration of authority, the
reorganizations of 1947 and subsequent years have, in
keeping with the American romance with Madisonian
countervailing schemes, greatly proliferated the number of
bureaucracies, and along with them the avenues of access to
the decision making process and participation. Competing
bureaucratic and institutional imperatives often serve to
impede expeditious and clear decision making through an
emphasis on norms of process at the expense of policy
objectives, similar to congress.13
Besides Madison, Theodore Lowi traces the multiplicity
of interests in American Government to the ideological
liberalism of Thomas Hobbes, Adam Smith, and David Hume.
Beginning in the 1960's the result of pluralism taken to
their maximum ends of participatory democracy was a new
public philosophy of interest group liberalism replacing the
old liberalism of Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal.
Within the new philosophy, Adam Smith's conception of
division of labor and the efficiency it renders have their
analogy in sovereign functional groups. Specialization of
political function gives birth to a multiplication of
dependencies, statuses, and interests, each with access to
the policy making process. Following the classical economic
precept of the automatic economy, the new public philosophy
of interest group liberalism presupposes an automatic
society.
In interest group liberalism vested interests, whether
within the bureaucracy, congress, or the voting public are
easy to define, are the equivalent of a business enterprise
with recognized stakes in political goods, have
countervailing power over each other within the competitive
scheme, and are theoretically self-regulating within the
political context. Access to the decision making process is
the governmental equivelant of business access to the market
place. The American belief in the virtue of participatory
democracy and countervailing factional clash to acheive the
common good places a premium upon arbitration.
Unfortunately, in the bargaining process national government
is in fact not an arbiter but only a party. National
sovereignty residing in the president and congress is
questionable if not openly rejected in the new liberalism.
Instead, the main push of the new philosophy is to reduce
the coercive force of government. Extended to the national
security establishment interest group liberalism results in
policy divisions among competing bureaucracies, the
congress, and its fragmented committee system.
To the detriment of a consistent strategic posture,
pluralistically fashioned decisions are often partial
decisions such as those evidenced during the Vietnam War.
Avoidance of the partial decision in order to acheive
uncompromised national objectives requires presidential
escalation in rhetoric and meaning, or the phenomenon of
"oversell". Contemporary examples of oversell are not
difficult to find during the Reagan years: Central America
policy, the Grenada operation, deployment of Theater Nuclear
Forces in NATO, the modernization of strategic nuclear
forces, the Persian Gulf naval escort operations, and the
Strategic Defense Initiative are examples where strident
symbol laden rhetoric often masks the strategic logic behind
policy. The effect of presidential "oversell" is to inflate
threats, increase expectation, and risk credibility.
Without oversell the alternative is the partial decision.
Sober, consistent, and predictable foreign policy will never
be acheived as long as presidential energy is divided among
a fragmented bureaucracy, a defensive Congress, and a
plebiscitary public. The new liberalism valuing of
arbitration and participation while acceptable in national
domestic issues, when employed in security matters exacts a
coat in efficiency and effectiveness which is counter to the
logic of strategy.14
Internal congressional reforms following Vietnam and
Watergate demonstrate the premium placed upon process,
access, and arbituation, confounding clear direction in
security policy. The absense of central authority in
congressional procedures regarding the handling of issues
such as those involving foreign policy was partially offset
prior to 1910 by a strong commitee system, between 1918-1968
by strong Party leadership within both houses and, following
World War II, by a strong interbranch, interparty consensus
on strategic goals and major means, deferring to the
president as policy initiator.
In the early seventies several key functional reforms,
aid increasingly publicity minded congress, and the further
demise of political parties as a unifying force coincided
with the Vietnam experience and its subsequent restrictions
on the presidency to enhance congressional authority, while
diffusing the already limited unity within the legislative
branch.
The reforms had their roots in electoral politics.
Senators and Congressman were becoming better educated,
more issue aid media conscious, more self selected in
the sense of initiating and organizing their own
compaigns. As policy entrepreneurs they were expanding
their substantive staffs. They were less willing than
their predessors to wait their turn for leadership.
Liberals were particularly impatient, since they linked
the seniority system with dominance of Congress by
"Conservative Coalition" southern Democrats and
Republicans"15
In the post Watergate election of 1974 the
congressional "Class of 74", members of the informal liberal
coalition called the Democratic Study Group orchestrated the
procedural ouster of three key commitee chairmen. In
diluting strong commitee leadership to increase
participation, one development was a profusion of
subcommitees, each with a chair and staff, and, another, the
increased access of junior members to commitee markups and
floor procedures.16 While these changes increased the
number of countervailing factions within congress,
congressional responsibility in foreign policy was lost in
the resulting constipation of the resulting lethargic
decision making process. Thereby U.S. efficacy was
diminished in the international community through the
fractionalized legislative and budgetary authority,
competition among committees and subcommittees, and
oppressive congressional oversight of executive agencies.17
In the 19th century, America politics, according to
Woodrow Wilson, were characterized by congressional politics
with strong parties, shifting to presidential politics
beginning with the second term of Grover Cleveland and
continuing into the 20th Century. Between 1876 and 1898
with the exception of the wartime administrations of Polk,
Lincoln, and Cleveland, congress provided the initiative in
foreign policy. When presidents advocated expansionist
policies, congress blocked them. The congressional reforms
of the 1970's in concert with the myriad legislation
regulating presidential prerogative in national security
policy may represent an effort to reinstate congressional or
institutional government with the agents of legislative
responsiblity represented by strong congressional
leadership, strong commitee leadership, and strong party
leadership noticably absent.
Lacking unified power, agenda setting by congress
compete with the public presidency and the presidential
agenda through multiple channels with national security
issues increasingly subject to arbitration. Prior to
Vietnam and the congressional reform, these issues were
privatized, or insulated within a more authoritative
decicion making process. Privatization of conflict embodies
the logic behind the president's expansive use of executive
agreements as the tool of preference in foreign policy
beginning with Franklin Roosevelt.
E.E. Schattschneider suggests the shift in public focus
from local to national politics in the past few decades
beginning with the Great Depression era is responsible for
the explosion in the size of national government. He would
probably also agree that the expansion of national security
issues to the public level is useful to a congress intent on
hanging in their favor the existing ratio of influence
between the legislative and executive branches. From this
perspective congressional success in elevating issues of
national security to the public agenda marks a significantly
weakened presidency. In Scattschneider's words:
The nationalization of politico after the 1932 party
realignment from Republican to Democrat and the demise
of the national party strengths have caused group
strategy to become of paramount importance in
determining the scope of political conflict. Conflict
can be either privatized or socialized. The efforts to
privatize are made by organizations or bureaucracies
seeking to protect their turf. By privatization, the
scope of conflict is limited, lessening the possibility
that public authority can cause the interest a loss.
Strategies for socializing or expanding the conflict to
the public level are useful to groups that wish to
change the existing power ratio. "Political theory
must take into account that conflict becomes political
only when an attempt is made to involve the wider
public. Pressure politics might be described as a
stage in the socialization of conflict." Thus, strong
interest avoid the arena of pressure groups and
congressmen. The change from local to national
politics in the post World War II era has dramatically
changed the scope of conflict. A new order of agenda
on a global scale is socialized by the US presidency
and, increasingly, congress are the instruments of
national policy. The plebiscitary nature of government
has facilitated the expansion of national politics.
This explains the ever growing bureaucracy, the
executive, and congressional levels.18
By plebiscitary Schattschneider alludes to political
outcomes gained through participation, process, and
arbitration, not authority. Institutionally, congressional
reform changed the legislative branch so much during the
1970's shift to "subcommitee government" that a person who
studied the institution prior to 1974 would not recognize
it. Abner Mikva summarizes the congressional shift to
"subcommittee system":
The Post Watergate freshman members of the House of
Representatives so coveted subcommittee autonomy that
the House in 1975 adopted a subcommittee Bill of
Rights, which provided, among other things, that a
chairman could not deprive a subcommittee of its
jurisdiction over legislation. Committee chairmen are
no longer immune from challenge.19
Strengthened subcommittees, a weakened seniority
system, the diminution of power in the formerly so called
"prestige committees" of appropriations and ways and means
in concert with the initiation of the congressionally
controlled budget mechanism in 1974 leaves congress
essentially "rudderless".20
A potential source of cohesion, the power of political
parties to unify the congress is hampered by a lack of
coercive sanctions available to congressional party
leadership. This is because the national parties do not
consult the congressional contingent in developing party
platforms and do not provide substantial funding for
congressional campaigns. For campaign financing congressmen
increasingly rely on direct mail operations, special
interest political action committees (PACs), and
occassionally local party units.21 That the two national
parties' are deficient political power to function as agents
of unity and responsibility in building majorities, further
encourages the entrepreneurial spirit among members along
with a corresponding congressional zeal for oversight in
national security matters.
Significantly, congressional oversight now regulate or
restrict functions previously deemed "untouchable", such as
activities of the CIA and the FBI,22 at the same time
demonstrating their incapability to develop coherent
optional policies.23 The Senate Intelligence Committee now
exercises exclusive jurisdiction over all CIA authorizations
and the Director of Central Intelligence is required to give
oral briefings to the Intelligence Commitees regarding all
covert operations.24 The commitee maintains a number of
options when briefed on covert operations: comment to the
executive branch; referal of information to other commitees,
if appropriate; public disclosure, if supported by a closed
session Senate vote; and funding restrictions.25 The
Intelligence Committee of either house may vote to disclose
information received from the executive branch, subject to
presidential objection which, in turn, may be overruled
either by the Senate or by the Intelligence commitee if the
Senate refers the measure back.26
The loss of guaranteed secrecy in covert operations has
to rank as one of the great losses to presidential
prerogative in the conduct of U.S. global policies, but the
overriding difficulty is that this oversight mechanism can
halt security policies in several ways, while incurring no
obligation to provide constructive alternatives to achieve
implicit or explicit strategic objectives.
Michael Ledeen argues that the congressionally imposed
requirement for "openness" compromises the U.S. ability to
deal secretly and confidentially with its allies. The two
congressional measures to facilitate "openess" against
competing imperatives for secrecy are the Freedom of
Information Act and covert operational oversight. Hailed by
its defenders as an advance in "openness", the oversight
process is, according to Ledeen, simply a method for
congress to expand it's territory. The legislators are
expected to keep state secrets as if members of the
intelligence community. Since the public only comes to know
the secrets if someone violates his vow, "oversight" only
expands the number of people who are in the know; it does
not enhance the public's ability to evaluate the performance
of the government.
On the other hand "oversight" has a limiting effect on
the executive branch, for in practice there are certain
kinds of secret actions that invariably leak when they
are shared with congress....so by bringing congress
into the act, some secret actions are blocked, and
others are sabotaged by leaks from hostile
legislators.27
In practice Congress uses the oversight mechanism as a tool
of arbitration in determining national security policy in
covert operations.
Reflecting skewed congressional attitudes, oversight is
a oneway street where only the executive branch can exceed
its constitutional authority. The Freedom of Information
Act applies only to the executive branch, not the congress
or the judiciary. Inspite of its attempt to effect openess,
Henry Kissinger asserts the act will only insure that
officials in the executive branch limit communications to
face to face conversation and other nonwritten mediums.
Most crucial decisions will not be documented.28
Kissinger's prediction did not hold true in the Iran Contra
arms deal where an ample paper trail remains intact in
addition to the numerous documents shredded. Staff action
is probably too complex to rely on strictly verbal liaison
inspite of the risks of disclosure. Still, there is a valid
argument that these congressional measures promoting
"openness" infringe upon necessary executive secrecy in
national security matters to the detriment of strategic
priorities and good relations with our allies, who must
insist upon the confidentiality of communications made in
the areas of diplomacy and defense. Robert Bork feels the
Special Prosecutor Act is a particular infringement on
executive power and priveledge, threatening the prerogative
for secrecy in matters of national security.
The emphasis on "openness" to the detriment of security
is evidenced in the Special Prosecutor Act which allows
congress to appoint Watergate-style special
prosecutors. The special prosecutor in the Iran Contra
investigation has subpoened documents for which he is
not cleared to review.29
Another visible element of the increasing congressional
encroachment on executive policy initiative is the growth in
what Michael S. Malbin in his book Unelected Representatives
calls the "entrepreneurial congressional committee staff"
which aggressively asserts a committee's legislative
priorities, tries to grab jurisdiction from other commitees,
and dominates policy formation. While such staffs help
tackle larger congressional workloads and have aided
congressional retention of its position as an initiator of
federal policy in competition with the president, they
represent a perceptible shift from nonpartisan to
personalized staffing associated with the increasing
congressional monopoly of oversight. Chairmen who have
entrepreneurial staffs do so to maintain independence from
the executive branch. Though this is politically valuable
in the oversight of the president, overuse of the staffs
destroys legislative deliberation and effects the individual
legislator's ability to gain full information on issues.
Turf conscious staffers tend to generate multitudes of
hearings and amendments, over extending and confounding the
ability of lawmakers to master information. In some cases
staffs are entrusted to hammer out compromise legislation
and are generally responsible for committee reports, seldom
or never read by members but published as legislative
history.30
Furthermore as Malbin points out:
Some committee staffs have extracted policy promises
from nominees, both judicial and executive by
threatening to slow down the confirmations process.
