following Budget Bureau recommendations on flood control funds and by including in the appropriation bill the provision that flood control projects "shall be prosecuted as speedily as may be consistent with budgetary_requirements" (U.S. Congress, 1941b: 6767-68; 55 Stat. 638, sec. 3).

After Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt carried out his policy of withholding allocations from projects which did not have important value for national defense, but the line between national defense and domestic projects was not always clear. When funds totaling $513,000 for a flood control project in Oklahoma were impounded, congressmen and local business groups from the area assailed the decision. The Budget Bureau maintained that the building of levees near Tulsa would divert funds, machinery, and skilled labor from essential war activities. Nature intervened at this point to upset the Bureau's rationale. Heavy rains caused the Arkansas River to overflow its banks in June 1942, flooding an area near Tulsa. The War Production Board (WPB) received notice that a steel mill handlung war contracts had to be closed because of the flooding. When the WPB later certifiea that the Tulsa levees were essential for the war effort, the Budget Bureau released the funds; but scores of other projects were curtailed because of the defense effort. By the end of 1943, impounding of funds for scheduled public works had reached a half billion dollars (Williams, 1955: 12-20, 28).

Some members of Congress tried to reassert legislative authority over spending. In the summer of 1943, the Senate included a section in the Rural Post Roads Act to prohibit the impounding of funds by any agency or official other than the commissioner of public roads. The object of this section, Senator Hayden said, was to bypass the budget director, who had previously impounded large sums of highway funds. Senator McKellar noted that the section would determine "whether the will of the Congress shall be supreme, or whether the will of the Bureau of the Budget shall be supreme" (U.S. Congress, 1943a: 6313). House conferees found the section "wholly objectionable" and recommended that the impounding authority be placed in the hands of the

WPB. The Senate receded on this point and Section 9 of the statute authorized the WPB to withhold funds after certifying that the “use of critical material for additional highway construction would impede the conduct of the war" (U.S. Congress, 1943b: 4; 1943c: 7385-86, 7345-46; 57 Stat. 563).

A few months later, Senator McKellar again tried to place restrictions on the impounding of funds. As an amendment to a defense bill, he proposed that the impounding of funds for the departments of war and navy be prohibited except by direction of Congress. Senator Harry Truman countered by saying that good business practice required presidential discretion in the disbursement of funds: "What looks like a good program one day may be completely unneccessary 6 months later." When domestic projects compete with war production for scarce material and manpower, Truman argued that someone had to decide on prioritics. Congress could not do it, he said, since it appropriated for activities over a year in advance, and it was bette: to leave this authority with the president than with the agency itself. "How many agencies," he asked, "will be anxious to show that they overestimate and overstate their need?" (U.S. Congress, 1943d: 1036263). Despite these admonitions, the McKellar amendment passed the Senate. Once again, however, after two conference reports, the House was able to delete this restriction on

impounding authority from the bill (U.S. Congress, 1943e; 1943f: 10571; 57 Stat. 611).

Subsequent legislation acknowledged the need for presidential discretion on priorities. Congress authorized public works in December 1944 and March 1945 in the "interest of the national security" and for the purpose of providing a reservoir of useful public works in the postwar period, to be initiated “as expeditiously and prosecuted as vigorously as may be consistent with budgetary requirements" (58 Stat. SS7, sec. 10; 59 Stat. 11, sec. 2). No project was to be funded or constructed until six months after the end of the war, unless recommended by an authorized defense agency and approved by the president as being "necessary or desirable in the interest of the national defense and security, and the President has notified the Congress to that effect" (59 Stat. 12).

Interservice Rivalrics

In the period after World War II, congressional strategy for controlling defense spending shifted from the traditional ceiling on spending levels to the setting of floors or minimums. This reversed the usual legislative-executive relationship. As Huntington (1961: 140) noted, the issue in earlier centuries was "whether the legislature could prevent the executive from maintaining forces which the legislature did not want. The issue in the mid-twentieth century is whether the legislature can urge or compel the executive to maintain forces which the executive does not want."

