‘A Matter of Balance’
The Kissinger article showed how little balance there is in Kissinger’s views on the use of power. Power for Kissinger is an absolute--the ability of a nation to impose its will on others. While he understands that this ability is limited in a democratic system where power is shared, he cannot help but see this limitation as something unfortunate. If the Administration has clear aims, like beating communism in Vietnam or Nicaragua, Congress ought to follow the lead, or take the full responsibility for failure. It does not occur to Kissinger that the Constitution charges the executive with designing policies for the benefit of the nation, and specifically limits its power to conclude treaties and wage war.
This limitation is to check adventurism. It encourages a foreign policy for which public support exists. It is true there are situations when a risk must be taken even though the people are not sufficiently informed. Kissinger’s share in changing our China policy is a case in point. This exceptional gamble is to his credit; however, it did not involve the use of force. When he applied the principles of the imperial presidency to the Vietnam policy, the results were different.
Kissinger seems to admit a grave mistake made by the Nixon Administration in which he played such an important part: “In retrospect, the Nixon Administration’s crucial mistake over the war in Vietnam (which it inherited) was not to insist on an up-or-down vote regarding its judgment on how to conclude the war.” What this sentence means is that Congress should either have voted enthusiastically for full support of the war effort, which it could have done only by persuading the people first, or it should have let the Administration off the hook by admitting defeat.
This turns the Constitution on its head. Kissinger does not consider the President to be accountable for his foreign policy; rather, his policy is a given, and Congress is to take the blame when it fails to follow. The imperial President ought not to be impeded in conceiving an imperial policy and such a policy is always right.
Kissinger’s thinking on Nicaragua betrays him as an unreconstructed follower of the imperial presidency. Since Congress is wavering and solves its problems by compromises, as Kissinger notes with ill-concealed derision, the Administration cannot effectively execute its design of pressuring the Sandinistas. Thus Kissinger calls for “a compact between the executive and legislative branches defining the proper role for each with some precision.” The readers, surprised by that statement, may ask: Did Kissinger ever find time to read the Constitution? But then they understand the imperial Henry: What he means is not checks and balances, but a system of congressional acquiescence in imperial designs that would ease the Administration’s use of power. Government of the people, by the people and for the people this is not.
HERBERT LEHNERT
Irvine
