The democratic process is the political process. It is the substitution of persuasion and consent for force and fear as instruments for achieving social goals. I do not believe we are going to have a very successful future as a nation if we weaken the base of our Government. The problem presented by the 6-year term is, in my judgment, that it regards the President merely as a manager of the Nation's affairs. He does, of course, play that role. But he is also the Nation's political leader. And there is no law, no resolution, no constitutional amendment which can make an effective manager out of him once he has lost his political base.

I would like to raise the possibility at this point that there may be some confusion in our thinking between form and substance. The Presidency is the institution through which the legitimate executive power can be exercised. But is not the substance of power. The substance comes from the consent of the governed and once that is lost, the force is ineffective indeed.

The question I believe to be absolutely crucial in considering this proposal is what happens to a nation when its only legitimate power institution loses the substance of power: Can a nation survive under those circumstances? I doubt it. I do not believe we could afford a lengthy period of government under a man who had lost the confidence of the people.

This has not happened to us, yet. I do not believe it can happen to us under our present arrangement of 4-year terms. But there are plenty of examples in recent history of Presidents who spent their last years in a powerless state. Those examples are not very pleasant to contemplate. The outcome was government which limped along on a minimum housekeeping basis while important issues went unresolved.

What could possibly be gained by making the voters wait 2 more years to make a fresh start?

Admittedly, national elections are troublesome and time-consuming. But the answer to that is that democracy is troublesome and time-consuming. It is a form of society that calls upon men for a great deal of work, a great deal of patience and tremendous fortitude. The great virtue to it is that it works-that when properly practiced, it affords the only enduring form of effective government.

This workability flows from the relationship between leaders and their constituents. Anything that disrupts that relationship also disrupts effective government.

The 6-year term would be of no help to Presidents who have estabTished a workable relationship with the American people. They do not need it. If they have done their job properly-if they have paid sufficient attention to their obligation to exercise political persuasion— they will have plenty of time to carry out their programs.

But if they have not done their job properly-if they have become too remote from the political process-the 6-year term could mean

ruin.

Gentlemen, when I balance those two situations against each other, I can come to only one conclusion. I hope this proposal will not be written into our Constitution.

I would add, I fully agree with Mr. Clifford that even the limitation to two 4-year terms as President should be repealed and that we should

go back to the older system of having an indefinite number of terms so the President could be reelected just as often as the American people are willing to reelect him.

I agreed completely with everything that Clark Clifford was saying, and I was listening rather closely to see if there was something I could disagree with but I think that was a very effective statement and I think he went to the very heart of the matter.

Senator BAYH. Thank you very much, Mr. Reedy.

Do you care to comment on President Johnson's concern that_8 years is too long a period of time for a human being to adequately carry on the burdens of the Presidency?

Mr. REEDY. I would agree with Mr. Clifford that that is a question that would be entirely up to the individual.

I think when we look around us in life, we find some people who have tremendous stamina and some who do not. I have a feeling, again this is only a feeling, that almost every President in retrospect would think that 8 years is too long. I think that many of them feel that 6 years is too long. The burdens of that office really are crushing. There is no question about that whatsoever.

I think it is a terrible burden to impose on any man. It will always be something of a mystery to me that a job which in effect involves so much misery has so many people who seek it. The burdens are not those of the work involved and I don't think the burdens are essentially the political burdens. I think the burdens are these terrible moments where the President must make decisions as to whether he is going to send American boys, who are going to get killed, into battle, when he has to make decisions with regard to economic factors that are going to mean ruin or prosperity or depression for millions of people.

I think those are terrible burdens. I don't believe we add anything whatsoever if we assume that by removing the political process he will be able to devote far more time to statesmanship. I think all we would do is to have the Presidents crawling up the wall because they have only unanswerable problems to think about so politics from a psychological point of view-is probably a very healthy thing and may account for the fact that most of the Presidents, who are generally thought of as the great Presidents at least according to the historians or political scientists, are generally the men who pay the most attention. to it.

