Senator HRUSKA. Mr. Clifford, I am impressed by the thrust that your statement has. It seems that one of the principal and maybe the principal basis for the proposed resolution is to accommodate the President, to free him from the so-called burdensomeness of political activity for the purpose of getting reelected.

Not enough consideration has been given to the people who are actually governed. As I understand the thrust of your testimony, you say that the relief from the burden of trying to get reelected is not enough to overcome the necessity in the first place of engaging in partisan politics. There are other reasons why he must stay in partisan politics. At the same time that relief would be afforded him, the people are robbed of some of their options and some of their power. Isn't that the essence of your statement, that in the process of balancing out, you reach a different conclusion than that which the two preceding witnesses have reached.

Mr. CLIFFORD. That is correct. With all due respect to the experience that these outstanding Senators have had, I believe their approach is impractical and unrealistic. I believe that it reads well, and one can sit back in his ivory tower and say a President should be relieved of these political burdens. But I don't believe that at all. I don't believe the President should be relieved of the political burdens. This is an integral part of our system. Let me give you a quick illustration. Suppose you elect A. who takes office for a period of 6 years and cannot be reelected. I am not sure that he is very concerned about the attitude of the American people. He has his own ideas. He has his own program and he will see it through. He doesn't have to go back to the people. Take B. on the other hand, who knows that in 4 years he has to go back and get the support of the people. I think that is unquestionably the better system because A. gets divorced from the people. He loses the common touch as to what the people are thinking and what they want. B. on the other hand, has to keep in touch with the people, not just the last 2 years. I think a wise President keeps his political fences mended from the first day he is in office, and I believe in that. I think it is part of our system. I don't find any reason to apologize for it. I am proud of it, because you don't see dictators in other countries being concerned about what their people think. They tell them what they are supposed to think. I would like our public servants truly to be the servants of the people and stay in close touch with them and find out what they are thinking.

Senator HRUSKA. There are these factors-I mentioned them to the other witnesses-that require the President to be involved in partisan politics. First of all, he would want a Congress of his own party chosen so that they would be in a position to enact a program he would advocate. Second, there is a matter of a successor. And third, he would like to assure himself of a favorable place in history. Now, all of those things mitigate in the direction of continued concern and participation in partisan political activity. Would you agree with that general proposition?

Mr. CLIFFORD. I agree with all that you have said.

Senator HRUSKA. So that the only factor that would be eliminated is the nonnecessity, the absence of the requirement of being reelected? That is the only factor that would be eliminated from his activities politically?

Mr. CLIFFORD. I have never known a President who didn't have a program. I have never known a President who had completely finished his program. So that under this plan any President who has a program going, and he knows that at the end of 6 years of office he must go out, he will work hard, I believe, to get a man elected in his place who will finish the programs that he has not been able to complete. And that is good, that is part of our system. But it shouldn't work on the 6-year basis. It should work on a basis that he should be given the right to do it.

Senator HRUSKA. It has been suggested that a lot of legislation was passed after March 31, 1968; the impending end of President Johnson's term in January of 1969 did not really impair his power or his influence. I think you outlined pretty well what had happened. After all, legislation isn't passed overnight. There is that necessity for laying a foundation and having hearings and so on. Isn't there this further factor: In the second year of any Congress a great deal of legislation comes to completion? It is the first year that is given to the preparation and the second year when the laws are actually enacted. That is generally true in all Congresses, is it not?

Mr. CLIFFORD. It has certainly been my experience. I might add on that point, President Truman was very conscious of the diminution of political leverage that he had sustained after he announced that he was not going to run again. He was not prevented by law from running again because the 22d amendment did not apply to him. But I recall that his announcement was made in about March of 1952 because he thought the party should be permitted time to get ready. But he believed that his power as President declined rather rapidly in the balance of that year. And I think that is one of the reasons that he was so strongly opposed to the passage of the 22d amendment.

Senator HRUSKA. Thank you very much.

Senator Cook. Mr. Clifford, I really want to commend you for this statement. It has so much meat in it one hardly knows where to begin. You talked in relation to some of the questions by the chairman about preservation of the President's options. I would like to add, I think there is one thing that we also ought to add to that, we ought to perserve the ability of the people to choose at this particular period in our history.

