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*No ex-President has ever been subpoenaed before. Two court subpoenas were issued to President Thomas Jefferson in 1807 by Chief Justice John Marshall in the treason proceedings against Aaron Burr. Jefferson refused on both the grounds that no court could force him to "abandon superior duties," and because of "the necessary right of the President to decide . . . what papers . . . the public interests permit to be communicated." At least 16 Presidents, among them Washington, Coolidge and Hoover, have declined to supply Congress with certain requested information.
†Harry Truman, in rejecting the subpoena, extended this principle to ex-Presidents, saying: "The doctrine [of separation of powers] would be shattered ... if [the President] would feel during his term of office that his every act might be subject to official inquiry and possible distortion for political purposes." Some constitutional lawyers doubted that Truman, as a private citizen, had a right to reject the subpoena without hearing what questions the committee wanted to ask. They said that he 1) would not have to answer questions relating to state secrets, but 2) would have to answer questions bearing on any charge of malfeasance or crimes that might be made against him. They divided on the middle ground of questions about his routine presidential acts. Some said he would have the same protection as if he were still President; others said no. Obviously Mr. Eisenhower does not remember all the Americans who lunched at his table in Europe during Worl'd War II. Secretary Morgenthau and White lunched with him at his mess tent in southern England on Aug. 7, 1944-Mor-genthau and White, then considering the postwar treatment of Germany, were pleased that Eisenhower favored a stern peace. Later, however, Eisenhower firmly opposed the Morgenthau plan.