creasingly waspish critic of the last two administrations and of the present administration. Even now, with Congress in the hands of the Democrats and the administration run by Republicans, most committee chairmen manage to maintain amicable and cooperative relations with department heads sharing their areas of concerns. Chairman John Stennis of the Armed Services committee, for instance, has few complaints about Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird. Stennis seems to get the information he considers essential to the legislative process in military affairs. So does Sen. Henry Jackson, an influential member of the Stennis committee. While it is true that they are more in sympathy with administration policy than Fulbright is, that is not the whole answer to the difference. Part of it is personality. To Fulbright, the Senate's constitutional authority to advise and consent (or to withhold consent) in matters of foreign policy is a broader mandate than previous Foreign Relations chairmen have claimed. He obviously feels slighted and cheated. Indeed, it is a nice question whether his bill should be called The Kissinger Bill or The Fulbright Bill for the Relief of Bill Fulbright. [From the Chicago Tribune, July 28, 1971] WASHINGTON, July 27.-Three senators and a University of Chicago professor testified today that executive privilege-the power of the President and the executive branch to withhold information-has severely weakened the structure of government. They were the first witnesses as the Senate judiciary subcommittee on separation of powers began hearings on legislation to curtail the use of executive privilege. The inquiry has particular significance because of the recent controversy over publication of the secret Pentagon papers on the Viet Nam War and the subsequent Supreme Court decision favorable to their disclosure. ERVIN OUTLINES ISSUES Sen. Sam J. Ervin [D., S.C.], subcommittee chairman, outlined the issues in his opening remarks: "At issue in these hearings are conflicting principles-the alleged power of the President to withhold information, the disclosure of which he feels would impede the performance of his constitutional responsibilities; the power of the legislative branch to obtain information in order to legislate wisely and effectively; and the basic right of the taxpaying public to know what its government is doing." Sen. J. William Fulbright [D., Ark.], chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, complained that executive privilege has produced a "new super bureau, separate from the superior to the regular cabinet departments." FULBRIGHT FIRST WITNESS Fulbright, the first witness before the subcommittee, said this new bureau consisted of the entire organization that has grown up around the President and is centered in the National Security Council with its personal advisers and assistants. While recognizing the traditional position of the Presidential adviser, Fulbright said however, that Henry Kissinger-the chief foreign adviser at the White House-presided over a staff of 140. In addition, he said, Kissinger headed several interagency committees dealing with foreign policy and national security. "I do not consider Mr. Kissinger's influence, or that of his new foreign policy bureau, as being in any way sinister, illegitimate or even inappropriateexcept in one respect: this immunity from accountability to Congress and the country behind a barricade of executive privilege," Fulbright said. It was Fulbright's conclusion that until some legislative remedy is found, Congress lacks both the information to carry out its responsibilities and the opportunity to question and consult with White House foreign affairs advisers. The Arkansas senator informed the subcommittee that he planned to submit legislation shortly to provide fund cutoffs if federal agency or its employesinvoking executive privilege-refused to provide information to congress within 60 days. The subcommittee already is considering legislation introduced by Fulbright to limit the use of executive privilege by executive branch employes to instances in which the President asserts it on their behalf. TELLS OF RESISTANCE Another witness, Sen. William V. Roth, Jr. [R., Del.], told the subcommittee of the resistance he encountered when he and his staff attempted in 1967 to catalog the federal domestic assistance program. For example, Roth said: On requesting a copy of the telephone directory for the Office of Economic Opportunity, he was turned down because the directory was considered "confidential." After sending 478 questionnaires to the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, he received only 21 responses. Later, some of those who replied asked that their forms be returned. In each instance, Roth said, he was seeking unclassified material based on programs authorized by Congress and financed with tax money. OTHERS TELL DIFFICULTY Fulbright and Sen. Stuart Symington [D., Mo.] also related to the subcommittee difficulties they had faced trying to obtain information on certain defense and foreign policy matters. Prof. Alan Swan of the University of Chicago, who gave a historic view of executive privilege, testified that by the end of the Eisenhower administration, the executive branch was claiming authority under the Constitution to withhold from Congress "anything it saw fit." Swan labeled this privilege potentially "mischievous." "It can be used as readily to shield opinion corrupted by graft and disloyalty and to protect candor and honest judgment," he said, "and it can be used as a 'back door' device for withholding state secrets and investigation reports from Congress." The subcommittee, which has been studying the question of executive privilege the last four years, will hear Dean Acheson, a former secretary of state, tomorrow. [From the Evening Star, Washington, D.C., July 30, 1971] FULBRIGHT PANEL FIGHTS SECRECY