Crisis and Command: A History of Executive Power from George Washington to George W. Bush

by John Yoo

  7 Gaddis, Strategies, supra note 3, at 89-109.

  8 Historical Statistics, Millennial Edition, supra note 1, at 5-350 (Korean War statistics).

  9 Dean Acheson, Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department 415 (1969).

  10 David McCullough, Truman 780 (1992). The events of the decision to go to war in Korea are usefully reviewed in Robert Turner, Truman, Korea, and the Constitution: Debunking the "Imperial President" Myth, 19 Harv. J. L. & Pub. Pol'y 533 (1996). For a differing account, see Louis Fisher, Presidential War Power 70-91 (1995).

  11 Fisher, supra note 10, at 89-90.

  12 McCullough, supra note 10, at 814-855 (firing of MacArthur), 855 (Truman quote).

  13 Ibid. at 630-31, 734-35; Trachtenberg, supra note 5, at 78-91.

  14 Arthur Schlesinger, The Imperial Presidency 135-36 (1973); Trachtenberg, supra note 5, at 85-125, 156 (figures on spending); and 5 Historical Statistics, supra note 1, at 5-367.

  15 Schlesinger, supra note 14, at 136-38.

  16 Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579, 587 (1952).

  17 Ibid. at 634-39 (Jackson, J., concurring).

  18 Louis Henkin, Foreign Affairs and the U.S. Constitution (1996); Harold Hongju Koh, The National Security Constitution: Sharing Power after the Iran-Contra Affair (1990); and Michael J. Glennon, Constitutional Diplomacy (1990).

  19 Youngstown, 343 U.S. at 645 (Jackson, J., concurring). For useful discussion, see Jesse Choper, Judicial Review and the National Political Process: A Functional Reconsideration of the Role of the Supreme Court 315-25 (1980).

  20 See 2 Stephen E. Ambrose, Eisenhower: The President 51 (1984); See also Burton I. Kaufman, The Korean War: Challenges in Crisis, Credibility, and Command 305 (1986).

  21 Ibid. at 52.

  22 Stephen Ambrose, Rise to Globalism: American Foreign Policy Since 1938, at 132-33 (6 th ed. 1991).

  23 Gaddis, Strategies, supra note 3, at 127-50.

  24 Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower 1955, at 209.

  25 2 Ambrose, Eisenhower, supra note 20, at 232-33.

  26 2 Ibid. at 239-45.

  27 Quoted in Fisher, supra note 10, at 107-08.

  28 H.J. Res. 117, 85th Cong. (1957).

  29 Fred Greenstein, The Hidden-Hand Presidency: Eisenhower as Leader (1982).

  30 On Kennedy's handling of these crises, see Lawrence Freedman, Kennedy's Wars: Berlin, Cuba, Laos, and Vietnam (2000); on the Kennedy administration's version of containment, see Gaddis, Strategies, supra note 3, at 198-236.

  31 See John Yoo, Using Force, 71 University of Chicago Law Review (2004).

  32 The events of the Cuban Missile Crisis have been exhaustively detailed in numerous books. See, e.g., Graham Allison & Philip Zelikow, Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (2d ed., 1999).

  33 See, e.g., John Hart Ely, War and Responsibility: Constitutional Lessons of Vietnam and Its Aftermath 4 (1995).

  34 The constitutional and legal issues on Vietnam are discussed in Ibid. at 12-46, 68-104.

  35 Ibid. at 27-28. George Herring, America's Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950-1975, at 135, 174-75, 243-44 (1985).

  36 William H. Rehnquist, The Constitutional Issues -- Administration Position, 45 New York University Law Review 628 (1970); and Herring, supra note 35, at 252-54.