In this contest for control, the president often faces an alliance of legislators and military leaders. While serving as U.S. Senator during the war, Truman (1955: S8) noticed that generals and admirals would take over the service secretaries and the military committees in Congress, especially in defense procurement. Army and navy professionals, he said, "seldom had any idea of the value of money. They did not scem to care what the cost was . . ." Since career men looked upon elected officials as temporary occupants in office, the president had to take special care to see that they did not try to circumvent his policy. Truman (1956: 165) found that it "often happened in the War and Navy Departments that the generals and the admirals, instead of working for and under the Secretaries, succeeded in having the Secretaries act for and under them."

One of Truman's first steps as president was to advocate a single department of national defense under the direction of a single civilian secretary, thereby strengthening presidential control over the military. The National Security Act of 1947 represented a weak compromise, calling for three separately administered departments of the army, the navy, and the air force, subject only to the "general direction" of a secretary of defense (61 Stat. 495; cf. Truman, 1945: 554558; 1946: 303). The Act was amended in 1949 to provide for a Department of Defense and the removal of service secretaries as statutory members of the National Security Council. At the same time, Congress recognized the right of service secretaries and

members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to bypass the president and make recommendations to Congress on their own initiative (63 Stat. 580).

The gap between presidential and legislative conceptions of national security became evident in 1948 and 1949. A supplemental appropriation act in 1948 included $822 million more in contract authority for aircraft than President Truman had requested. In this case, the increase did not particularly disturb the Administration, since House had added a "hooker" extending the Defense Secretary Forrestal learned that the time during which the money had to be spent, moving the date from June 30, 1949 to a year later (Millis, 1951: 416-417). Furthermore, the statute also specified that funds were to be released only after the president had determined that the contracts let were necessary for the national defense (62 Stat. 258; cf. Truman, 1948: 272).

Air Force Groups

More forceful legislation appeared in 1949 when Congress voted to increase the president's air force request from 48 to 58 groups. Truman signed the measure, but announced that he was directing his defense secretary to place the extra funds in reserve. Impounded funds included $577 million in contract authority for aircraft construction, $130 million for maintenance and operations, and lesser amounts for contingencies, special procurement, and research and development. All told, impounded funds came to $735 million (U.S. Congress, 1950a: 27).

Several factors produced this collision between Congress and the president. First. Louis Johnson replaced Forrestal in March 1949 as the new secretary of defense and subjected the military budget to fresh examination. Morcover, even though the Berlin airlift was still in operation, and the Korean war little more than a year off, Johnson was optimistic about the chances for peace. As he later recalled, the "climate on the Hill, the climate of the President's economists and all the rest of the economists, the climate of the world at that moment—the airlift being successful-the climate was, there was going to be peace" (U.S. Congress, 1951a: 2607).

Retrenchment in defense spending became

more probable when the Eberstadt task force of the Hoover Commission released its findings on the Pentagon. In December 1948, the task force charged that intense interservice rivalries had hampered defense policy and that military services lacked a “sense of cost consciousness," being “far too prodigal" with government funds. The following April, former President Hoover told Congress that $1.5 billion could be cut from the military budget without threatening national security (The New York Times, 1948; 1949a). Although Secretary Johnson considered the defense budget too small when he presented it in 1949, he concluded that larger appropriations--because of waste within the Defense Department-would be like throwing money "down a rat hole" (U.S. Congress, 1951a: 2607).

Still another factor behind the impounding of air force funds was Truman's fiscal policy of relying on budget surpluses and debt retirement to restrain inflation. Twice in 1947 he vetoed ax-reduction bills, but in 1948, when he again vetoed a tax-reduction bill, Democrats joined with Republicans to override him. With revenue now lost to tax relief, and receipts down as a result of the 1948-49 recession, Truman redoubled his efforts to control expenditures.

By the time Air Force Secretary Stuart Symington testified before Congress in June 1949, he no longer insisted on 70 air force groups as he had in the past. Instead, he now placed his budgetary request in the context of the president's program. The air force recognized, he said, that “armed forces are only one component of our total national strength. We recognize further, the great burden of responsibility on those in positions of highest authority to balance the several components of this strength to meet the needs of the United States; and therefore, we support the President's budget" (U.S. Congress, 1949a: 328).