But one of the things that bothers me about having a President for one specific term and then he is all through, one of my exasperating problems in the Senate of the United States is dealing with what is commonly referred to as the bureaucracy. Now, what position does the bureaucrat play when they get a President who is elected for a 6-year term and when he is all through, he walks out the door and a new President comes in and he is there for 6 years? Do they merely go on their way taking more and more power? Do they say, Well this is no real problem because we only have him here for 4 more years and he can only pick on us for 2 so we can make it for 4 more years and we can survive? What do we do about a system that says everybody somehow can be built in and sustained except the one individual who might have the opportunity to do something about it if he were just not in there for one specific term and then he is all through?

Mr. CLIFFORD. I think the only answer I can give to that observation is that under our Constitution, our forefathers very wisely gave a broad range of authority to the President of the United States. Each Presi

dent runs his staff differently. Each President decides on the size of his staff. That I think is the major part of what you refer to as the "bureaucracy." In some instances when a President goes out at the end of his term, the whole top bureaucracy goes out with him because a members of the opposite party has been elected. I doubt that anyone can generalize about what happens to staff attitudes, because the attitude of the staff is created by the President. They have no power, except the power that flows from him. If you have difficulty getting to a President, it is the President who is responsible. If the staff works well, it is his responsibility. If it does not work well, it is his fault. The staff has no power whatsoever except as it flows from the President.

Senator Cook. One other question, what does one do in the society of nations if the rest of the nations have to sit by and wait to see the evolving of a new foreign policy at the end of every 6 years or conceivably the potential of a new foreign policy at the end of 6 years? What position does it put a President as a leader in relation to his control and operation of a State Department let's say, if in fact, the rest of the nations of the world know that it is conceivable that a new adaptation of one's foreign policy will automatically and of necessity have to take place every 6 years?

Mr. CLIFFORD. Well, of course that occurs to a modified extent now. Senator Cook. But the option is always there for it not to under our present circumstances?

Mr. CLIFFORD. Exactly. And what I have been discussing today, is that we ssould do all in our power, those of us who can make our voices heard, to prevent taking what I think would be a certain backward step.

Now, when a new President comes into the White House, countries all over the world wonder what his attitude toward foreign policy is going to be. After awhile the outlines become clear. But again I say, as suggested by Senator Fong, that if they know that the President is out in 6 years, then our whole impact on other nations of the world is adversely affected. Now, we all might have our various opinions of Franklin Roosevelt. The country felt in the year 1940 and again in 1944, when we were concerned about our very survival as a nation, that he was the right man. Under the law that prevailed then, the country had the right to select him. You may disagree as to whether he was the right man, I might disagree. But at least the people had the right to make that decision. This amendment takes that right away from them. I consider it undemocratic.

Senator Cook. Thank

you.

Senator BAYH. Thank you very much, Mr. Clifford. You have been very helpful to us. Your contribution has been significant. What we are all searching for, of course, is the way in which the President, whoever he is or for whatever terms he serves or for how many terms he serves, can represent the best interests of the people and the Nation as a whole. I am very much impressed by the argument that the people have a better joint wisdom, better combined wisdom than those of us sitting here in Washington. And I will continue to pursue this thought and I appreciate the contribution you have made.

I have been advised that we have a vote. If our next witness would just take his place in the witness chair, we will recess for about 5 minutes.

(Recess.)

STATEMENT OF GEORGE E. REEDY, JR., FORMER PRESS SECRETARY TO PRESIDENT JOHNSON, NOW A FELLOW AT THE WOODROW WILSON INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR SCHOLARS

Senator BAYH. Our next witness is Mr. George Reedy, Jr. Mr. Reedy has had significant experience in the presidential and political service most recently having served the last President, President Johnson, as his press secretary.

His recent work-The Twilight of The Presidency-describes presidential pressure and powers and the influence of what you call the Twilight of the Presidency.

Mr. Reedy, we appreciate very much your taking the time to be with us and we would like to have your thoughts on this whole issue. Mr. REEDY. Thank you very much. I appreciate deeply the opportunity to appear before this subcommittee and discuss the issue of a 6-year, presidential term. In my judgment, this is a proposal which has some very disturbing implications both from the standpoint of practical application and general principles of government. In this presentation, I will address myself to both aspects.

