ABSTRACT
Actual policies emphasize predominantly military—rather than political—means, aims, considerations, and executive responsibility, on both the Vietnamese and American sides, for reasons of short-run security. Thus, when United States combat units flooded into Vietnam from 1965 on, the pessimism of later 1964 gave way increasingly to buoyant hopes, by 1967, of an essentially military victory. In the Vietnam War the President's power so exceeded Congress's constitutional and traditional role that even some conservative legal scholars believe the war was technically unconstitutional; see, for example, Alexander M. Bickel, "The Constitution and the War," Commentary, July 1972. An anguished view of Congress's impotence before the President is offered by Senator J. William Fulbright in The Arrogance of Power. Meanwhile, as an essential part of the bargain with our ally—serving to keep it in power, fighting—high United States officials provided verbal and symbolic encouragement and evidence of United States concern and commitment. The classic analysis of presidential power is Richard Neustadt, Presidential Power.
