Evening star., 1944-07-30

Va I dllhlAl ~. IbOUoCfSlI, anQ
candidate as well as President and
Commander in Chief.
The doctrine implicit In the Repub-
lican platform and acceptance speech
boils down to this: Professional mill
tary men are the only ones qualified to
make the decisions to conduct the war,
What successes we have had In World
War II have come because of Gen.
Marshall and Admiral King; what
failures because a civilian President has
''interfered" with them. Therefore, the
top military commanders and stafs
must be completely free to make the
decisions at the highest level, free from
the civilian interference" of Franklin
D. Roosevelt the constitutional Presi-
dent and Commander in Chief.
Although this is not the first time
the Presidents military power has been
questioned, most of the earlier chal-
lenges have been by or on behalf of
Congress as the custodian of war power,
and not on the theory that the civil
authorities must keep hands off the
conduct Of a war. Congress has been
JSe,foNo
in Chief, and has often tried to inter-
fere, as In Lincolns case-but to use the
power itself, not to hand it to the mill
tary on silver platter. The debate
was over what civilian authority should
control the soldiers, not whether civil
authorities should abdicate to them.
Furthermore, from the start, tho
Office of Commander in Chief has been
political office, in the original sense of
the word 'polity." War, as Clausewitz
we'll said, is an instrument of national
policy. Its direction involves political
questions at the highest level, and these
must be determined before the generals
and admirals can be assigned military
| objectives, or be furnished the available
means for their attainment. Therefore,
| the centuries-old tradition that the
chief of State rather than the senior
general must make the top decisions.
Limited Right Of President.
Like so many of our political institu-
tions, we borrowed and adopted the
Office Of Commander in Chief from our
British forbears. Such was the iusti-
fed irritation of the patriots of tbs
| War of American Independence with
the personal power proclivities of George
the Third that they declined to vest in
the American Commander in Chief the
Kings rights to declare war, and to raise
and regulate armies.
| Alexander Hamilton pointed out in
one of his Federalist pa apers mo. 6e)
! that, as Commander in Chief, the Pres
ident's authority would be nominally
the same with that of the King of
Great Britain, but nothing more than
the supreme command and direction of
the military and naval forces. as first
general and admiral of the Confederacy,
while that of the British King extends
to the declaring of war and to the rails
ing and regulating of fleets and armies
all which, by the Constitution under
consideration, would apperain to the
| legislature"
Gen. Washington was not the Com.
mander in Chief in true overall sense
during the Revolutionary War. While
the Continental Congress did bestow
that title upon him, 1t carefully retained
the right to establish armies not under
his command, and did so on at least
three occasions, apparently for factional
and political more than military rea-
sons. His own experience in a position
whose power did not correspond to its
words was, undoubtedly, one of the rea-
sons he used the weight of his influence
at the Constitutional Convention to
have the Chief Executive given COM
prehensive grant of direct power and
duty over the entire military establish
ment. The then recent chaos of conflict
ing States under the Confederation. with
such episodes as Shay's rebellion in
Massachusetts, energized the mololithio
character of the commitment to ths
President of the exclusive command of
our military forces in Federal service.
Department of War Set Up.
The First Congress of the United
States, in its sessions in New York in
1883, supplemented this grant In terms
quite in keeping with Washington's
views. Chapter VII of the Laws of 1889
enacted that there shall be no execu-
tive department to be denominated tho
|
shall be principal officer therein. to
be called the Secretary for the Depart
ment OF War, who shall perform and
exercise such duties as shall from time
to time be enjoined on or entrusted to
him by the President of the United
States, agreeably to the Constitution.
relative to the military commissions or
to the land and naval forces, ships or
warlike stores of the United States. or
to such other matters respecting mill
tary or naval affairs, as the President
OF the United States shall assign to the
SAID department j.. :. and furthermore,
that the said principal officer shall con-
Duct the business of said department
IN such manner as the President of
the United States shall from time to
time order and instruct" Thus the
management by the Nations chief civil
official of the military forces in war
has had constitutional and legislative
establishment.
Many have been the efforts to dis
tinguish between the Presidents zone
OF authority as Commander in Chief
and that of Congress as the custodian
OF the right to declare war and to au-
thorize and appropriate money expen-
ditures. The effort of the radical Re-
publican Congress in the Civil War to
take over the management of the war.
through its Joint Committee on the
Conduct of the War gravely impeded