Likewise, staff members threaten to "kill" a bill
unless it is modified to meet their members alleged
concerns, even on issues to which members did not even
know about....frequently, a Senate staff member places
a "hold" on legislation without the member's advance
knowledge.31
The strength of staff in the ascendent congressional
dynamism in national security policy is particularly
injurious to the concept of unity; entrepreneurial
congressional staffs promote a geometric increase in policy
fragmentation with a corresponding drop in accountability,
especially when added to the divisions inherent to
government by subcommittee. Note: There are 26 committees
and 137 subcommittees in the House, in concert with 20
committees and 106 subcommittees in the Senate. The scope
of committee staff power with their monopoly of knowledge
and with the latitude they have in shaping legislation
raises questions of congressional accountability to the
electorate, parallel to those raised by the congress
concerning executive orders and executive secrecy.
Congressional Quarterley's Understanding Congress describes
the power and divisions engendered by the subcommittee
system.
Subcommittees. Below the committee level is a plethora
of subcommittees, each with its own title, chairman and
jurisdiction. Subcommittees have become increasingly
powerful since the seniority system declined during the
1970s. Power has become decentralized, and this trend
toward subcommittee government has made for greater
specialization, while providing a sharper focus for
interest groups to concentrate on. Committee members
vie for subcommittee chairmanships that enhance their
personal prestige, national visibility, staff and
office space. The trend has also made it more
difficult for party leaders to coordinate policy, since
lines of power have become disconnected.
1. Anyone following the course of a bill begins
by looking at its chances in subcommittee. In several
committees of both houses, much of the subcommittee
work is routinely endorsed by the full committee with
scant further review. This is certainly the case in
the Appropriations committees, where subcommittees have
well-defined jurisdictions and function with great
autonomy.
2. Senate subcommittees generally are weaker than
their House counterparts because the Senate's smaller
size leaves its full committees less dependent on
subcommittee specialization. Senate subcommittees
usually hold hearings and then forward bills to full
committee for voting.
3. Each subcommittee member, with his or her
staff, acquires an expertise in a subject area. It is
during subcommittee consideration that a member can
assert the most influence. This fact is not lost on
lobbyists and others with special concerns. A vital
point, hard won in subcommittee debate, may sail right
through the more broad-based full committee.
4. The number of subcommittees has fluctuated
through the years, with the leadership alternately
allowing new ones to spring up while pruning away at
others and regrouping jurisdictions. Under rules
adopted by House Democrats, each committee with 20 or
more members is required to have at least four
subcommittees. The exception is the House Budget
Committee, which has no subcommittees but which gas the
functional equivalent, task forces. Standing
committees are restricted to a maximum of eight
subcommittees or the number of subcommittees existing
in 1981, whichever is lower. (Committees with more
than 35 members and fewer than six subcommittees may
increase their subcommittee number to six.) The House
Appropriations Committee retained its 13 panels, since
it covers all federal expenditures and has a wide
jurisdiction.
5. In both the House and Senate, no committee
member may chair more than one subcommittee of a single
committee. Full committee chairmen often chair
subcommittees on their own or on other committees.
6. A bill referred to a legislative committee is
referred in turn to the subcommittee with jurisdiction.
The so-called subcommittee bill of rights adopted by
the House Democratic caucus in 1973 required committee
chairmen to refer designated types of legislation to
each subcommittee within two weeks, eliminating a
practice sometimes used by chairmen of killing measures
they opposed by pocketing them.
7. The subcommittee chairman decides whether to
hold hearings and consider the legislation. If the
subcommittee decides to recommend further action on a
bill, a "markup" session is held and the bill's
language is scrutinized and modified. The bill then is
"reported out" of the subcommittee for fuLl committee
consideration. These subcommittee reports - usually
internal memoranda - generally are not available in
printed form. Following receipt of the subcommittee's
recommendations, the full committee may decide to hold
further hearings, but often it proceeds to markup, and
then orders the bill reported for action by the full
House.
8. The subcommittee chairman and ranking minority
member frequently are asked to serve as floor managers
for legislation, an indication of the rise in power of
subcommittees.32
with subcommittee government initiated in response to
perceived abuses of the pre-reform congressional committee
chairs, the trends in congress are directed toward
Madisonian institutional ends of making ambition counter
ambition. The resulting diffusion of legislative authority
makes the legislature the least responsible branch to set
U.S. foreign policy objectives. This is particularly so in
the House of Representatives because subcommittees there are
strongest, and because the two year electoral cycle of
congressmen encourages nonstrategic, short term mindsets.
According to a book by Leon Rieselbach, measurement and
analysis of congress is made against three evaluative
standards: responsibility, responsiveness, and
accountability. In brief, responsibility refers to the
formulation of the policies that can speedily, successfully,
and efficiently solve the problems faced by the national
polity. Responsiveness deals with communication and access
between congress and those effected by legislative actions.
Finally, accountability entails the ability of the
electorate to hold their elected representatives to task
through the electoral process. Two of these three criteria
are at immediate odds with one another. Responsiveness to
multiple constituencies increases deliberation and degrades
responsibility, especially when timeliness of action is
required. Additionally, there are some general
institutional problems associated with each of the three
criteria. Responsibility is lost in procedural,
deliberative norms which require coalition building at the
many points of decision from the subcommitees on up. In
general, congress is not a responsible initiator, but more
properly a molder and legitimizer of policy originated by
the president.33 It goes without saying that the
legislative branch is not designed for unity and energy, so
it is no surprise when congressional assertion of authority
in national security affairs runs counter to the setting and
acheiving strategic goals.
Chapter 5
"The search for personal influence is at the center of the
job of being President" (Richard Neustadt, Presidential
Power).
THE ELITE DIVERGENCE, THE MASS PUBLIC AND PRESIDENTIAL
LEADERSHIP IN NATIONAL SECURITY
This chapter aims to discuss the political problems of
the post Vietnam presidency in giving a strategic direction
to U.S. national security policy given the congressional and
public alternative partisan conceptions about foreign
policy, about American values, about use of power, about
national threats, and about national priorities.
MultipLe decision points and multiple access points in
congress and the bureaucracy in concert with the strength of
congressional committee/subcommittee staffs in the policy
process enhance the importance of the public media and
unofficial sources providing national security policy
information in a usable digested form. The consequence of
this phenomenon is mixed: a multitude of sources are readily
available in the U.S. press and television. Ideally, the
media could serve the executive role of policy initiation,
but in the name of openness, all points of view including
congressional, even Soviet and other foreign
representatives, compete for access and expression of views
with the executive branch. The president's necessity to
"oversell" defense priorities increases correspondingly.
More seriously, well orchestrated disinformation forces
deluge the media and congress with material designed to
support marxist insurgencies and discredit U.S. strategic
policies, undermining presidential domestic credibility in
the process.1
Think tanks such as The Center for Defense Information
provide data useful to the congressional role as an arbiter
of defense policy. A self-described watchdog organization,
CDI is one in a cottage industry of "think tanks" providing
the military information instrumental to congressional
competition with the president's assessments. Manned by
retired officers and headed by retired Admiral Gene R.
LaRocque, CDI claims to be devoted to strong U.S. defense
but is accused by strong defense advocates of expressing a
benign view of Soviet intentions globally, opposing the
general direction of U.S national security policy, and
offering no credible alternative to the strategic programs
criticized. CDI's information provides well researched
grist at the congressional staff, committee staff and
subcommittee staff levels which differs so widely with the
assumptions of the national defense establishment as to be
irreconcible. Admiral LaRocque, for example, suggests the
United States militarized global politics in 1947 by
dividing the globe into military districts and establishing
a forward line of defense, which given today's world
situation is ridiculous and unnecessary. Furthermore,
LaRocque states the Soviets have never been a threat to the
United States, though they have the capability to be.
Though certainly not a communist, LaRocque echoes the
Leninist logic which reduces wars to simply "good business"
LaRocque's claim that the U.S. has no strategy but instead
reactively responds to crises is valid. However, his
assertion that the invasion of Grenada was a dubious use of
force seems a contradiction to his original premise, given
the strategic consistency of the Monroe Doctrine in U.S.
history.3
This is not to single out Admiral LaRocque and CDI.
Washington buzzes with think tanks and defense/foreign
policy experts who daily provide the ideas which form the
basis of U.S. policy. There are numerous think tanks of
various ideological stripes, and they can be influential
within their area of expertise. Examples of the
pervasiveness of these institutions are apparent in the
number of think tank experts, intellectual elites who weekly
debate national security issues on national television and
whose writing fills the pages of the elite print media. A
debate on public television concerning the verification
procedures in ongoing Intermediate Range Nuclear Force (INF)
Reduction Treaty is typical. Michael Krepon of the left
leaning Carnegie Endowment for Peace argued the problems
concerning Soviet compliance with on site verification in
the INF proposal were small and would be resolved at the
Secretary of State level. Pitted against Krepon was Frank
Gaffney formerly of the American Enterprise Institute and
now of the Hudson Institute, both of which are more
conservative in orientation. Gaffney contended there are
serious problems with the treaty: Rushed reconciliation
with the Soviets by the Secretary of State will encourage
treaty language which will poorly serve long range U.S.
interests. Of interest here is the vying for policy
influence by two people who are influence peddlers and
opinion leaders, yet neither holds political office - the
essence of pluralism.
Apart from, yet influenced by the divisive foreign
policy and defense debates within congress, the bureaucracy,
and among elites, the ambivelant and negative public
attitudes toward America's global military role are the
forces which ultimately detract from presidential ability to
direct a global defense through a strategic framework.
Popular support for foreign involvements of any kind
may be quietly fading away and with it the post war
assumption that America should continue to be the world
leader. This neoisolationist impulse in the general
population is unwittingly aided by the philosophical
relativism that has come to dominate the elite
universities and national media.5
These public attitudes, mirrored in the rudderless
congressional foreign policy agenda highlight a fundamental
dissensus or divergence of thought among America's elite,
confounding presidential ability to persuade and develop
consistent legislative backing.
The role of elites or opinion leaders in the American
system as well as other governments stands counterposed to
what C. Wright Mills views the normal role of the mass
public: the mass public is not radical, not conservative,
but inactionary - out of it. Theorists like Mills contend
political interests in America are generally controlled by
elites who have continual access to the political process
through influence in the parties, political literature, and
pressure organizations.6
According to Murray Edelman, politics consist of a
network of symbolic associations which make up a group
schema. These associations are kept in equilibrium by
virtue of the ambivelance or apathy of most people toward
the political system and the manipulation of this ambiguity
through the symbolic action of elites, which either
satisfies or arouses the unorganized majority. Elite
politics in America juxtapose elite manipulation of symbolic
politics and the public's cognition and perception of it
within an interactive system. A healthy aspect of most
political systems, democratic processes notwithstanding, is
that politics are generally kept remote to the majority by
elite design because inherent governmental limitations in
satifying mass needs can cause social instability.7
Edelman's model, concerning general politics is similar
to that of John E. Mueller who, in analyzing the political
dynamics in specific area of presidential war powers,
presupposes an important group of citizens a group of elites
called "followers", who prior to Watergate and Vietnam were
inclined to support the president.8
These people are the well-educated opinion leaders
within American society on par with the likes of Frank
Gaffney and Michael Krepon who, until the last years of the
Vietnam War, were the least likely to suggest U.S. foreign
involvements a mistake.9 The followership model of the post
war bipartisan period of 1948-1968 consisted of three parts:
a coalition of congressional leadership which agreed upon
U.S. foreign policy goals and methods, an "attentive" public
which followed their leadership, and a noninternationalist
but essentially inert mass public. Values of conservative
internationalism prevailed, supporting containment of Soviet
aggression, using both cooperative approaches to ease
tensions, and confrontational approaches such as military
interventions.10
The American legacy of isolationism prevalent in the
19th Century, disappearing after 1896 and remerging between
the two world wars, withered when the leftist progressive
version of isolationism died during the 1930's
administration of Franklin Roosevelt. Right wing
conservative isolationism after WWII converted to an
activist internationalism when a series of global
confrontations with the Soviets initiated the Cold War with
its anticommunist focus. Samuel Lubell describes the
conversion of conservative isolationists:
The Watershed came with the pronouncement of the Truman
Doctrine of 1947 in which the United States shifted
from support for the international left (the
antifascist alliance) to leadership of the
international right (the anti-communist alliance)
conservative isolationism in the l93Os and 1940s was
strongly motivated by the conviction the United States
should stay out of politics because it was on the wrong
side. The cold war reformulated America's world role
and made it possible for former isolationists to become
internationalists.11
As in most countries the quiescent, nonattentive,
noninternationalist U.S. mass public was not a "player" in
foreign policy issues during the Cold War because such
issues were insulated or privatized in the political
process. The socialization or politicization of foreign
policy resulted in part from shifts in the two major
political parties starting in 1964 with the Republicans.
Ideological minorities on either end of the conservative-
liberal continuum in the two national parties challenged the
old foreign policy establishment of the Cold War resulting
in gradual divisions between conservative and liberal
internationalists, the same two factions comprising the
elite Cold War consensus.
The "followership" model of elites in the eighteen year
cold war consensus disintegrated because of a polarization
over foreign policy within the attentive public and a
parallel rise of anti-establishment sympathy in the mass
non-attentive public during the late 1960's and 197O's.12
This anti-establishment sympathy fed on a latent populism
which is ever present in American mass politics and which,
when activated, mobilizes voters against anything "big",
particularly "big business" and "big government". Elite
polarization resulted in the divergence and ideologization
of the two major parties, Republican and democrat. At the
same time the general public was no longer ignoring foreign
affairs issues and consequently began to act as a political
swing group who favored "peace and strength", meaning they
could be persuaded to liberal or conservative leanings,
depending on the issue.
