Speakers Tags Used in Events

[Music] Welcome to our new episode of This is Democracy. This week we're going to discuss the topic of participatory democracy.

How have and how can people be more involved in our democracy, not just when it comes to voting, but to day-to-day activities to make our democracy more full, more rich, and more real for people. We're going to focus on a particular moment in our history when a young group of citizens came forward with a statement about the importance of participatory democracy, a statement that inspired hundreds of thousands of people and continues to inspire many people. This is the Port Huron Statement of 1962, written by Students for a Democratic Society.

And we have with us one of the foremost scholars of participatory democracy and Students for a Democratic Society and the Port Huron Statement, Dr. Vanessa Cook. Dr. Cook received her PhD in U.S. history from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2015. She wrote a fantastic dissertation that I in part supervised and had the opportunity to learn from.

It's a dissertation that's been published as a really wonderful book that I encourage everyone to read. The book is titled Spiritual Socialists, Religion and the American Left, and it's about those issues and much, much more with some fascinating figures who contributed to our democracy in all kinds of ways. She's written articles in the Washington Post, Dissent Magazine, Religion and Politics, and she's currently the Defense POW MIA Accounting Agency Historian, in residence, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Missing in Action Project.

Vanessa, thank you for joining us this morning.

Oh, good morning. Thank you for having me.

Before we turn to our discussion of participatory democracy and the Port Huron Statement, we have, of course, Mr. Zachary Suri's scene-setting poem. Zachary, what is the title of your poem this morning?

"Port Huron Revisited."

Let's hear it.

"We are people of this generation, housed now in, we are people of this generation, do not forget the oceans of incalculable transgressions and the memory of the maimed millions. We are people of this generation, housed now in absurdity and the phosphorescent orbs of radioactive civility. We are people of this generation, standing by obelisks we're not sure make any sense to us now in a sea of so many sanctimonious automobiles. Mark them as the godly idols of our time. We are people of this generation, housed now in, and the black-white haze of centuries of ambiguous certainty. We are people of this generation, sleep, float, remember. We are people of this generation, housed now in absurdity and the windswept deserts of parking lot dystopias. We are people of this generation, standing now on a bluff overlooking the harbor, observe the Lady of Liberty, wonder what oxidized horror she holds beneath the crown. Thus is the spirit of white giant at the reflecting pool, the names in white crawling along the black marble wall."

I love all the imagery there, Zachary, from the parking lots to the Statue of Liberty. What is your poem about?

My poem is really about the sort of dissatisfaction with American society and the current sort of American political discourse that drove so many young people to the radical political movements of the 1960s. And I think what's so startling today is how relevant many of their concerns and their criticisms of American society are to young people like myself today. And...that was really what my poem was about, was connecting those two generations and those two time periods.

I love the intergenerational element of that, Zachary. Our podcast is designed to be intergenerational.

Well, and the first line of the Port Huron statement is, we are people of this generation, which is such a poignant and powerful statement in and of itself.

Well said.

Vanessa, can you give us some background on this Port Huron statement of 1962? Who wrote it and what was the message that they were trying to promote?

Sure. So in the summer of 1962, students from Students for Democratic Society or SDS met at a retreat in Port Huron, Michigan, hence the name, to really deliberately come up with a statement or an agenda for their generation, as Zachary referred to. It was about 60 students from all over the country.

SDS was a fairly young organization at that time. It was only about two years old, so there were about a dozen chapters on different campuses across the country. And they put out a notice for anyone interested to come and participate in this convention, as they called it, to write this statement, really outlining the problems and concerns that they saw in American society.

Also suggestions or possible solutions to those problems. But it was all framed around the question of how can we enhance democracy in the country and how can we expand democracy in the country?

And it became, as many listeners will know, a very influential document throughout the 1960s, distributed widely. And SDS chapters really start to crop up on most campuses across the country in the 60s.

Why at this moment in 1962, Vanessa, what led to this moment producing this document?

Well, in 1962, I think there were some valid concerns about the state of democracy and threats to democracy, having just gone through the McCarthy era and the undermining of civil liberties and attacks on civil liberties that became very serious in the 1950s. So many of those students grew up recognizing that threat.

Also concerns about ongoing war. The Cold War was becoming more tense between the Soviet Union and the US. And they talked about that in the document and identified that as a problem.

Nuclear warfare, the threat of nuclear warfare and annihilation in that way, hung over them. And I think you can see that fear on almost every page of the Port Huron statement. And just a concern that there was a lot of apathy about the way that the government was running things in the United States, about the United States' role in the world, and the lack of democracy extended to groups like African-Americans in the South.

It sounds in many ways like an echo or a precursor to a number of issues we contend with today. One being the non-representativeness of the Democratic Party in some ways and other parties.

Members of SDS criticized the Southern Democrats, the so-called Dixiecrats, for resisting civil rights actions and resisting a response to the large numbers of citizens who felt disempowered within the political structure. And then also the concerns about inequality, economic inequality, both of which you mentioned so well.

What were their solutions? What were they proposing in place of what they saw as a stagnant political process that was non-representative and problems of inequality? What were they proposing?

So their sort of catchphrase or what became a concept that they put forward as a fresh take on democratic theory was called participatory democracy, which you mentioned in the opening. And participatory democracy was an open-ended term, and it could mean different things to different people.

But as I understand it, it was a concept that meant that democracy should not just be about voting in electoral politics. It shouldn't just be going on election day and pulling a lever, filling out a ballot for politicians, even though that was incredibly important and it was being denied to certain people like African-Americans. And the Students for a Democratic Society really wanted to ensure that everyone had the right to vote.

But beyond that, they wanted to expand democracy, so that really became a way of life for people. And they talked about democracy as a way of life. So it wasn't just electoral politics, but it was participating in the decisions that are going on in your community.

And that meant becoming an engaged citizen, not just apathetic, not just relying on other people to make decisions for you and, you know, assuming that you have no voice or no power. And so they encourage people to get involved in local politics, to go to board meetings, to go to town hall meetings, to lobby their local and state and national politicians with letters or calls, to express their voice and to make those connections between local politics and national politics and to really hold all those politicians accountable to democratic processes.

Why was this concept of participatory democracy so radical? What made it so new at this time?

Well, I think because people really in America did conceptualize democracy or thought of it as the right to voice your opinion, but usually that was done through, you know, electoral processes and voting. So this expansion of democracy, I think was a new, a fairly new concept that changed people's thinking about how democracy could become more embedded in people's daily lives.

The Port Huron statement has been recognized as one of the signposts for a clear demarcation between what was known as the old left, which was framed around more Marxist analyses of economic systems and workplace issues, to a new left. And so the Port Huron statement represents a break or a new chapter in leftist politics and thought in American society.

And one of the biggest differences is that students for democratic society in the Port Huron statement, they did talk about economic issues and traditional trade issues, shop issues, but they really put it in more cultural and social terms. And so it wasn't just economics or, you know, people's identity as working people or the proletariat that they focused upon.

They really expanded the leftist agenda to recognize issues of social problems, of cultural concerns, of people's identity as, you know, mothers and students and African Americans and women and, you know, all kinds of different identifiers, rather than just as working class people.

You raised a really important issue about culture and social relations. One of the criticisms that was thrown at the Port Huron statement, and that's often thrown at leftist politics, as you described them so well, Vaneessa, is the criticism of being socialist. And many would argue then and have argued now that some of these ideas are un-American because they're socialist.

How do you respond to that?

Well, socialism does have a rich history in the United States. It's not just a foreign import and it isn't necessarily Marxist in nature, doesn't necessarily call for the overthrow of the government. So these kind of ideas that people have that are associated more with the Soviet Union or other totalitarian societies that have adopted socialism, you know, that's sort of the nightmare scenario that people think of with socialism.

But obviously there are different types. Democratic socialism is alive and well in most of the advanced countries and the United States, and that began in the early to mid-20th century. But socialism in the terms that SDS understood it, they did avoid the term, especially in the Port Huron statement, because it was such a weighted concept and that it had such negative connotations, particularly in the Cold War context when everyone was being accused of communism, if they stood up for anything that seemed radical.

