defined commitments around the world-commitments which could lead to future Vietnam-type entanglements.

As a result, Sen. William Fulbright (D-Ark.) has picked up support from Republicans as well as Democrats, Hawks as well as Doves, for his resolution asserting that Congress must be an equal partner in the making of any “national commitments" to a foreign power.

Fulbright's personal obsession is with the Vietnam war, which he vehemently opposes. He charges that the Executive Branch has, on occasion, justified the U.S. role on grounds that our military aid program committed us to South Vietnam's defense.

Whatever the historical background, the United States is committed in Vietnam now by the very presence of almost a half-million troops-and few senators would deny that fact.

Fulbright's resolution attracts support even from supporters of the war, however, because of a broader worry that we are over-committed around the world. There has been an increasing tendency, the senators feel, to make commitments in speeches and press conferences instead of through formal treaties and executive agreements.

The furor which arose recently when President Johnson sent three planes and a few dozen troops to the Congo dramatized the nervousness over being drawn into a new "Vietnam" without congressional approval.

Sen. Richard B. Russell (D-Ga.), powerful chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, observed Monday that there has been too much "loose talk about commitments." He said the status of America's worldwide obligations consequently needs clarification.

The Fulbright resolution, unlike the proposed Bricker amendment of a few years ago, would not curtail or limit the President's treaty-making powers. In fact, it wouldn't change existing law at all.

The resolution, in effect, would simply put the White House, and the world at large, on notice that the Senate will recognize as binding only those commitments which have been submitted for review in a traditional manner.

Fulbright's initiative is clearly in the national interest, provided the senators curb the temptation to go beyond the declaration of principle into ill-advised attempts to dictate the details of foreign policy.

The Senate is off base, for example, when it specifically excludes certain countries from foreign aid, or denies the President the flexibility he needs in making U.S. arms transactions.

It would be irresponsible, too, to deny the validity of executive agreements which reflect a formal understanding between the parties involved, and which are immediately made available for congressional review.

But the Senate is entirely justified in serving notice that neither the mere extension of foreign aid, nor a speech by the President or a subordinate, constitutes a binding commitment upon the United States.

[From the Christian Science Monitor, Aug. 3, 1967]

WHAT IS A COMMITMENT?

(By Erwin D. Canham)

Who can bind the United States internationally?

On April 19, 1966, Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey said that the United States at the Honolulu Conference in the previous February had “made a pledge to ourselves and to posterity to defeat aggression, to defeat social misery, to build viable, free political institutions and achieve peace" in Vietnam. "These are great commitments," he added.

Indeed they are. But did President Johnson, Vice President Humphrey, Secretary of State Dean Rusk or any other members of the executive branch of government have the authority to make such commitments?

Sen. J. W. Fulbright, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, does not think so. He recognizes there is doubt on the subject. So he has introduced a resolution in the Senate which says: "It is the sense of the Senate that a national commitment by the United States to a foreign power necessarily and exclusively results from affirmative action taken by executive and legislative

branches of the United States Government through means of a treaty, convention, or other legislative instrumentality specifically intended to give effect to such a commitment."

CRITICS GATHERING

The Arkansas Senator, a persistent critic of the administration's Vietnam policy and many of its other foreign policies, is supported by other senators of both parties who believe that the traditional role of the Senate has been eroded by the Presidents and the events in the last several decades.

The resolution, however, would merely be "the sense of the Senate." It would not be a constitutional instrument. It would not prevent the President from making "commitments," though it might be a barrier to carrying them out.

As a matter of fact, the governments of most other nations know that the capacity of the President of the United States to fulfill "commitments" to them is limited by his ability to get supporting legislation through Congress. The President cannot spend a penny that Congress does not appropriate.

LIMITATION RECOGNIZED

American presidents and secretaries of state have frequently used this constitutional limitation to avoid making binding commitments. In normal diplomatic interchange, they have often said: "Of course, you understand that we will have to get this through Congress."

But short of this power of the purse, there is a great deal the executive can do which Congress cannot possibly prevent. Sometimes he can put the nation in such a position that Congress would have no real alternative to backing him up. And, of course, the executive has to have a great deal of latitude. It is an increasingly fast-moving world. Actions have to be taken which could not conceivably be referred to Congress before disaster struck.

RESOLUTION COULD SERVE

Yet there is much validity in the interpretation of a commitment as a solemn undertaking in which both Congress and the President join. Certainly the purple rhetoric used by the Vice-President ascends to a level going far beyond a mere executive undertaking. These commitments need not necessarily be treaties, requiring a two-thirds majority of the Senate for ratification. In many situations, a resolution of the Senate would do.

It will be useful to have the air cleared through discussion of the Fulbright resolution. The position of the Senate in foreign affairs has certainly diminished. To "advise and consent," as the Constitution says, ought to be a powerful cooperative role. President Johnson, as a former Senator of tremendous experience and respect for the upper chamber's great role, should be willing to cooperate.