The introduction of a more politicized general public
injected a voLatile factor in national security policy
formulation is a by-product of television's power in
expanding the audience for foreign policy news and in
mobilizing opinion. Roughly 74 percent of Americans rely on
television as a sole source of news compared to 54 percent
who rely on newspapers. Television has held this audience
share as the mass medium of choice since 1963 with a dual
impact: it creates audiences for foreign policy news from
viewers who might not select foreign policy reading material
if given a choice, and it nurtures foreign policy opinions,
albeit weakly informed opinions, among citizens who
otherwise would have none. When ambivelant mass audiences
with weak opinions, not normallv interested in foreign
affairs, are exposed to new information, the reaction tends
to be strong. Since this same audience is
noninternationalist in orientation, the abundance of
information concerning U.S. involvement in global military
actions offends their sensibilities and reinforces latent
isolationist sentiments held along with their "peace with
strength" outlook.13
Electorally significant, the noninternatlonalist mass
public is in the media crosscurrent of the deep and profound
divisions of competing liberal and conservative belief
systems residual from the Vietnam experience.14 The left
leaning of the elites interpreted the lesion of Vietnam as
reinforcing their support for detente with the Soviet Union
and antimilitarism while emphasizing economic and
humanitarian problems over security issues. Conservative
internationalists after Vietnam showed a strong commitment
to the policy of communist containment, were suspicious of
detente, and pictured the world in East-West terms pitting
democratic capitalism and freedom against totalitarianism,
communism and repression.15
The liberal belief in the inseparability of detente and
antimilitarism destroyed the cold war consensus during the
Nixon years. Both conservative and liberal
internationalists viewed foreign policy in rigid moral
terms, thus damaging prospects of reconciliation. The
implications of morally based beliefs is that they are
generally dogmatically held and uncompromising. Liberals
tend toward pro-detente and antimilitary viewpoints,
aligning with the "forces of change" in world affairs - the
Third World Left. Conservatives, on the other hand, are
anti-detente and promilitary. At odds with the ideological
moralism of both the left and the right. President Nixon and
Secretary of State Kissinger's approach based on Kissinger's
groundings in the 19th Century Concert of Europe balance of
power approach was pragmatic, dominated solely by national
interest. It was a strategic orientation which combined
the liberal pro-detente and and conservative promilitary
viewpoints. The confusion of a non ideological policy
nonrigidly based upon pure strategic interests resulted in
attacks on Nixon's strategic approach from both the left and
the right.16
Politicized in foreign affairs issues by television and
following the lead of the fragmented elite with their
competing world views, the noninternationalist public
selectively allied with the left in opposing military
intervention and with the right in supporting a strong
military posture. In sum, the mass public has increasingly
desired the seemingly contradictory goals of a strong armed
forces while opposing involvement in situations requiring
military force.17 The best current example of this attitude
is in the public ambivelance toward U.S. Persian Gulf naval
escorts despite the public support during the 1980's for
increase in the size and strength of the U.S. Navy. The
"bottom line" of the "peace and strength" public attitude is
a neoisolationism catalyzing American politics.
Mass rejection of foreign involvements because of
public aversion to possible combat and casualty losses is
reinforced by conflicting signals which arise from the
divergence of view concerning security threats within the
national foreign policy establishment.
The responsible foreign policy community still looks at
the world with a deeply split personality. The
division is often unrecognized, and it occurs within
individuals and groups as between them.
The two world views within the foreign policy establishment
consist of, firstly, View A: called realist conservative,
which views the Soviet Union as an imperialist power from
its Russian past and its Leninist ideology. This view
prescribes military strength and the political will to
maintain and support a network of pro-western alliances.
Secondly, view B is called "idealist liberal" and
presupposes the USSR is not a danger to the United States.
This view places a high priority on the need to spread
liberal democratic institutions and renew the American
example.18 James Billington believes these viewpoints are
compatible. Indeed, studying the basis for the liberal-
conservative internationalist coalition during the Cold War
may offer the only clue to possibilities for reestablishing
unity of purpose in national security af fairs. Thomas L.
Hughes clearly describes the joints of agreement in the Cold
War:
American Internationalism had arrived on the world
stage, of course, just as America switched from leading
an antifascist alliance to leading an anticommunist
one. This was a decisive coincidence....This meant
that postwar American internationalism almost from its
inception was - to state it crudely - fated to be more
conservative than it had previously been in theory.19
This critical conversion of policy from
antifascism to anticommunism, coinciding with America's
belated internationalist debut, made it possible for
former conservative isolationalists to become
internationalists, but at a price. The price was an
implicit tradeoff of interests, with the American Right
engaged on the security side and the American Left on
the equity side of the new postwar US internationalism.
...in effect two internationalisms overlapped and
coexisted: the United Nations system and an
anticommunist alliance.20
U.S. collective security arrangements in the alliance system
of NATO, the RIO Pact, etc., reflect the anticommunist
features of the Cold War consensus. Soviet communist
expansionism, as after World War II, remains the chief
security problem of the containment policy which for all
practical purposes is still the basis for U.S. national
security organization. The increase in Third World
conflicts has altered the superpower outlook but despite
this shift in the past two decades from the bipolar world of
World War II, U.S. national security organization is still
largely geared toward the bipolar world view. Liberal
internationalism with its equity orientation has, however
become over the years a soft inclusionist internationalism
stressing a universalist emphasis on coexistence and the
seeding of bridges to the Soviets. Consequently, the
liberal world view is Less and less security oriented vis a
vis the Soviets and is guilty by association with sympathy
for Third World economic, social and functional issues.
This is anaethema to the conservatives.21
The rise of third-world influence in international
politico causes multilateralism in organizations such as the
UN and the OAS to work against American interest in the view
of conservatives who have infuenced Reagan administration
foreign policy. Reagan's focus is toward unilateral US
action, if necessary, a factor fostering the further
divergence of the equity oriented liberal elites who hold
multilateralism as a basic universalist tenet.22 By working
against U.S. national interest the Third World countries
create a conflict between the way the U.S. conducts foreign
policy and the idealistic way Americans view their national
example to the world. Ignoring organizations such as the
U.N., the OAS, and the world court in the conduct of foreign
affairs goes against the grain of "the rule of law" norms
embraced by the American public. After all, Francis Lieber,
a naturalized American wrote General Order 100 for the U.S.
Army which is the basis of the Hague and Geneva Conventions.
Similarly, the code of nonintervention in international law
was an invention of the United States and her Latin American
neighbors in the 1933 Montevideo conference, and The League
of Nations was a Woodrow Wilson idea.23
The role of the media in influencing mass opinion has
in general promoted a national climate hostile to
internationalist causes.24 In addition echos of the
pervasive antagonisms toward established interests in
American political life since 1964 are amplified within the
major networks and news organizations by what some media
studies categorize as the liberal and anti-establishment
orientations in the press.25
Though the American public distrusts the press, it
distrusts government even more, and the anti-establishment
bent of the press takes on whoever is in power regardless of
political or ideological alignment. Since foreign policy is
a surpassingLy establishment enterprise with an obvious
internationalist leaning, the press tends to reinforce
neoisolationist sentiments held by derivatives of the old
conservative and liberal isolationism.26
Anti-establishment political attitudes encouraged and
reinforced by the media encourages several possible
outcomes: it undergirds what Jeane Kirkpatrick identifies
as an arising notion of moral equivalence between the Soviet
and U.S. superpowers as opposed to the old conception of a
morally divergent bipolar political world. This notion of
U. S. - Soviet moral equivalence, reinforced by Soviet
disinformation in American media, delegitimizes American
institutions by measuring western societies against utopian
standards in radical critiques which redefine the terms of
political discourse. An example of this, according to
Kirkpatrick, is the term "human rights" which, in the
redefined discourse, includes only governmental violations
of human rights. Guerilla and terrorist groups do not
violate human rights: their heinous acts of killing are
"protests of a national liberation movement" in the view of
the "moral equivelance" school of thought.28
The very notion of superpower rivalry undermines at the
epistemological level as well as the political level,
the notion of a serious distinction between the U.S.
and the USSR and also undermines the reality of the
opposition of Soviet goals to the goals of all
independent nations and the desires of all independent
nations. It is very important to understand not only
are questions of politics involved here, but also the
basic questions of morality and meaning."29
The moral equivelance premise in the public foreign
policy debate heightens neoisolationist sentiments in the
public by lessening citizen trust of government. Levels of
public trust in government have declined from 75% to around
20-25% since 1958.30 The lack of political trust in
parallel with decreases in external political efficacy,
party identification, and a corresponding decrease in the
number of people who vote for president, (from 85% of the
eligible electorate in 1960 to less than 50% in 1980 and
1984) weakens social control mechanisms as well as important
mechnisms for the legitimizing functions of government and
the reinforcing norms of rule by consent.31
National security policy without strong political
support and legitimation by a meaningful electoral mandate
is easily disrupted by the multiple access features of our
pluralistic government, and through the interference of
congress. Because the president and his policymakers must
either mobilize support or at least controvert opposition,
U.S. national security policy since Vietnam has traveled a
bumpy road. The presidential electoral cycle caters to
largely domestic priorities which work against long term
foreign policy. Crises excepted, patterns of presidential
initiative in foreign policy because of the public attitudes
described must include political orchestration and are
consequently predictable. William Quandt's model depicts
fairly accurate patterns of presidential action in foreign
policy according to which year in office. From this one can
deduce that presidents at a certain point in their term,
will compromise pragmatic strategic considerations in order
to optimize political survival prospects. Unfortunately,
the timeframe in which it is politically suitable to take
initiative is restrictive, especially if such initiatives
incur any sizable risks.32
Charles Krauthammer suggests the tradition of
isolationism in America foreign policy has, consequent to
the reactive and isolationist nature of public support,
formed new partisans in both political Parties and in the
Pentagon. He contends the Democrats stand behind the shield
of multilateralism as an excuse for a "do-nothing" foreign
policy while the Republicans, during the Reagan
administration, have pursued a foreign policy of
unilateralism favoring isolationism with a strong defense in
the mode of "fortress America". Supporting Krauthammer's
evidence of Reagan administration isolationism are the six
conditions of the Department of Defense's for military
intervention which, among other things, requires public
support as a necessity for the commitment of military force.
This condition alone makes military intervention no matter
what its strategic value unlikely, if not impossible given
the noninternationalist proclivities of the general public.
When, since WWII has public consensus preceeded a U.S.
foreign intervention?33
To insure public support and to insure mobilization of
her Reserve Component, should conflict occur, the U.S. Army
is presently structured with the majority of critical Combat
Service Support in Reserve making it impossible to support a
contingency of even moderate size without commitment of some
Reserve manpower. The Army policy of heavy Reserve reliance
underlies the 1986 decision to expand the presidential
statutory Reserve callup authority from 100k to 200k
personnel in emergencies short of war. The Army cannot go
to war, even a limited war without significant Reserve
support. In a sort of chicken - egg argument, the Army
reasons with good cause that the Vietnam War was not
publicaIly supported in part because of the decision not to
mobilize the Reserve.34
The Presidential problems of persuading the public
concerning U.S. global responsibilities hinge upon two
pivitol societal factors. One is the lack of external
political efficacy among voters and its impact upon the
legitimation of the government. The other factor revolves
around the capability of the general public to render sound
judgements in the area of national security policy. Given
the number of books in the popular print detailing the
paucity of our societies cultural literacy and philosophical
foundations, is it not a prudent question whether in the
area of national security our citizens are strategically,
historically, or defensively literate? Without sound
education and indepth knowledge among the citizenry, the
making of national security policy is best conducted by
presidential initiative and insulated against the multipLe
access features of participatory democracy. Policy was
conducted in this fashion during the years of Cold War
consensus.
Chapter 6
SUMMARY
The base of power in the American Presidency is
relative to delegation by the Constitution, potential power
(perceptions of power based upon custom and usage), and
statutory law. The means of power involve presidential
personality, a presidents view of the office, and public
support, which can limit or expand authority. The American
system gives the presidency both traditional and legal
authority. Thus, the president is at once the
representational symbol of the nation and the legal ruler,
or prime minister. The president in his traditional role is
the "preserver of the American faith". In regard to public
support charismatic leadership in the chief executive is
also important, especially with the public presidency of the
20th century. Once charismatic leadership is compromised or
lost, a good share of moral leadership goes with it.
Ultimately, as Richard Neustadt notes, because of the
American pluralistic system, a president has little power
outside of his power of persuasion. Formal power is
available but can only serve so long as general public
support accompanies it. This is the lesson of Richard
Nixon's downfall. The ultimate dilemma of the presidency is
the dilemma of public confidence in their institutions and
there are no easy solutions here. The real issue revolves
around the debate concerning the Amrican world role.
The evolution of the presidency in the modern era
commenced with William McKinley and the extension of
American interests to the Pacific following the Spanish
American War, and continued through the Theodore Roosevelt
and Woodrow Wilson administrations. All of these presidents
were adherents of Herbert Spencer's ideas and the notion of
great power responsibility in international affairs. The
rejection of the Versailles Treaty by the irreconcilables of
the Senate represented an American public philosophy which
believed the health of the nation did not require a
responsible nation global role. Twenty years later, the
cataclysm of World War II followed by the Cold War clarified
the mistake of Versailles, mobilizing national support for
the coalition defense posture the U.S. holds today.