I would like to digress for a moment, Mr. Chairman, to say that my testimony is based not only upon what experience I have had as a Senate staff member and as a White House assistant, but also from a rather good opportunity to observe the workings of the 6-year term in a number of Latin American countries. My principal fear of this amendment is that it would built into our system the possibility of very bad stalemates in Government which in the modern age I simply don't think we could afford. I will elaborate on this as we go along.

The first point I wish to raise is the question of whether the basic assumptions upon which the resolution is based are valid. It troubles me that in virtually all of the articles I have read, and I have read a considerable amount of testimony and I have heard a considerable amount of testimony, these assumptions are taken for granted. I was most pleased to hear my good friend, Clark Clifford's statement this morning challenging the assumptions themselves, because I believe many people are assuming certain conclusions which are not at all self-evident and which I think are highly questionable.

The principal assumption is that there is some virtue in separating the President from the political process-that his performance in office would be improved if he were relieved from the necessity of worrying about the electorate and worrying about his political future.

This is a shaky form of logic under any circumstances. When it is applied to something as fundamental as the Presidency of the United States, it could lead into grave difficulties.

Generally speaking, proponents of this resolution argue that presidential preoccupation with the political processes of reelection interferes with effective government. Therefore, they propose that he be given a 6-year term free of the temptation to politic because he will know that he cannot run for the office again. Under these circumstances, they claim, he can be a statesman who will guide himself only by his concepts of the greatest good for the country.

A refinement to this argument has arisen recently. It is that we live in highly uncertain times and there is a strong possibility that we will have a series of one term Presidents. A term of 4 years, it is claimed, is not enough for a President to carry out his program. There

fore, the cure is to give him 2 more years free-of-charge so he can complete his work regardless of adverse political winds.

This line of reasoning appears attractive, particularly in a nation where the people have traditionally distrusted what they refer to as politicians and have lamented the dearth of statesmen. The problem I find with it is that the defects it is supposed to correct are largely hypothetical. They do not appear to me to bear very much resemblence to the problems of the real world in which we live and I would like to pose some questions to illustrate the point.

Question No. 1 is whether our problems really spring from presidential preoccupation with politics? I doubt it.

When we look at our problems today and when we look at the divisions in the country, it is obvious that there is a general feeling of lack of trust and lack of confidence widespread throughout our Nation. It is observable to anyone who walks the streets and talks to people, and is reflected in many polls.

I cannot really trace this directly to the political actions of our Presidents.

For example, was it preoccupation with politics that led Harry S Truman to prosecute the Korean war or Lyndon B. Johnson to prosecute the Vietnamese war? Did these experienced political leaders think they could get votes through mounting casualties, high draft rates, soaring debts and economic dislocation? I am not so presumptuous as to pretend to know what is going on in a man's mind but it really strains my credulity to ask me to assume that these men thought they would be rewarded at the polls for what they did. I can believe six impossible things before breakfast but I cannot believe that. I think that whether they were objectively right or wrong, they did what they thought was right.

Whether they were right or wrong is something that will have to be determined by history, but I think they reacted as they did to the really important international and domestic problems of our times and that have lead us into the situation where we are now not because they were trying to get reelected but because they thought they were doing what they thought was right. Possibly they were right and possibly they were wrong but that must be something that must be determined by an outside viewpoint.

I think it is a mistake to challenge what the Presidents do and assume that they lead themselves and lead the country down bad paths simply because they want to get reelected.

From both study and observation, I doubt very much whether reelection has been the principle preoccupation of American Presidents-although those who have shown the most signs of such preoccupation are among the ones most fondly remembered by history. I am thinking now of such men as Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin D. Roosevelt, all three of whom were very unabashed about their desire to be reelected and who never made any secret of the political moves they made and the fact they were made in order to retain the office.

Now, this raises a second, and even more, interesting question. Are Presidents really more effective when they are separated from the political process? Again, I doubt it. Personally, I think there is strong reason to believe that modern Presidents can be effective only when

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