Imperial Presidency in the Vietnam War

Perhaps one of the greatest exhibitions of the imperial presidency took place during the Vietnam War. Both the Johnson and Nixon administrations exercised special executive privilege in attempts to secure US credibility in what would become a foreign policy disaster. This war allowed the executive branch to become dangerously powerful in the realm of foreign affairs. President Johnson had tied the hands of congress with the Tonkin Gulf Resolution which granted his administration the final say on all matters concerning the situation in Vietnam. Presidential power had become so absolute that chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, William Fulbright was prompted to proclaim the existence of a "presidential dictatorship in foreign affairs" Former Kennedy aide Arthur Schlesinger Jr. would add that "the imperial presidency [was] out of control and badly in need of new definition and restraint" (Jentleson 143). As opposition mounted Johnson and Nixon would attempt to marginalize the media and the anti-war movement in attempts to protect their foreign policy agenda. "During times of war," Nixon believed that "the president must be especially powerful ...and opposition to that power was treason" (Idiot's 259). Congressional opposition would trump the Nixon administration in 1973 by passing the War Powers Resolution which "was intended to increase Congress's share of the war powers in the next Vietnam" (Jentleson 143).

From the beginning the motives behind US intervenion and the effectiveness of intervention in Southeast Asia were questioned. Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy seemed reluctant to deal with the rising popularity of Vietcong leader and supposed communist ally Ho Chi Minh. But as communist sentiment began to threaten the US supported democratic government in South Vietnam, confrontation became inevitable. Anti-Communist sentiment had reached its zenith following the Cuban Missile Crisis and the red scare instigated by Senator Joe McCarthy's investigation of un-American activities. The communist threat to a United States ally was viewed as a credibility issue. A 1952 State Department document emphasized the importance of Vietnam "'as an example of western resistance to communism'" (Jentleson 140).

The common belief was that if communism could defeat democracy in the third world, a domino effect would perpetuate the global demise of democratic governments. More importantly to the Johnson administration the situation in Vietnam would make or break his presidency. President Johnson would reflect:

If I did not go into Vietnam there would follow in this country an endless national debate-a mean and destructive debate-that would shatter my presidency, kill my administration, and damage our democracy. I knew that Harry Truman and Dean Acheson had lost their effectiveness from the day that the communists took over China. I believed that the loss of China had played a large role in the rise of Joe McCarthy. And I knew that all of these problems, taken together, were chickenshit compared with what might happen if we lost Vietnam (Jentleson 142).

As the situation in Vietnam deteriorated, Johnson was convinced that military intervention had to be intensified, but feared that congressional hearings and investigations concerning that intervention would drag out the process. Johnson concluded that "swift military action hinged on noninterference from congress" (Idiot's). When in August of 1964, US ships were reportedly attacked by the North Vietnamese torpedo boats in the Tonkin Gulf; President Johnson seized the opportunity by presenting congress with the Tonkin Gulf Resolution. The President compared the resolution to "grandma's nightshirt [because] it covered everything" (Idiot's 154). Johnson asked for and recieved from congress complete executive autonomous control of the Vietnam War. The Johnson and Nixon administrations would conduct the operation in Vietnam without congressional involvement.

Initially the plan received little scrutiny. Two congressmen, Wayne Morse (R, OR) and Ernest Gruening (D, AK), represented the only dissenting opinions in congress. Their question as to why Johnson was asking for special executive privilege when no other commander in chief had ever asked for that power was dismissed by their colleagues (HIS 310). Although Johnson promised "guns and butter," dissension gained momentum in the months and years that followed as costs of the war became known. "In 1965, US Air Force operations over secondary targets in South Vietnam costed as much as the entire air war in the Pacific had cost during World War II" (America 170).

Heading up opposition in the senate was William J. Fulbright of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In January of 1966 Fulbright initiated congressional hearings that sought to delegitimze the Johnson administration's operation in Vietnam. Johnson was angered by the network coverage of the hearings and went to extremes to discredit the investigation. In addition to taking out a full page ad in the NY Times requesting Americans not to watch the hearings, Fulbright claimed that the President sent potential witnesses out of the country, disallowed others from testifying, and hastily organized a conference in Honolulu with top army brass to divert attention away from the investigation (Small 78). Johnson would continue to marginalize proponents of alternate options during his administration going as far to exclude Vice President Hubert Humphrey and Undersecretary of State George Ball from the decision making process.