  37 See War Powers Resolution, Pub. L. No. 93-148, 87 Stat. 555 (codified at 50 U.S.C. SSSS 1541-48). Presidents Ford and Carter never expressly recognized the resolution's binding force, and President Reagan refused to comply with the resolution when he ordered the use of force in Lebanon, Grenada, Libya, and the Persian Gulf. President George H. W. Bush sent messages notifying Congress of military interventions in Panama and the Persian Gulf that were "consistent with" the WPR, but that did not obey it. During the Gulf War, President Bush dispatched troops to the Middle East for well longer than permitted by the WPR's 60-day clock. President Bush sent troops to Saudi Arabia within days of the August 2, 1990, Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, and engaged in a buildup that reached more than 430,000 troops by November 8, but did not receive a congressional resolution of support until January 12, 1991, more than five months after the first American deployment. American troops invaded Kuwait and Iraq shortly thereafter. Even as he asked for a congressional sign of support, President Bush argued that he already had the constitutional authority as President and Commander-in-Chief to implement UN Security Council Resolution 678, which asked member states to use "all necessary means" to force Iraqi troops out of Kuwait. When he signed Congress's joint resolution supporting the use of force to implement UN Resolution 678, H.R.J. Res. 77, 102d Cong., 1st Sess. (1991), Bush declared that "my signing this resolution does not constitute any change in the long-standing positions of the executive branch on either the President's constitutional authority to use the Armed Forces to defend vital U.S. interests or the constitutionality of the War Powers Resolution." Statement on Signing the Resolution Authorizing the Use of Military Force against Iraq, 27 Weekly Comp. Pres. Doc. 48 (Jan. 14, 1991). President Clinton followed this example in Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo. John C. Yoo, Kosovo, War Powers, and the Multilateral Future, 148 University of Pennsylvania Law Review 1673, 1681 (2000); William Michael Treanor, "The War Powers Outside the Courts," 81 Ind. L.J. 1333 (2005) (former Clinton deputy assistant attorney general discussing Clinton OLC positions). For a view supporting the constitutionality of the War Powers Resolution, see John Hart Ely, War and Responsibility: Constitutional Lessons of Vietnam and Its Aftermath (1995); and Louis Fisher, Presidential War Power (2004).

  38 The historical writing on Reagan remains colored by the political controversies from the 1980s, which is not surprising, given that Reagan left office in 1989. Some of the journalistic accounts of his Presidency are helpful, especially Richard Reeves, President Reagan: The Triumph of Imagination (2005); and Lou Cannon, President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime (1991). With Reagan's death, historians are beginning to provide more detail about his life and Presidency. See, e.g., John P. Diggins, Ronald Reagan: Freedom, Fate, and the Making of History (2008).

  39 John Lewis Gaddis, The Cold War: A New History (2005).

  40 5 Historical Statistics, Millenial Edition, supra note 1, at 5-368 (Reagan defense spending); John Yoo, Politics as Laws?: The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the Separation of Powers, and Treaty Interpretation, 89 California Law Review 851 (2001) (discussion of the Strategic Defense Initiative); and Frances Fitzgerald, Way Out There in the Blue: Reagan, Star Wars and the End of the Cold War (2000).

  41 See Gaddis, supra note 39, at 223-28, 234-36.

  42 Fisher, supra note 10, at 140-45.

  43 Ibid. at 140-41.

  44 See, e.g., Sanchez-Espinoza v. Reagan, 770 F.2d 202 (D.C. Cir. 1985) (Central America); Crockett v. Reagan, 720 F.2d 1355 (D.C. Cir. 1983), cert. denied 467 U.S. 1251 (1984) (Central America); Lowry v. Reagan, 676 F.Supp. 333 (D.D.C. 1987), aff'd, No. 87-5426 (D.C. Cir. 1988) (per curiam) (Kuwaiti tankers operation).

  45 The story is told in Report of the Congressional Committees Investigating the Iran-Contra Affair, H. Rep. No. 433 & S. Rep. No. 216, 100th Cong., 1st Sess. (1987).

  46 CBS News, A Look Back at the Polls: Reagan's High Approval Rating Was Matched Only by Clinton and FDR, June 7, 2004, available at www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/06/07/opinion/polls/main621632.shtml.

