In the course of developing and executing a response to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in suburban Washington, DC, President George W. Bush set restrictive policy on the disclosure of related sensitive information to Congress. In an October 5 memorandum to the Secretaries of State, the Treasury, and Defense, the Attorney General, the Director of Central Intelligence, and the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, he indicated that "this Administration will continue to work to inform the leadership of the Congress about the course of, and important developments in, our critical military, intelligence, and law enforcement operations" while simultaneously honoring the "obligation to protect military operational security, intelligence sources and methods, and sensitive law enforcement investigations." Accordingly, your departments should adhere to the following procedures when providing briefings to the Congress relating to the information we have or the actions we plan to take: (i) Only you or officers expressly designated by you may brief Members of Congress regarding classified or sensitive law enforcement information; and (ii) The only Members of Congress whom you or your expressly designated officers may brief regarding classified or sensitive law enforcement information are the Speaker of the House, the House Minority Leader, the Senate Majority and Minority Leaders, and the Chairs and Ranking Members of the Intelligence Committees in the House and Senate. Released amidst allegations of congressional leaking and complaints that executive briefings for Congress had been inadequate, the new policy engendered almost universal opposition from the House and Senate membership. Five days after its prescription, the new policy was suspended, with an immediate effect being that members of the armed services committees and foreign affairs committees could be briefed by Pentagon and State Department leaders as they had been prior to the President's October 5 policy memorandum. Under the Constitution of the United States, the President is responsible for prosecuting war and directing the armed forces during military conflicts, including attacks upon the nation. Congress is constitutionally empowered to declare war, may otherwise authorize the involvement of American armed forces in military conflict, appropriates funds for government activities and operations, including military actions, and engages in oversight to assess the extent to which government operations have been efficiently, economically, and effectively conducted using appropriated funds. Congress also has a role in prescribing intelligence and foreign policy. In meeting these responsibilities, Congress expects and needs to be informed by executive branch leaders about relevant actions taken and being planned, policy developments, expenditures, and knowledge conditions. Consequently, the information restrictions prescribed in President Bush's October 5 memorandum drew critical reaction from various quarters of the House of Representatives and the Senate. Although the restrictive policy was quickly suspended by the President, questions have arisen concerning the role of the executive in times of war and military conflict in informing Congress regarding American involvement in such events. This report offers a brief review of executive-congressional relations in this regard for 1941-2001. The formal entry of the United States into World War II occurred on December 8, 1941, with a declaration of war against Japan in response to the attack on Pearl Harbor in the Hawaiian Islands that had occurred the previous day. Three days later, on December 11, war was declared against Germany and Italy. As a result of the 1940 elections, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had been returned to office for an unprecedented third term. His party held large majorities in both houses of Congress: 267 Democrats to 162 Republicans in the House and 66 Democrats to 28 Republicans in the Senate. During Roosevelt's first and second presidential terms (1933-1940), as totalitarian regimes began threatening the peace of Europe and Asia, Congress, led by large Democratic majorities, exhibited strong favor for isolationism and neutrality. The Johnson Debt Default Act of 1934 prohibited loans to any foreign government in default to the United States, an attempt to disentangle the United State from European economies. By June 15, 1934, Czechoslovakia, Great Britain, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, and Rumania formally defaulted, leaving only Finland to meet its payments in full. In the wake of Italy's 1935 invasion of Ethiopia, the 1936 civil war in Spain, and aggressive actions by both Germany and Japan toward neighboring nations, Congress adopted a series of Neutrality Acts restricting arms shipments and travel by American citizens on the vessels of belligerent nations. Two months after war commenced in Europe in September 1939, Congress, at the President's request, modified the neutrality law by repealing the arms embargo and authorizing "cash and carry" exports of arms and munitions to belligerent powers. In April 1934, the Senate established the Special Committee on Investigation of the Munitions Industry to conduct an inquiry into the manufacture of, and traffic in, arms in the United States. Chaired by Senator Gerald P. Nye (R-ND), who