The strengthening of the Imperial Presidency would continue on into the Nixon administration. To strengthen the White House's role in policy formation, Nixon weakened the State Department by appointing his inexperienced former law partner William Rogers as Secretary of State. While Nixon entrusted newly appointed National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger with forming a national security apparatus in the White House, the only foreign policy area entrusted to Rogers was the Middle East (HIS 310).

Reaching the White House on a promise of a "secret plan" to end the war, Nixon's Vietnamization program pledged to place the responsibility of fighting back in the hands of the South Vietnamese. This plan did not mean that America was running away from Southeast Asia. By limiting decisions on Vietnam to his private National Security Council, Nixon was able to expand the war in Vietnam to Cambodia and Laos. On April 29, 1970 Nixon authorized the Cambodian Incursion which ordered the bombing of suspected Vietcong positions in Cambodia and Laos.

By the summer of 1969 both public and congressional opposition to the war had climaxed. As criticism continued to mount, Nixon sought to use his special executive power to silence his critics. Three separate episodes during Nixon's first term motivated the president to push for the restriction of the first amendment during times of war. CBS aired a special one hour documentary hosted by Roger Mudd entitled "The Selling of the Pentagon" which revealed that the White House was spending more on public relations campaigns to promote the war than it was spending on field operations. Nixon responded by calling the report communist propaganda and pushed for the suspension of the network's FCC license (HIS 310).

Daniel Elsberg, an ex NBC correspondent working for the Brookings institute, was hired by the pentagon to compile an objective history of the Vietnam War. Elsberg was given clearance to read scores of confidential government documents which revealed countless lies and misleading statements made by the Johnson and Nixon administrations concerning the war in Vietnam. Elsberg, unable to complete the Pentagon's assignment with clear conscience, gave the documents to the NY Times who published them in serial form as the "Pentagon Papers." Elsberg was arrested for treason and faced execution had he been convicted of that crime (HIS 310).

Gary Hess returned from Vietnam in 1970 a highly decorated war hero. Displeased with the President's treatment of the war in Vietnam, Hess threw his medals over the White House fence in protest. In the midst of his throw, Hess's foot slipped under the fence onto White House property and he was arrested for trespassing. Fed up with the protest movement, Nixon wanted to make Hess a scapegoat in his attempt to suspend the first amendment. The President hoped that at least one of these three cases would push the passage of executive reform, but his plans were destroyed when the Watergate scandal broke (HIS 310).

Preceding the 1972 presidential election, Nixon's paranoia of his political enemies, real and imagined, continued to grow. Damaged by the protest movement, the pentagon papers and mounting congressional pressure, Nixon formulated a list of over 200 enemies and hired ex-CIA operatives to act as his personal spies. Nixon may have believed that the Democrats were linked with the North Vietnamese and thought that he could find damaging evidence in the executive committee office of the Democratic Party in the Watergate office complex. When his CIA spies were caught trying to break in that office, Nixon's conspiracy was unveiled. Even though "Nixon used wartime executive privilege to keep congressional and even Justice Department investigators away from White House evidence that might convict him," (Idiot's 263) it finally became apparent to congress that measures were needed to limit presidential power.

In 1973 Republicans joined with Democrats in a show of bipartisanship to pass the War Powers Resolution over a Nixon veto. The act sought to prevent another Vietnam by limiting presidential power in two ways. First, the WPR required that the president consult congress about troop movements within 48 hours after initial troop commitments were made. Second, the resolution gave the president 60 days for which the he could commit troops. After that time period troops would be called home unless congress explicitly granted an extension (Jentleson 144). Immediately following its passage "Nixon announced that he was not going to abide by the resolution on the ground that he considered it unconstitutional ... his Republican successors, Ronald Reagan and George Bush, have followed Nixon's example and have refused to recognize the War powers resolution as binding on them" (Draper 13).

Draper, Theodore. A Very Thin Line: The Iran-Contra Affairs. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991.

Jentleson, Bruce. American Foreign Policy: the Dynamics of Choice in the 21st Century. New York: WW Norton & Co., 2000.

Maga, Timothy P. The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Vietnam War. Indianapolis, IN: Alpha Books, 2000.

Maga, Timothy P. History 310 America and Vietnam 1940-present. class notes, 26 March 2003.

Small, Melvin. Johnson Nixon and the Doves. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1988.