  47 Fisher, supra note 10, at 149-51.

  48 The events and Bush's perspectives are retold in George H. W. Bush & Brent Scowcroft, A World Transformed (1999).

  49 Ely, supra note 33, at 3.

  50 For current data on Germany, Japan, and Italy, see Central Intelligence Agency, The World Factbook, at www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html. For earlier data, see U.S. Census Bureau, International Data Base, Country summaries, at www.census.gov/ipc/www/idb/summaries.html.

  51 See William Howell, Power without Persuasion: The Politics of Direct Presidential Action (2003); and David Epstein & Sha
ryn O'Halloran, Delegating Powers: A Transaction Cost Politics Approach to Policy Making under Separate Powers (1999).

  52 Richard Neustadt, Presidential Power 5-6 (1960); see also Theodore Lowi, The Personal President: Power Invested, Promise Unfulfilled (1985); Stephen Skowronek, The Politics Presidents Make: Presidential Leadership from John Adams to George Bush (1993); and Thomas E. Cronin & Michael A. Genovese, The Paradoxes of the American Presidency (2003). On the President's legislative program, see Andrew Rudalevige, Managing the President's Program: Presidential Leadership and Legislative Policy Formation (2002).

  53 The trend toward broad delegation is criticized on constitutional political grounds by Theodore Lowi, The End of Liberalism: The Second Republic of the United States (2d ed. 1979); Martin H. Redish, The Constitution as Political Structure 135-61 (1995); David Schoenbrod, Power Without Responsibility: How Congress Abuses the People Through Delegation (1993), and on constitutional law grounds by Larry Alexander & Saikrishna Prakash, Reports of the Nondelegation Doctrine's Death are Greatly Exaggerated, 70 University of Chicago Law Review 1297 (2003); and Gary Lawson, Delegation and Original Meaning, 88 Virginia Law Review 327 (2002). For a defense, see Eric Posner & Adrian Vermeule, Interring the Nondelegation Doctrine, 69 University of Chicago Law Review 1721 (2002).

  54 See Elena Kagan, Presidential Administration, 114 Harvard Law Review 2245, 2277-88 (2001).

  55 The classic explanation of OMB cost-benefit review remains Christopher C. DeMuth & Douglas H. Ginsburg, White House Review of Agency Rulemaking, 99 Harvard Law Review 1075 (1986). For a more recent investigation, see Steven Croley, White House Review of Agency Rulemaking: An Empirical Investigation, 70 University of Chicago Law Review 821 (2003). A description of the Reagan administration's overall approach to the constitutional issues can be found in Terry Eastland, Energy in the Executive: The Case for the Strong Presidency (1992). For criticism of the constitutional reach of White House cost-benefit analysis, see Richard H. Pildes & Cass R. Sunstein, Reinventing the Regulatory State, 62 University of Chicago Law Review 1, 25 (1995).

  56 See generally The Executive Office of the President: A Historical, Biographical, and Bibliographic Guide (Harold C. Relyea ed., 1997).

  57 See Kenneth Mayer, With the Stroke of a Pen: Executive Orders and Presidential Power (2001) (describing growth of executive orders); and Curtis Bradley & Eric Posner, Presidential Signing Statements and Executive Power, 23 Const. Commentary 307 (2006).

  58 2 Ambrose, supra note 20, at 190.

  59 Ibid.

  60 2 Ibid. at 419-23.

  61 See David E. Lewis, Presidents and the Politics of Agency Design: Political Insulation in the United States Government Bureaucracy, 1946-1997, at 21-38 (2003).

  62 See Christopher Yoo, Steven Calabresi & Anthony Colangelo, The Unitary Executive in the Modern Era, 90 Iowa Law Review 601, 633-34 (2005).

