and I'm not talking about the man who occupies the office now or the man who immediately preceded him. I'm talking about the office as it is now. And as it is now, all you have to do is pick up the paper, not only in this time, in late 1971, but for any time for several years past. Presidential politics occupies a very great deal of newsprint, a very great deal of time on television news programs. And that's no accident. That's because the Presidency has become a very, very political office. It's a policy setting office. To talk about that, a man who served in that office on the right hand, I think it's not unfair to say, on the immediate past President of the United States, Mr. Jack Valenti.

PALMIERI. Welcome, Mr. Valenti.

COLE. Mr. Valenti, your being here tonight is particularly, I think, interesting in that you don't really agree with a lot of the things that I've been saying about the framing fathers having the intent that Congress should be really supreme in the policy setting area. So why are you for this idea?

VALENTI. I'm for it because no matter what the founding fathers thought, or what happened in Lincoln's time or Jackson's time, times have changed. There's great passions afoot in this world, instantaneous communication that concentrates the discontentment of people all over this world. And I'm really not interested in precedent at all, because I think times now demand a President who can divorce himself from all the distractions of getting re-elected and set about attending to the very delicate and possibly catastrophic duties of doing what's in the long term best interest of this country, without any of the looking over his shoulder at reelection calendars or doing that which gives him strategy in some part of the country. That's why I think the six-year term makes sense today where possibly it wouldn't have made sense some decades ago.

COLE. Mr. Valenti, can you give us the advantage of your experience as principal advisor to the immediate past President of the United States in this connection? VALENTI. Well, I don't think that anybody who's ever worked in the White House or spent a good deal of time in Congress, as Congressman Waldie has done, and others, who don't realize the immense incessant avalanches of political pressure brought to the President in his first four-year term, so that he can get reelected. Doing things that he ought to do that he doesn't do simply because a reelection calendar is there. I know of one specific instance in President Johnson's term when it was absolutely decided that military bases in this country were dispensible. We had calvary outposts we were still monitoring and spending a lot of money on. But the President couldn't close down 95 military bases until after he was re-elected in 1964. If he had done that, the avalanche of pressure might have cost him one, two, three, four, five states. And this is the sort of thing that bears on a President and causes him to look at something beyond what he believes to be absolutely right.

PALMIERI. Mr. Miller ...

MILLER. Mr. Valenti, I take it your conception of the Presidency puts him much more, to use Mr. Cole's words, in the role of policy maker, initiator..

VALENTI. It puts him in the role of leader. Moral leader. Political leader. Statesman leader. The keeper of the cause. The leader of the people. That's the kind of role I see it.

MILLER. Well, let me take divorcing him from politics and not looking forward to the next election. After President Johnson announced he would no longer run on March 31, was he not involved in the choice of his successor, as a political matter?

VALENTI. As a matter of fact, many of the people around him and the people in Vice-President Humphrey's camp thought he wasn't involved in the ...

MILLER. No, not what they thought. But in fact, he was deeply involved in the choice of his successor, wasn't he?

VALENTI. Well, you may know something that I don't know, Mr. Miller. I do not believe that to be so.

MILLER. You think Presidents do not care about their successors?

VALENTI. Oh, I think they care very much. But I think Lyndon Johnson at that time cared about peace in the world and he renounced his chance for re-election in order to try to find a break in Vietnam in order to bring peace to the world. And that to me is what a President ought to do.

MILLER. And after announcing, in effect, the continued power, did he then have greater capacity to achieve peace or lesser?

VALENTI. Greater capacity, because at that time the North Vietnamese knew that there was no political motive behind his renunciation. And he didn't lose his

power in the Congress. He passed 47 landmark bills after he renounced, including Fair Housing, Taxation, Safe Streets, Truth in Lending. His power did not diminish.

MILLER. His power did not diminish and he, in effect, was able to achieve peace between March 31 and January 20.

VALENTI. He began the withdrawal from Vietnam, the disengagement.

MILLER. And he would not have been able to do that if he were standing for re-election?

VALENTI. Well, I can't . . . One cannot prophetize history.

MILLER. Isn't it, in fact, true that it was the pressures of the 1968 election... the chance, the fact, that he had to stand for re-election that the public will on Vietnam was expressing itself . . .

VALENTI. Well, that's your opinion-mine, having been at the White House, was totally different, you see. I believe that the President wanted to do what he thought was right, and the only way he could do that was to offer to the people a pledge of his total objectivity in order to recount and regroup the so-called credibility gap that existed.

MILLER. And the fact that he'd done poorly in New Hampshire and the polls showed him losing in Wisconsin had nothing to do with it whatsoever?

VALENTI. Well, you're ascribing motives to the President that I'm not aware of. Maybe you can read his mind. I didn't. I also know that other Presidents have felt the same way. I'm touching this magazine in which I want to point out another reason why I think Presidents ought to have a single six-year term. This is Life Magazine, August 7, 1970. It is an article by Kenneth O'Donnell, probably the closest man to President Kennedy. This is what it says: "The President told Senator Mansfield he was having serious second thoughts about Mansfield's argument and that he, Kennedy, now agreed with the Senator's thinking on the need for a complete withdrawal from Vietnam. But, said President Kennedy, I cannot do it until 1965, after I'm re-elected. After Mansfield left the office, the President told me, O'Donnell, that he'd made up his mind that after his re-election, he would take the risk of unpopularity and make a complete withdrawal of troops from Vietnam." This is the tragedy of partisan politics in the Presidency.

