Presidents and Precedents

By William Doerner

WHO MAKES WAR

by SENATOR JACOB K. JAVITS

300 pages. Morrow. $8.95.

Among the many lessons to be learned from the tragedy of Viet Nam, none is more compelling than the need for a U.S. debate on how to control the power of the President to wage war. The Chief Executive must be free to respond instantly to clear-cut attack. But in more equivocal circumstances the national will might be far better safeguarded if Congress reasserted its constitutional authority as the sole branch empowered to "declare war." If this could be worked out practically, an increasing number of political scientists and elected officials now argue, Congress might also find a way to prevent Presidents from waging undeclared wars.

New York's Republican Senator Jacob Javits has special reason for examining the problem. He opposed U.S. policy in Viet Nam. Yet like many other congressional doves he felt compelled to vote for military appropriations as long as U.S. fighting men were "over there" by presidential order. "That miserable war has given us pause," he says. "The issues that it raises about the way we conduct our national affairs have driven me to the pages of history where I find strange analogies that sound the themes of the present."

Javits' book notes a steady erosion in the congressional power. In 1793 George Washington issued a Neutrality Proclamation during a congressional recess, thus unilaterally withdrawing the U.S. from any involvement in revolutionary France's fight with Britain in the face of great popular support for the nation's first ally. Thomas Jefferson secretly schemed to enlarge the Navy's operations in the Barbary wars. President James Folk's reckless acquiescence to annexation fever during the Mexican War created dissent in Congress and among non-frontier voters that, in Javits' view, stood "unequaled until the war in Viet Nam."

Such early meddling with congressional power bears little direct relation to Lyndon Johnson's massive intervention in Viet Nam as the Chief Executive of a superpower. The point is that the precedents for presidential activism and congressional passivity were gradually established by many men. In fact, F.D.R., the man who created what many historians now call the "imperial presidency," was to cite the Barbary wars as a constitutional defense for his undeclared war against Nazi U-boats in the Atlantic just before World War II. It has been argued that Roosevelt's early brand of brinkmanship was farsighted brilliance--because it helped prepare the U.S. for a necessary war with Hit ler. None of F.D.R.'s successors, how ever, have been willing to give up the enormous power he acquired as the only President to preside over a global war.

Javits' reluctant solution is the war power bill, which has been twice submitted to Congress (the last time it passed both houses, only to be vetoed by the President a fortnight ago). The bill would require a President to obtain congressional approval for his action within 60 days of committing U.S. troops to any hostilities. In Who Makes War, Javits spends too little time examining his bill and its possible effects on U.S. foreign policy. It is those considerations--rather than historical precedent--that might eventually attract enough votes in Congress for some sort of war power bill to become law. Javits has built a solid historical case, though, that wars are too important to be left solely to the Commander in Chief.

William Doerner

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