WATCHMAN OF THE NIGHT: PRESIDENTIAL ACCOUNTABILITY AFTER WATERGATE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01350R000200760004-7
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 20, 2004
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: August 1, 1976
• Content Type: BOOK

c c out i r l
[Extract]
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GOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITIO
ust 1976
Aug
on pp. 505-509 Sd L -11 - ?bra ltk-e10
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This revi $eedar Fo cielease 2005/08/22 CIA-RDP88-01350R000 07 'N 5e ,1J C -C) 1 ?"e(
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Max Beloff,: Corrupting the Constitution
Theodore C. Sorensen.: Watchmen. of the Night: Presidential
Accountability after Watergate. Cambridge, Mass. and London,
MIT Press, 1975
REVIEWS 509
and badly executed but it was not as immoral in -essence as the
conventional wisdom now has it. But what Mr Sorensen suggests is not
merely measures that might prevent further American armed
interventions in post-colonial situations on the periphery of the
communist world. They would be more far-reaching than that.
His great remedy is the ending of excessive secrecy. While he admits
that the conduct of foreign relations requires some secrecy of
negotiation, much that goes into it could in Mr Sorensen's view be made'
public: 'I would not, for example', be writes 'have. subjected to public
.debate President Kennedy's advance discussions on what response he
should make to the Russian missiles in Cuba or his exchange of messages
with Nikita Khruschev on that subject. But I would have willingly sent
to Congress the conflicting reports he -received on Vietnam and the
.conflicting studies on what should be done about it. I-Iow I wish we _
had!' Yet it is hard to see what .added wisdom Congress could have
brought to the affair. --~
f Mr Sorensen also joins in the-fashionable pastime of attacking the CIA
and nd suggesting various restrictions on its activities and various forms of
Vcontrol over them which for all his disclaimers might well have the effect
of making it harder to defend-the security of the United States. He wants
'
in the
a 'blue-ribbon commission' to examine all clandestine operations
light of progress towards detente, developments in international and
constitutional law, the new technology of intelligence collection 'and?
analysis, and the demonstrated ineffectiveness of any foreign operations,
overt or covert, which are not backed by a broad national consensus'.
While the last of these things is true, as events have shown, of overt.
actions that may endanget American lives, covert activities of an
intelligence kind belong to that part of the state's activities which cannot
be subjected to any control but the integrity of -its rulers. Satellite
surveillance may make some foinis of espionage less necessary; but as the
current discussions on Salt II show; ? they too have their limitations-
International and constitutional law are about equally irrelevant to the
subject. But the key word is of course 'detente'. It seems that - Mr
Sorensen, sceptical of everything about Nixon, is ready to make an
exception for his dealings with the Russians and the Chinese. Yet as
Helsinki has shown, there has been no change in the Soviet attitude of a
kind to suggest that this is a moment to lower the defences of the West.
Open government at these extremes belongs to a better and safer world;
when one hears it advocated unilaterally to this extent, one is tempted to
use the old trench reply to advocates of abolishing the death penalty:
'que messieurs les assassins commencent . , - .
.Approved For. Release 2005/08/22 :'CIA-RDP88-0135Okb-db2007600Qh-7