In the post Vietnam period the public consensus for a
U.S. global role has eroded because of the divergent
viewpoints earlier described in this paper. This is
reflected by the elite print in the suggestions America is
overcommitted, consequently her status as a global power is
economically threatened. Undecided about the U.S. global
role, the nation is also undecided about how much latitude
the president should have in his foreign policy
prerogatives. This is a particular tenuous situation for
the presidency, which must face the challenge of U.S.
defense commitments, forward deployed armed forces, and a
globally interdependent economy without clear public
support. Withdrawing from these national commitments and
global realities, should it come to that, will not easily be
accomplished.
Who makes National Security Policy? Zbigniew
Brzezinski asked the question at the start of this paper.
In the modern era in the American system of government there
is no single answer. But to the question who is responsible
for national security, there is only one answer: the
president.
NOTES
Chapter 1
l. Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski:, Federalist Society Symposium
on Foreign Affairs And The Constitution, Opening Address,
Grand Hyatt Hotel, Washington, D.C. (6 Nov 1987)
2. Ibid
3. David Gray Adler "The Constitution and Presidential
Warmaking", Political Science Quarterly, Spring, 1988, 1-36
4. William Bradford Reynolds, U.S. Assistant Attorney
General For Civil Rights, OpCit Federalist Society Symposium
"The President's Powers As Commander in Chief vs Congress's
War Powers and Appropriations Power", Address (6 Nov 1987).
5. Martin Van Creveld, Command in War (Cambridge,
Massachusetts, London: Harvard University Press, 1985), 237.
6. Reynolds
7. Brzezinski
8. Ibid
9. Ibid, See also Gordon R. Hoxie, Command Decision and the
Presidency (New York: Readers Digest Press, 1977), ix-xix.
10. Adler, 5.
11. Hoxie, xviii.
l2. Brzezinski.
13. Casper Weinberger, U.S. Secretary of Defense, OpCit
Federalist Society Symposium, Address, 6 Nov 1987.
14. Hoxie, xviii, and Brzezinski.
l5. Woodrow Wilson, Constitutional Government in the United
States (New York: Columbia University Press, 19O8), 59.
16. Abner J. Mikva and Patti B. Savis, American Congress:
The First Branch (New York: Franklin Watts 1983), 267.
17. Louis Fisher, "The Presidents Spending Power" in Harry
A. Bailey Ed, Classic of the American Presidency (Oak Park,
Illinois, Moore Publishing Co. Inc., 1980), 253-265.
18. Ibid, 266.
19. PL 93-250 88 Stat. 11 USC 16.
20. Harvey G. Zeidenstein, "The Vietnam War and the
Reassertion of Congressional Power", in Demetrios Caralay
Ed., The President's Warpowers From the Federalists to
Reagan (Montpelier, Vermont: Capital City Press, 1984), 172.
21. Szamuely, George "The Imperial Congress", Commentary
(September, 1987), 31.
22. Richard M. Pious, The American Presidency (New York:
Basic Books Inc., 1979), 400.
23. Ibid, 401.
24. Ibid, 400-402.
25. Ibid, 216.
26. Zeidenstein in Caralay, 164.
27. Frank Kessler, The Dilemma of Presidential Leadership:
Of Caretakers and Kings (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey;
Prentice Hall, 1982), 192. Also Harold C. Relyea
"Reconsidering the National Emergencies Act: Its Evolution,
Implementation, and Deficiencies", The Presidency and
National Security Policy, Proceedings (New York: Society For
Study of the Presidency, Vol V, no.1, 1984), 101-114.
28. Kessler, 185-186.
29. Michael A. Ledeen, "Secrets", The National Interest
(Winter 1987/88), 48-55.
30. Zeidenstein in Caralay, 175.
31. Ledeen, 48-55.
32. Congressional Quarterly's Guide to the United States
Supreme Court, ElderWitt Ed., (Washington D.C.:
Congressional Quarterly Inc., 1979), 206.
33. Szamuely, 31.
34. Ibid, 32.
35. Brzezinski.
36. Edwin S. Corwin The President: Office and Powers (New
York: NYU Press), 200 in I.M. Destler "Congress", Joseph S.
Nye Jr. Ed. The Making of America's Soviet Policy (New
Haven, London: Yale University Press, 1984), 39.
Chapter 2
1. Thomas E. Cronin, "On the Origins and Invention of the
Presidency", Presidential Studies Quarterly (Spring, 1987),
234.
2. Richard B. Morris, "The Origins of the Presidency",
Presidential Studies Quarterly. (Fall, 1987), 673.
3. Ibid, 674.
4. Ibid, 673.
5. Mikva, 37.
6. Ibid, 38-39.
7. Ibid,45-48.
8. Morris, 673.
9. Daviel J. Mccarthy "James Wilson and the Creation of the
Presidency", Presidential Studies Quarterly (Fall, 1987),
689.
10. The Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton, James
Madison, John Jay, Audio Classics (Boston: Knowledge
Products, 1986), Tape 1, Side 1.
11. Ibid.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid, Tape 1, Side 2.
14. Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, Dictatorships and Double Standards
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982), 232.
15. Jean S. Holder, "The Sources of Presidential Power: John
Adams and the Challenge to Executive Primacy", Political
Science Quarterly (Vol. 101, No.4, 1986), 601-616.
16. George Clinton, "To the Citizens of New York", in Bailey
Opcit, 18-21.
17. Judith A. Best "Legislative Tyranny and the Liberation
of the Executive: A View From the Founding", Presidential
Studies Quarterly (Fall, 1987), 697-310.
18. Holder, 601.
19. Best, 697.
2O. The Federalist Papers, Albert Hacker Ed. (New York:
Washington Square Press, 1964), 133-140.
21. The Federalist, Audio Classics, (Opcit) Tape 1, Side 1.
22. Christopher M. Lehman, "Foreign Policy Formulation: A
Spectator Sport?", Uri Ra'anan and Robert L. Pfalzgraff Jr.
Ed. Security Commitments and Capabilities (Medford,
Massachusetts: Archon Books, 1985).
23. Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince., Leo Paul S. Alvarez
Translation (Irving, Texas: University of Dallas Press,
1980).
24. John Locke, Second Treatise, section 160 in Morton J.
Frisch "Executive Power and Republican Government - 1787",
Presidential Studies Quarterly (Spring, 1987), 284.
25. Ibid.
26. Locke, Second Treatise Section 143-148.
27. Baron DeMontesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws, Thomas
Nugent Translation (New York: Hafner Press, 1949), 162.
Also see Thomas L. Pangle, "Executive Energy and Popular
Spirit in Lockear Constitutionalism", Presidential Studies
Quarterly (Spring, 1987), 253.
28. James Madison, Journal of the Federal Convention,
(Chicago. Scott Forseman, 1898), 173 in McCarthy, 690.
29. James MacGregor Burns, The Power to Lead: The Crisis Of,
the American Presidency (New York: Simon and Schuster,
1984), 48.
30. Mccarthy, 690.
31. Kirkpatrick, 210.
32. Ibid, 217.
33. Burns, 48.
34. Kirkpatrick, 227.
Chapter 3
l. Glenn A. Phelps, "George Washington and the Founding of
the Presidency", Presidential Studies Quarterly (2 September
1987), 365-382.
2. Pious, 51.
3. Holder, 608-610.
4. Samuel Flagg Bemis, The Latin American Policy of the
United States (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company), 116.
5. Hoxie, 8.
6. Harold Molineu, U.S. Policy Toward Latin America
(Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press Inc., 1986), 15.
7. Bemis, 116-117.
8. Annals of Congress, Vol.XII Pt.IV 24th Cong., 1st sess.,
in Charles C. Tansil "The President and the Initiation of
Hostilities: The Precedents of the Mexican and Spanish
American Wars", in Demetrios Caralay, Ed., The President's
War Powers from the Federalists to Reagan (Montpelier, VT:
Capitol City Press, 1984), 84.
9. Bemis, 117.
10. Tansil, in Caralay, 84.
11. Ibid.
12. "Congressional Globe" 30th Cong. 1st Sess. 95, in Adler,
24.
13. Congressional Quarterly's Guide to the United States
Supreme Court, Elder Witt Ed. (Washington, D.C.:
Congressional Quarterly Inc., 1979), 185.
14. Ibid 189.
15. Abraham Lincoln, "The Prerogative View", in Bailey, 33-
34.
16. CQ Guide, 185.
17. Walter Lippman, introduction in Woodrow Wilson,
Congressional Government (Baltimore, London: The Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1885, 1981), 7-18.
18. Tansil, 83.
19. Bemis, 119.
20. Ibid, 121.
21. Ibid, 119.
22. Robert A. Ragazzo, "Grover Cleveland and Venezuela: The
Perils of Moralism." The Presidency and National Security
Policy Proceedings Vol.V No.1, (New York: Center for the
Study of the Presidency, 1984), 101-114.
23. Molineu, 43-45.
24. Bemis, 151.
25. Ibid, 148.
26. Ibid, 160.
27. Theodore Roosevelt, "The Stewardship Doctrine" in
Bailey, 35-39.
28. William Howard Taft, "A Restricted View of the Office"
in Bailey, 37-39.
29. Lester D. Langley, The Banana Wars (Lexington, Kentucky:
University of Kentucky Press, 1983, 1985), 121.
30. Bemis, 175.
31. Ibid, 176.
32. CQ Guide, 190.
33. Eric Sevareid, Between the Wars Television Series (CBS).
34. Gideon Rose, "When Presidents Break the Law", National
Interest (Fall, 1987), 52.
35. Ibid. 53.
36. Ibid, 55.
37. Ibid, 56-57.
38. CQ Guide, 191.
39. Ibid, 201.
40. Ibid, 202.
41. Ibid, 206.
42. The Roosevelt Years, Television Series (ABC).
43. Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars (New York: Basic
Books, 1977).
44. CQ Guide, 204-226.
45. Ibid, 193.
46. Ibid, 194.
47. Molineu, 8, 132.
48. General Bruce Palmer, Vietnam Remembered Symosium,
Speech (Quantico, Virginia: Marine Corps Command and Staff
College, 7 April 1988).
49. Bao Diem, Former South Vietnamese Ambassador to the
United States, Ibid.
Chapter 4
l. Abbot Smith, "Who Declares War?" Madison in 1812", in
Caralay, 37.
2. Lehman, 185.
3. Leonard Garment, "The Guns of Watergate." Commentary
(April 1984), 15-33.
4. Richard Neustadt, Presidential Power (New York: John
Wiley and Sons Inc., 1960).
5. Edward Luttwak, Strategy and Politics (New Brunswick, ME
and London: Transaction Books Inc., 1980), 105.
6. Russel Weigley, Remarks, Strategy Symposium, U.S. Marine
Corps Command and Staff College, Quantico, VA. 8 Sep. 1987).
7. Edward Luttwak, Security in the 1980's: From Weakness to
Strength (Washington D.C.: Institute for Contemporary
Studies, 1980), 26.
8. James Madison, Notes of the Debates in the Federal
Convention of 1787 (New York: WW Norton and Co. 1919), 214,
in MacKubin Thomas Owens, "Executive and Legislative
Influence on U.S. National Security Policy", in The
Reorganization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: A Critical
Analysis, Allen Millet et al Ed., Cambridge, Mass. and
Washington DC: Institute for Policy Analysis, 1986, 22.
9. Alexander Hamilton, The Records of the Federal
Convention of 1787 - 4 Volumes (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1937), VI, 401-402, in Owens 21.
10. Owens, 22.
11. Ibid., 23.
12. Congressional Quarterly Guide, 199-207.
13. Owens, 25.
14. Theodore Lowi, The End of Liberalism The Second Republic
of the United States (New York, London: WW Norton and Co.,
1979, 1969)
15. I.M. Destler, "Congress" in Nye, 40.
16. Destler in Nye, 40 and Mikva 15, 17.
17. Zeidenstein, in Caralay, 71.
18. E.E. Schattschneider, The Semisovereign People (New
York: Holt, 1960).
19. Mikva, 17.
20. Mikva, 19, 25; and Kessler, 14.
21. Mikva, 22.
22. Mikva, 24.
23. Zeidenstein in Caralay, 171.
24. Ibid 1, 69.
25. Senate Resolution 400, Section 8, in Zeidenstein, in
Caralay, 170.
26. Ledeen, 51.
27. Ledeen, 51-52.
28. McNeil Lehrer Newshour (Washington D.C.: WETA Public
Broadcasting System, 10 May 1988).
29. Robert Bork and Kathleen Sullivan, McNeil Lehrer
Newshour.
30. Michael J. Malbin, Unelected Representatives:
Congressional Staff and the Future of Representative
Government (New York: Basic Books, 1980); in Mikva, 186-188.
31. Ibid 188.
32. Congressional Quarterly's Understanding Congress.
33. Leon Rieselbach, Congressional Reform in the Seventies
( : Silver Burdett, 1977).
Chapter 5
1. Arnand DeBorchgrave, "America's Media are Misled by
Soviet Disinformation Program" Reserve Officer Association
National Security Report (May 1984), 13-15.
2. Michael Fuento, "Center for Defense Misinformation",
American Spectator (April, 1988), 20-23.
3. Rear Admiral Gene R. LaRocque, USN (Ret.) Remarks at War
in the Modern Era Symposium (Marine Corps Command and Staff
College, Quantico, VA. 5 April 1988).