The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is seeking to force a limit on executive-branch secrecy by invoking a little-known law that could cut off all foreign military aid. Sen. J. William Fulbright, committee chairman, said yesterday the panel has voted the cutoff in 35 days unless Secretary of Defense Melvin R. Laird provides requested information on 5-year military aid programs, or President Nixon declares "he has forbidden that it be furnished and gives his reasons for refusing to do so." The Arkansas Democrat said he has asked Laird for certain aid information several times, but letters sent the secretary April 30 and July 12 have gone unanswered. PROVISION OF BASIC ACT By a unanimous vote, the committee invoked a little-noticed provision in the Foreign Assistance Act. The act is the basic authority for military and economic aid programs. It specifies that spending for a foreign aid activity will be suspended if within 35 days the executive branch has not supplied a document requested by a congressional committee or the General Accounting Office. The funds cut-off does not go into effect if, during that period, the President forbids the documents to be furnished to a congressional committee and gives his reason for so ordering. Fulbright sent a letter to Laird notifying him that the committee was formally requesting the 5-year plans and was invoking the 35-day cutoff provision. In more than two years of repeated requests by the Senate committee and the General Accounting Office, the Defense Department has refused to supply the 5-year plans. TWO FULBRIGHT BILLS The challenge to Laird was disclosed as a Senate Judiciary subcommittee held hearings on Fulbright's bill to limit use of the executive privilege. Any member of the executive branch refusing to testify before Congress would have to present a letter from the President invoking the privilege. At the hearings, former Secretary of Defense Dean Rusk and W. Averell Harriman, long-time presidential adviser to Democrats, strongly opposed a second Fulbright bill that would cut off funds of agencies not supplying requested information and not invoking executive privilege. "ANTAGONISTIC FEELING" Rusk said it would "freeze" the government. "I don't like at all the spirit, the atmosphere, and the chain of events that would be set in course," he said. Harriman said: "I don't like the idea of going at the executive with an ax in advance." He said Fulbright's bill would create "an antagonistic feeling." Rusk and Harriman offered somewhat differing views on whether Henry A. Kissinger should be summoned to tell Congress about President Nixon's China trip. "If the President wishes to inform the Congress he has every available channel to do so if Kissinger is not available," Rusk said. "If the President doesn't want to because of the delicacy of the situation, calling Mr. Kissinger won't help." [From the Christian Science Monitor, Washington, D.C.. August 5, 1971] (By Robert P. Hey, Staff correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor) Congressional ire is rising at the amount of information the executive branch can withhold from the legislative. Far too much is withheld, it is being suggested in Congress. It is sparked by the case of presidential adviser Henry A. Kissingeran official highly important in determining foreign policy, but inaccessible to Congress. For some members of Congress, the last straw was that Mr. Kissinger went to Communist China and arranged for the coming visit of President Nixon-and they didn't know a thing about it in advance. But the tide of congressional dissatisfaction runs deeper than the role of Dr. Kissinger. There is a strong feeling among many in Congress that the last several presidential administrations regularly have withheld from Congress much information about Vietnam that Congress needed to make informed judgments on conduct of the war. This has been a particular concern of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, chaired by Sen. J. W. Fulbright (D) of Arkansas. PROVOCATION SEEN Nor is Vietnam secrecy the full story. Sen. Sam J. Ervin Jr. (D) of North Carolina has been increasingly provoked at several federal agencies with which he has been corresponding for the past year. Senator Ervin, a leading privacy advocate, has sought much specific information, to enable him to determine whether or how much government agencies have been invading the privacy of their employees, and of Americans generally. He has received a good deal of information from many agencies. But others have refused to answer some questions. He has been particularly irked at the Department of Defense, which provided some information concerning military surveillance of civilians but stamped it secret so he could not reveal it to citizens. In recent days Senators Ervin and Fulbright have been chairing two searching hearings in Washington into the whole question of the amountand constitutionality-of the withholding of information by the executive branch of government. The problem has recurred again and again in recent years-during the era of Sen. Joseph McCarthy it was particularly acute. It is recognized that any president must keep some information confidential, and to that end he is able to invoke the power of "executive privilege" to enable him to do so. Veteran diplomat W. Averell Harriman testified at Senator Fulbright's hearings that Congress should get more information than it now does. But, he said, "the President does have the right, indeed the duty, to protect his constitutional responsibility by withholding information from Congress" which he believes might harm the nation's interests. He acknowledged the difficulty of striking a balance between Congress's need to know and any president's need to keep some secrets. HEARINGS HELD Senators Ervin, Fulbright, and others hold that too often branches of the executive department hide behind the plea of executive