From the New York Times May 3, 1970
WASHINGTON, May 2 – Two Democractic leaders in the Senate today the newly announced bombing of North Vietnam was a step that could prolong the war and compromise plans for a withdrawal of American troops.
Senator Mike Mansfield, the majority leader, when informed of the raid said, “events are piling upon events in a way that strongly indicates there is step up in activity which means, in English, an escalation of the war.
“It is a difficult situation to resign one’s mind to,” Senator Mansfield observed. “because the outlook seems to be getting grimmer by the day.” A similar reaction came from Senator J. W. Fulbright the Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. “Good God!” he exclaimed when told of the raids.
“It looks as if the President is trying what he has been asked to do by many members of Congress,” he said. “To seek a military decision and knock Vietnam out of the war.” Senator Mansfield forecast that serious consideration would be given by the Senate to specific legisative steps that would limit how the President could spend military funds.
This was the upshot of a proposal earlier today by four Senators, two Republicans and two Democrats, to cut of funds for continued military activities in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia unless there was a declaration of war by Congress.
The Senators – Mark O. Hatfield, Republican of Oregon; George S. McGovern, Democrat of South Dakota; Harold E. Hughes, Democrat of Iowa, and Charles E. Goodell, Republican of New York – announced at a news conference that they would offer such an amendment to the pending military procurement authorization bill.
Whether their amendment or other similar proposals would be adopted was doubtful.
CITE POWERS OF CONGRESS
The opposition to the President’s action has centered in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The House and Senate armed services committees are expected to lead efforts to reject the restrictions.
In a statement, the Senators said the “invasion” of Cambodia represented a “turning point of the war” that “dramatizes in the clearest terms yet the constitutions test for the Congress.”
“Under the Constitution,” they said, “Congress has the responsibility to decide the question of war or peace and to provide or refuse funds to wage war. IN the past, Congress has failed to exercise its Constitutional responsibility to pass judgment on the war. By involving us deeper in the conflict, successive Presidents have usurped this power.
“The time has come for Congress to face a historic constitutional choice – to vote the war up or down. It must either legitimize the conflict by declaring war or veto and end to it.”
Their amendment would provide that after Dec. 31, 1970, no funds appropriated by Congress could be used for military assistance or activities in Laos or Cambodia unless there was a declaration of war by Congress. In Vietnam, funds could be used only for withdrawal of American forces in the absence of a declaration of war.
The military authorization bill, now before the House is scheduled to reach the Senate foloor this month. The four said they would attempt by their amendment to force a “yes-or-no” vote on the war.
HATFIELD ENDS SUPPORT
Mr. Hatfield’s announcement today of his co-sponsorship of the amendment was regarded as illustrative of the political disaffection and criticism that Mr. Nixon has stirred up even in Republican ranks with his Cambodia decision.
In 1968, Mr. Hatfield was one of the first liberal Republicans to endorse Mr. Nixon for the Presidential nomination, largely on the ground that he thought Mr. Nixon would be effective in ending the Vietnam war.
Despite his dovish inclinations, Senator Hatfield continued to support the Administration’s Vietnam policies. After the President’s speech of April 20, for example Senator Hatfield issued a qualified statement praising the President’s desire to seek a political solution of the war.
After the Cambodian announcement however, Senator Hatfield told associates that he had reached a breaking point with the President, and could no longer support the Administration, even if that meant the end of his political career.
A MEETING ON WAR MOVES ASKED BY FULBRIGHT GROUP
WASHINGTON – May 1 – The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, moving with intended restraint to challenge the Administration’s policy on Cambodia, took the unusual step today of requesting a conference with President Nixon to discuss the American military involvement there.
In response, Mr. Nixon invited the Senators jointly with the House Foreign Affairs Committee to a meeting at 5 P.M. Tuesday. He also invited the Senate and House Armed Services Committee to meet with him at 8 A.M. Tuesday.
Senate Foreign Relations sources indicated, however, that the committee might not be interested in a joint meeting since it would not reflect the Senators’ special responsibility, under the Constitution, in the area of foreign affairs.
By a unanimous vote, the committee decided to send a letter to the President requesting the conference at his earliest possible convenience. The letter, signed by Senator J.W. Fulbright, Democrat of Arkansas and chairman of the committee, was delivered at the White House today.
As if to clear the decks for what Senator Albert Gore, Democrat of Tennessee [yes, that was his father – ed.] described as “an impending constitutional crisis,” the committee today approved legislation that would repeal the 1964 Tonkin Gulf resolution, which was foten cited by President Johnson as Congressional authorization for the American military involvement in Southeast Asia.
Senator Fulbright, reflecting a nearly unanimous view with the committee, made it clear that he emphatically disagreed with the President’s decision to send American into combat in Cambodia which would result in “a major enlargement” of the war in Southeast Asia. He also questioned whether the President had legal authority to send United States troops into Cambodia.
Senator Mike Mansfield of Montana, the majority leader, who up until now has tended to give qualified support to Mr. Nixon’s policy, broke with the Administration today over Cambodia.
With his voice rising to a shrill pitch of anger Senator Mansfield said in a Senate Speech that, “what confronts this nation in Indochina is not a question of saving face. It is a question of saving lives.’
“The vital concern of this situation, and I use the word ‘vital’ advisedly,” he said, “must be to end our involvement in the war in Vietnam. It is not to become bogged down in another war in all of Indochina.”
As Senator Mansfield finished, Senator Hugh Scott of Pennsylvania, the Senate Republican leader, rose to defend the President, praising him for a “courageous and remarkable decision,” which could shorten the war.
If the conference is held it will be first time that the Foreign Relations Committee as a group has met with a President since 1919, when the committee, then headed by Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts, was at loggerheads with President Woodrow Wilson over ratification of the Versailles Peace Treaty and creation of the League of Nations.
Just as in 1919, when the committee blocked ratification of the Versailles Treaty, the committee now appears headed for a crucial foreign policy confrontation with the White House. The immediate issue is future American policy in Southeast Asia, but the underlying confrontation that is developing is over the power of the President to engage in foreign hostilities without the affirmative approval of Congress.
Senator Fulbright emphasized that for the moment, rather that provoke a constitutional confrontation on the war making powers of the President, the committee was trying to exercise its “responsibility in our constitutional system in as restrained and responsible a way as possible.”
The relationship between the Legislative and Executive Branches in the field of foreign policy, he said, should be “one primarily of persuasion,” and “we hope to retain communications with the Executive.”
The purpose of the proposed conference with the President, therefore, is to see if some “understanding” can be reached that might influence Administration policy in Southeast Asia.
Senator Fulbright acknowledged that the committee was faced with “a terrible dilemma” in trying to impose restrictions through use of control over the purse strings, now that troops have been committed to Cambodia. The same point was made by Seantor John Sherman Cooper, Republican of Kentucky, who along with Seantor Frank Church, Democrat of Idaho is trying to draft legislation that would prevent expansion of the war into Cambodia.
“It’s a question of what you can do to be effective,” Senator Cooper Said. “The President is standing on the constitutional ground of protecting out troops. It can be questioned, but it is difficult to do anything practical about it.”
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