4. Michael Krepon and Frank Gaffney on McNeil Lehrer
Newshour, 10 May 1988. See also Hugh Heclo, "In and Out
System", Political Science Quarterly (Spring, 1988).
5. James H. Billington, "Realism and Vision in Foreign
Policy", Foreign Affairs (Vol. 65, No.3, 1987), 631.
6. C. Wright Mills, White Collar (New York, 1951) 325-328
in Mancur Olsen Jr. The Logic of Collective Action (Boston:
Harvard University Press, 1972), 12.
7. Murray Edelman, The Symbolic Uses of Politics
(University of Illinois Press, 1964), and Politics As
Symbolic Action (Chicago: Markham, 1972).
8. John E. Mueller; War, Presidents, and Public Opinion
(New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1973), 69; in William
Schneider "Public Opinion" in Nye Opcit, 11.
9. Ibid, 122-123.
10. Schneider in Nye, 13.
11. Samuell Lubell, The Future of American Politics (Garden
City, New York: Doubleday Anchor Books) in Schneider in
Nye, 12.
12. Schneider in Nye, 13.
13. Ibid,18-19.
14. Ole R. Holsti and James Rosenau, "Vietnam, Consensus and
Belief Systems of American Leaders", World Politics
(October, 1979), 1, in Schneider, in Nye Opcit.
15. Michael Mendelbaum and William Schneider, "The New
Internationalisms, Public Opinion and Foreign Policy", Ch.2
in Kenneth Oye, Ronald Rothchild, and Robert Liebereds.
Eagle Entangled: U.S. Foreign Policy in a Complex World (New
York: Longman 1979), 40-63 in Nye, 16.
16. Schneider, in Nye, 16-17.
17. Ibid, 20.
18. Billington, 632.
19. Thomas L. Hughes, "The Twilight of Internationalism"
Foreign Policy (Winter 1985-86), 37.
20. Ibid, 38.
21. Ibid, 39-40.
22. Ibid.
23. Colonel William Eckhardt, USA, Professor U.S. Army War
College, War in the Modern Era Opcit, and Samuel Flagg
Bemis, 226-242, 276-295.
24. Hughes, 41.
25. Linda S. Richter, Robert Lichter, and Stanley Rothman,
"The Once and Future Journalists", Washington Journalism
Review (December, 1982): and Robert Lichter and Stanley
Rothman, "Media and Business Elites", Public Opinion
(Oct/Nov 1981), 42-46, 59-60; in Schneider in Nye, 29.
26. Schneider in Nye, 30.
27. John P. Roche, "The Passing of the Class of 194l",
National Review (October 19, 1984), 24-28.
28. Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, "The Myth of Moral Equivelance
Imprimis (January, 1986), 1-5.
29. Ibid, 5.
30. Paul R. Abramson, Political Attitudes in America
(SanFrancisco: W.H. Freeman and Co., 1983), 12. Also,
Seymour Martin Lipsett "The Confidence Gag During the Reagan
Years 1981-1987" Political Science Quarterly (Spring, 1987),
1-24.
31. Morris Janowitz, The Last Half Century: Societal Change
and Politics in Americal (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press) in Abramson, 7.
32. William Quandt, "The Electoral Cycle and the Conduct of
Foreign Policy, Political Science Quarterly (Vol.101,
No.5), 825-838.
33. Charles Krauthammer, "Isolationism Left and Right" The
New, Republic (March 5, 1985), 18-25.
34. Harry Summers, On Strategy: The Vietnam Conflict in
Context (Quantico, Virginia: (Marine Corps Command and Staff
College, July, 1983).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Abramson, Paul R. Political Attitudes in America. San
Francisco, W.H. Freeman and Co., 1983. A very credible
source of survey information and general premises in
the sudy of political attitudes in the United States.
Questions of political attitudes lie at the root of the
President's ability to govern.
Adler, David Gray. "The Constitution and Presidential
Warmaking", Political Science Quarterly, Spring, 1988,
1-36. Adler, an advocate of strict reading of the
Constitution, uses a selected history of Constitutional
law to support a narrow view of presidential power in
warmaking. He disputes arguments for presidential
power as "revisionism". A carefully reasoned argument
which dismisses the reality of historical precedent and
evolutionary power relationships within U.S.
government, and the legal standing of treaties and
executive agreements, in favor of a nonorganic
legalistic view which, I believe, The Congressional
Quarterly Guide to Supreme Court Decisions seems to
refute.
Arnhart, Larry. "Was the Vietnam War Just." Unpublished
paper, Chicago, Illinios: 1983 American Political
Science Association Assn Annual Meeting. Using a
sophisticated analysis of just war theory Arnhart
argues the thesis that the U.S. involvement it the
Vietnam War was unjust because it was imprudent,
despite conforming to international law and despite the
noble cause for which fought. This is a very thought
provoking and rational argument.
Bailey, Harry A., ed. Classics of the American Presidency.
Oak Park, Illinois: Moore Publishing Co. Inc., 1980.
This volume is invaluable to the student of the
presidency, providing a compilation of scholarship on
the subject through American history - a highly
recommended source.
Barber, James David. The Presidential Character. ,
Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall Inc. 1972.
Style, worldview, and orientation toward life underlie
the four types of Presidential character in Barber's
predictive model for individual presidential behavior.
This book represents a shift in focus in presidential
studies from one of management and persuasive style
following Franklin Roosevelt to one of character after
the Nixon administration. The character theme has
carried alot of interest in all of the presidential
elections since Nixon.
Bemis, Samuel Flagg. The Latin American Policy of the
United States. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company,
1943. This volume is the most comprehensive historical
interpretation of U.S. Latin American Policy until
World War II, I have read. Its treatment of the Monroe
Doctrine evolution is detailed and eye opening, showing
multiple motivations - most of them idealistic, many of
them simply pragmatic - for U.S. policies toward her
southern neighbors.
Best, Judith A. "Legislative Tyranny and The Liberation of
the Executive: A View from the Founding."
Presidential Studies Quarterly. Vol XVII Fall 1987.
Center for Study of President. The Founders'
conception of the executive office grew out of an
overriding fear, the fear of legislative tyranny, and a
confident belief, the belief in the efficiency of an
energetic executive as the cure. There were two
distinctly indentifiable kinds of republican delegates
to the Federal Convention: traditional republicans,
like James Mason and Edmond Randolph, and the new breed
of republicans (nationalists), led by James Wilson,
Gouverneur Morris and James Madison. The real
distinction between the old and new republicans lies in
their opposing views concerning executive power. The
new republicans were victorious in the convention, and
it is their view of the powerful and energetic
presidency that shaped the office.
Billington, James H. "Realism and Vision in Foreign
Policy." Foreign Affairs Vol. 65 No.3 1987, P630-652.
"Popular support for foreign involvements of any kind
may be quietly fading away and with it the postwar
assumption that America should continue to be the world
leader. This neo-isoletionist impulse in the general
population is unwittingly aided by the philosophic
relativism that has come to dominate the elite
universities and national media.
Brands, H. W. Jr. "Decisions on Armed Intervention:
Lebanon, Dominican Republic, and Grenada." Political
Science Quarterly Vol.102 No.4, Winter 1987-88, P607-
624. Brands produces a model of U.S. interventionist
action during the post World War II noninterventionist
policy with the object of analyzing common features
within each. The examples studied include four, two
successful and two unsuccessful endeavors.
Brown, Richard. "Toward Coherence in Foreign Policy:
Greater Presidential Control of the Foreign
Policymaking Machinery." The Presidency and National
Security Quality Proceedings Vol V, No.1, R.Gordon Hoxie
Ed., New York: Center for Studs of the Presidency,
1984, P324-340 . Brown suggests bureaucratic and
organizational norms render the U.S. State Dept.
inadequate to conduct U.S. foreign policy. All modern
presidents starting with Kennedy have shifted foreign
policy operations to the White House to ensure
responsible implementation in line with presidential
direction. He suggests the White House should more
actively lobby public support arid formally shift
foreign policy initiation authority to the White House.
Note: Restructuring the NSC to foment some kind of
presidential accountability to congressional appears is
a common recommendation in foreign affairs literature.
Brzezinski, Zbigniew. "Foreign Affairs and the
Constitution." Opening Address at the Federalist
Society Symposium, Washington, D.C.: 6 Nov 87. " Who
makes national security policy in peacetime is not an
idle question for academic debate." Former National
Security Advisor in the Carter Administration
Brzezinski made an eloquent plea for bipartisanship and
public support of the president in foreign policy,
echoing his own rational view of the U.S. as a global
power.
Burns, James MacGregor. The Power ot Lead: The Crisis of
the American Presidency. New York: Simon and
Schuster, 1984. Burns has the historical and
philosophical grasp of American governmental principles
which is, unfortunately, all too rare among many of
today's scholars. I particularly was interested in the
analysis of American political parties and how their
demise effects the legitimacy of American institutions,
especially the presidency.
Burns, James MacGregor. "Three Approaches to Presidential
Leadership." In Harry A. Bailey Ed., Classics of the
American Presidency, opcit. Burns describes a
presidential leadership typology: Hamiltonian -
energy, Madisonian - checks and balances, Jeffersonian
- government by majority rule.
Caralay, Demetrios, Ed. The President's War Powers from the
Federalists to Reagan. Montpelier, VT.: Academy of
Political Science, Capital City Press, 1984. This is a
superb series of research essays concerning the
presidential warmaking power and presidential
prerogative.
Claude, Inis L. "The Common Defense and Great Power
Responsibilities." Political Science Quarterly No. 5
1986, P719-732. Great power responsibilities such as
"system maintenance" and providing for the common
defense create a dilemma for the U.S. as in Vietnam,
where national interest outweighed notions of
responsiblity. The "Vietnam Syndrome" is a protest
against the great power role.
Clinton, George. "To the Citizens of the State of New
York." In Harry A Bailey, Ed., Classics of the
American Presidency, opcit. New York Governor George
Clinton gives the strongest pre-constitution argument
against the strong executive proposed by Alexander
Hamilton. A good parallel to modern criticisms of
presidential power, such as Arthur Schlesinger Jr.'s
Imperial Presidency.
Congressional Quarterly's Guide to the United States Supreme
Court. Elder Witt Ed., Washington D.C.: Congressional
Quarterly Inc., 1979. Reference for tracing U.S.
Constitutional law by topical area. It is much more
engaging than reading case briefs in the standard dry
form.
Congressional Monitor's Seminar: Understanding Congress,
Washington D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Inc.. This
volume is a comprehensive guide to the U.S. Congress
which is published for use by students of the superb
Congressional Quarterly seminars.
Cotter, Donald R. "Why Are We Continually Confusing
Ourselves About Arms Control and Defense Budgeting?"
Armed Forces Journal International, August, 1987.
Cotter chronicals poor results acheived for the U.S. by
arms control. He discusses the '67 Harmel report and
the Flexible Response Strategy. Arms control hurts the
prospect of meaningful strategy.
Cronin, Thomas E. "The Presidency and Its Paradoxes." In
Bailey, opcit. Our expectations of, and demands on the
office are frequently so paradoxical as to invite two
faced behavior by our presidents. The modern
presidency is bounded and constrained by various
expectations that are decidedly paradoxical.
Cronin, Thomas E. "On the Origins and Invention of the
Presidency." Presidential Studies Quarterly Vol XVII
No.2 Spring 1987, P229-236. A detailed account of
problems encountered within the national government
under the Articles of Confederation.
Crovitz, L. Gordon. "Crime, the Constitiution, and the Iran
Contra Affair." Commentary, Vol.84 No.4, Oct 1987 P23-
30. An impressive argument defending the legality of
Iran Contra affair events and analizing the
legeslative history of the Boland Amendments limiting
U.S. aid to the Nicarauguan resistance. Included was a
proposed amendment to cut aid completely, which was
defeated to allow presidential discretion in soliciting
foreign and private citizen support of the resistance.
Congressional efforts to legislate away presidential
prerogative are well documented.
De Borchgrave, Arnaud. "America's Media are Misled by
Soviet Disinformation Program." ROA National Security
Report Vol.3, May 1984, P13-15. A well orchestrated
international network of disinformation fronts
continues to deluge the media and Congress with
material designed to generate support for Marxistled
guerrillas and to discredit U.S. policies. The
author's earlier book The Spike is a fictional account
of disinformation techniques used on American reporters
during the Vietnam War.
Dominguez, Jorge I. "Insurgency in Latin America and the
Common Defense." Political Science Quarterly Issue
No. 5, 1986, P807-824. History has taught the U.S.
government that, on balance, successful insurgencies
are likely to have adverse consequences. Dominguez
surveys U.S. involvement as what the author asserts to
be the world's leading COIN power.
Edelman, Murray. The Symbolic Uses of Politics. ( ):
University of Illinois Press, 1964.
Edelman, Murray. Politics as Symbolic Action Chicago,
Markham, 1972. These two books analyze the use of
symbols and symbolic language in American politics.
Politicians who define issues and control the symbols
of these issues are those who control the agenda and
ultimately succeed.
Fascell, Dante B. "Congress and Arms Control." Foreign
Affairs Vol.65 No.4 Spring 1987, P730-749. Congressman
Fascell outlines Arms Control Amendments contained in
the Defense Appropriations Bill,including measures on
the ABM Treaty, the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, Chemical
Munitions (Big Eye), and SALT II limits in a good
depiction of congressional micromanagement in Arms
Control.
Federalist Papers, Audio Classics, Nashville, Tennessee.
