line for Future U.S. Policy." It appeared in the summer edition of Middle East Insight.

I am going to quote briefly from it. Most of this article is a detailed narrative recitation of what actually happened in Lebanon. I am just going to quote from some of his conclusions.

Between 1981 and 1984, the United States became deeply involved in the effort to resolve the Lebanon crisis. That policy ended in failure. The reasons for failure included divisive leadership and bureaucratic conflict; strategic misjudgment; poorly executed military operations; ambiguous signals to allies and adversaries alike; and bad luck.

Then, from Kemp's conclusions:

Once a risky, but important, policy initiative reaches a point when the egos and prestige of senior advisers are on the line, it is difficult to change direction, irrespective of what the intelligence community and commonsense may say, unless the President himself plays a strong role. In the case of Lebanon, the President never once ordered the Secretary of Defense to play a more assertive role in supporting U.S. policy in Lebanon. Indeed, at the height of the debate within the White House over whether or not the Marines should be redeployed to ships in 1984, President Reagan's own viewpoint was difficult to discern. The decision in favor of withdrawal was made by a simple majority within the inner circle of advisers. . .

The first lesson concerns basic military strategy. If the United States contemplates the use of force in a hostile environment, military commanders must be given clear, specific, military objectives and provided with enough resources to win any likely encounters with the enemy. They must feel confident in the political judgment of the President and his advisers. In the case of Lebanon, the military commanders and the Secretary of Defense were convinced that the operation was flawed. Their cooperation was not wholehearted, and put many obstacles in the way of extending or protracting the mandate of the Multinational Force. U.S. military leaders have learned the lessons of Vietnam and are reluctant to endorse new commitments that involve openended deployments of U.S. ground forces.

Finally, Mr. Chairman, one additional, brief passage.

Lebanon has left its mark on the White House in other ways. The experience of Lebanon convinced some senior NSC staff that because George Shultz and Caspar Weinberger had such basic disagreements on how to use American power, especially military power, there would always be gridlock if risky policy initiatives were to be considered. It was this concern that helped create the conditions for the Iran-Contra scandal and reported conversations between Oliver North and William Casey about creating an organization for conducting covert operations outside the system.

What needs revision, Mr. Chairman, is not the War Powers Act, but the National Security Act of 1947. I think consideration should be given to redefining the position of the National Security Adviser to make it a focus of Presidential authority over the bureaucracy. It could be upgraded and transformed by statute into a position that might be called "Deputy to the President for Commander in Chiefship Affairs."

Such a position, properly defined and endowed, would bring a conceptual focus and a constitutional coherence to the Presidency in an area where focus and coherence are now lacking. It should be, in my judgment, a civilian position, subject to confirmation and located in the White House, in close proximity to the Oval Office. It would have a specific responsibility of assuring that the Commander in Chiefship functions constitutionally and in conformity with the War Powers Act.

In closing, Mr. Chairman, let me state what must by now be obvious: I oppose the Byrd-Warner amendment to the War Powers Act. That amendment, in my judgment, would exacerbate each of the problems it professes to alleviate, and it would create a number

of serious, new problems. The most fundamental flaw of the ByrdWarner amendment is that it would stand the Constitution on its head by empowering the President to wage war unilaterally. Instead of congressional concurrence, he would need only the support of one-third plus one Member of either House of Congress to sustain a veto.

The new consultation provisions of the Byrd-Warner amendment offer little promise of working and create a hierarchy of three classes of Senators in matters in which all Senators share the same constitutional responsibilities. Moreover, the amendment would seriously undermine the established committee system of the Senate and the House. The leadership group, already overburdened with political and administrative responsibilities and lacking substantive expertise, is exactly the wrong group to judge such matters on their merits, especially with no provision for staff, for recordkeeping, and for consultation with and dissemination of its sensitive information to other Senators, among other things.

Moreover, the proposed special legislative powers of the leadership group are discriminatory and, thus, perhaps unconstitutional. My high regard for Senators Byrd and Warner notwithstanding, their proposed amendment to the War Powers Act is an invitation to mischief and danger, in my judgment.

Thank you.

It is a great pleasure for me to be back.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Lakeland appears in the appendix.]