  63 Ethics in Government Act of 1978, Pub. L. No. 95-521, tit. VI, 92 Stat. 1824, 1867 (1978). The independent counsel provision was reauthorized in 1983, 1987, and 1994. See Ethics in Government Act Amendments of 1982, Pub. L. No. 97-409, 96 Stat. 2039 (1983); Independent Counsel Reauthorization Act of 1987, Pub. L. No. 100-191, 101 Stat. 1293 (1987); and Independent Counsel Reauthorization Act of 1994, Pub. L. No. 103-270, 108 Stat. 732 (1994). See William K. Kelley, The Constitutional Dilemma of Litigation under the Independent Counsel System, 83 Minnesota Law Review 1197 (1999) (discussing constitutional issues raised by independent counsels); Ken Gormley, An Original Model of the Independent Counsel Statute, 97 Michigan Law Review 601 (1999) (describing history); and Julie O'Sullivan, The Independent Counsel Statute: Bad Law, Bad Policy, 33 American Criminal Law Review 463 (1996).

  64 Inspectors General Act of 1978, Pub. L. No. 95-452, SS 3, 92 Stat. 1101, 1102; see also Paul C. Light, Monitoring Government: Inspectors General and the Search for Accountability (1993).

  65 See National Emergencies Act, Pub. L. No. 94-412, 90 Stat. 1255 (1976); International Emergency Economic Powers Act, Pub. L. No. 95-223, 91 Stat. 1626 (1977); Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, Pub. L. No. 95-511, 92 Stat. 1783 (1978); and Intelligence Oversight Act of 1980, Pub. L. No. 96-450, 94 Stat. 1975; and Case-Zablocki Act, 1 U.S.C. SS 112b (1972).

  66 Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 (1976).

  67 Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, Pub. L. No. 92-225, 86 Stat. 3 (1972) (codified as amended in 47 U.S.C.); Presidential Records Act, 44 U.S.C. SS 2201; Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. SS 552 (1995); Privacy Act, 5 U.S.C. SS 552a. Government in the Sunshine Act, 5 U.S.C. SS 552b (1995); and Federal Advisory Committee Act, 5 U.S.C.A. App. SS 1 (1995).

  68 See generally Steven G. Calabresi & Christopher Yoo, The Unitary Executive (2009).

  69 See Koh, supra note 18, at 117-33.

  70 Dames & Moore v. Regan, 453 U.S. 654 (1981).

  71 INS v. Chadha, 462 U.S. 919 (1983).

  72 Bowsher v. Synar, 478 U.S. 714, 722, 726-27 (1986).

  73 In re Sealed Case, 838 F.2d 476 (D.C. Cir. 1988).

  74 Brief for the United States as Amicus Curiae Supporting Appellees, Morrison v. Olson, No. 87-1279, 1988 WL 1031600 (April 8, 1988).

  75 Morrison v. Olson, 487 U.S. 654, 691-96 (1988).

  76 See Richard A. Posner, An Affair of State: the Investigation, Impeachment, and Trial of President Clinton (2000).

  77 See generally Mark J. Rozell, Executive Privilege: Presidential Power, Secrecy, and Accountability (2d ed., 2002). For an older, less balanced approach, see Raoul Berger, Executive Privilege: A Constitutional Myth (1974).

  78 Letter to the Secretary of Defense Directing Him to Withhold Certain Information from the Senate Committee on Government Operations, May 17, 1954, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower 1954, at 483.

  79 Rozell, supra note 77, at 38-40 (describing executive privilege claims of Truman and Eisenhower); Greenstein, supra note 29, at 205-08 (discussing Eisenhower's indirect attack on McCarthyism).

  80 Rozell, supra note 77, at 60-61. James T. Patterson, Grand Expectations: The United States, 1945-1974, at 775-78 (1997); Stephen E. Ambrose, Nixon: Ruin and Recover, 1973-1990, at 289-445 (1992); and Stanley I. Kutler, The Wars of Watergate: the Last Crisis of Richard Nixon 443-550 (1992).