Knowledge Products, two cassette tapes. These tapes
are a convenient way to study these writings.
Federalist Papers, Albert Hacker Ed.. NewYork: Washington
Square Press, 1964.
Federalist Society Symposium on Foreign Affairs and the
Constitution: of congress, the President, and the
Courts, Grand Hyatt Hotel, Washington, D.C., 6-8
November 1987. This seminar was a virtuoso affair
featuring luminaries from government and academe
discussing this timely and vital topic. Among others,
Zbigniew Brzezinski, Caspar Weinberger, Edwin Meese,
Charles Krauthammer, Abraham Sofaer, Irving Kristol,
and Richard Perle were speakers and panelists.
Symposia of this caliber almost make the frustrations
of living in the Washington, D.C. area worth it.
Frisch, Morton J. "Executive Power and Republican
Government - 1787." Presidential Studies Quarterly Vol
XVII No.2 Spring 1987, New York: Center Study of the
PresidentP28l-291. How strong an executive does the
Constitution intend? How is Energetic Power reconciled
with limited Government? Does the Constitution
envision a prerogative power in the Executive? Lockean
prerogative is incompatible with the U.S. Constitution
according to Frisch. One could easily use his facts to
support the opposite argument.
Fuento, Michael. "Center for Defense Misinformation"
American Spectator, April, 1988, p20-23. Fuento
critizes Admiral Gene LaRocque's (Ret.) thinktank as a
left leaning advocate of irresponsible defense policy,
which has as a centerpiece a naive perception of Soviet
global intentions. Essentially Fuento's viewpoint vis
a vis CDI's Soviet perception appears accurate. It was
interesting to hear Adm. LaRocque's remarks during The
War in the Modern Era Symposium of 6 April 1988.
Fukuyana, Francis. "Gorbachev and the Third World."
Foreign Affairs, Vol.64 No.4 1986, P715-731. With the
death of Leonid Breshnev the Soviets have reassessed
3rd world commitments. They do not want expansion from
1970's gains because of expense and adverse relations
with the U.S.. They do wish to consolidate the 1970's
gains and continue strong support of Cuba and Vietnam.
Consequently, the U.S. has the opportunity to use
military/economic pressure to reassert U.S. interest in
the 3rd world.
Gaddis, John Lewis. "Containment and the Logic of
Strategy." The Natiorial Interest, No.10 Winter 87/8
P27-38. Washington, D.C. This essay analyzes cost
minimizing vs. cost maximizing, high rink vs. low risk,
assymetrical vs. symetrical strategies in illustrating
the tradeoffs of strategy formulation.
Gaddis, John Lewis. Strategies of Containment NSC-68. New
York, Oxford: Oxford University Press. The Korean
invasion was perceived as a feint, a diversion prior to
a Soviet thrust in Europe and did more for NATO unity
then anything else. This is one of the interesting,
lesser known facts found in this standard text on Cold
War history and the Containment Policy.
Garment, Leonard. "The Guns of Watergate." Commentary
Vol.83 No.4 April 1987, P15-23. Watergate can still
tell us two sorts of things about political evil.
First, some of Watergate's crimes were indeed political
sorts and deserve to be examined as ends. Second,
Watergate marked the geginning of an unprecedented
attempt to root out evil and wrong doing from American
politics virue and rectitude in the conduct of public
life. His assessment of the Special Prosecutor Act and
its ramifications are enlightening.
Geylin, Philip. "The Reagan Crisis: Dreaming Impossible
Dreams." Foreign Affairs Vol.65 No.3 1987, P447-457.
Geylin diagrams what he feels are fundamental flaws in
Reagan's management of Foreign Affairs, illustrated by
the Iran-Contra fiasco. Written shortly after the Iran
Contra revelationhe castigates Reagan for relying on
top down rhetoric and impossible dreams to the
exclusion of his key advisors.
Glynn, Patrick. "The Sarajevo Fallacy." The Historical and
Intellectual Origins of Arms Control Theology. The
National Interest No.9 Fall 1987, P3-32. Nations do
not launch wars because they are afreid, but because
they are confident that they will gain more by
resorting to force than by refraining to do so. Those
least prepared to take the steps necessary to prevent
one. Glynn takes issue with conclusions such as those
of Barbara Tuchman in The Guns of August blaming the
outbreak of war ont he buildup of weapons. World War I
was caused Not by an arms race but by an imperial power
(Germany) with expansionist designs.
Goldman, Minton F. "President Carter and the Soviet Union:
The Influence of American Policy on the Kremlin's
Decision Intervene in Afghanistan." The Presidency and
National Security Policy Proceedings Vol. V No.1, New
York: Center for the Study of the Presidency, 1984,
P223-240. for readers who share the feeling that
President Carter's direction in foreign poicy
encouraged the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan this
essay lends documentation.
Guenther, Nancy Anderman. United States Supreme Court
Decisions: An Index to Excerpts, Reprints, and
Discussions 2nd Ed., Metuchera, N.J.: ScareCrow Press
Inc., 1983. This is a valuable reference covering
major U.S. Supreme Court decisions, including those
concerning presidential power.
Hamilton, Alexander. "The Federalist No.69.", in Bailey
opcit Hamiltoncontrasts the U.S. Presidency with a
Monarchy. Hamilton was thought to be a monarchist
because of his earlier conterpoint to Clinton which he
signed "Caesar".
Hamilton, Alexander. "The Federalist No.70.", in Bailey
opcit. This essay is Hamilton's famous argument for
energy in the executive, frequently cited in writings
supportive of a strong presidency.
Henderson, Phillip G. "Advice and Decision: The Eisenhower
National Security Policy Reappraised." The Presidency
and National Security Policy Proceedings, Vol.V No.1
New York: Center for Study of the Presidency, 1984,
P157-186. Reviews President Eisenhower's NSC as a
paradigm of successful policy formulation within
institutional setting. Assessment is driven by recent
Presidents' lack of success in managing the foreign
policy bureaucracy.
Hoff, Samuel B. "A Bicentennial Assessment of Hamilton's
Energetic Executive." Predisential Studies Quarterly
Vol.XVII No.4, Fall 1987. Hamilton's ideas about the
presidency are comprehensively compared to other plans
presented at the Constitutional Convention; his defense
of the new gov't. is examined; and an appraisal of how
Hamilton's conception of the presidency has shaped
contemporary opinions is offered.
Holder, Jean S. The Sources of Presidential Power: John
Adams and the Challenge to Executive Primacy."
Political Science Quarterly Vol.101 No.4, 1986, P601-
616. Using Richard Pious (opcit.) - Richard Neustadt,
(opcit) models for Presidential Power, Holder shows
that John Adam's administration underscored the
viability of the Presidency's Constitutional basis in
the hands of an able, if uncharismatic leader.
Holland, Kenneth M. "The War Powers Resolution: An
Infringement on the President's Constitutional and
Prerogative Powers." The Presidency and National
Security Policy - Proceedings Vol V No.l, New York:
Center for the Study of the Presidency 1984, P378-379.
The War Power Resolution of 7 Nov 1983 is
unconstitutional in Holland's view of the resolution
and the history of military operations under the
resolution. Immigration service vs. Chadha negates
legislative vetos. This Supreme Court decision render
unconstitutional the 90 day automatic troop withdrawal
feature of the resolution. Thus far no court challenge
to the War Powers Resolution has been mounted.
Hoxie, R. Gordon. Command Decision and the Presidency New
York: Reader's Digest Press, 1977. This volume is a
basic and accurate history of the presidency in the
Commander in Chief role. As comprehensive as anything
I found.
Hughes, Thomas L. "The Twilight of Internationalism."
Foreign Policy No.61 Winter 1985-86, P25-48. Hughes
traces the emergence of Internationalism per the
notions of Herbert Spencer and 19th century British
liberalism. The demise of internationalism he
attributes to the rise of the 3rd world, a
corresponding decline of U.S. participation in the
United Nations, and the new nationalism with its
unilateral action. He describes the old American
internationalist coalition of Universalists and
anticommunists.
Huntington, Samuel P. "Coping With the Lippman Gap."
Foreign Affairs Vol.66 No.3 1988, P453-477. This
writing describes the wide gap, once pointed out by
Walter Lippman, between U.S. commitments and
capabilities, creating insolvency in foreign policy.
This can be remedied at the policy level, however. The
U.S. has experienced insolvency before (ie. between
world wars). Includes a good history and perspective
on past and present US foreign policy.
lkle, Fred C. and Wohlstetter, Albert. Discriminate
Deterrence Report of the Commission On Integrated Long
Term Strategy Washington, D.C.: U.S. Gov't Printing
Office. Jan 1988. The title aptly describes the
content. This is the first of several segments of this
study yet to be published.
Kagan, Donald. "World War I, World War II, World War III."
Commentary Vol.83 No. 3, March 1987, P21-40. Using
analysis of WWI and WWII, Kagan develops a comparison
between the U.S. now and Britain pre WWI and pre WWII.
He suggests the pre WWI analagy fits better. He
prescribes deterrence and containment through robust
forces and resistance of Soviet supported 3rd World
rebellions and regimes. He notes the difficulties
democracies have mobilizing for this effort.
Kessler, Frank. The Dilemma of Presidential Leadership: of
Caretakers and Kings. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice
Hall 1982. This a primer on the issues and
complications facing presidential leadership today.
Kirkpatrick, Jeane J. Dictatorships and Double Standards.
New York, Simon and Schuster, 1982. Kirkpatrick is of
the same caliber scholar as James MacGregor Burns. Her
grounding in American Government is top rate. This
book consists of a series of essays, several of which
criticize the Carter administration foreign policy for
its divergence from U.S. national interest and its
misinterpretation of the American governmental model.
This book is the basis for the Reagan Administration
policy toward the Third World, particularly Central
America.
Kirkpatrick, Jeane J. "The Myth of Moral Equivalence."
Imprimis Vol.15 No.1 Jan.1986, P1-5. Hillsdale College
Hillsdale, Michigan. The article is part of the 1985
Shavano Institute for National Leadership Conference
and addresses false images of U.S. and Soviet values in
the national foreign policy debate.
Komer, N. W. "The Strategic Impact of Abolishing Nuclear
Weapons." Armed Forces Journal International August
1987 P66-68. Komer takes a common sense approach to
the dangers of overexuberance in the arms control
process. The fact is our global capabilities are based
upon the foundation of our nuclear arsenal.
Korb, Lawrence J. "Spending Without Strategy: The FY 1988
Annual Defense Dept. Report." International Security
Vol.12 No.1 Summer 1987, P166-174. Secretary of
Defense Weinberger's military expansion program can be
moderated without a negative effect on security. We
have acheived the 5% real defense growth advertised in
Reagan's 1980 campaign, which, unfortunately has
occured within competing service orientations instead
of within a unified national strategy. He recommends
returning to a 20 year weapons aquisition cycle to
replace the current ten year cycle as a cost saving
start point.
Krauss, Clifford. "Revolution in Central America?" Foreign
Affair Vol.65 No,3 1987. NY,NY: Council on Foreign
Relations. Krauss, a writer for the Wall Street
Journal on Central America and Caribbean Affairs since
1977, suggests Reagan's Latin policies are working.
Central America is going much better than did SE Asia.
Recommends containment of Nicaraugua vice rollback.
The task for 1987 is a diplomatic complement to
containment.
Krauthammer, Charles. "Isolationism Left and Right." The
New Republic Issue 3, 659 March 4, 1985, P18-25. The
tradition of isolationism in American Foreign policy
has found new partisans in the Democratic party and in
the Pentagon. He focuses on Weinberger's 6 conditions
as isolationist, on Democrats multilateralism, and on
Republican unilateralism with the fortress America
Mentality.
LaFeber, Walter. "The US Emergence as a World Power."
Political Science Quarterly Issue No. 5 1986, P705-718.
This is an analysis of Constitutional modifications
Supporting expansion of Presidential Power after the
Spanish American War.
Langley, Lester D. The Banana Wars, Lexington Kentucky:
University of Kentucky Press, 1983, 1985. Langley
Gives a captivating account of the U.S. Caribbean
Interventions from the turn of the century ro the
1930's. Superb writing!
Lawler, Peter Augustin. "The Federalist's Hostility to
Leadership and the Crisis of the Contemporary
Presidency." Presidential Studies Quarterly Vol. XVII
No.4, Fall 1987, P711-724. Leadership is a negative
quality in the context of a good Constitution.
contemporary partisanship on behalf of presidential
leadership is at heart anti Constitutional and
productive of repeated political failures.
Layne, Christopher. "The Real Conservative Agenda."
Foreign Policy No.61 Winter 1985-86, P73-93. Layne
points out the difference between conservatives and
neoconservatives. The Reagan Doctrine links US
prestige to peripheral interests in a neo conservative
vein. Assertion of national will cannot revive
American global hegemony. We need to conserve our
national strength. Like most authors who decry the
pursuit of peripheral interests, Layne offers no
suggestion of a rationally deduced set of real
interests to replace the so called peripheral
interests.
Ledeen, Michael A. "Secrets." The Natioal Interest No.10
Winter 1987/8, P48-55. Washington, D.C. This piece
makes a plea for executive guarding of secrets, talks
of the role of secrecy in national security policy,
discusses congressional oversight, and def ends the
secrecy of the Iran-Contra operation using FDR's naval
base deal (and others), and Nixon's China Policy as
precedents which caused no criminal proceedings.
Recommended for studying the limits of presidential
prerogative and its basis in politics.