But socialism really comes down to equality. And I think Students for Democratic Society, they were advocating for a recognition of more equal treatment of everyone in the country. And that ties into democracy because everyone needs to be seen as equal if they're going to have an equal voice in the political process.

And do you think that this argument and the case that was made so eloquently in the Port Huron statement, did it contribute to the civil rights movement?

I think that went hand in hand. I think the civil rights movement was part of the new left umbrella term or new left umbrella movement, that social movement. And the students for democratic society, mostly white students from the North at first, but they became more aware of what was going on in the South with the Jim Crow laws and threats to voting rights there and denials of voting rights and human rights in the South.

And so when they started to see some of this coverage on the news in the late 50s or read about it in newspapers, hear it word of mouth, this was shocking to them that in this country where they grew up and they actually used this language in the opening of the Port Huron statement, we heard that we're a land of liberty and freedom and justice for all.

And yet we grew up and we noticed these contradictions, these glaring problems that didn't live up to those values. And so they saw this as an inspirational moment, the civil rights movement making momentum in the South and gaining traction there.

And they wanted to be part of that push to enhance democracy in that region and across the country.

So how did this relate to the anti-war movement of the movement against the Vietnam War in the United States? Was it a precursor or does the Port Huron statement sort of reflect an early anti-war sentiment?

There's a lot of talk about the military-industrial complex, among other sort of terms about the war machine in the United States. Yeah, I think the Port Huron statement did recognize some troubling trends that even though the Vietnam War wasn't exactly on their radar as much in 1962 as it would be two or three years later even, I think they did see that the United States government was making some decisions that, you know, were concerning to them.

They were troubled by the idea of the military-industrial complex. That's a term that comes up in the Port Huron statement. It's also something that Eisenhower identified as, you know, he warned about that problem.

And so I think that there was an inherent anti-war sentiment within the Port Huron statement because the Students for a Democratic Society did not want the US government to perpetuate war for the sake of a strong economy, for example. They realized that in World War II, the war economy had helped a lot to turn around the economic crisis of the Great Depression, the Korean War right after World War II or soon after World War II.

And then the Cold War tensions heating up did rationalize the continuation of the military-industrial complex and that tight relationship between the government, big business for, you know, military industry and the military itself. And they saw this as, you know, perhaps a worst, a military state and a endless war type of society that they thought was a threat to democracy.

Vanessa, as you're describing these issues so well with regard to civil rights and anti-war, anti-militarist activities, one can't help but think that these issues haven't gone away. Why do you think that's the case?

Well, there has been, there had been some progress with the Voting Rights Act and Civil Rights Act in the 1960s, but since then that has been undermined and chipped away at.

And I think that there is a fear of enfranchisement for, you know, certain politicians who would rather keep people from voting because they fear the consequences of those votes. I'm not saying that one party is more to blame than the other because there are issues with, say, gerrymandering or corruption in both parties. And so that's something people have to be very vigilant about.

But it is unfortunate that even though the Port Huron statement is in need of some updating and many things would be different if young people sat down and wrote an agenda for their generation today, it is unfortunate that some of those issues are still with us and it can be relevant for us today too.

Do you think that in some ways that we forgotten about these issues, that these issues that were put out so eloquently and in such an influential way in the early 1960s and structured many of the debates of that time, that we've sort of forgotten this history? And if so, what do you think is a good way to bring these issues back into our discussions today and to bring young people back into these discussions around these issues?

Well, it's my fear and concern in recent years and, you know, this is just anecdotal. I don't have the evidence for this, but it seems as a historian, I read much more about Americans talking about the need for democracy, valuing that concept and principle of democracy, even using rhetoric like defending democracy, which Woodrow Wilson deployed during the First World War.

That I think props up, comes up more in my reading of 20th century history than it has in recent years. I think today the rhetoric is more around defending the American way of life, which of course you can trace back to FDR and the four freedoms. But today, I think people interpreting, okay, defending the American way of life, that could mean a lot of different things to different people.

It doesn't necessarily mean democracy or include democracy. So I think if we discuss, open up more conversations where democracy is the focus and we reaffirm a commitment to that as Americans and that that's a strong tradition or at least experiment in this country that we need to rededicate ourselves to with programs like this podcast, with, you know, other, not just intellectual or academic forums, but in the general public, I think that we need to reaffirm democracy as a value.

I love what you've said there, Vanessa. I mean, it does seem to me that we use the word democracy, but we too often mean legalistic elements of our society and institutional elements, all of which are important. But the, as you put it, the culture and the personal part of democracy, what it is that brings people together to work together, to participate and address common concerns. That seems strangely to be absent from a lot of our discussions.

And strangely, it seems that that is actually undermined by social media, which often encourages us to yell at each other, not to actually have these deliberative moments where we participate in conversation, bringing our various points of view together. How practically do you think we can build on the SDS and the Port Huron model today to maybe get past these limitations in our current democratic culture?

Well, having those conversations is an important and practical, you know, practicing that discourse, opening that dialogue, even with people who disagree with you. I mean, that's practicing democracy. And I think what you said about social media is right on point.

I think people always want to be entitled to their opinion, and that's important, but they get kind of lost in their stance or their opinion, or they frame things as, you know, Republican versus Democrat, or, you know, this president versus this president-elect, or conservative versus liberal or leftist. And I think that if the conversation were directed more towards democracy and, hey, can we at least agree that democracy is important, that that might bring people together and find some sort of common ground rather than just, you know, pitting this divide against each other.

I know democracy as a concept isn't perfect. There have been many scholars and politicians who found it to be a very slippery concept and not something that could always, that American people could always understand or rally behind. But it's my hope that democracy can still carry that weight of deferring opinions and, you know, multiple worldviews.

And if we reaffirm that, if we use the hope of the Port Huron statement, that we can come together and respect common values and, you know, a common commitment to democracy, that maybe we can heal some of these divides.

How can we inspire young people to think about democracy today? It's something that a lot of young people take for granted or quickly become dissatisfied with. How can we, how can we get young people as excited about democracy as those who wrote the Port Huron statement were?

That is a tough question. I think having a engagement with whatever's going on in your community is a good first step. That can be, like you said, a frustrating experience and it might turn off people pretty quickly. But you need good people in there.

You need to actually, if you do value these principles and you want to make a difference, you know, you can't just, you know, let it up to fate. You actually have to get in there and to make a difference directly. Taking to the streets as some people have done for Black Lives Matter and those more spontaneous eruptions of democratic pressure, that is important as well.

I think also reading, you know, people really could be inspired by just reading about activists in the past, including the Students for Democratic Society in many respects, that that might inspire them to get involved in the process, just keeping that hope alive rather than getting bogged down in the negative.

And of course they could read your book on many activists who valued and stretched and opened the concept of democracy in our society, that these are your spiritual socialists in many ways and they're as spiritual and as democratic as they are inspired by socialist ideas.

Zachary, I wanted to ask you, do you see this work that Vanessa is describing, this work of opening, discussing democracy, bringing more people in, putting ideology perhaps aside and encouraging participation among different kinds of people, do you see this germinating among young people today and do you see a possibility for more of this among your generation of young people who care so deeply about these issues? Where do you see this going?

Yeah, I definitely think that there are a lot of young people, really talented young people thinking about democracy and issues of our democracy today, but I do think there is a sort of lack of a willingness to think creatively and radically about how we can reshape not just policy but our democratic institutions themselves.

And I think that's kind of because our educational system has sort of failed to educate us about how our democracy has shifted and changed throughout its history and how often we've relied on the work of young people to change it for the better and to protect our democracy.

It's very well said, Zachary. It's like Vanessa pointed out earlier, we use the word democracy in our education, but we don't really talk about what it means and as Vanessa put it, how one practices democracy. And maybe a focus on that and a focus on bringing young people together to write and think about it, as Vanessa described, is something we should do more of in our communities and in our educational institutions among other places.

Vanessa, are you hopeful that this work will happen and that it will be done?

