Take Up Your Pen: Unilateral Presidential Directives in American Politics

Chapter 7. Unilateral Presidential Directives from the Postwar Era to the Present Day

chapter seven ................. Unilateral Presidential Directives from the Postwar Era to the Present Day Many things can be done by a stroke of the presidential pen. —John F. Kennedy, campaign speech (1960) One of the things that I have learned in the last two years is that the President can do an awful lot of things by executive action. —Bill Clinton, interview with the New York Times (1996) This chapter examines the use of unilateral presidential directives from Truman’s presidency to the present day. Like their predecessors, presidents from the postwar era to the present have used unilateral directives for a great variety of purposes, at times provoking controversies both politically and constitutionally. Better-known directives in this period include Harry Truman’s desegregation of the military and his seizure of the steel industry, John Kennedy’s creation of the Peace Corps, Richard Nixon’s freeze of wages and prices, Gerald Ford’s proclamation of clemency for Vietnam War draft evaders, Ronald Reagan’s efforts to limit government regulation, Bill Clinton’s proclamations for national monuments, George W. Bush’s directives for ‘‘faith-based’’ initiatives and the ‘‘war on terror,’’ and Barack Obama ’s reversals of many of Bush’s directives. Despite the great variety of significant unilateral presidential directives over the last seven decades, several substantive areas of usage stand out: war and national security, labor, race, administration, and the environment. By examining the presidential use of unilateral directives in these five areas, once can discern how these Postwar Era to the Present Day 187 directives have evolved from earlier presidents’ precedents and the extent to which they have influenced public policy, politics, and the presidency itself. War and National Security When national security is at stake and the president acts in his capacity as commander in chief, Congress, courts, and the American people generally comply. (Harry Truman’s steel seizure is an important exception to this rule, and I discuss it in the section on labor in this chapter.) And of course military matters often call for exigent executive action. So it makes sense that presidents have often turned to unilateral directives for national security and war. But this is especially so for presidents since FDR. Sometimes these directives are military orders, but presidents have also frequently used executive orders, proclamations, memoranda, and other nonmilitary unilateral directives to deal with war and national security. Harry Truman may be best remembered for managing the end of World War II and the start of the Cold War, and he often used unilateral presidential directives for both purposes. His most famous presidential order was likely the one to drop atomic bombs on Japan. The director of the Manhattan Project composed a draft of this order, and Truman approved it in late July 1945. Truman’s handwritten order to the secretary of war read simply, ‘‘Reply to your 41011, suggestions approved. Release when ready but not sooner than August 2.’’ Those fifteen words soon led to over one hundred thousand deaths and the end of the war. The order to use the bomb was a military order rather than an executive order or a proclamation, and it was more of an approval of earlier communications than instructions about how to proceed, but it nevertheless indicates how powerful a presidential directive can be. Aside from the order to drop the bomb, Truman often turned to unilateral directives to manage the end of World War II. For example, he issued proclamations to mark the surrender of Germany and Japan and to officially end the hostilities of World War II.1 Truman also issued directives to direct the transition to peacetime. For example, he issued several proclamations to lift restrictions on ‘‘alien enemies’’ in the United States.2 He also issued executive orders to abolish various wartime boards and offices and to reorganize the navy.3 In late 1946, Truman issued executive orders to 188 Chapter 7 terminate wartime economic controls and to merge all remaining wartime economic agencies into the Office of Temporary Controls.4 And in March 1948, he issued an executive order to transfer twenty-nine merchant ships to Italy to replace vessels seized during World War II.5 Truman also used unilateral presidential directives for the start of the Cold War and the Korean War. For example, he issued an executive order in 1947 to transfer U.S. naval vessels to the Chinese government...