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That language might have been appropriate for combatting the sweeping McGovern-Hatfield provision, known as the "amendment to end the war." Actually, there is little chance that even the Senate, where antiwar sentiment is stronger than in the House, will enact the McGovern-Hatfield amendment in its present form. But the Ziegler blast was aimed at the more imminent and modest Cooper-Church measure on Cambodia.
Hence the White House statement widened a dispute that could have been minimized. The Republican Senate leadership was prepared to try to modify Cooper-Church to make it less restrictive. A variation drawn by Minority Leader Hugh Scott would change the amendment so that the President could send forces back into Cambodia if he found it necessary to do so—and if he consulted congressional leaders. After first encouraging this tactic, the White House backed away from it. much to Scott's embarrassment. Republican Senators were irate. Said New Jersey's Clifford Case: "If the President stands on his constitutional rights and seeks a confrontation, as his advisers indicate he will do, then God help the country!"
The constitutional issue is far less clear than it is held to be either by the White House or by antiwar leaders. Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution simply 'states: "The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States . . ." The Constitution is silent regarding the President's powers to deploy forces. Article I, Section 8 gives Congress the authority "To declare War ... To raise and support Armies ... To provide and maintain a Navy; To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of land and naval forces." There is no reference to congressional participation in the direction of forces being used against a foreign adversary. Historically, Presidents have committed forces at their own discretion, as Woodrow Wilson did in Mexico. Truman in Korea and Johnson in the Dominican Republic. Congress has retained the final word as to the size and weaponry of the military establishment, thereby exercising an indirect check on how and where they could be used. Last year Congress went further by barring the introduction of U.S. ground-combat units in Laos and Thailand. Rather than object, the White House said that the restriction was in keeping with Administration policy.
Momentum. If the prohibition concerning Laos and Thailand was not an infringement of the President's power as Commander in Chief, then the constitutional argument concerning Cambodia would seem to be weakened. On the other hand, if restrictions on the President's flexibility were accepted as commonplace, they could proliferate to excess. Both law and common sense dictate that the President respond as quickly as necessary to threats to U.S. security. The air and nuclear age make it impossible for the President to seek congressional approval, formal or otherwise, in every contingency. Because the issues are gray in both legal and military terms, it might be more realistic and less confusing if both the doves and the President foreswore the constitutional issue.