I am. I think that some of the troubling signs we're seeing today with the electoral process, I'm hoping will open people's eyes to the need to reevaluate this, to reaffirm it, to actually offer more education about it like Zachary said. You know, everyone wants to add something to the curriculum of our high schools or undergrad courses, but my husband had a course, I think in high school, called "Problems of Democracy."

And I thought, wow, how amazing to have a course that really unpacks that and shows the promise of it but also the problems and issues that have happened throughout our history but also continue today. So that would be a step in the right direction for people in high school who many times don't even have civics classes anymore to start to really think about these issues.

It's such a perfect title, Vanessa.

In many ways, our podcast is designed to be a nationwide course in problems and opportunities of democracy. And one of the really fascinating parts of democracy as a concept is that it encompasses so many different issues and it can encompass so many different people and produce new kinds of ideas, new kinds of solutions to problems.

It's the ever experimental element of democracy that inspires our podcast. It inspired Franklin Roosevelt, in many ways, the historical mentor for our podcast and it is so well embodied. This notion of historical experimentation among diverse groups, it's so well embodied by your work, Vanessa, and what you shared with us today.

Looking back on the Port Huron Statement in 1962, as you've done, really provides us a lesson and inspiration, not to rewrite the statement per se but to think about what an agenda for a new generation and what a more expansive democracy would look like in the 21st century. We need that conversation now more than ever. Vanessa, thank you so much for the work you've done to help ground and inspire this conversation.

You've really shared so much with us today. Thank you.

Yeah, for sure. You as well. I'm inspired by young people like Zachary who are taking this seriously. I know we'll do great things.

It's so true. Zachary and his generation are a new greatest generation in the making. We're fortunate to have them as part of our podcast.

We're particularly fortunate to have Zachary's poems every week. Thank you for your Port Huron revisited reflections, Zachary. Most of all, thank you to our audience for working hard to improve and expand our democracy every day.

Welcome to our new episode of This is Democracy. This week we're going to discuss the Vietnam War and its legacies, its continuing legacies in American society, in global policy, and particularly in light of a recent set of conflicts that produced similarly controversial outcomes for American society and global policy, the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. We are very fortunate to be joined by a friend, colleague, distinguished author, and distinguished scholar, Mark Lawrence.

Mark is the director of the LBJ Presidential Library and Museum here in Austin, Texas, which is the best presidential library, and I say that without any bias at all. Mark is also a professor in the UT Department of History, and he has taught courses on American and international history and various other topics. He's written three fantastic books.

His first book, Assuming the Burden: Europe and the American Commitment to War in Vietnam. His second book is a wonderful narrative history of the Vietnam War as a whole, The Vietnam War: A Concise International History, and it's the only history of the Vietnam War I've seen that is truly concise. It's very hard to write a concise history of the Vietnam War.

And Mark's most recent book, the book that has just come out that we're going to talk about today, is on the Vietnam War and its legacies. It's called The End of Ambition: The United States and the Third World in the Vietnam Era. Mark, congratulations on your book, and thanks for joining us.

Thanks so much, Jeremi. It's wonderful to be here. Before we turn to our discussion with Mark, of course, we have Zachary's scene-setting poem.

Before we turn to our discussion with Mark, of course, we have Zachary's scene-setting poem. What is your poem titled today, Zachary?

It is Hard to Build Utopias.

Let's hear it.

It is hard to build utopias when you burn their children in the jungle. It is hard to build utopias when you burn their children in the jungle, and your carpet bombings make whole nations synonymous with tragedy. It is hard to build utopias when you burn their children in the jungle, and your carpet bombings make whole nations synonymous with tragedy, and you shoot your own children smack dab in the middle of their righteousness. It is hard to build utopias when they are already covered in your own rusty tanks and pierced by your own bullets, when they have already realized they don't need to be saved by you, when your own children are blowing up buildings just so you'd turn around and care a little. It is hard to build utopia, let alone democracy, let alone peace.

Very moving, Zachary. What is your poem about?

My poem is really about the very naive American attitude that we can go anywhere and build the greatest societies out of places that we've already destroyed, and we've already meddled in for long periods of time, and places where things are much more complex than peace and war and democracy and tyranny.

That's a perfect gateway into our discussion with Mark Lawrence. Mark, these are issues you've grappled with in your scholarship for decades.

I have, but I'm not sure I'm going to be able to top Zachary's poem. Zachary, that was awesome. Thank you. I think our session is over

It's always downhill after Zachary's poem, Mark. But Mark, you have, especially in this recent book, you've really delved into the ways in which the effort to build utopia, or a Great Society as Lyndon Johnson called it abroad in Vietnam, really distorted American thinking and American society. First of all, why was the United States trying to do this in Vietnam? Why were we looking to build this utopia, as Zachary put it, in a place so far away that so few Americans could even identify?

Well, I think the United States was in many places around the world in the 1960s, trying to demonstrate the applicability of its own economic and political and social systems as a way of waging the Cold War and sort of demonstrating to people all over the world that the United States had the answers when it came to human progress and development and effective governance.

This was a period of intense competition, as you well know, Jeremi, between the East and West for the loyalty and sympathy of societies all around the world. So it really mattered, I think, to Americans that they had the keys to unlocking development and democratization and progress in a broad way. Vietnam was just one of many places where Americans tried to achieve those objectives.

And why were our failures there? And of course, you and others have written in depth on the sources of our shortcomings in these activities. But why was it so disruptive? Why did it have such a deep effect at home, as Zachary refers to in his poem? And also,as your new book really narrates in such depth and in such compelling detail, why did it have such an effect on American foreign policy in so many other areas?

Well, I think that the American experience in Vietnam helped to tear down this set of ambitions that ran so high in the early 1960s. Americans in the late 1960s, perhaps in the early 1970s, by and large, believed that they had the ability because of their vast know-how, their technological capabilities, their resources. The world's most productive economy believed that they could bring real change to many countries around the world, and frankly, to their own society as well. I think there's a lot of continuity that has sometimes eluded historians between the domestic arena in which JFK and LBJ and other liberals were so determined to bring reform to all facets of American life, on the one hand, and the way that they approached the international scene as well, both in the international and domestic realms. Liberals believed that by marshaling the resources of the United States, the vast expertise that the United States had at its disposal, they could achieve great things.

And I think what happens across the 1960s, and this is really what I try to get at in the book, is that Americans lose that sense of ambition. And the Vietnam War is a crucial reason, well, only one of the reasons, but a crucial reason why Americans lose that sense of ambition and American foreign policy undergoes a transformation to something quite different by the late 1960s.

But there are a lot of people who, especially nowadays, who would argue that American intervention abroad was, if not purely self-interested, was motivated mainly by self-interest. Is that accurate?

Well, I think one of the things that makes American foreign policy so difficult to understand sometimes is the ways in which self-interest and altruism blend in the way Americans think about the world. The old adage was, what's good for General Motors is good for the world. And I think that there's something really important in that kind of comment. Right? So many American policymakers believe that the United States was on the side of righteousness and had the keys to assuring progress and uplift for the whole world. But they had no doubt at the same time that the same policies would also serve the United States. So I think this distinction between self-interest and the larger global interest is clearer in retrospect than it was in the minds of the people who tended to make policy in the United States. And that was certainly true, I would say, during the 1960s.

And Mark, I think your book is really brilliant on that point because it shows, especially in your country-specific chapters, and I hope all of our listeners will go ahead and buy and read the book. Mark has chapters on Brazil, India, Iran, Indonesia, and Southern Africa. In each of these chapters, there's kind of a similar narrative arc, it seems to me, where the United States is initially pursuing self-interested goals, but also goals that are merged to some sense of democratic hope, some sense of positive change. And then in almost every one of these chapters, Mark, to my reading, the effects of the Vietnam War to push the United States toward more support for authoritarianism and often more militaristic behavior or supportive militaristic behavior on the ground. Is that a fair reading? And if so, why does that happen?

I think that is a fair reading. I tried to pick case studies, and you've listed them, Jeremi, thank you, that would illustrate a range of patterns in American behavior across the 1960s. Two of them, Brazil and Indonesia, are very similar in demonstrating the ways in which Americans supported right-wing coups that basically eliminated very uncertain political situations in very important countries in favor of regimes, military regimes, that would clearly serve American interests much more directly and be reliable partners of the United States.