And the administration speechmakers could use less grandiose language, assert less grandiose "commitments." United States policy should not lapse into a new isolationism. One good way to prevent it is for the executive and the Congress to strengthen their mutual understanding of just what the nation is obligated to do, and just what it has not accepted. The people would like to know, too.

[From the National Observer, Aug. 7, 1967]

THIS WEEK-IN WASHINGTON

LASSOING THE LOCOMOTIVE

Majority Leader Mike Mansfield said he thought it was "one of the most significant debates that I have heard in all my years in the Senate." Sen. Stuart Symington, Democrat of Missouri, said it was “one of the most important presentations before this body since I have had the privilege of being a member." Sen. Milton Young, Republican of North Dakota, declared it would have "more far-reaching consequences. . . than anything that will probably be considered in this session of Congress."

On the face of it, the suggestion that prompted these superlatives and encomiums seemed hardly that earthshaking. Even Sen. J. W. Fulbright, who advanced the idea, termed it only a "modest" course of action, although he did

allow that it "could constitute a first step toward arresting a trend of events injurious to the best interests of our country."

The Arkansas Democrat, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, had merely offered a resolution that would define the term "national commitment" in the sphere of foreign policy. Mr. Fulbright would have it understood that the term would "result from nothing less than formal action taken by the executive and legislative branches under established Constitutional procedures."

In other words, Mr. Fulbright would have the Senate resolve that henceforth it will not recognize as valid any U.S. military or financial commitments to foreign powers that are made solely by the President. There would be no national commitment unless the Senate gave its consent.

All modesty aside, however, Mr. Fulbright in effect is trying to throw a lasso over a locomotive that has been building up steam for more than 30 years. Through public hearings he plans for September, the Senator hopes to recapture for Congress a full share in the foreign-policy decision-making process that the White House has been claiming as its own, "a role," he says, "which the Senate itself has permitted to be obscured and diminished over the years."

Although the senator's resolution would not have the force of law and would not even be taken up by the House of Representatives, it is of profound significance. Already Mr. Fulbright has rallied colleagues of both parties, liberals and conservatives, doves and hawks, all of whom are only too eager to increase the power of the Senate at the President's expense.

The problem of recapturing power, after all, is here largely one of public opinion. For the Senate to exercise authority now that it has allowed to lapse for so long, Mr. Fulbright is aware that the public and the press have to be convinced that the national interests would best be served if the Senate did have such authority.

The Fulbright resolution, then, is designed to implant in the public mind the comforting notion that the national honor of the United States is not at stake in the fulfillment of foreign commitments unless the Senate has agreed that these commitments actually exist.

At bottom, of course, is dissent over the war in Vietnam, since even the hawkish Senate supporters of the war complain aloud about the source of the "national commitment" that got the United States involved there in the first place. Declared Sen. Richard Russell, Democrat of Georgia, in support of Mr. Fulbright, "We hear that national commitment has been made because two Presidents have made speeches outlining this policy, or perhaps two Secretaries of State, or one Vice President; or maybe they all joined in and made speeches, and that that constitutes national commitment."

The senators complain that once the public accepts a President's assertion that a commitment has been made, and the national honor is at stake, Congress is forced to follow or be bitterly criticized for contributing to national dishonor. At stake is far more than Vietnam. Witness, senators say, the remarks of Secretary of State Dean Rusk last year in declaring: "No would-be aggressor should suppose that the absence of a defense treaty, congressional declaration, or U.S. military presence grants immunity to aggression." This, Mr. Fulbright suggests, could be taken to mean that the United States is committed to intervene in any conflict, any place in the world, merely on an executive judgment that aggression has indeed occurred. He, and many of his colleagues, would prefer that the Senate take part in such judgments, and that U.S. intervention only follow White House-Senate agreement that the national interest is at stake. "Should we be against any revolution," asks Mr. Fulbright, "whether they're against dictatorships or democracies?"

As well as planning hearings that will serve to foster a national debate on this issue, Mr. Fulbright will ask Secretary Rusk to submit a list of national commitments that the executive branch already considers in effect, those bound by treaty and those fixed only by personal statements issued by the executive branch.

Certainly President Johnson can be expected to resist any diminution of executive authority, though. Senator Fulbright may have his hearings, and the Senate may pass his resolution. The test of how successful the Senate can be in lassoing the locomotive would come at some future point, when the President says the national honor is at stake and the Senate says it isn't. Public opinion, and the will of the Senate to resist, will decide where the influence lies.

-JUDE WANNISKI.

[From the Wall Street Journal, Aug. 8, 1967]

REVIEW AND OUTLOOK

WHO MAKES FOREIGN POLICY?

The answer to that question at times seems almost to be that no one does. The U.S. appears to stumble from crisis to crisis, improvising as it goes along.

At other times a great many people get into the act. Administration spokesmen, at private talks or public conferences, pledge the U.S. to this or that action and later they and others behave as though the pledges were firm national commit

ments.