Senator BAYH. Given the economic situation like we have gone through, I wonder if it is at all possible to speculate for how long a period of time the present administration might have been willing to telerate such situations, absent a 4-year mandate, before it revised its original game plan.

Mr. REEDY. I don't think it would really be possible to speculate on that, Mr. Chairman, because that is entirely within the mind of the President. The office of the Presidency is the only office I have ever seen where a man in a very real sense owns his own job, where he can create the environment immediately around him, where he can have everything he wants except a solution to all of the problems of the Nation. A President's personality changes the office with each administration. This is apparent not only from what I have observed, and I. have observed a few administrations, of course not nearly as many as

Mr. Clifford, but from the studies I have made of the office, you really can't speculate on what a President would do if his term had been different.

Senator BAYH. Do you feel that good politics requires responsibility and responsiveness?

Mr. REEDY. Yes.

Senator BAYH. And do you feel that the 6-year term takes away a certain element of this responsiveness?

Mr. REEDY. Yes; it takes away a certain element of responsiveness. But I am also looking at it from the standpoint that Senator Hruska raised, which is a very important one, and that is when we talk about government, we have to think in terms of the American people and what happens to them if they must wait 2 more years to pass judgment on a President whom they no longer support.

If he is a good President, there is no reason why he shouldn't be submitted at the end of 4 years to being reelected. It is just that simple. If he is a bad President, the people have no other course, they merely have to wait 2 more years. That consideration is even more important than the question of responsiveness.

I consider this question of responsiveness highly important. As you know, it is my theme in my study of the Presidents. I also think, as you know, you can bring this country very close to dissent that we have not seen the likes of before if at a certain point the American people have decided they no longer have confidence in this man and they still have to wait 2 more years.

Senator Bayh, I think that is a horrible thing to contemplate.
Senator BAYH. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Reedy.

Mr. REEDY. Thank you for letting me come here.

Senator BAYH. You have been very patient and have made a very significant contribution to our study and I thank you very much.

STATEMENT OF JAMES HAGERTY, FORMER PRESS SECRETARY TO PRESIDENT EISENHOWER, NOW VICE PRESIDENT, AMERICAN BROADCASTING CO.

Senator BAYH. Our next and last witness this morning is James Hagerty, press secretary and adviser to President Eisenhower and now vice president to the American Broadcasting Co. I appreciate your being here but also the inconvenience you have been subjected to by circumstances beyond your control.

Mr. HAGERTY. Mr. Chairman, I do appreciate your courtesy in letting me testify so late this morning-or rather this afternoon.

I appreciate your invitation to testify today on Senate Joint Resolution 77 which proposes a constitutional amendment to limit the President to a single, 6-year term of office. Such an amendment would automatically repeal the present 22d amendment and, in hearings like this and subsequent debate, will undoubtedly raise again the question of whether the eligibility of a President to hold office should be limited to any specific length of term.

Personally, I do not favor the resolution. As a staff observer to the second full term of President Eisenhower-the only President to date to serve such a term under the 22d amendment-I can see no practical

or pressing reason to change the present limitation even though it does carry with it a possible disadvantage, particularly in the last 6 months to any presidential term of office and would like to get back to this in a few minutes.

But, first, permit me to make some general observations concerning the office of the President. Like others who have had the opportunity to work for a President, I shall always have a permanent fascination and respect for that office. It is an apolitical interest in whomever assumes the awesome duties and obligations that are placed upon the office by the people of our Nation-either directly or indirectly, by political mandate or by social evolution.

While the problems confronting a President may change drastically in emphasis and priority from term to term-and certainly from decade to decade-the basic duties and responsibilities of his office are rather constant or at least they have been in the modern Presidency which I would date from Franklin Roosevelt. For since that time, the American President has emerged as the most important, most influential man in the free world. Certainly he and his office affects-in one way or another-the lives of everyone in the United States. And, equally certain-again in one way or another-he influences through the conduct of foreign affairs and the awesome decisions he must make-the lives of many of the peoples of the world.