But in Iran, I think you see a similar pattern. There isn't a change in regime, but the United States becomes much more supportive and much less critical of the Shah, a deeply authoritarian figure over that time. And then I also threw in a couple of case studies that illustrate how the United States behaved in places where there was no reliable authoritarian alternative. So I look at India, where Americans had great hopes for a new kind of partnership with a regime that was hardly a candidate for a close alliance with the United States in the early 1960s. And I try to show how the United States sort of soured on that whole idea of building connections to India. And basically by the end of the decade was very much at arm's length with the Indian government and largely given up on its ambitions there.

And in Southern Africa, I try to show how in the early 1960s, Americans believed that they could find ways to support racial justice in this region that was plagued by the vestiges of colonialism and white settler rule in several places, largely abandoned those hopes and really settle for a deeply problematic status quo that at least had the advantage of being stable in the short term and therefore not a situation that would require that the United States expand vast resources or political capital on very, very difficult problems.

And Mark, why this arc? Why in each case does it seem not only that the United States is less ambitious as you put it so well in your title, but also that the United States becomes, I don't know if this is fair, but it seems to me more cynical in its policies.

Yeah, I think that's right. I think that it's important to recognize that the American attitude toward the wider world in the early 1960s depended on a certain degree of confidence, right? That Americans could have their way in the wider world. It depended as well on the idea that the United States had the resources to pump into these areas to achieve the results that it wanted. And it relied as well, I think, on the idea that it was okay to take some risks, right? It might not ultimately pan out in every place, but it was worth the effort. And I think what you see across the 1960s, particularly as the Vietnam War heats up and really consumes debate in the United States, is that Americans question all of those ways of thinking that were easy to see at the beginning of the decade.

Resources are pumped into Southeast Asia in a way that makes them much less likely to want to expend resources elsewhere. LBJ becomes quite risk-averse, losing much of that tolerance for taking chances that I think had been part of the American approach in the early part of the decade, because he understood that the war was deeply controversial. And the last thing that he wanted was another controversy or another problem, another headache in the world.

So if there were reliable alternatives to be had out there in the Third World, LBJ was increasingly likely to seize on those and privilege stability above change across the board, I think you could say, by the end of the decade.

And just to build on that, Mark, another thing that struck me in your book was how often LBJ, the President of the United States, was willing to work with people he wouldn't work with otherwise if they were willing to support him in Vietnam. So in a strange way, the Vietnam War became a driver of American policy rather than American interests and ideals. Again, is that fair? And what are your thoughts on that?

I do think that's true. I think by certainly, LBJ is so focused on Vietnam that he sees every other policy challenge globally through that prism. And so even in relatively distant and perhaps somewhat unlikely places where you wouldn't think Vietnam was a major issue, LBJ is talking about Vietnam. So when he meets the generals in Brazil, when they come to visit him, I suppose I should say, or when he's talking to the Shah, Vietnam is very much on the agenda and he's looking for support. He's looking for indications that these regimes will support him, even if it's in a relatively symbolic way. That mattered a lot to LBJ as time passed.

So Mark, could you just say a little more about why that happens though? I mean, your book narrates that so well. And I was particularly struck by the Brazilian generals as well, because to me, you couldn't get farther from Vietnam than Brazil, right? But why is, I mean, this is the most powerful person in the world, President Lyndon Johnson. He's got so much experience also dealing with political failure as well as political success. Why does this small, as he says, this small country far away, why does it come to dominate everything this way?

Well, because I think that it came to dominate so thoroughly the American home fronts by 1967-1968. LBJ was nothing if not a political creature who was deeply sensitive to what was going on politically across American society, deeply sensitive to what was being said about him and his leadership. And so over time, I think he came to see Vietnam as the single major issue that confronted his administration.

And for this reason was prone to seeing every other issue through that prism. And I think you see it not only in connection with foreign policy issues, where you might be more likely to see connections among different foreign policy questions. You also see it in the domestic arena, where LBJ's attitudes toward his advisors, toward members of Congress, were deeply informed by his perception of where they stood on Vietnam and how they were likely to support him or not. It's, I think, one of the tragedies of the Johnson presidency that Vietnam becomes so all-consuming for him that every other issue becomes in some ways subordinate to it.

Right. You and I have talked about this before. I mean, even his views of students in the United States become defined by where they stand on the Vietnam War, which is extraordinary if you think about that. Zachary.

Yeah. So you very clearly and convincingly laid out this idea of the end of ambition and the limits that it places on foreign policy decisions. But how do you square that with the rise in global connections and global awareness among young people and others during this period?

Yeah, that's a fascinating question. And, you know, Jeremi is one of the great authorities on this issue. But the way I would answer this question is as follows. I think that LBJ, as time passed and as Vietnam consumed his agenda, became increasingly concerned with exerting control, exerting control over an increasingly chaotic situation. And that chaos was apparent not only in Southeast Asia, but also in the streets of the United States and in the streets, frankly, of other cities around the world, particularly in the all important year of 1968.

He was aware that activism and unrest was increasingly a global phenomenon. And I think for this reason, was drawn to the idea that where stability seemed to be possible, where he could find partners who would cooperate with him and clamp down on at least some of this unrest, he was ready to seize those opportunities. So, you know, I bite off a piece of that larger story by looking at American relationships with countries in the third world.

But, you know, Jeremi, I think your book Power and Protest gets at another dimension of this broad phenomenon, the quest for stability and security and predictability in an increasingly uncertain world where governmental authorities are losing their ability to control. You know, everything that's happening around the world is in some ways a big story of the 1960s.

Yeah, I thought, Mark, your book did really a wonderful job of taking that story that some of us have focused on and really connecting it to the story of what was called the third world and how this impacted not simply detente policy, a search for stability between the US and the Soviet Union and a search for law and order at home. Lyndon Johnson's the first to really use that phrase, law and order. But as you show in this book, as I think no one has before, how this really comes to define, again, American policy in Brazil and Indonesia, which to me was, again, startling. I had seen hints of this, but my gosh, the depth of it, I think we have not appreciated until reading your book.

I wonder, Mark, what you think about the legacies. I guess I'm asking you in this question sort of for your extended conclusion. You have an excellent conclusion to the book, but how would you extend it on for where this takes us, not just in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but in the last decades of the Cold War?

I think that the result of the trends that I write about in the book is that the United States by the early 1970s is drawn very strongly to the notion of stability in the third world. As I've said, most of that ambition that was so characteristic of the early 60s has disappeared. I think it really was Richard Nixon and someone you know, Jeremi, better than anyone, Henry Kissinger, who fully articulated the logic that had become clear to the Johnson administration as the 1960s passed.

What jumps out at me in connection with the history of the 1970s is how unstable some of those, many of those relationships that the United States had formed in the interest of assuring stability turned out to be. So the relationship with the Shah of Iran, very appealing, right? Under the chaotic circumstances of the 1960s gives way to massive instability in the 1970s. The quest for stability in Latin America gives rise to a new period of instability and chaos in some places, at least, as the 1970s advances. And on and on, we could go looking really around the world.

So I think what I would try to emphasize by way of the larger implications of the book is that this search for stability, which made a lot of sense under a very particular set of circumstances, gives rise to precisely the opposite as time passes and tends to confront the United States with a number of really pressing challenges. And I don't push this too far in the book, but I think it's not too much of a stretch to connect some of this instability to trends that continue to play out in the 21st century.

Southern Africa, Southern Asia, right? Southwest Asia, at least, remain areas of real contention. And they remain areas of contention for a whole lot of reasons. But I think that the history of the 1960s is not unimportant in understanding why it is that those areas remain sources of concern many years after the period that I write about.

Sure. And the Middle East, you talk about and write about Iran, and that certainly would be a major element of what you're talking about here. Mark, how then should we explain, taking in all that you've shared with us in elucidating these changes in American policy and the implications for American democracy and for international affairs, how then do we situate that in relationship to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which have an eerie echo of the period you're writing about?