In the circumstances it's scarcely surprising that J. William Fulbright, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, would like to clear away some of the confusion. While the precise change he seeks is neither entirely attainable nor desirable, in the process he could push the nation in the right direction.

The Senator has introduced a resolution specifying as "the sense of the Senate” that the U.S. can make no firm commitment to any foreign power without the formal consent of both the Executive and Legislative branches of Government. The resolution would not have the force of law, and yet its impact could be considerable.

Senator Fulbright is of course a constant critic of U.S. actions in Vietnam, and undoubtedly his resolution was powerfully spurred by that consideration. All the same, the breadth of concern over America's activities overseas is reflected by the fact that the resolution's backers include lawmakers who strongly support the Administration on Vietnam.

Whatever anyone thinks of the war in Southeast Asia, this Administration and some of its predecessors have shown a willingness to stretch U.S. resources dangerously thin overseas. Vice President Humphrey and others, for instance, have seemed eager to escalate the Vietnam involvement into a Great Society for all of Asia.

To go back several years, President Truman and Eisenhower pledged the U.S. to resist aggression in the Mideast. When the Arab-Israeli conflict flared up this year, many Americans assumed that this country was firmly committed to rush to Israel's aid with full force of arms.

The wide-range pledges thus not only tend to convey the impression that the U.S. thinks it somehow can handle the impossible responsibility of policing the world. They also befuddle the public as to exactly what America's world role is or should be.

Senator Fulbright's resolution will be beneficial if it leads to more intelligent debate, both inside and outside of Congress, over the size and direction of U.S. commitments overseas. Those commitments already are huge and costly, as well as potentially dangerous, and any new ones surely should be based on more than a political whim of the moment.

When it comes to making future commitments, however, there is no assurance that the Senators will always bring more wisdom to the task than the Administration has. History offers several examples, in fact, where a strong Senate and a weak President have combined to make wretched foreign policy.

In America's system, after all, members of Congress represent widely divergent constituencies. It's stretching things much too far to suppose that they will subordinate the will of their electorates to some airy view of the overriding national interest. The best that can realistically be hoped for is that, through their votes and debates, they will at least most of the time reflect some sort of national

consensus.

The Chief Executive, the elected representative of all the people, can and should draw guidance from that consensus. But in an age when instant destruction is a constant possibility, the Administration may not always have time to await the Senate's counsel, however wise it may be when it comes.

In the final analysis, then, the President makes foreign policy and the Senators cannot take over the job. Still, if they reassert their Constitutional role they may be able to lead the Administration in ways of greater wisdom. It's certainly needed.

The CHAIRMAN. Professor Bartlett, will you proceed, please, sir.

STATEMENT OF PROF. RUHL J. BARTLETT, FLETCHER SCHOOL OF LAW AND DIPLOMACY

Professor BARTLETT. Thank you, Senator Fullbright.

If I can be of any appreciable service to the committee it will be in the form of providing a brief historical survey of the events and ideas that have led to what appears to be the present situation of the Congress in relation to its influence in foreign affairs and with particular attention to the use abroad of the armed forces of the United States. I am aware, Mr. Chairman, of the speeches and comments on these subjects that have already been made in the Senate and committee hearings by distinguished Senators whose competence concerning the Constitution is greater than mine and whose cogent remarks are a <matter of record. No need exists to repeat what they have said. I would like to refer, however, in a few partículars to the Constitution and to its framers for the purposes of emphasis and of introduction to my later remarks.

FRAMERS OF THE CONSTITUTION

The framers of the Constitution were surely a remarkable group of men and they had before them a wealth of American experience in virtual self-government, experience they had acquired either by observation and participation in government or through study of the past. From the founding of the first English colony in America until the Revolution there had been 165 years of colonial rule, a period almost as long as the time that has elapsed since the adoption of the Constitution. The framers were familiar with this era and with the experiences of the Continental Congresses, the Congress of the Confederation, and with the provisions of the several State constitutions. They were deeply impressed with the power of the British Crown to declare war and were fearful of establishing an executive authority that might develop monarchial tendencies. They feared that the desire for achievement, or fame, or prestige, or the exhilaration derived from the exercise of power, or belief in their superior wisdom regarding the national interest might lead the Executive away from the necessary restraints of constitutional government.

The framers of the Constitution feared also the existence of large standing armies in peacetime and realized the danger of military supremacy over civilian control. At the same time, on the hard basis of their experiences, they saw the need of conferring on the central government exclusive authority over foreign affairs, of making the President commander in chief of the armed forces of the United States and of the militia when called into national services, and of providing for the possibility of a standing military establishment, particularly in view of the needs of continuous frontier defense.

AUTHORITY OF CONGRESS UNDER CONSTITUTION

The complex constitutional arrangements under which the fears just mentioned were quieted and the obvious needs of the Nation satisfied are well known to this committee and to all students of the Constitution. The important consideration here is that the authority