  81 United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683, 703-13 (1974).

  82 See generally Lucas A. Powe, Jr., The Warren Court and American Politics (2000).

  83 Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954); Brown v. Board of Education II, 349 U.S. 294 (1955). On the resistance to Brown and the reaction of the Civil Rights Movement and Congress, see Michael Klarman, From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality (2004).

  84 Cooper v. Aaron, 358 U.S. 1, 18 (1958).

  85 See Powe, supra note 82, at 485-501. For prominent defenses of the Warren Court, see Jesse H. Choper, Judicial Review and the National Political Process: A Functional Reconsideration of the Role of the Supreme Court 60-128 (1980); John Hart Ely, Democracy and Distrust: A Theory of Judicial Review (1980).

  86 See generally Allen J. Matusow, The Unraveling of America: A History of Liberalism in the 1960s (1985).

  87 Powe, supra note 82, at 495 (quoting Goldwater).

  88 Ibid. at 474 (quoting Nixon); see also Ibid. at 467-75 (Fortas nomination).

  89 See generally Bernard Schwartz, The Ascent of Pragmatism: The Burger Court in Action (1989); and The Burger Court: Counter-Revolution or Confirmation (Bernard Schwartz ed., 1998).

  90 Eastland, supra note 55, at 236 (quoting Reagan); David A. Yalof, Pursuit of Justices: Presidential Politics and the Selection of Supreme Court Nominees 97-98, 133-35 (1999); see also Henry Abraham, Justices, Presidents, and Senators (2001).

  91 See generally David Yalof, Pursuit of Justices: Presidential Politics and the Selection of Supreme Court Nominees (1999); Henry J. Abraham, Justices, Presidents and Senators: A History of the U.S. Supreme Court Appointments Process from Washington to Clinton (1999); and Lee Epstein & Jeffrey Segal, Advice and Cons
ent: The Politics of Judicial Appointments (2007).

  92 Federalist No. 76, at 510-11 (Alexander Hamilton) (Jacob E. Cooke ed., 1961). On the appointments process for Supreme Court justices, see Stephen Carter, The Confirmation Mess, 101 Harvard Law Review 1185 (1988); John McGinnis, The President, the Senate, the Constitution and the Confirmation Process, 71 Texas Law Review 633 (1993); Henry Monaghan, The Confirmation Process: Law or Politics?, 101 Harvard Law Review 1202 (1988); Robert F. Nagel, Advice, Consent, and Influence, 84 Northwestern University Law Review 858 (1990); David A. Strauss & Cass R. Sunstein, The Senate, the Constitution, and the Confirmation Process, 101 Yale Law Journal 1491 (1992); and John C. Yoo, Choosing Justices: A Political Appointments Process and the Wages of Judicial Supremacy, 98 Michigan Law Review 1436 (2000).

  93 See, e.g., City of Boerne v. Flores, 521 U.S. 507 (1997). For criticism of the modern version of judicial supremacy, see Saikrishna B. Prakash & John Yoo, Against Interpretational Supremacy, 103 Michigan Law Review 1539 (2005).

  CHAPTER 9: THE ONCE AND FUTURE PRESIDENCY

  1 James L. Sundquist, The Decline and Resurgence of Congress (1981).

  2 See, e.g., Richard E. Neustadt, Presidential Power from FDR to Carter (1980 ed.); Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Imperial Presidency (1973); James L. Sundquist, The Decline and Resurgence of Congress (1981); William G. Howell, Power without Persuasion: The Politics of Direct Presidential Action (2003); Peter Irons, War Powers: How the Imperial Presidency Hijacked the Constitution (2005); Andrew Rudalvige, The New Imperial Presidency: Renewing Presidential Power after Watergate (2006); Jack L. Goldsmith, The Terror Presidency: Law and Judgment Inside the Bush Administration (2007); and Charlie Savage, Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy (2007).

  3 Compare Samuel Huntington, American Politics: The Promise of Disharmony 75-77 (1981).

  4 Thomas E. Cronin & Michael A. Genovese, The Paradoxes of the American Presidency (2d ed. 2004).