You are not kidding. I mean, the similarities between Iraq and Afghanistan, on the one hand, and Vietnam on the other, have been a subject of a vast amount of writing. I'm certainly persuaded that the similarities are eerie in many, many ways. And we could certainly spend some time, if you like, talking about some of the ways in which those wars were similar. The way I would tell the story of the way in which Americans have thought about and tried to draw lessons from the history of the Vietnam War would go something like this. In the 1990s, with the end of the Cold War, Vietnam lost some of its power in American politics and society.

But I think it was really the Iraq War, and particularly the difficulties that the United States ran into there between, say, 2004 and 2007 or so, that brought Vietnam very much back to the forefront, at least in connection with debates over foreign policy. And I think around the same time as political polarization really became that much more extremein the United States, you could also see that Vietnam continued to operate at a very deep level in American society as a touchstone for deep-seated social and cultural debates over some pretty profound issues that tend to divide Americans over questions like their Americans' relationship to their government, the reasonable obligations that government can impose on citizens, the duties of citizens to protest and object to the behavior of theirgovernment, and so forth. A lot of those questions, I think, that Vietnam really put on the table remain very much part of American political life and unfortunately tend to divide Americans very deeply to this day.

I think that's super helpful, but then it opens up another question, right? If so many American leaders who were making policy and American voters who were voting for those leaders had the experience of Vietnam in mind in one way or another, and here I'm thinking about people like recently passed Secretary of State Colin Powell, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, former Vice President Richard Cheney, Obama himself, who was reading about Vietnam at the start of his presidency. How could they make mistakes of excessive ambition, if that's what happened in Afghanistan and Iraq, if, as you point out, the lesson was so clearly to limit ambition?

Well, that lesson, I think one has to acknowledge cuts against some pretty deep-seated impulses that run through American history and American political culture, even in the post-Vietnam period. I think going a very long way back in American history, you can see a strong impulse to bring uplift and progress and reform to the wider world, to impose the American model on the rest of the world, to assume that the American model is applicable indeed to the rest of the world. So Vietnam, I would argue, and certainly many other Americans would argue, does teach the lesson of humility, of the fact that there are limits on what the United States can achieve in the world. But I think that one of the things that stands out pretty clearly in the history of American foreign relations in the last years, since the end of the Vietnam War, is that that lesson was only partially learned, only really learned by some Americans. And of course, there's a whole other set of lessons that were learned by people with a different set of preferences when it comes to American foreign policy.

There is an alternative set of lessons that would emphasize that really the key point about Vietnam is that you must not give up too early on American commitments overseas, that the United States really does have the wherewithal to achieve its objectives in the wider world. It's just that we don't sometimes have the staying power to see it through. I think there've been fascinating debates in connection with Iraq and to some extent in connection with Afghanistan that have really revealed the competing ways in which Americans of different political persuasions draw lessons from the war.

Mark, we always like to close with a focus on how history can provide us some optimistic, positive steps forward. And that's an article of faith for our podcast. As you know, it's an article of faith for me.

I have to believe this. And your book is so rich in its recounting of this period. What are the lessons that you hope, especially in the context of Afghanistan and Iraq now, what are the lessons you hope that readers take as they think about American foreign policy and American democracy going forward?

Well, one of the lessons I think is the predictable one and the one that we've already spoken about, that there are clear limits on what the United States has historically been able to achieve and presumably can achieve going forward in the world. I think that lesson of Vietnam, as I mentioned just a moment ago, was imperfectly learned, was learned only by some Americans. And yet I think it's a lesson that we constantly need to be reminded of and to consider as the United States confronts inescapably more Vietnam-like, Afghanistan-like, Iraq-like problems in the years to come.

But here's the other lesson that I think comes, that's a little more original, I suppose, and comes more directly to my book. And maybe there's something a little bit optimistic here. I think that my book shows the risks, the very pragmatic risks, the very practical risks that flow from pumping too much attention and resources into one part of the world. It shows the destructive impacts that can occur in connection with American foreign policy globally if Americans lose the ability to prioritize, to decide what's really important and how much resources any particular problem is worth as Americans confront it.

And the reason why I say I think there's something a little bit optimistic in that observation is that this is probably a lesson that many Americans, regardless of where they stand on the big questions of the legacy of the Vietnam War, could perhaps agree on. We recognize that there are risks in going too far in one place and sort of losing a sense of proportionality, losing an ability to prioritize. Um, so it may be that. When the problem is framed in that way, what are America's priorities? Where, where should it attach greater importance and devote more resources? We could find space for agreements or at least broad consents.

I think that's wonderful, Mark. Another way I think of thinking about that and, and you've, you've really provided such a strong foundation for this is to recognize that trying to win unwinnable wars is not what we should be doing. That there are many other opportunities for the use of America's vast resources, right.

That beautifully said exactly Jeremi. And you, you phrased it in even more optimistic way. And I really appreciate that.

I had to find some optimism, Zachary, as, as we close. Uh, I know you and your friends have been talking a lot about what's happened in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, war in Afghanistan and Iraq, obviously the Vietnam. Do you see lessons for your generation in this story?

I certainly do. I think one of the lessons is that these issues are always complex and never just black and white, never easy or impossible. And I think part of the problem, and, I think particularly among young people is that foreign policy issues can seem so black and white and, and, and, and, and so easy, but they're so complex. And, and part of the problem is that. Our political conversations, aren't mature enough, uh, in this country to really be able to, to address those issues appropriately.

I think there's a lot to that. And there's a lot between cynicism and the utopia. You talked about it in your poem, right? I think, I think Mark's book shows that there actually are. There's a lot that can be done in between maybe that's, what's abandoned because of the obsession with Vietnam. Mark, this has been a really insightful conversation. I encourage everyone to go out and read and read your book and buy it and give it away as gifts as well. The End of Ambition: The United States and the Third World in the Vietnam era. Mark, thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you so much, Jeremi. And thank you, Zachary.

Zachary, Zachary. Thank you for your poem and thank you. Most of all, to our listeners for joining us for this episode of This is Democracy.

Welcome to our new episode of This is Democracy, our first new episode of 2020 of the new decade. And we are so fortunate this morning, we are discussing Congress and war powers, an issue that's been in the news really for 240 years in American history, and an issue that's certainly at the center of American attention today. And we have with us, probably the person who's studying these issues most deeply as a historian, Clay Katsky. Clay, welcome.

Thank you. Glad to be here.

Nice to have you on with us. Clay is finishing his PhD here at the University of Texas, and he's writing his dissertation on Congress's role in managing and dealing with presidential war powers, particularly in the 1970s and 80s. And so we're so fortunate to have him here. He knows more about this subject than anyone else. He's also a fantastic teacher. And so we're delighted to have you here, Clay. Before we turn to our discussion with our expert, with Clay, we have our scene-setting poem. I haven't had a chance to say that in a little while, our scene-setting poem with Zachary Suri. What's the title of your poem today?

An adaptation of Allen Ginsberg's A Supermarket in California for a Nation on the Brink of War.

My gosh. So you've taken an Allen Ginsberg, who I know is one of your favorite poets, and you have adapted one of his poems for our discussion today. Is that correct?

That's correct.

Okay. So we have the merger of Zachary Suri and Allen Ginsberg. Let's hear it.

What thoughts I find of you these days, Frank Church, for we huddled in the bedrooms listening to our radios with a headache, self-conscious, looking at the end of the world. In our nightmarish haze and shopping for semblances, we all crawled into the neon fruit supermarket with you, dreaming of the broken ghost. What nuclear bombs and what assassinations, whole battalions shopping at night, aisles full of shell-shocked soldiers, ghostly Donald Rumsfeld and the avocados, Reagan and the tomatoes, and you, Lyndon Johnson, what were you doing down by the hot dog buns? I saw you, Uncle Sam, disheveled, lonely old optimist, fumbling with the paper towel rolls and eyeing the peanut butter with a blank stare. I heard you asking questions of each, whom did I really kill today? What price for world peace? Are you James Madison? I wandered in and out of the brilliant star-spangled stacks of cans following you, and followed in my imagination by the ghost of Montesquieu and Lafayette.

