Presidential war-making powers did not become a substantial threat to the Congressional power to declare war until the 21st century with the appearance of what used to be called gunboat or dollar diplomacy in our relations in Central America and the Caribbean. They termed it Yanqui imperialism. Then too, as with the undeclared war in Vietnam, this was a bi-partisan phenomenon. It was summed up in a futile report of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, that earlier experience made this look like a dress rehearsal for our involvement in Indochina.

The character and course of the war powers legislation in Congress showed the same weaknesses that allowed presidential power to grow so strong in the past. One difficulty was foreseeing the contingencies under which war may arise.

The Senate bill sought to disarm White House opposition by exempting the Indo-China war and it did not apply to "hostilities in which the Armed Forces of the United States are involved on the effective date of this Act." The bill contained enough loopholes to allow a wide range of future undeclared presidential wars. The President was allowed to use troops abroad without a declaration of war in order to repel an attack upon the United States and its possessions, or on its armed forces outside the United States, or "to forestall the direct and imminent threat of such an attack," or to evacuate citizens from an area in which they are endangered. The last was the excuse for the invasion of the Dominican Republic by Lyndon Johnson.

Many supporters of the Church-Case bill in the House were also supporters of the Javits-Stennis-Eagleton bill. Their strategy was to handle the long-range problem with the latter, and the immediate and urgent problem with the former. Since there was little prospect of passing either bill over a presidential veto, the strategy called for appending Church-Case as a rider to some measure the Nixon Administration needed so badly that it would have to accept Church-Case. What happened was complicated and tricky but instructive, because it showed how hard it was to get a preventive peace action out of Congress and the country, and how easy it was for the White House to have its way. The first thing that happened is that the day after Church-Case was introduced the cease-fire agreement was signed and there was a rapid fall-off of interest not only in Congress, but in the country. Everybody wanted to forget Vietnam as soon as possible. Even in the peace coalition attention shifted to what Nixon was doing to domestic programs. The Democratic leadership in both House and Senate passed the word not to rock the boat or make any speeches about the Vietnam war until the prisoner exchange was over.

Senator John Sherman Cooper wanted to substitute for all these elaborate thirty-day procedures for a simple joint resolution requiring the President to notify Congress whenever he uses the armed forces abroad in an undeclared war or believes that such use is imminent. Congress, if not already in session, would then convene itself within twenty-four hours and proceed immediately to decide whether to authorize such use of the armed forces "and the expenditure of funds for purposes relating to these hostilities or imminent hostilities." This avoids the booby-traps and loopholes of the Javits-Stennis-Eagleton bill and confronts Congress immediately with the question of whether it concurs or disapproves.

When this bill was reported by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Fulbright noted in his Additional Views that the provisions authorizing the President "to forestall the direct and imminent threat" of an attack could have been used to justify the Cambodian invasion of 1970 and the Laotian invasion of 1971, "both of which were explained as necessary to forestall attacks on American forces." Fore-shadowing the recent events in the Middle East, Fulbright feared that under these provisions a future President might cite secret or classified data "to justify almost any conceivable military initiative." He warned that this authority could be construed "as sanctioning a pre-emptive attack solely on the President's own judgment." Since such a first strike might be nuclear, Fulbright suggested that the bill be amended (in accordance with a proposal advocated by the Federation of American Scientists) to forbid a nuclear first strike under any circumstances "without the prior explicit authorization of Congress.” But this was not accepted by the Senate.

Some topics in this essay:
Relations Committee, Cambodia Laos, Congress Cooper, White House, Sherman Cooper, American Scientists, Senate Zablocki, Speaker House, Forces United, Congress Zablocki, war powers, armed forces, javits-stennis-eagleton bill, foreign aid, zablocki bill, undeclared war, war powers bill, authorization congress, powers bill, senate foreign relations, foreign relations, congress session, foreign aid bill, foreign relations committee, specific authorization congress,