SHOULD WE ABOLISH THE PRESIDENCY?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-01208R000100010040-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 22, 2011
• Sequence Number: 40
• Publication Date: February 13, 1973
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

c
STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/02/22 : CIA-RDP9O-01208ROO0100010040-8
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should We Abolish the Presidency.
is likewise not functioning as the Con-
stitution intended. Since the failure
traces to the lower house-the body
Owing to the - steady accretion of most directly representing the citi-
power in the executive over the last wary and holding the power of the
forty years, the institution of the Presi- , purse-responsibility must be put
dency is not now functioning as the where it belongs: in the voter. The
Constitution intended, and this mal- failure of Congress is a failure of the
function has become perilous to the people.
state. What needs to be abolished, or The second reason, stemming per-
fundamentally modified, I believe, is baps from the age of television, is the
not the executive power as such but growing tendency of the Chief Execu-
the executive power as exercised by tive to form policy as a reflection
a single individual. of his personality and ego needs.
We could substitute true cabinet Because his image can be projected
government by a directorate of six to before fifty or' sixty or 100 million
be nominated as a slate by each party people, the image takes over; it be-
and elected as a slate for a single six- comes an obsession. He must appear
year term with a rotating chairman, firm, he must appear dominant, he
each to serve for a year as in the must never on any account appear
Swiss system. The Chairman's vote "soft" and by some magic transforma-
would carry the weight of two to tion which he has come to believe in,
avoid a tie. (Although a five-man he must make history's list of "great"
Cabinet originally seemed preferable Presidents.
when I first proposed the plan in 1968, While I have no pretensions to being
1 find that the main departments of a psychohistorian, even an ordinary
Government, one for each member of citizen can see the symptoms of this
the Cabinet, to administer, cannot be disease in the White House since 1960,
rationally arranged under fewer than and its latest example in the Christ-
six headings-see below.) mas bombing of North Vietnam. That
Expansion of tfie Presidency in the disproportionate use of lethal force
twentieth century has dangerously becomes less puzzling if it is seen as
altered the careful tripartite balance a gesture to exhibit the Commander in
of governing powers established by Chief ending the war with a ban-, not
the Constitution. The office has be- a whimper.
come too complex and its reach too Personal government can get beyond
extended to be trusted to the fallible control in the L.S. because the Presi-
judgment of any one individual. In dent is subject to no advisers who
today's world no one nian is adequate hold office independently of him.
for the reliable disposal of power Cabinet ministers and agency chiefs
that can affect the lives of millions- and national security advisers can be
which may he one reason lately for and are-as we have lately seen-
the notable nonemergence of great hired and fired at \\-him, which means
men. Russia no longer entrusts policy- that they are without constitutional
making to one man. In China gov power. The result is that too much
erning power resides, technically at power and therefore too much risk
least, in the party's central executive has become subject to the idiosyn-
committee, and when Mao goes the crasics of a single individual at the
inheritors are likely to be more collet- top, whoever he may be.
tive than otherwise. Spreading the executive power
In the United States the problem of among six eliminates dangerous chal-
one-man rule has become acute for lenges to the ego. Each of the six
two reasons. First, Congress has failed would be designated from the time of
to perform its envisioned role as safe- nomination as' secretary of a specific
guard against the natural tendency of department of Government affairs,
an executive to become dictatorial, viz:
and equally failed to maintain or even (1) Foreign, including military and
exercise its own rights through the C.I.A. (Military affairs should not, as
power of the purse. at present, hate a Cabinet-level office
It is clear, moreover, that we have because the military ought to be solely
not succeeded in developing in this an instrument of policy, never a
country an organ of representative policy-making body.)
detnnerarv that can match ti;c Presi- (2) financial, including Treasury,
dency in po>iti\e action er prestige. taxes, h:: Let, and tariff:.
A Congress that Can a'hdieate its right (3) Judicial, covering much the
to r:.tify the act. of war, t!::'L can same as at lue_?nt.
obediently p'-.s an enabling resolution (4) i;u>incss (or Production and
on fa!sc information and r:niam help- 'iractel, inetugrog Conuucrce, Trans.
less to remedy the situation afterward, portation and Agriculture.
By Barbara W. Tuchman
(5) Physical Resources, including
Interior, Parks, Forests, Conservation,
and Environment Protection.
(6) Human Affairs, including H.I,..WV.,
Labor and the cultural endowments.
It is imperative that the various
executive agencies lie incorporated
under the authority of one or another
of these departments.
Cabinet government is a perfectly
feasible operation. While this column
was being written, the Australian Cab-
inet, which governs like the British by
collective responsibility, overrode its
Prime Minister on the issue of export-
ing sheep to China, and the West Ger-
man Cabinet took emergency action
on foreign exchange control.
The usual objection one hears in
this country that a war emergency
requires quick decision by one man
seems to me invalid. Even in that case,
no President acts without consulta-
tion. If he can summon the Joint
Chiefs, so can a Chairman summon his
Cabinet. Nor need the final decision
be unilateral. Any belligerent action
not clearly enough in the national
-interest to evoke unanimous or strong
majority decision by the Cabinet,
ought not to be undertaken.
How the slate would be chosen in
the primaries is a complication yet to
be resolved. And there is the draw-
back that Cabinet government could
not satisfy the American craving for
a father-image or hero or superstar.
The only solution I can see to that
problem would be to install a dynastic
family in the White House for cere-
monial purposes, or focus the craving
entirely upon the entertainment world,
or else to grow up.
Barbara Wv. Tuchman is a Pulitzcr-
PriZe-winning historian. Her latest
hook is "Stilwell and the American
Experience in China.".
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