privilege when they ought instead to be providing Congress with information. And, they add, too often branches of the executive department neither invoke formal "executive privilege" claims, nor answer Congress's questions. As chairman of the Senate subcommittee on separation of powers, Senator Ervin has been holding several days of hearings on bills challenging the administration's right to withhold as much information as it does. One of the bills before the Ervin subcommittee-by Senator Fulbrightwould require administration officials at least to appear before Congress if asked to. In part this is an effort to get Dr. Kissinger to appear. Under terms of the bill, a witness from the executive branch could not invoke executive privilege unless he had with him a letter from the President specifically invoking it. A second bill-also by Senator Fulbright-would permit Congress to cut off funds from any agency of the executive department if it did not provide information Congress requested. At the same time, the Ervin committee was considering this second bill, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was invoking the principle it involves. It voted 15 to 0 to hold up the $3.3 billion foreign-aid bill until the Department of Defense provides a copy of its five-year plan for foreign military assistance. Senator Fulbright said that in April, and again in July, he wrote Secretary of Defense Melvin R. Laird asking for the information, but did not receive an answer to either letter. TESTIMONY HEARD The Foreign Relations Committee has heard several prominent members of earlier administrations testify that presidential administrations ought not to keep so much information secret from Congress on grounds of executive privilege. These witnesses include former secretary of state Dean Rusk, former assistance secretary of state for Far Eastern affairs William P. Bundy, and former undersecretary of state George W. Ball. But these and other witnesses warned against passing bills like Senator Fulbright's, which would estabilsh an "antogonistic" relationship between Congress and the executive branch. Mr. Rusk and Mr. Bundy recommended instead a joint congressional-executive committee to see that more information flows from the executive to the Congress. [From the New York Times, September 1, 1971] PRESIDENT DENIES ARMS-AID PLANS TO SENATE PANEL INVOKES EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE TO BLOCK FULBRIGHT GROUP'S BID TO HALT (By Marjorie Hunter) WASHINGTON, August 31.-President Nixon refused today to disclose to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee the Administration's long-range plans for foreign military assistance. With his action-the second time Mr. Nixon had invoked "executive privilege" to deny information to Congress-the President forestalled a threatened Congressional halt in all foreign military aid. The Foreign Relations Committee voted, 15 to 0, on July 29 for suspension of all foreign military aid unless the Pentagon supplied its five-year plan for military assistance, or unless the President forbade making the information available. MOVE DISCLOSED BY LAIRD The President's decision was announced in a memorandum made public late today by Secretary of Defense Melvin R. Laird, just hours before the deadline for supplying the information to the Senate committee. In his memorandum, the President described the information being sought by the committee as "internal working documents" involving only "tentative planning data." "I have determined, therefore," he said, "that it would not be in the public interest to provide to the Congress the basic planning data on military assistance" being sought by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Secretary Laird had earlier denied the existence of such long-range plans within the Defense Department. In a letter Aug. 7 he told the committee that "we have no document or documents which constitute a current five-year plan for the military assistance program in the Department of Defense." REQUEST REJECTED Therefore, he said, it was impossible to comply with the committee's request. However, other Pentagon spokesmen had told Congress in recent months that such "internal staff documents" did exist-and it was information contained in these that the Foreign Relations Committee was seeking to obtain. The President's decision to withhold the information was criticized late today by Senator J. W. Fulbright, the Foreign Relations Committee chairman. He said that by refusing to supply the documents, Mr. Nixon had made it difficult for his committee "to legislate in the area of foreign military assistance." Noting that the committee had requested the data strictly on a "confidential basis," Senator Fulbright said he found the President's decision hard to understand "in the light of earlier statements about the desire of this Administration to be open and forthcoming in its relations with the American people and Congress." In a memorandum to members of his Cabinet on March 24, 1969, shortly after he took office, the President said that "the policy of this Administration is to comply to the fullest extent possible with Congressional requests for information." He said that while there might be times when disclosure of certain information "would be incompatible with the public interest . . . this Administration will invoke this authority only in the most compelling circumstances and after a rigorous inquiry into the actual need for its exercise." In denying the foreign aid information to the committee, Mr. Nixon acted under what is called the doctrine of executive privilege-a doctrine that has been used, but only sparingly, since George Washington's Presidency. NO CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISION The Constitution nowhere refers expressly either to the power of Congress to obtain information or to the power of the executive to withhold infor |