Senator BIDEN. Thank you, Mr. Lakeland.

It has been a while, but it seems as though we are more comfortable having you on this side [indicating], as against down there [indicating].

Under your analysis, the war powers problem that we face resides not in the Congress or in the Resolution itself, but in the inability of the Executive to frame and articulate a coherent policy in war powers situations.

This would make it appear that the problem is a bureaucratic one, susceptible to a bureaucratic fix. This leads you to envision the creation of a Deputy to the President for Commander in Chief Affairs.

But isn't the problem even more profoundly attitudinal? By this I mean that it originates in the executive branch's attitude, first articulated at the outset of the Korean war, that the President is entitled to the exercise of war powers unilaterally and ought not be fettered by the procedural constraints of obtaining formal congressional approval.

How can this attitudinal problem, which reflects a fundamental, philosophic dispute, be addressed?

Let me augment that slightly.

When speaking with staff yesterday, we were talking about how up to the Korean war there had, in fact, been a bipartisan foreign policy and a foreign policy that every President felt the necessity for and was eager to get, and got, congressional approval. And it was after World War II, at the start of the Korean war, that we began to see this change, where the Executive concluded, as I have

indicated here, every Executive, Democrat and Republican alike, attitudinally, that somehow this was strictly within their province. How do we deal with that attitude? Assuming you even had in place the mechanism you are proposing, you are still faced, it seems to me, with a clearly articulated attitudinal problem, articulated by every one of the past Presidents since I have been here. Mr. LAKELAND. Well, I don't think it is so much an attitudinal problem on the part of the President per se. That is perhaps where we differ.

I think the attitudinal problem is on the part of the people who advise the President; people who do not have to be accountable to voters. They work under very difficult circumstances. They have to make decisions often without adequate information and under great time pressures. It's like performing brain surgery in a crowded rowboat with teenagers elbowing you. It is very difficult, and adding one more pain in the neck-getting congressional approval-is resisted.

Senator BIDEN. You know, I can relate to that. [Laughter.]

Mr. LAKELAND. I have great sympathy here. I served in the executive branch, though not in such a lofty status as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs or the National Security Adviser. But I know it is tough work under the best of circumstances, and you sure don't want anybody else looking over your shoulder if you can help it. Now my whole thesis is that the attitude we have to change is the Presidency's attitude, his national security entourage, and it is in his own interest that this attitude be changed. The President has become more or less the captive of his own bureaucracy, and he pays for their mistakes.

It was Dean Acheson who concocted that thesis. It was absolutely novel in constitutional theory in 1950 that the President had an inherent warmaking authority. Prof. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., was quite eloquent on that point when he was testifying here earlier. You could ask why didn't Dean Acheson want to present his case to Congress? Well, there are political and historical reasons, including, perhaps, Mr. Acheson's statement excluding Korea from the United States perimeter zone of national security interest, which is widely believed by many to have been taken as an invitation by the North Koreans and the Soviets for their invasion of South Korea. It was one good reason why he had a real bias against getting Congress into the Act.

But I think we are always going to have this problem unless it is corrected institutionally.

You know, "bureaucrats" is a pejorative word, and I do not want to use it pejoratively because it is really hard work, and there are many, many patriotic, dedicated, extremely skillful people working on these very tough problems with inadequate facilities, conflicting authority, and so on. They feel they have enough trouble fighting it out within the executive branch.

But it cannot be left there. It cannot be left there because it is not in our Nation's interest. The system doesn't work when it's left that way. We don't get success. We don't get success in military affairs. We don't get political success for Presidents. And Congress is deprived of its constitutional right.

Senator BIDEN. Now I don't disagree with your analysis of the situation. But that last paragraph you read, by Kemp, in "Lessons of Lebanon," he said:

Lebanon has left its mark on the White House in other ways. The experience convinced some NSC staffers that because George Shultz and Caspar Weinberger had such basic disagreements on how to use American power, especially military power, there would always be a gridlock of risky policy initiatives were to be considered.