The Senate joined with the president in opposing air force funds added by the House, and the matter lay deadlocked in conference committee. A motion by the Senate to vote continuing appropriations was rejected by the House. With adjournment close at hand, and military services in need of funds to meet their payrolls, the Senate reluctantly

agreed to the 58 groups but on the understanding that "if the money is appropriated it may not be used" by the president (U.S. Congress, 1949b: 14355, 14855). Truman signed the bill, explaining that it was his responsibility to provide a defense structure which would meet the needs of national security without imposing too great a strain on the domestic economy. He was concerned not merely with the additional procurement costs for aircraft but also such related items as extra personnel, higher maintenance and operating costs, and greater replacement expenses. He reminded Congress, inorcover, that his defense program was based on a unified strategic concept, and that an expanded air force would necessitate augmented levels for other services. To maintain a balance between national security and a sound economy, he placed the extra air force funds in reserve (Truman, 1949: 538-539). Supercarriers

A second major impoundment dispute during the Truman years involved cancellation of the U.S.S. United States. The cost of this giant aircraft carrier, designed to accommodate long-range bombers with atomic bombs, was estimated by the navy at $189 million. Other estimates placed the total closer to $500 million for the vessel and another $500 million for planes to fly from it. To the air force, the carrier represented the navy's attempt to intrude on its strategic air prerogatives. By 1949, the feud between the two services had become acrimonious (Hammond, 1963). The keel laying of the United States took place as scheduled, but with a minimum of ceremony and a fatalistic sense that the project was about to be shelved (The New York Times. 1949b).

The premonition proved correct, for within a few days Secretary Johnson canceled the carrier. Besides the greater scrutiny given defense spending during this period and a change in secretary of defense, a change in budget procedures contributed to the abandonment of the project. During Forrestal's administration, appropriations were made to each military service; consequently, the Joint Chiefs did not pass judgment on individual service items. According to Admiral Denfeld, chief of naval operations at the time,

when the United States was originally approved "it did not have to go [to] the Joint Chiefs of Staff, because at that time, we did not have a combined budget for the three services. It was a unilateral question on the part of the Navy that they needed this ship" (U.S. Congress, 1949a: 162).

Forrestal had met with the Joint Chiefs at Key West, in March 1948, reaching an agreement to reserve to the air force the mission of strategic bombing. Nevertheless, he returned home to tell the president that a decision had been made to proceed with the supercarrier and “development of HA [high altitude] aircraft to carry heavy missiles therefrom." Subsequent discussions between Forrestal and the Joint Chiefs simply underlined the fact that the Key West meeting had failed to resolve disputes over service missions or the fate of the supercarrier (Millis, 1951: 392 393, 464–477). Defense Secretary Johnson said that Forrestal had come to have some doubts about the carrier, but “didn't feel that he could do anything about it" (U.S. Congress, 1951a: 2636).

When Johnson became defense secretary and responsiele for submitting a single budget for the three services, he discussed the carrier issue with the Joint Chiefs and with General Eisenhower, who served in an advisory capacity. Two of the three Chiefs opposed the carrier, as did Eisenhower. Carl Vinson, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, advised Johnson to cancel the carrier, and Millard Tydings, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. also approved cancellation. On the basis of this advice from military and legislative leaders, and with President Truman's approval, Johnson canceled the carrier. In its place, he approved construction of a carrier which he called "appreciably smaller, less of a show piece, and more of a fighting ship" (U.S. Congress, 1951a: 2636-55).

Antiballistic Missiles

President Eisenhower continued Truman's policy of strengthening civilian control over the military services and reducing interservice rivalry. Eisenhower's 1953 Reorganization Plan for the Department of Defense emphasized the need for “clear and unchallenged civilian responsibility” centered in his

secretary of defense. Several agencies involved in research, development, and defense supplies were abolished, and their functions transferred to the secretary. By shifting from the wishes of the individual services to the "broadest conception of the over-all national interest," Eisenhower hoped to strengthen the powers of the defense secretary over research and development, the budget, and strategic planning (Eisenhower, 1953: 225; 67 Stat. 638).

In 1958, Eisenhower pressed for greater unification of strategic and tactical planning, recommending that the defense secretary be given additional authority over military research and development and the management of defense funds. Such authority, he said, "will go far toward stopping the ser vices from vying with each other for Congressional and public favor" (Eisenhower, 1958: 286; cf. Adams, 1962: 296). Eisenhower objected to the service secretaries and the Joint Chiefs bypassing the secretary of defense and taking their grievances directly to Congress. He called this "legalized insubordination" and an invitation to interservice rivalries, but Congress reaffirmed the privilege of the secretaries and the Joint Chiefs to make recommendations to Congress on their own initiative (Eisenhower, 1958: 443).