Lehman, Christopher M. "Foreign Policy Formulation: A
Spectator Sport?", n Uri Ra'anan and Robert L.
Pfalzgraff Jr. ed. Security Commitments and
Capabilities. Medford Massachusetts: Archon Books,
1985. This is an engaging and somewhat polemical essay
on the congressional and bureaucratic competition in
U.S. foreign affairs policy.
LeoGrande, William M. "Rollback or Containment? The United
States, Nicaraugua, and the Search for Peace in Latin
America." International Security, Vol.II No. 2 Fall
1986, P89-120. Cambridge, MA.: JFK Center for Science
and Int'l. Affairs, Harvard. LeoGrande suggests the
peace process has been forstalled by the division in
the Reagan Administration over goals in Nicaraugua.
One Camp favors neutralizing and coexisting. The other
favors overthrow of the Sandinista's. A comprehensive
history of Reagan's Latin policy and the Contadora
Process. He takes a dim view of Reagan's policy.
Lincoln, Abraham. "A Prerogative View of the Presidency."
In Bailey, Harry A, Classics of the American
Presidency, P33-34, Oak Park, Ill. Moore Pub. Co.
Inc., 1980. Lincoln's letter to a newspaper editor in
1864 describes how events of the civil war forced the
Presidential discretionary actions of suspending writs
of habens corpus, blockading the southern ports, and
mobilizing the army without congressional approval
(they were out of session). He reasoned he had to
break the law to save the union.
Lipsett, Seymour Martin. "The Confidence Gap during the
Reagan Years 1981-1987," Political Science Quarterly
Vol.102 No.1, Spring 1987, P1-24. This study updates
earlier studies showing the continued decrease in voter
confidence in government and other institutions.
Statistics on Reagans performance vis a vis American
confidence in government and business have not
improved.
Liska, George. "From Containment to Concert." Foreign
Policy No.62 Spring 1986, P3-23. Washington, D.C. In a
sophisticated and abstract analysis of the bipolar
Soviet-US struggle, Liska relates superpower
competition to other cases of insular (maritime) versus
continental power struggles and suggests cold war
rhetoric and the nuclear arms race are predictable
behavior given the geopolitical dynamics involved.
Locke, John. Concerning Civil Government Second Essay, in
Great Books of the Western World Vol.35. Robert
Maynard Hutchins Ed., Chicago et al, Encyclopedia
Britannica, Inc., 1952, 1971, P25-85.
Lord, Carnes. "Executive Power and Our Security." The
National Interest No.7 Spring 1987, P3-13. Reagan's
Iran-Contra problems are a reflection of fundamental
problems in controlling the National Security
Bureaucracy.
Lowi, Theodore J. The End of Liberalism. The Second
Republic of the United States. New York, London: WW
Norton & Co. Inc. 1979,1969. A true classic of
political science, this book demonstrates the poverty
of our multiple access, overly pluralistic approach to
government in the United States. Lowi states that
government in the New Philosophy of interest group
liberalism is just another interest in the process of
bargaining for policy outcomes.
Luttwak, Edward N. Security in the 1980's: From Weakness to
Strength. Washington D.C., Institute for Contemporary
Studies, 1980. This another of Luttwak's well written
topical analyses in strategic studies.
Luttwak, Edward N. Strategy and Politics. New
Brunswick(USA) London(UK): Transaction Books, 1980.
A series of essay written by immigrant strategist
Luttwak in response to the isolationist, self-
destructive trends in America during the 1970's.
Machiavelli, Niccolo. The Prince, Leo Paul S. Alverez
Translation. Irving Texes. University of Dallas Press,
1980.
Mansfield, Harvey L. "The Modern Doctrine of Executive
Power." Presidential Studies Quarterly Vol. XVII No. 2,
Spring 1987, P237-252. "When executive power is
understood in its essential ambivalance between the
weak, formal executive of theory and the strong,
informal executive in practice, a quick history of the
doctrine necessary to establish this ambivalance can be
constructed: from Aristotle, who deliberately ignored
the executive, to Machiavelli, who conceived it, to
Locke, who constitutionalized it, to Montesquieu, who
made it less terrible and enabled a free government to
govern without frightening its citizens."
McCarthy, Daniel J. James Wilson and the Creation of the
Presidency." Presidential Studies Quarterly Vol.XVI I
No.4, Fall 1987, P684-696. NY, NY: Center for the Study
of the Presidency. James Wilson was one of the most
important delegates to the Constitutional Convention in
1787, and was probably the single most important author
of Article II, concerning the executive branch.
McFarlane, Robert C. with Saunders, Richard and Schull,
Thomas C. "The National Security Council:
Organization for Policy Making." The Presidency and
National Security Policy. Center for the study of the
Presidency Proceedings Vol V No.1 1984, P261-273.
McFarlane describes NSC organizational history since
its founding in 1947 in a detailed description of
Reagan's NSC, an element of Reagan's "Cabinet
Government". He notes importance of building public
and interagency consensus. This essay was published
just prior to the Iran-Contra fiasco breaking loose in
Washington.
McLaurin, R.D. "National Security Policy: New Problems
and Proposals." The Presidency and National Security
Policy Center for the Presidency Studies Proceedings
Vol. V No.1, 1984. Center for the study of the
Presidency, 1984. This is a discussion of the original
Impediments after WWII and the problems of the past 15
Years in formulating a coherent National Security
Policy. Today, the U.S. has more military power but is
Relatively weaker than after WWII. He recommends
Drastic reorganization of the National Security
Bureaucracy similar to the 1986 effort at the
Department of Defense.
McNeil Lehrer Newshour. Washington D.C., WETA, Public
Broadcasting System. I have been a fan of this program
for over ten years because of its objectivity and
indepth reporting of current events and issues. I cite
interviews in a couple of places.
Mikva, Abner J. and Saris, Patti B. American Congress: The
First Branch NY,NY: Franklin Watts, 1983. One of the
best textbooks available describing the 1970's
revolution in Congress, the origins of Congress, and
the new power structure since 1974 in the commitees and
subcommitees. Mikva served in the House of
Representatives until his district boundaries were
redrawn and he lost the election. He was subsequently
appointed a federal judge.
Miroff, Bruce. "John Adams" Classical Conception of the
Executive." Presidential Studies Quarterly Vol. XVII
No.2, Spring 1987, P365-382. Adams' conception of the
executive was as the pivotal balance between the
democratic public and the aristocracy. His view of the
Presidency is monarchical but without Hamiltonian
energy. Miroff describes the undeclared war with
French, the Alien and Sedition Acts, and Adam's efforts
to cut short Hamilton's imperial designs to command the
Army.
Mitchell, Broadus. "Alexander Hamilton, Executive Power and
the New Nation." Presidential Studies Quarterly
Vol.XVII No.2, Spring 1987, P329-344. This piece
diagrams Hamilton's relationship with Washington as
well as describes historical details of The Federalist.
Contains a nice commentary on Hamilton's effort to gain
New York State's ratification of the U.S. Constitution
and Hamilton's Secretary of the Treasury - National
Bank experience.
Molineau, Harold. US Policy Toward Latin America From
Regionalism to Globalism. Boulder, Colorado: Westview
Press, 1986. The Western Hemisphere idea, the sphere
of influence, the sphere of influence in the Cold War,
Reagan's Latin American policy and concerns about
another Vietnam in Central America form the outline of
this well written book, the conclusions of which I do
not completely agree.
Montesquieu, Baron Charles Secondat. The Spirit of the
Laws. Thomas Nugent Translation. New York, Hafner
Press, 1949.
Morris, Richard B. "The Origins of the Presidency."
Presidential Studies Quarterly Vol. XVII No.4, Fall
1987, P661-672. NY,NY: Center for the Study of the
Presidency. PreConstitution Presidencies and the
shaping of the Presidency in the 1787 Convention are
the topics of this speech transcript. The O&A period
notes rate the priority of influences on the executive
branch.
Muravchik, Joshua. "The Nicaraugua Debate." Foreign
Affairs Vol.65 No.2 986, P366-382. The Reagan
Doctrine in Nicaraugua and the Congressional
maneuvering to undercut administration efforts in
support of the democratic resistance there make
engaging reading.
National Security Strategy of the United States. C&SC MCDEC
Quantico, VA. 1987. A U.S. Department of Defense
publication showing the basic tenets of U.S. global
strategy. It prioritizes U.S. interests by region.
Nye, Joseph S. Jr. Ed. The Making of America's Soviet
Policy New Haven, London, Yale University Press,
1984. This is a comprehensive and most insightful
compendium of research essays with varying perspectives
on the Cold War and its political dynamics. It is
especially useful for its analysis of the American
electorate and their attitudes toward Soviet issues.
Nelson, Anna K. "John Foster Dulles and the Bipartisan
Congress. Political Science Quarterly Vol. 102 No.1
Spring 1987, P43-64. NY,NY: The Acad Political
Science. Consultation between John Foster Dulles and
Congress served to strengthen the Eisenhower
Administration's foreign policy which on balance has
been the most successful in the post-WWII era.
Eisenhower was a master at staff organization and was
not therefore forced to oversell his foreign policy
posture. His good relations with congress are
something for future presidents to emulate.
Neustadt, Richard. Presidential Power, New York: John Wiley
and Son, 1960. This a classic on the presidency which
analyzes the president's real power as the power to
persuade.
Olson, Mancur. The Logic of Collective Action. Boston,
Mass.: Harvard 1975. Developing a model called a
group theory of public goods", Olsen provides a useful
analytical tool to assess incentives and individual
rational behavior within a collective context. Most
notably, he clearly defines the rationality of the
"freerider" in group activities. His model is
particularly helpful to a commentary on American
political action in interest groups.
Owens, MacKubin Thomas . "Executive and Legislative
Influence on U.S. National Security Policy", The
Reorganization of the JCS: A Critical Analysis. Allen
Millett et al Ed., Washington DC, Cambridge, Mass
Inst for Policy Analysis, 1986. Dr Mac Owens provides
a thoughtfully written essay on the competing
organizational interests of congress and the
bureaucracy in national security policy.
Pangle, Thomas L. "Executive Energy and Popular Spirit in
Lockeau Constitutionalism Presidential Studies
Quarterly, Spring, 1987, p253-266. An in depth
treatment of Lockean thought toward the role of the
executive.
Peri, E. Arnold and Rods, L. John. "Toward a Theory of
Congressional - Executive Relations." Review of
Politics Vol.36 July 1974, P410-429. The model of the
President as democratic monarch is not original with
Mr. Nixon. He is only the most recent expression of a
common and current view of the office. Political
Science offered a normative model. Franklin Roosevelt,
pictured by his biographers, became the very model of
the democratic monarch. His organizational method, his
use of prerogative, and his persuasive abilities were
the model of the successful president until Nixon and
Reagan used the same methods and talents to ends at
odds with the mainstream of the democratic party.
Scholarship concerning the presidency today often has a
psychological or character emphasis and we do hear alot
about an imperial presidency which the same writers
seem to overlook when discussing Franklin Roosevelt.
Perle, Richard. "Reykyavik as a Watershed in US - Soviet
Arms Control." International Security Vol.12 No.1,
Summer 1987, P175-178. Perle dispels much of James
Schlesinger's criticism os the Reykjavik outcome. He
states that under Reagan the agenda has changed from
Arms Control to Arms Reduction, fundamentally shaping a
new future in arms negotiations.
Pfaltzgraff, Robert L., Jr. "US Strategy for National
Security." Understanding US Strategy, Ed. Terry
Heynes, P221-240. This volume provides a thorough
analysis of U.S. strategic history, its current
position and its options for strategy.
Phelps, Glenn A. "George Washingto and the founding of the
Presidency." Presidential Studies Quarterly Vol. XVII
No.2, Spring 1987. As president Washington drew
heavily, not on the model of Colonial governors or the
ideals of British republicanism, but rather on his
experiences as commander-In-chief of the Continental
Army. These lessons guided him in making the presidecy
a symbol of nationalism, an advocate of energy and
unity, and a focus for administrative centralization
and responsibility.
Pious, Richard M. The American Presidency. New York: Basic
Books Inc., 1979. The theory here specifies that the
key to an understanding of presidential power is to
concentrate on the constitutional authority that the
president asserts unilaterally through various rules of
constitutional construction and interpretation, in
order to resolve crises or important issues facing the
nation. But the other branches may also react
negatively under certain circumstances and redefine
relationships as has happened between the president and
the congress since the Vietnam War.
Purcell, Susan Kaufman. "The Choice in Central America.
Foreign, Affairs Vol.66 No.1, 1987, P109-128. Kaufman
comes up with the most concise history of the
Reagan/Wright Plan and the subsequent Arias Plan for
Nicaraugua in the wake of Iran Contra affair.
Quandt, William B. "The Electoral Cycle and the Conduct of
Foreign Policy." Political Science Quarterly Vol.101
No.5, P825-838. Montpelier, VT: Academy Political
Science. Bricker Amendment - executive agreements.
The presidential electoral cycle reflects domestic
priorities and works against sound long term foreign
policy. This is accentuated by the Vietnam Syndrome
and the resulting lack of consensus on policy beyond
the shoreline". Quandt models patterns of foreign
policy action in each year of a President's term.
Ragazzo, Robert A. "Grover Cleveland and Venezuela: The
Perils of Moralism." The Presidency and National
Security Policy Proceedings Vol.V No.1, New York:
Center for the Study of the Presidency, 1984, P101-114.