What I don't understand is why, in all the situations, the 19 or so, that the War Powers Act arguably should have been invoked, why the President, all by himself, unrelated to the need for an extra person to straighten out the bureaucracy, could not have said, I side with Shultz, or I side with Weinberger, assuming there were diverse views-why the President doesn't make decisions. I am not being facetious when I say that.

Mr. LAKELAND. Oh, I understand. That is the problem.

Senator BIDEN. I don't mean just this President. I mean other Presidents, as well.

Mr. LAKELAND. I understand. This is not a unique problem to this administration, by any means.

Presidents lack the self-assurance that they know more than the conflicting advisers that are around them, and sometimes they lack the interest.

Senator BIDEN. I think that is correct, though I am not sure how adding one more person will change that.

Let me go on to a second issue, consultation.

Senator Javits used to stress that the consultation requirement of the War Powers Resolution should be read as "maximal, rather than minimal; that is, that the consultation is not discretionary for the President; rather, the President must consult extensively and in a timely fashion."

I remember him coming back to us in the committee and talking about how critical that was.

Senator Javits was also emphatic in stressing that consultation, however extensive, was not a substitute-not a substitute-to specific statutory authorization.

Could you expand on the original intention of the section 3 requirement that the President, in every possible instance, consult with Congress before introducing Armed Forces into hostilities.

Mr. LAKELAND. I think that there was somewhat this feeling, that_consultation requires some advance knowledge of what is on the President's mind. He is enjoined to do it, but if you don't know what is on his mind, you can't very well force him to consult.

But, when he takes an action, that is unmistakable. An action requires prior congressional authorization.

Senator BIDEN. How important was the consultation portion, in your view, when you were sitting down and drafting this act. Mr. LAKELAND. How important was it?

Senator BIDEN. How important was it in terms of the workability of the Act, the effectiveness?

Mr. LAKELAND. Senator, I have to confess that there was a lot of disappointment, almost cynicism, about the bona fides of consulta

tion.

The history of consultation had really been one of manipulative briefing, where selected leaders are called down into the Oval

Office and informed of a decision already taken, usually a sensitive military action already underway, and sworn to secrecy.

That has been the history of consultation. That has exacerbated the problem, rather than alleviated the problem.

That is why putting all of our eggs in the consultation basket was not considered the route that we should go.

Senator BIDEN. My time is up, and if I have another chance, I will ask several more questions. What I was trying to get was not whether consultation was an alternative to that, but how important was consultation considered to be, not as an alternative, but as part of the process.

Mr. LAKELAND. I can give you the answer to that, and I think it is the answer you are looking for. If consultation worked the way it was envisaged and desired, you might not even need a war powers act.

Senator BIDEN. Thank you very much.

I yield to my colleague, Senator Pressler.

Senator PRESSLER. Mr. Chairman, let me ask about the order of witnesses today. Will we be hearing from Mr. Emerson as the next witness?

The reason I am asking is because of the questions. It seems that we have two former staffers, and if we could juxtapose them, it would be a good idea. They are not appearing in the order that the agenda lists them.

Senator BIDEN. My intention was because of the Generals' schedule, to hear next from the Generals, and then it seemed to me that it made sense to have a staff person with a very different perspective be able to comment on what all three have said-the experience of the Act plus the drafting of the Act. That was my intention.

Senator PRESSLER. All right, fine.

Let me ask Mr. Lakeland this question.

In your judgment, is the War Powers Resolution essentially a result of the whole Vietnam situation? Some have said that it sprung from that controversial time and that perhaps it was designed to meet that particular situation, and that perhaps we should go back to the drawingboards and start fresh.

How much was the War Powers Resolution precipitated by our involvement in Vietnam?

Mr. LAKELAND. Senator, I addressed that point at some length in my prepared statement.

I said that first is the false idea that the War Powers Act was some hasty and ill-conceived measure directed at the ongoing Vietnam war. That is wrong on all counts. The dwindling Vietnam war was specifically exempted from the Act's provisions, and many of the leading supporters of the Vietnam war, preeminently Armed Services Committee Chairman John Stennis, were staunch proponents of the Act.

The overwhelming votes in the Senate and in the House included a number of Members of both Houses who went down the line on the Vietnam war.

No, I disagree with that idea. That is a canard that is just not true, in my view.