The late Merriman Smith of UPI, for many years the distinguished dean of White House correspondents, often contended that a President was "a Man of Many things" and indeed he is. Just reflect for a few minutes on the varied and heavy duties and responsibilities of a President. Some are specified in the Constitution, others have evolved through custom and general practice.

(1) He is the Chief Executive of the biggest corporation in the world-the executive branch of the Federal Government with its farranging operations spread increasingly throughout the Nation and the world. His decisions help shape our national economy, the progress of our domestic society and the individual well-being of every citizen of our land as well as the social and economic-and sometimes political-foundations of a large part of the world.

(2) He is Commander in Chief of our Military Establishment. By constitutional assignment, he eventually must make the final overall military judgments and decisions, including the terrible soul-shaking responsibility for the control of and/or the use of the dreadful arsenal of nuclear power. For the sake of civilization, he must be able to bear these burdens with indomitable courage and infinite wisdom.

(3) He is or should be the diplomatic leader of the free world. He must work in harmony with friends and allies-no matter how difficult those friends and allies may be from time to time. He must try to preserve friendly relations with neutral and developing nations. He must try to open peaceful lines of communication with those whose form of government is ideologically different than ours. He must seek to gain the majority support of the Congress for his foreign policies as he seeks solutions to difficult foreign problems in order to lessen the possibility of an outbreak by accident or incidents over which he has little control of another-and possibly final-world war.

(4) He is or should be-the leader, by his example, of the conscience-the moral and spiritual tone-of the peoples of our Nation.

In these days particularly, he must preserve, defend, and strengthen the fundamental constitutional principle that in our Republic all men are created free and equal and have equal opportunity to become useful and productive citizens of our Nation. Yet, in so doing, he must uphold civil authority and the law so that we can maintain an orderly and progressive society. He must keep open and expand a reasonable dialog between generations of our citizenry as well as with those who are striving for the equality that is their right.

(5) He is the acknowledged leader of one of our two national political parties and this is especially important in the discussion of the resolution before this committee. Quite naturally he tries to build up his party, to get increased popular support for its and his policies and philosophies. He is expected to play hard, practical politics to gain what he believes are accomplishments for the common good—and it is equally expected that many of his actions will be questioned by members of the opposition party and by dissenting members of his own party. Yet he must-in the national interest-forego partisan behavior and work to benefit all the people, regardless of the party.

(6) And, finally, he is the ultimate authoritative spokesman for his administration. As such, his thoughts and philosophies, his plans and his actions are constantly subjected to dissection, magnification and microscopic examination by almost everyone-by the governments of the world, by the Congress, and through the news media here and abroad, by peoples everywhere-all of whom have conflicting opinions concerning his actions.

Despite this multpilicity of duties and responsibilities, I, for one, do not believe-as some suggest that the office of the President has become an impossible and unmanageable job. It is popular these days for detractors to contend that the office is in the process of erosionthat no one individual has the wisdom-or the luck-to handle the assignment adequately that we are heading for a revolving series of one-term Presidents with the "outs" out-promising the "ins" and then failing to make good on the promises when they occupy the office. I do not accept this theory of erosion although I must admit that at times the complex and increasingly intricate problems of our domestic society and the world around us occasionally seem to overwhelm the Presidency-just as they seem to overwhelm the Congress and all elected officials be they Federal, State, or local. Yet, our system of democracy-with its inherent strength based on a strong and effective two-party system-continues to function well-withstanding the strains and stresses of each succeeding decade-adjusting to new conditions and to changing times. And surely there seems to be no lack of candidates, announced or unannounced for the Presidency-and for the Congress as well. That in itself is a sign of confidence, not despair. Mr. Chairman, I shall now attempt to respond to a number of questions you raised in your notice statement of these hearings.

(1) I have deliberately stressed the value of the American twoparty system because I think it is vital to the success of our form of government and goes to the very heart of the resolution under discussion today.

While I respect the statesmanship argument advanced by some who favor a single 6-year term for a President, I cannot see how it can effectively be carried out. I do not believe you can divorce a Presi