President Grover Cleveland's expansion of the Monroe
Doctrine in the Olney Corollary of 1893 exhibited a
with the British which was a gross distortion of the
Monroe doctrine. Despite having a ragtag navy, the
British needed support for the Boer War and Cleveland
got away, winning some U.S. prestige in the faceoff.
Relyea, Harold C. "Reconsidering the National Emergencies
Act: Its Evolution, Implementation, and DeFiciencies."
The Presidency and National Security Policy Proceedings
Vol.V No.1, New York: Center for the Study of the
Presidency, 1984, P274-323. Hamilton set forth in
Federalist #23 emergency powers to exist without
limitation. The National Emergencies Act of 1976 seeks
to give Congress the means to limit those powers. In
this article emergencies are traced throughout u.S.
historyas background to the law. This law, like the
War Powers Resolution, may be unconstitutional because
of the automatic veto provision.
Reynolds, William Bradford. "Remarks Before the Federalist
Society Symposium on Foreign Affairs and the
Constitution." 6 Nov 87, Washington, D.C. Reynolds
discusses the division of powers among the branches of
the national government and the circumspection by
Congress in the Boland Amendments and the Iran Contra
Investigation in a speech representing the Reagan
Administration point of view.
Rieselbach, Leon. Congressional Reform in the Seventies.
Silver Burdett, 1977. Reiselbach's accounting is of
the vast legislative reforms which have transformed the
congress to a stronger role in oversight and policy
initiation. This is an interesting book which analyzes
Congress in terms of responsiveness, accessibility, and
accountability. Guess which are they the weakest in?
Robinson, Linda. "Peace in Central America?" Foreign
Affairs Vol.66 No.3, 1988, P591-613. Robinson
discusses the Iran-Contra Affair and the transition to
an attempted political settlement in Nicaraugua. The
Sandinistas are playing public opinion like a violin,
The main prize was a cutoff of contra aid".
Roche, John P. "Indochina Revisited: The Demise of Liberal
Internationalism." National Review Vol.XXXVII No.8,
May 3, 1985, P26-44. Insightful account of Vietnam by
the author of "Class of 41". He describes the drift of
events in Vietnam which turned a new generation of
internationalists inspired by JFK's "Bear any burden"
speech to isolationists. This is excellent history in
a concise format.
Roche, John P. "The Passing of the Class of 1941."
National Review Vol. XXXVI No.20, Oct. 19,1984, P24-28.
The 1941 Class of Internetionalists are gone. Two
"derivative" schools of isolationists remain. One
school, the disciples of the Taft Family
(Nationalists), the other, followers of LaFollette
("Build schools not battleships"). These derivatives
have ascended to push the U.S. public attitude toward
isolationism in the Post Vietnam era. Reagan's
isolationism is "fortress America". The McGovernites
feel the U.S. provokes Soviet behavior through an
overzealous anticommunism.
Roosevelt Years, The. Documentary Film, ABC. This a six
part series produced for DR's 100th birthday.
Roosevelt, Theodore. "The Stewardship Doctrine." In
Bailey, opcit, P35-39, TR explains that he broadened
executive power for the common well being of all our
people, whenever and in whatever manner was necessary,
unless prevented by direct constitutional or
legislative prohibition....". This perspective is in
step with the views of many of the modern presidents
since the advent of the "public presidency" with TR.
Rosenau, James N. "Fragmegrative Challenges to US
Strategy." Understanding US Strategy Ed. Terry
Heynes, P65-82. Washington, D.C.: National Defense
University, Ft.McNair, 1983. Formulation of US
strategy is hindered by competing belief systems that
have developed as the result of 5 modern dynamics.
These systems are mutually exclusive in terms of
acheiving national consensus on national goals.
Rosenau does not paints a an optimistic picture for near
term elite or mass consensus on national security and
foreign policy goals.
Rose, Gideon. "When Presidents Break the Law." The
National Interest, No.9 Fall 1987, P50-63. Gideon
parallels Reagan administration actions in Iran-Contra
with those of F. Roosevelt in WWII prior to Pearl
Harbor. E.g. tracking German ships and subs for the
British.
Rosenfield, Stephen S. "The Guns of July - The Reagan
Doctrine". Foreign Affairs Vol.64 No.4, 1986, P698-
714. The Reagan Doctrine of supporting anticommunist
insurgencies was announced in his 1 Feb 1985 State of
Union Address. This article shows now Reagan used
Grenada and his reelection to develop a democratic
coalition supporting the strategy and gives good a pro-
con treatment. It also shows congress back tracking on
Contra aid and the Clark Amendment. The au5thor
assesses Afghanistan vital to Soviets but Nicaraugua
expendable to them.
Rossiter, Clinton L. "The Powers of the Presidency." In
Bailey, opcit This is an excerpt of Rossiter's book
outlining major presidential functions, additional
functions, and unifications of the functions. The
presidency is an office whose power and prestige are
something more than the arithmetic sum of the ten
functions described.
Rossiter, Clinton L. The Supreme Court and the Commander in
Chief Ithaca, NY: Cornell, 1976. This is a basic text
cataloging the major Supreme Court cases conferring
definition to the executive power.
Rostow, Eugene V. "Why the Soviets Want an Arms-Control
Agreement, and Why They Want It Now." Commentary
Vol.83 No.2, Feb. 1987, P19-26. What Gorbachev
demanded at Reykajvik, behind a smokescreen of
antinuclear pieties was Western recognition of tide
Soviet Union's "right" to build a nuclear first strike
capacity, based on its formidable array of offensive
weapons coupled with a monopoly in defensive systems.
The Soviets are not trying to acheive a nuclear arms
balance but to escape from it.
Rostow, W.W. "On Ending the Cold War." Foreign Affairs
Vol.65 No.4, Spring 1987, P831-851. Rostow answers
questions as to why the US was slow in responding to
the Soviets during the early containment period and
analyzes Soviets as "latecomers" to the industrial
world.
Schattschneider, E.E. The Semi sovereign People. New York,
Holt, 1960. This book, a little over a hundred pages
in length capsulizes the essense of political action in
the American democratic system. Using a conflict model
as explanation, Schattschneider gives clarity the area
of agenda setting and questions of why issues become
issues.
Schlesinger, Arthur Jr. The Imperial Presidency. New York:
Houghton Mifflin Co.,1973. This book is, I think, the
most responsible for American's rethinking the merit in
a high prerogative presidency. Schlesinger was "high
flying prerogative man when he worked for FDR, but he
"got religion" during the Nixon administration and
lashed out against the powers which FDR made possible
for all subsequent presidents
Schlesinger, James. "Reykjavik and Revelations: A Turn of
the Tide?" Foreign Affairs Vol.65 No.3 1987, P426-446.
The Reykjavik Summit had a disasterous impact vis a vis
NATO relations. Schlesinger also discusses the public
dismay over Iran-Contra.
Sevareid, Eric. Between the Wars., Film series documenting
the events between World Wars I and II.
Strategy Symposium. Quantico, Virginia: U.S. Marine Corps
Command and Staff College. 8 Sep 1987
Sharpe, Kenneth E. "The Post Vietnam Formula Under Siege:
The Imperial Presidency and Central America."
Political Science Quarterly Vol.1O2 No.4, Winter 87-
88, P549-570. Sharpe describes Central America as the
test bed of congressional assertion of foreign policy
prerogative post-Vietnam. He feels additional
legislation may be required to reign in the president.
Thin article exhibits perfectly the liberal point of
view in the American elite foreign policy divergence.
Simes, Dimitri K. "Gorbachev: A New Policy?" Foreign
Affairs Vol.65 No.3, 1987, P447-457. NY,NY. Council
Foreign Relations. Simes states Gorbachev represents a
change in Soviet tactics but cautions the goals have
not changed. Russian eras of reform are generally
paralleled with pursuit of imperial design/aggressive
foreign policy.
Singer, Max. "The State Department and Nicaraugua." The
National Interest No.6 Winter 1986/7, P28-36.
Competence by the State Department can make the
difference between victory end defeat in Nicaraugua.
State has consistently failed to publicize the Reagan
policy of "victory for democracy" and key legal
arguments for our support of the contras. European
opinion, especially, is vital to our efforts. This
article demonstrates the fractionation of the foreign
policy establishment in pursuit of th presidents
national security goals.
Summers, Harry Jr. On Strategy: The Vietnam War in Contest.
Quantico, Virginia, Marine Corps Command and Staff
College, 1983. This is Summers reknowned application
of strategic theory to the Vietnam War reminds us that
we Americans are not strategic thinkers. This is a
sophisticated treatment of a complex subject.
Szamuely, George. "The Imperial Congress." Commentary
Vol.84 No.7, September 1987, P27-32. The revisionist
history justifying the newly assertive role of Congress
offers a thinly disguised ideological cover to reclaim
for itself powers it never legitimately possessed.
Presidential prerogative and Congressional effort to
stifle it, post Vietnam are chronicled in depth.
Taft, William Howard. "A Restricted View of the Office."
In Bailey opcit, P37-39,. "...as I conceive it, that
the president can exercise no power which cannot be
fairly and reasonably traced to some specific grant of
power or justly implied and includes within such
express grant as proper and necessary to its exercise."
Taft's view of presidential power stands in direct
opposition to T. Roosevelt's. He seems to be a latter
day James Buchanan but is probably in step with a
portion of the congress current view of proper bounds
of presidential prerogative.
Terry, James P. "An Appraisal of Lawful Military Response
to State Sponsored Terrorism". Naval War College
Review May/June 1986, P59-68. Newport, RI: Naval War
College. This article describes where state sponsored
terrorism lies in the spectrum of armed conflict.
Terry defines this type of terrorism and discusses the
issues and dilemmas faced in posing a response the
threat it represents.
Thach, Charles, C. "The Creation of the Presidency.", in
Bailey opcit, This is a history of U.S. executive
branch development during the Constitutional Convention
and of the evolution of ideas within the conservative
class which supported it.
Tonelson, Alan. "The Real National Interest." Foreign
Policy No.61, Winter 1985-86, P49-72. We have not
anchored foreign policy to a concrete idea of national
interest. Our foreign policy universalism has cost us
dearly. We cannot propound the capability to respond
to contingencies anywhere. All recent presidents have
failed to set priorities. The author recommends
Europe, Japan, Persian Gulf as priorities. All others
are secondary.
Treverton, Gregory F. "Covert Action and Open Society."
Foreign Affairs, Vol.65 No.5 1987, P995-1014. the
author analyzes the history, necessity and the
political perils of covert operations.
VanCreveld, Martin. Command in War. Cambridge,
Massachusetts, London. Harbard University Press, 1985.
An excellent group of case studies tracing the various
historical strands in the evolution of military
command. Has a useful analysis of the role of the
President in command during the post World War Il
period - he is usually involved no matter what the
crisis. The chapter criticizing command during the
Vietnam War is also enlightening.
Walker, Wallace Earl and Krepinevech, Andrew F. "No First
Use and Conventional Deterrence: The Politics of
Defense Policymaking." The Presidency and National
Security Policymaking, Proceedings Vol.V No.1 1984, P355-377.
Center for the Study of the Presidency. This highpower
article highlights several studies showing the
impractability of a conventional deterrent given no
early firstt use of nuclear weapons in Europe, at the
same time providing an description of the political
coalitions in American defense policymaking.
Weaver, James D. "The Commander in Chief: Constitutional
Foundations." The Presidency and National Security
Policy Ed. Gordon Retourie, P243-244. New York:
Center for the Study of Presidency, 1984. Weaver
writes a constitutional historical background to the
commander in chief power. This is valuable for its
specificity.
Weinberger, Casper W. "US Defense Strategy." Foreign
Affairs Vol.64 No.4, 1986, P675-697. Lays out U.S.
strategy and six conditions for use of force. Use of
force requires public support.
Weitz, Richard. "Insurgency and Counterinsurgency in Latin
America." Political Science Quarterly, Issue No.3 1986,
P397-414.
Wilson, Woodrow. Congressional Government in the Baltimore and
London, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985.
Meridian Books, 1956. The book deals with the American
system in the twenty years between the death of Lincoln
and the rise of Grover Cleveland. It is the first
analytical description of what happens when a president
is weak and halpless, of how power and responsibility
disintegrate when the members of Congress, and more
specifically their standing commitees are predominant.
Some of the factual details are no longer correct. But
the morbid symptoms which he identified are still
clearly recognizable when the disease recurs, and their
is a lapse into Congressional supremacy (Walter Lippman
Introduction). Wilson's book describes the
institutional government which evolved to presidential
government, spurring him to write of the changed
relationship between branches in Constitutional
Government.
Wilson, Woodrow. Constitutional Government in the United
States. New York: Columbia University Press, 1908. The
President of the United States notes the Constitution
as of Newtonian origin. Government is organic,
however, so the president must provide the dynamic
basis to direct the will of all of the people. Wilson
lays a basis for the active positive presidency which
served as his model when he was elected to the office.
Wilson, Woodrow. Constitutional Government in the United
States. New York, Columbia University Press, 1908.
Wilson gives an insightful accounting of the workings
of American government in this lecture series
especially the presidency. He views the presidency as
organic, not mechanical; and as the only official
elected by, and therefore responsible to all of the
People.
Witt, Elder. Congressional Quarterly's Guide to the United
States Supreme Court Wash.D.C.: Congressional Quarterly
Inc.,1979. A chronological listing of cases by
subject area - very well done.
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