MILLER. Do we have any evidence for that, besides Mr. O'Donnell's report? VALENTI. Well, again, Mr. O'Donnell was the closest man. I believe him; I don't think he would lie.

MILLER. Tell me. Tell me what's been different in Presidents terms, because I don't understand. You've talked about Lyndon Johnson. What would Dwight Eisenhower have done differently?

VALENTI. Forget about Dwight Eisenhower.

MILLER. No, I don't want to forget about him, because he's been held up as a model President.

VALENTI. Because the world is so much different from 1956 and 1976 as today and the time of Attila the Hun.

MILLER. What would Richard Nixon be doing differently now if he did not face re-election in 1972?

VALENTI. Well, I would not get into that. I'm not a partisan politician . . MILLER. Why not? That's the question.

VALENTI. Why? Because I'm a great believer in backing my President and I don't want to criticize President Nixon on this program or any others, but I know this beyond every venture of a doubt, and any man who works in the White House knows it to be true

MILLER. Mr. Reedy works in the White House, too.

VALENTI. Mr. Reedy knows it to be true. The avalanche of pressure on the President to do political things can no long be tolerated in this age.

MILLER. And that avalanche would end if the President didn't have to face re-election? People would still not pressure him politically?

PALMIERI. Mr. Miller, that brings us to a close. Mr. Valenti, thank you for your appearance. Mr. Cole, you have one minute to summarize your case.

COLE. As Mr. Valenti has so ably and so authoritatively said, the President has a tremendously important managerial responsibility and a policy setting responsibility area, too, and that is foreign affairs. The point that President Kennedy would not withdraw men from Vietnam until some two years after he had decided that he should withdraw men because he wanted to be re-elected is a devastating point indeed . . . made, leveled, by the former executive assistant

...

to President Kennedy. I don't know how the point can be made better that the Presidency in this day and time, wherein the future of the world hangs by a thread, needs to be divorced from partisan politics, needs to be put into a situation. . . the same situation . . . it's not revising the Constitution substantially ... that was intended by the framers of the Constitution . . . that of running the affairs of the country, not setting policy.

PALMIERI. Mr. Miller, you have a minute to summarize.

MILLER. President Kennedy, of course, as all Presidents in that position, should take the case to the people as part of the election process. That's what he should have done. And who can think that a man who may, in fact, would have done that would be any less interested in who his successor was and have done the same thing to hold off for his successor. We have a system that's worked remarkably well. It solved the eternal problem of succession of office, and it solved it well. We have the stablist system of succession to major office of any country in the world. Why change that today? Why incur these risks? Why incur the President's isolation? He won't be removed from politics; he'll be removed from reality. And the risk of that removal from reality, the risk of tampering with the issues of succession that we now deal with well is a risk we ought not to bear. There is no disease that requires this surgery, and none has been shown.

PALMIERI. Mr. Miller, thank you, and Mr. Cole, thank you. And now it's your turn . . . Your turn to act on tonight's question. Should our Presidents be limited to a single six-year term? Write us: The Advocates, Box 1971, Boston 02134. Send us your "yes" or "no" vote on a letter or postcard. We'll tabulate your views and we'll make them known to the White House, to Congress, and to others concerned with this same issue. Every one of your votes is important. Remember that address: The Advocates, Box 1971, Boston 02134.

Recently, The Advocates debated whether the U.S. should support independence for East Pakistan. We received over four thousand responses: 1,812, 44%, were in favor; 2,234, or 55%, were opposed to the U.S. supporting independence in East Pakistan. There were 1% who expressed other views. Let's look ahead now to next week.

ANNOUNCER. American women are increasingly expressing dissatisfaction with laws and traditions which they feel have conferred upon them a subserviant, second-class citizenship. The House of Representatives has passed a bill which would, in the words of its framers, "forever make invalid all legal distinctions between the sexes." Opponents argue that such a law is unnecessary and would destroy much hard won marital and employment protective legislation. Should the equal rights amendment be adopted? A question next time for The Advocates.

PALMIERI. Once again, thanks to our advocates, Mr. Howard Miller, Mr. Jack Cole. And thanks also to our witnesses and to you, ladies and gentlemen. Be with us again next week at this same time. I'm Victor Palmieri. Good night.

ANNOUNCER. The Advocates, as a program, takes no position on the issues debated tonight. Our job is to help you understand both sides more clearly.

THE NATION RESPONDS TO THE ADVOCATES

For immediate release January 20, 1972-Should Our Presidents Be Limited to a Single 6-Year Term? Final Tally of Votes: Total, 876; Pro, 275; Con, 586; Other, 15.

POLL SHOWS MAJORITY WOULD NOT CHANGE PRESENT MULTIPLE 2-YEAR U.S. PRESIDENTIAL TERM

From a comparatively small number of viewers responding to a recent Advocates debate on adjusting the length of time in office for U.S. presidents, the majority show a clear preference for the status quo.