We strolled down the open corridors together in our solitary remembrance, tasting empire, possessing every forbidden delicacy, and never passing the eye of the cashier's congressional oversight. Where are we going, you lost Democrat? The doors close in an hour. Which way do your reluctant guns point tonight? Maybe in some future time I will touch the founding document in my pocket and dream of our odyssey in the supermarket and feel absurd. Will we walk through a war among the distant highways and software engineers, the trees add shame to shame, lights out in the houses, awaiting air raid signals that still seem so inevitable? Will we stroll dreaming of the lost democracy we left in a pickle jar behind the old folks' home back to our silent cottage, maybe Lincoln's mausoleum? Ah, dear father, tip your hat, lonely old vagrant, you can lose the false individualism with me. For what America did we truly have when we handed Sharon the coin and we got out on a sinking bank and stood watching the boat disappear on the blackwaters of the Potomac?

Wow. Nice. I love the imagery there, Zachary. So why did you choose this Ginsberg poem and why did you adapt it in the way you did?

Well, this poem, Supermarket in California, which was written in 1955, in it Ginsberg chases Walt Whitman through a supermarket and he's really critiquing how materialism and commercialism has undermined democracy in his view. And I am critiquing the ways that imperialism and war has undermined democracy in the U.S. today. And I think though they seem very far apart, I think both moments are very similar in the sort of aching for a more perfect union.

I think that's a perfect spot to turn to Clay. This is something the founders thought about, right? About the question of how you can maintain a democracy and still fight wars when necessary for the national defense. This is something the founders thought about, right? About the question of how you can maintain a democracy and still fight wars when necessary for the national defense. Yes. How did the framers think about this?

Well, in terms of what the framers were looking for in war making, they were looking for somewhat of a shared power between the president and Congress. And in fact, this was a major breakthrough at the time. In order to share power with the presidency was a huge break from when monarchs controlled all aspects of war.The framers didn't want to give the president authority to go to war unilaterally.

Right. And so they gave Congress particular powers. What are the constitutional powers that Congress has?

So the main power that Congress has, granted by Article 1, Section 8, Clause 11, is that Congress shall have the power to declare war. And we've seen over time this sort of power can be useful, but has eroded. The declared wars include War of 1812, Mexican-American War, Spanish-American War, World War I and World War II. But Korea starts this trend of undeclared wars. So the power to declare war has somewhat diminished over time.

There are other powers, though, important powers that Congress has. The rest of that clause talks about the to raise and support armies. It's interesting. It says to raise and support armies, but it also says, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for longer period than two years. So already Congress, in the Constitution, you have Congress trying to limit, or you have the framers trying to limit, the president's ability to have long, drawn-out conflicts. Even limit Congress's ability at that point.

Right. Forcing a vote at least every two years on the money for the conflict.

Yes. To revisit the issue, and so that we're not just stuck in endless wars.

Wow.

The third important power in that section is to provide and maintain a Navy, which obviously has been extended to the Air Force, and maybe in the future to a Space Force, or something like that. And then the final important power in that clause is to make rules for government and regulation of the land and naval forces. So to some extent, Congress does have control over the naval and land forces, making rules, making laws governing their conduct and such. The final thing, also, that's not exactly related, but is a part of the Congress's war powers in the Constitution, is the Senate's ability to approve and reject international agreements.

Right. Right. Right. And it's actually a two-thirds vote, isn't it?

Yes. So this is a high bar. And this has caused issues that we could even see recently, something like the Iran deal, which wasn't given to Congress because the bar couldn't be met. So here's an instance of the President going around Congress because Congress wasn't going to be able to give the President what he needed. And that's an example of the power that the President has over Congress. And I think it's fair to say, right, that from the beginning, from Washington's time, there was already tension.

Yes.

That Presidents have a tendency to want to have more of a free hand, particularly when it comes to military affairs.

How has that story evolved over time?

Well, really what you see is you see Presidents slowly taking liberties over time with Congress. As you mentioned, starting with Washington, there are issues with England and there's pressure to go to war. And Washington is able to sway Congress in his direction not to go to war by sending diplomatic people out to talk to diplomats in England. So he's sort of so Congress at that point is pushing for war and he's sort of pulling them back. He's showing his his teeth. He's showing that he can do this.

In fact, the House requests documents related to these negotiations and he refuses based on executive privilege, which is the first instance of executive privilege being used. Going forward, you know, you have Thomas Jefferson imposing embargo acts and doing things that Congress was not completely on board with, but was within the president's power. The I'd say the first real instance of the president overstepping his bounds in the war making really comes during the Mexican-American war with with James Polk. Polk, there is not enough support in Congress for war and Polk sends troops down to the border of Mexico intending to incite a war and intending for Congress to jump on board with that war.

One of the things that we see over and over again is that it's very difficult for Congress to pull back once hostilities have been engaged. And, you know, we know that it's very difficult. I mean, Congress has control of appropriations, but it's very difficult to cut off funds for troops in the field. So and this continues to unfold as each war comes, as the country becomes more involved with the outside world, you know, following the Spanish-American war and territorial conquest. Our butting up against outside powers means that the president is gaining power in in this sort of arena.

The president has what some would call an agenda setting power, right? He can send American forces. He can do something and then, in a sense, almost threaten Congress that if they don't support that, that they'll be abandoning American forces overseas. Right. And so he really gets the first move in a sense. Why have presidents been able to do this more effectively and why, as you already said earlier on, Clay, have Congress's day to day powers over the military and over military and war decisions, why have they diminished so precipitously in the 20th century and early 21st century?

Well, for one, you know, you look at the threat of national security and the Cold War coming from the Cold War. The threat of national security has been used by the executive to push the idea that only the president can protect the nation. There is some concern that a body like Congress that has endless debates and an endless number of ideas cannot come together quickly enough in order to protect the country in a proper way. A lot of people would say that too many voices are being heard and that you need a single person to make a decision. That said, in the 20th century, Congress has not necessarily used all of its powers to its best advantage. So I'd say one of the things that is not directly talked about in the Constitution, but is a constitutional power that Congress has that relates to war, is their investigatory powers and their powers of oversight.

Yes, yes. And so how do those powers work? What power does that give Congress?

So it says in the Constitution that all legislative powers herein granted shall be used by the Congress of the United States. And that's basically a general term that where the framers intended Congress to seek out information when crafting or reviewing legislation. George Mason himself said members are not only legislators, but they possess inquisitorial powers. They must meet frequently to inspect the conduct of public office. So over and their oversight powers include subpoena and contempt powers. And those, I think, are the major powers that haven't been used enough in the 20th century.

And when you think about the times that Congress has been most effective inserting itself into foreign policy in the 1920s, in the 1970s, somewhat in the 1980s, it's when Congress has embarked on ambitious investigations into the president's making of war.

Right. And oftentimes, until recently, at least, historians and journalists would criticize those moments. I mean, one of the critiques of the 1920s is of American isolationism and in particular of Congress's excessive efforts to limit presidential power after World War One with the Nye Committee, for example, which alleged that war profiteers were driving American policy. Even future President Harry Truman was involved with these hearings. You have a different view, right? On what? You have a different view in the sense that you don't see these hearings as as undermining the Constitution and undermining American power. You see them as actually crucial, correct?

Absolutely crucial. And, you know, even founders who did believe in a strong executive like Hamilton still believed that it would be utterly improper and unsafe to give the president full control over foreign policy. So the idea is that the founders wanted to make it difficult to enter war. They wanted to make they were expecting congressional debate to restrain the country from going to war.

Why have they not enforced that more than why? Why since, as you said, since World War Two, have we continually been at war? And why has Congress either done nothing or, as in the current situation, authorized military force in 2001, 2002? That's the current legislation that's used by many presidents through this current president. Why have they allowed that to go on? Why have they allowed presidents to stretch the legislation or operate without legislation at all?