had introduced the resolution for the panel's creation, the committee conducted public hearings stressing the heavy profits realized by financiers and armament makers during World War I. Continuing until 1936, the committee is credited with strengthening isolationist sentiment in Congress and the nation, and setting the background for the Neutrality Acts of 1935, 1936, and 1937. Thus, through its investigations, the climate of opinion it helped generate, and the neutrality legislation that it nurtured, the Nye committee constituted something of a brake on the efforts of the Roosevelt Administration to strengthen and expand the national defense program or to pursue a more internationalist foreign policy. The Nye committee was no longer a concern to FDR as America became engaged in World War II, but two other congressional panels likely occupied White House thinking as the President contemplated his wartime relationship with Congress. The first was a House creation, the Special Committee to Investigate Un-American Activities, initially established in 1938. The panel had a broad mandate to probe "un-American propaganda activities in the United States," the diffusion of "subversive and un-American propaganda that is instigated from foreign countries or of a domestic origin," and "all other questions in relation thereto that would aid Congress in any necessary remedial legislation." While the committee's primary target was the Communist Party and its affiliates, its mandate to pursue the perpetrators of "subversive and un-American propaganda" of either a domestic or foreign origin could be regarded as authority to investigate any private organization promoting social, political, or economic change; to probe any federal entity, including the armed forces, regarding public affairs and public education activities; or even to venture into the realm of foreign policy. However, the chairman of the committee, Representative Martin Dies (D-TX), was a conservative who was on record as an opponent of Roosevelt's New Deal and the political interests supporting it. House leaders from the President's party sought to keep Dies and his committee narrowly focused so as to avoid his wandering into any aspect of the war effort and making demands for sensitive information. Such a strategy of containment could not be contemplated in the case of the other committee of concern, the Senate Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program. Established in March 1941, war mobilization and defense production were the primary elements of its mandate. The panel had been created on the initiative of Senator Harry S. Truman (D-MO), who had just been elected to his second term and was concerned that defense contracts were not being fairly allocated within the country. Virtually unknown outside his home state, Truman gradually gained visibility by supporting the New Deal. Although the White House did not want a rogue committee producing unwelcomed publicity about defense contracting and the progress of mobilization efforts, Truman's proposal and the prospect of his leading such a panel proved to be an acceptable alternative to similar efforts by anti-New Dealers and Republicans. The attack on Pearl Harbor and the U.S. declaration of war the following day launched the President and Congress on their wartime relationship. Ironically, the circumstances of the attack and the immediate response of American armed forces to it became one of the first information issues for the two branches. Due to its insular location some 2,400 miles southwest of California and its totally military status, Pearl Harbor, in the aftermath of the Japanese attack, was impervious to the news media and the surrounding Territory of Hawaii was cloaked in martial law. The President seemingly had close control over information about the damage that had been inflicted. Yet, by the evening of December 8, New York Times Washington bureau chief Arthur Krock had learned that 90% of the fleet had been disabled at Pearl Harbor. Still, for many weeks, the public did not learn of the extent of the loss, those in possession of the information being afraid that its disclosure would invite a Japanese amphibious assault on the islands. Nonetheless, by February 1942, blame was being fixed. Senator David I. Walsh, the Chairman of the Naval Affairs Committee, advanced the theory that the Executive Branch was wholly responsible for Pearl Harbor, thus exculpating Congress and, inferentially, himself from blame. It was not fair to say "that there has been any failure on the part of Congress to act in any manner that would have prevented what happened at Pearl Harbor," he said. "The operations at Pearl Harbor were an executive function, and responsibility for them was lodged in the departments." Thus, a waiting game ensued. President Roosevelt sought to satisfy Congress and the public with a fact finding report prepared by an investigating commission under the chairmanship of Supreme Court Associate Justice Owen Roberts. Congress continued to hold the President and his subordinates, both civilian and military, responsible for American defenses at Pearl Harbor, continued to pursue its own avenues of information about the attack, and gave no indication that the Roosevelt Administration was absolved of any responsibility to inform the legislature about the prosecution of the war declared in response to the attack.