In 1958, when the army wanted to proceed with a $6 billion Nike-Zeus antimissile system, Defense Secretary McElroy decided that additional research was needed before beginning production (U.S. Congress, 1958: 356). The next year, top army officers pressed again for funds to start production. McElroy insisted that technical deficiencies-particularly in the radars and computers-had to be overcome first. General Maxwell Taylor, army chief of staff, deplored the delay in production and expressed the opinion that the "importance of obtaining this unique anti-missile weapon at the carliest possible date outweighs the possible financial risks inherent in initiating selective production now" (The New York Times, 1959). Of course General Taylor, unlike the president, had absolutely no responsibility for “financial risks" or for the condition of the national economy.

Congress satisfied the army in August 1959 by appropriating $137 million for initial pro

curement of Nike-Zeus hardware. The Administration impounded the funds while awaiting results from further tests. In January 1960, President Eisenhower stated that funds would be released for continued development but not for production. Shortly before leaving office, he again insisted that funds should not be used for production "until development tests are satisfactorily completed" (Eisenhower, 1960-61: 54-55, 414). Defense Secretary McNamara later estimated that deployment of Nike-Zeus would have cost $13 to $14 billion and that "most of it would have had to be torn out and replaced, almost before it became operational," to make way for more advanced missiles and radars (U.S. Congress, 1967a: 5). Not until September 1967 did the Johnson Administration agree to deploy a light ABM system against a possible Chinese threat in the 1970s.

B-70 Bomber

Another hotly contested impoundment involved the B-70 bomber, a long-range manned aircraft billed as successor to the B-52. In 1961, Congress added $180 million to the $200 million requested by the Kennedy Administration for B-70 development. Defense Secretary McNamara, stressing our advantage over the Soviets in bombers and the deterrent capability of American missile strength, refused to release the unwanted funds (The New York Times, 1961). In March 1962, the House Armed Services Committee voted to direct the secretary of the air force to spend not less than $491 million during fiscal 1963 toward production of the B-70. To remove any doubts about its intention, the committee said that the secretary was "directed, ordered, mandated, and re. quired" to spend the full $491 million. The committee added that “If this language constitutes a test as to whether Congress has the power to so mandate, let the test be made .." (U.S. Congress, 1962a: 1. 9).

The confrontation took place and Congress lost. President Kennedy wrote to Chairman Vinson of the House Armed Services Committce, urging that the word "authorized" be substituted for "directed.” The president contended that this was more suitable for an authorization bill, since funds had not been

appropriated, and also thought the change in language would be "more clearly in line with the spirit of the Constitution" and its separation of powers (U.S. Congress, 1962b: 4694). The Ilouse acceded to the president's request and the Administration went ahead with its plan to complete two prototypes of the B-70 before considering full-scale production. One prototype crashed in June 1966, and the second now sits in the Air Force Muscum at Dayton, Ohio.

Nuclear-powered Frigate

A similar impoundment dispute over the nuclear-powered frigate reached the point in 1966 where the House threatened to direct that funds be spent on the vessel. The Senate softened the language to stipulate that contracts for construction of the frigates be entered into "as soon as practicable unless the President fully advises the Congress that its construction is not in the national interest" (Stassen, 1969: 1168-76).

ANTI-INFLATION POLICY

Federai responsibility for economic stability-tacity admitted during the 1930s and during World War II-received formal acknowledgment with the Employment A of 1946. Explicit objectives of the Act included the promotion of maximum employment, production, and purchasing power. Though control of inflation was not specifically mentioned (a postwar depression seemed more likely), price stability could be inferred from the goal of maximum purchasing power and the development of policies to "avoid economic fluctuations" [60 Stat. 23, sec. 4(c)]. All postwar presidents interpreted the Act to include federal responsibility for combating inflation. The question was whether this responsibility would fall primarily on Congress or on the president.

Spending Controls

Congress tried several techniques in the postwar years to place restrictions on federal spending. As part of the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946, a joint committee was formed to prepare a legislative budget and prescribe a ceiling on expenditures. The work of the joint committee, consisting of 102 members from the taxing and