Well, I'd say that the why is, you know, somewhat of a psychological factor of the threat of nuclear war that comes, you know, directly after the end with the Cold War, directly after World War Two. The country is afraid. People are afraid that of possible annihilation of possible World War III. There is a sense that there are, as I said before, too many voices in Congress that that you need one single strong person to push forward. You know, the president is tasked with defending the nation. And one thing that really comes clear in the atomic age is that the nation needs defending.

Before that, you know, an attack on Pearl Harbor is the first major attack in over 100 years. And the idea that the United States has once again been vulnerable, that this fortress America no longer exists, the seas are no longer protecting us because these missiles can be coming. It really pushed Congress and the American people into giving the president a lot of leeway in terms of war making powers, in terms of foreign policy and in what I study in terms of intelligence gathering and intelligence work.

So the Congress, even liberal members of Congress, were very, very were very, very easy or quick to give the president green lights on all sorts of covert operations and on assassinations and things like that. It was to some extent you see Congress putting their heads in the stand and allowing the president to defend the nation in whatever in whatever way is necessary. So in part, it's that members of Congress don't want political responsibility for yes.

And, you know, one thing is that, you know, Congress, they have to especially in the House, you know, they're constantly running for reelection and Congress itself is constantly running for reelection. The president only has to get reelected once. Congress is hoping to get reelected again and again and again. And so for them, their political livelihoods are at stake. And if the country, if a war is popular in the country and it's not and it's popular in your district, chances are as a as a congressperson, you're going to support that.

Right. Right. Zachary, you had a question.

Yeah. How do we get to the current legislation that we're supposed to be operating under the War Powers Act of 1973? How do we get to that? And how does that how is that contributed and played out in the past few decades?

Yeah. Really good question. I mean, so, you know, War Powers Act comes at an amazing time in American history because this act probably could never have been passed at any other time other than in 1973. Nixon is completely on his heels after Watergate. People are still fuming over the Vietnam War. Nixon, Nixon actually. So and the thing that's most remarkable is that Nixon vetoes the the amendment and then it's the the act and then it's overwritten. So from the beginning, this is a major departure that that the president is against going forward. Some presidents see it as unconstitutional and completely ignore it.

So far, there's been little to no impact on the decisions of presidents due to the War Powers Act. It hasn't really restrained them from doing anything. Some. And as I said, some administrations straight up refused to recognize its constitutionality. But in 1975, Ford did submit a report to Congress as a result of his order to send troops to retake the Miagas, an operation to rescue some American hostages. He the troops were recalled within the 60 days, so it didn't actually have an effect. But he did report to Congress if the troops had remained overseas for 60 days, it would have triggered the War Powers Act.

In 1979, Carter failed to notify Congress of the operation to rescue the hostages. That's less about the War Powers Act and more about clandestine operation reporting. But it is sort of similar.

In 1981, Reagan sends Marines to Lebanon when he reported this to Congress. And and after the Marines were attacked, Congress does authorize the Marines to stay in country for 18 months. So that's really the first example of a president state adhering to the War Powers Act or at least stating that reporting to Congress and then accepting Congress's proposal for how to deal with the troops. At the time, Reagan knew that 18 months was a really long time and they probably weren't going to be there for that long anyway. He pulled them out in much less time.

If I remember, he did report to Congress, but he said he didn't believe he had a constitutional duty.

And that would his administration and Bush and Cheney, who gives a dissent to the Iran Contra report, would say that all any effort to infringe on the president's war making powers would be unconstitutional. In 1990, Bush agreed. Bush said that he didn't need congressional authorization to carry out U.N. resolutions in Iraq, but he did report to Congress and ask for congressional support for operations in the Persian Gulf. Clinton authorized airstrikes in various places pursuant to U.N. Security Council resolutions without regards to the War Powers Act, which some in Congress objected to. So the history of the War Powers Act is pretty much that it has done nothing so far. I think that at the time there was a concern.

The War Powers Act was almost written to prevent Vietnam from continuing or to prevent a continuation of what was going on in Vietnam, of leaving troops overseas for an extended time.

Yeah. So how have presidents reconciled clandestine operations with the sort of constitutional balance of powers between Congress and the executive? Because like particularly in the Reagan years, we see this giant growth of clandestine operations.

Yeah.

So and this is your book, Clay.

Yes. So the so presidents don't like the idea of Congress being involved in clandestine operations at all, starting with, you know, in the early days of the CIA, the way that Congress and the president would converse on these things would be on intelligence operations, covert operations would be done in very informal meetings, you know, in the back offices of these guys with smoke and smoke filled rooms and backs offices, you know, just lunch meetings, things like that. It wasn't until the over drinks, over drinks, mostly.

It wasn't until the 1970s that Congress really struck out and tried to solidify a way that it would be included in the intelligence process. And so what that meant was the creation of the intelligence committees that you see in the news now, these days, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the committee that Adam Schiff chairs.

This is the committee that Adam Schiff chairs.

The yes, that Adam Schiff shares in the counterpart in the Senate, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence created in the 1970s as a way to check up on presidents who, as I said, did not want to share intelligence with Congress and who did not want Congress involved in that sort of decision making process.

The main way that Congress is brought into these into these decisions is comes from the reporting requirements that says before any covert action is carried out, the president must sign a document called a finding that says that the operation is in furtherance of the national security. And this document before the operation takes place needs to be given to the intelligence committees. And the intelligence committees have no veto power over these over this. The president is basically notifying them that he's going to do something.

But what it does is it gives the chance for an exchange of ideas that that the committee will hold hearings, closed doors, hearings over this, get the insights of their members and, you know, send reports back to the president on what they think of this. You know, if the president says that he's going to, you know, take out a general of another country and and Congress says, you know, we're going to be up in arms if you do this, maybe the president then thinks twice.

Yeah. So you said, Clay, and I think the consensus among historians would agree that the War Powers Act of 1973 did not really limit presidential war making. Have these reforms of the 1970s, the reforms that include the creation of House and Senate committees, the findings requirement, the executive order that's signed after pressure from Congress to prohibit assassinations, signed by Gerald Ford, I believe. Have these efforts by Congress to limit or at least create consultation for covert activities? Have they worked?

It's hard to say definitively, but I think that anecdotally, when you look at the years before these agreements were made in the subsequent years after that, they did have a big impact. You know, the the number of clandestine operations actually lowers in as the years go after the 1970s. There's less efforts to overthrow of other governments through military organized coups. There for a while, there's no assassinations.

And, you know, these things change a little bit, as Zach mentioned, in the 1980s with with the Reagan who actually weakens the executive order for against assassinations in order to carry out strikes in Libya against the palace, which are not technically assassinations against Gaddafi, but could definitely be seen as such.

So those provisions on assassinations get weakened in the 1980s. And today, those those provisions against assassinations have been completely muddied by drone warfare and drone strikes. The taking the strikes against terrorist leaders, strikes against specific individuals who are seen as propaganda masters, these sort of things seem somewhat to follow fall under the category of assassination.

Right. And certainly a a sovereign leader of Iran, someone who's someone who's responsible for the military in Iran.

Yeah. I mean, a sovereign leader. But I think that in this case, you know, someone with a high position in the government carrying out Iranian foreign policy and leading their military. That's what this is.This isn't a terrorist group. This is a legitimately recognized country.

So it seems to me that that this rises more to a level of an assassination than than the taking out of the terrorist leaders, which I mean, and think about it in American terms. You know, one of the arguments that they're making is that, you know, he was a terrorist because he worked with these terrorist groups, you know.

But what if it was on the flip side? What if there is a an American working with pro-democracy groups in a communist country and that person is taken out? Is that not assassination?

Well, back to your discussion of Ronald Reagan, one of the things Reagan did that many people praise him for was support the Mujahideen against the Soviet military in Afghanistan. The Soviets called the Mujahideen a terrorist organization. We certainly didn't believe that justified their assassinating our president. The Soviets called the Mujahideen a terrorist organization. We certainly didn't believe that justified their assassinating our president. And thankfully, they didn't. Right. So your point is very well taken to simply say that a sovereign leader is working with people that we don't think is legitimate, doesn't justify assassinations, at least under the 1975 order.