A total of 876 votes were received, 586 (66.9%) of which were opposed to the proposal: "Should Our Presidents Be Limited to a Single Six-Year Term?" There were 275 (31.4%) votes in favor while only 15 people expressed other views.

The issue was discussed in Dec. 21-just prior to the Christmas holidayswhich may have accounted for the lack of votes in this poll. The Advocates is co-produced by WGBH, Boston and KCET, Los Angeles for the 213 stations of the Public Broadcasting Service.

A FORMER WHITE HOUSE AIDE ARGUES THAT THE PRESIDENT SHOULD SERVE LONGER AND BE INELIGIBLE FOR RE-ELECTION

(By Jack Valenti)

No commentator or observer of the Presidential scene has yet focused on the radical changes in the dimensions and demands of the Presidency of the United States. Yet each passing month makes it more apparent that the man who holds that office has to deal with problems so monstrous, so disruptive, so resistant to permanent solution that the re-election process is no longer suitable. The President cannot be allowed to be diverted from his hard duties and even harder decicions by the so-called normalcies of politics and re-election. The Constitution should therefore be amended to provide for one six-year term, with consecutive re-election ruled out.

President Johnson once remarked to a meeting of his staff that, in the Pres idency in this modern age, to be 99 and 55/100 per cent right was not enough. Perfection was not a goal to be sought; it was mandatory. In point of fact, the

nation must regard as a national asset future Presidents' brutal insistence on perfection. Thus, it becomes rational and reasonable to strip the Presidency of all fat, to take from it that which is not essential to make more purposeful that which is. The re-election process becomes blubber, a national bloat weighing down on the efficiency of the Presidency.

The problem of the President's tenure and power gripped the delegates to the Constitutional Convention in 1787. James Wilson of Pennsylvania, whom historian Catherine Drinker Bowen describes as the "unsung hero" of the conclave and whom Clinton Rossiter calls "the best friend of the Constitution in the Convention," agonized over this thorny issue and declared it the most difficult of all for the delegates-the mode, the apparatus, the length of the term, and the question of re-election eligibility.

At one point the delegates did indeed vote to have the President elected by the National Legislature for seven years and be ineligible for re-election. Those who favored a stronger and more independent Executive managed to overturn this decision and replace it with the four-year term.

What imprint the figure of Washington, looming surely as the first Chief Executive, had on the final decision, one can never know. Nor can we be certain of the importance of the delegates' wish not to have the President elected by the Legislature. The fact is that the re-election process was a compromise. Arriving at the conclusion on July 26 to vote for a seven-year term in which a President would be ineligible for re-election was, according to historian Charles Warren, evidence of the delegates' "having shown every variety of vacillation, having voted, in turn, both for and against many other proposals."

The point is that the six-year term (or some stated one-term length) is not so radical. Jefferson originally favored a Presidential term of seven years with ineligibility for re-election. But in 1805, Jefferson wrote to John Taylor declaring, with a modified view, that service for eight years was better suited to his experience. Jefferson was then serving in his fifth year as President. Andrew Jackson, James K. Polk, William Henry Harrison, Andrew Johnson, Grover Cleveland, and William Howard Taft advocated, at one time or another, the six-year term. In fact, the average length of time that a President serves in the White House is five years. Thus history, tradition, even experience, are not offended by this proposed change.

The modern argument against the six-year term is based on the lame-duck issue. The minute a President is elected for a six-year term, the argument goes, he immediately becomes a lame duck. But the same can be said today when he is re-elected, for the Twenty-second Amendment forbids more than two fouryear terms.

The powers of the President are a paradox; they are both limitless and limited. The use, the efficacy, to which they are put depend on the skill and the persuasion and the toughness of the leader. If one is to be a lame duck in the first week of his second term, why not let him become that in the last years of his six-year term, for lameness is not necessarily inherent in a last term. It is applicable to the strength of the President, and if a particular President is weak, ten more terms won't sustain him; and if he is strong, one six-year term, lean, boned, and sturdy, is all he needs to leave his mark on the future.

As one who worked for three years in the very inner eye of the Oval Office and the Mansion, I am convinced that if the Presidency is not merely to survive, but to cope and heal, to lead and to challenge-and to succeed-it must undergo serious restructure.

No doubt there will be studies made of the Presidency as it enters the last quarter of this century. It has worn its years well and borne its duties better. But it has now changed, with a change so deep and perilous that only the most casual and frivolous citizenry would turn away from a restyling of the machinery and tenure of the Presidency.

This study needs to begin with a consideration of the necessity for a four-year Congressional term, lately examined and left unresolved. Aside from forcing a Congressman to begin his re-election campaign the day after his election, the twoyear Congressional term hamstrings the President by shortening his legislative presentation time. No sooner is the program before the Congress and all the educative and information work well along than a new Congress must be thrust before the people. Mandates do not last long in a changing Congress. A President can be elected with a smashing public triumph, and two years later find himself confronting a hostile, disgruntled Congress whose sole mission is to thwart the Chief Executive, usually with success.