And then, you know, when it comes to the reporting requirements, the president's required to tell Congress about covert actions beforehand. And this was in the 1980s what sparked the Iran-Contra that not only did the president not notify Congress about the covert actions, but Congress had already passed laws against these sort of covert actions. And the Boland amendments were completely violated. And so here you see an executive that doesn't really believe in being restrained by Congress, completely bulldozing over Congress and, you know, isn't in the end held very accountable.

So I think what your scholarship, Clay, and this really thoughtful analysis you've given us shows is that there's an inherent tension between Congress and the president. And perhaps the founders wanted that. Legal scholars call it an invitation to struggle. An invitation to struggle. And maybe there's something productive about that, if that's the case.

And here's where we turn to the sort of positive looking forward part of what's so crucial to our discussions each week here on This is Democracy. What are the ways that understanding this 200 years, 240 years of struggle as you do so well, what are the ways in which that understanding can help inform us going forward? What are what are the opportunities we have going forward from this moment today to have Congress more involved, more effectively, not in preventing presidents from from defending the country, but helping presidents to do a better job and still protect our democracy in the process?

Yeah, I think that, you know, there are, as I mentioned before, certain decades you can look at where this where this worked. You know, the 1920s being a really good example where a block of progressives in the Senate, especially known as the peace progressives, were able to prevent the country from going down another war path. Now, and this is significant because there were efforts by Congress to arrange conventions, to limit the arms races, to outlaw war. These were actual there were bills put forth to outlaw war. There were efforts.

Kellogg-Briand Pact, for example.

Kellogg-Briand Pact. There's efforts to prevent major efforts in Congress to prevent war.

And, you know, then if you look at the 1930s, you know, even though there's problems, of course, with the Nye Commission, this is a real effort by Congress to prevent the president from sucking the country into war. And it's, you know, somewhat successful until it shouldn't have been.

So and then, you know, you look at the 1970s and actually starting in the late 1960s. And in fact, that's something I think that it's really important to mention is the Fulbright Vietnam hearings. So holding hearings, the 1970s, you know, the uproar against Vietnam and the War Powers Act didn't just come out of nowhere in the 1970s. It came because of these public sized hearings and because of the Pentagon Papers and because of things like that, where Congress was doing investigations, you know, overseeing the executive branch as it should be.

Today, we have things like we have ridiculous investigations, not normal investigations. We have Benghazi investigations, things that are not really rooted in the restraining of executive power. Here we have recently this expose by The Washington Post about these Afghanistan papers about what really had been going on in Afghanistan. Yet there's no effort to have congressional hearings to look into this. What Congress needs to do is they need to hold hearings. They need to use their subpoena power. They need to use the power of contempt when people won't meet the subpoenas. And, you know, have public debates over these things.

How do they do that when you have a president now, and he might not be the last president to do this, who says, ”I’m not going to follow. Washington said he wouldn’t turn over the negotiation papers with the British. I’m not going to let people in my office and even when someone like my former National Security Adviser, John Bolton says he’s willing to testify, I’m going to invoke executive privilege.” What should Congress do?

I think they have to keep going hard. They have to keep the investigations going. If the president wants to block people from testifying, let him block them, find someone else. It looks bad for the president to block people. Continue to put the president in that position, continue to make it seem that there’s no transparency. If you continually investigate someone who’s not giving you anything, it becomes clear that they’re hiding something.

What about the use of the power of the purse? One of the things where we started this conversation and where I’d like us to come to a conclusion is around the role Congress has clearly in the Constitution as the place that appropriates the money.

Yes

How can Congress more effectively make sure that it has control over money? We have fought wars since 9/11 actually off budget. Where we go to war without actually money even being appropriated by Congress and the president assumes that Congress will then follow on in the program.

Yeah. A lot of this has to do with the authorizations of force from the early 2000s, that the president points to and says, ”This allows us to do this and you’ll have to give us the money.” Now, Johnson made a similar argument during the Vietnam War where he said, ”You guys keep giving us the money. If you wanted the war to end, you could just stop giving us the money.” The appropriations issue is difficult because as I said before, you have troops in the field. You have people who need this money. I think that the only thing that Congress can really do is plan ahead with scheduled decreases.

The idea that Congress is going to tell the president that you’re going to get this much money for the next year’s budget for this war and then the next year it’s going to be less. There has to be some agreement of where the trend is going. Otherwise, the president is going to keep doing what he wants and ask Congress to pay for it later and if Congress doesn’t pay for it, they’re the ones who look bad.

Congress could also pass legislation saying money shall not be used for fighting a war in Iran or something like that.

Absolutely. That is the kind of thing that they should be doing there.

Gotcha. Zachary, for a long time, Americans have not really liked paying attention to Congress. Most Americans don’t like Congress.

Very low approval.

Very low approval ratings, I think almost lower than dentists in some respect.

And Trump even.

Lower than the president. Americans tend to vote for their incumbent congressional representatives to go back to office but still say they hate Congress, they don’t pay attention. It’s not sexy to read about Congress than the way it is to read about the executive. Do you think, Zachary, that young people will start to pay more attention to these issues?

Yeah, I really think that especially in a moment where we’re very dissatisfied with the trend that our politics are taking. I think Americans are paying much closer attention to what goes on in Congress and what goes on in this amazing legislative body.

I think also it’s really important to remember that dissent in Congress and in other forums is really important that we need to have these discussions and have these debates. Even wars that– that history looks on favorably, they were very vehement debates. Going back all the way to World War I and Bob La Follette in the Senate, I think it’s really important to remember that these debates, these public forums to discuss our country’s role abroad are very important. I think that’s something that younger people and all Americans are paying much closer attention to today.

I think that’s very well said. Certainly, I think we’ve been educated in the last 20-30 years on the importance of having debates over the use of war power. I think one of the points Clay made so well is that during the Cold War, there was a premium placed on acting fast and delegating authority because of the concerns that if we acted too slow, we would be the subject of a nuclear attack or some sort of communist expansion.

Then after September 11th, concerns about terrorist activity and the need for an executive to act quickly there. I think we’ve learned in the last 20-30 years, Democrats and Republicans in our society, that we need more debate around these issues. I think that’s such a strong and important moment for our democracy because it reminds people that we need branches of government like Congress to be standing up and offering serious debates. Part of what you’re talking about, Clay, seems to me is that these investigations offer a forum for a public discussion of American politics.

Absolutely. You nailed exactly that what we should really have going on right now is public discussions about policies. Policies that are set forth should have hearings, they should have public hearings. They should be all discussed in the open for people to hear. Congress is the people’s representatives. They’re the closest representatives to the people, so they really are our voices. You mentioned that we keep voting in the incumbents and people who maybe are getting further away from our voices.

In the 1970s after Watergate, a new class of legislators were elected, that new young class, and major changes were made in the 1970s. Human rights was incorporated into American foreign policy. Major restraints were put against covert action. Huge secrets came out that the government had been trying to keep from people. So it can happen if people get together and they elect the right people in Congress. If there is a new class ready to go, there could be major changes. Presidents come and go and it’s very difficult to steer the ship, but a new class in Congress can actually have a pretty significant impact in just a few years.

We have seen that happen in 2018.

Yes

The change whether one approves of it or not is quite significant. What we’ve seen with the House of Representatives is a completely different approach to efforts at holding the president accountable, whether one agrees with it or not. One can expect that the 2020 election might produce another class of members of Congress like those in the 1970s like the 2018 class that will be very intent on investigating and discussing policies surrounding a variety of American foreign and domestic issues.

That more than anything else is why citizens need to pay attention, vote and elect members of Congress who care about these issues, less about whether they’re from your party or not and more about whether they have the requisite knowledge, integrity, and commitment to address these issues as Clay and Zachary have laid them out so well. I think today we’ve learned so much about the role of Congress and how crucial Congress is to questions of war and peace in our society. Clay, thank you so much for sharing your research with us.

Thank you, guys.

Zachary, thank you for your as always stunning poem.

Budding Beatnik.

Yes, Zachary, he’s a budding Beatnik in the 21st century. So much fun and thank you all for joining us on This is Democracy.