the nation; then commit the troops.”nFred Weyand, Combat General in Vietnam and formernChief of Staff of the US Army, says, “When the Army isncommitted, the American people are committed, and whennthe American people lose their commitment it is futile to trynto keep the Army committed.”nThe Founding Fathers drove a spike into the Constitutionnthey framed, a spike aimed specifically at that crucial neednfor public commitment, insuring that no soldier marches offnto a war that becomes an expendable sideshow of anWashington power struggle: the provision that only thenCongress can declare war. My constitutional law professornfriends at Stanford tell me that the debates at the ConstitutionalnConvention revealed two basic underlying reasons fornthat clause. The first stemmed from a consensus among thenFramers that no one person, not the President nor any othernThe excuse for the Tonkin Gulf Resolutionnwas made into headlines that read liken”North Vietnamese Torpedo Boats MakenMidnight Sneak Attack on AmericannDestroyers.” I had the best seat in the housento watch the event, and our destroyers werenjust shooting at phantom targets — therenwere no PT boats there. Not a conspiracy,nbut a hysterical mix-up. 1 reported that, andnWashington received it promptly, but wenwent to war anyway.nin government, was to have the authority to lead the UnitednStates into war. Thus Congress was given the obligation {notnthe optional honor) of being the watchdog in this matter.n(There was debate about just making it the Senate, but thenFramers decided they needed a broader base.) And therenwas a second reason to put Congress on the hook: it wasndecided that unless it unequivocally authorized a war at thenoutset, the Congress was a good deal more likely later tonundercut the effort, leaving a situation that satisfied neithernthe allies we induced to rely on us, nor our men who foughtnand sometimes died.nI think it is fair to say that generally speaking, since WorldnWar II and our subsequent discontinuance of declarations ofnwar, things have not gone well. And we are all sick of thesenarguments about what is a war, and what is a prolongedncampaign, and how do you know in advance. Yes, and tirednof having to agree to the obvious: that it’s neat that thenPresident can pull off these successful flash-in-the-pannoperations like the Libyan raid, and the Grenada rescue,nand, too, the successful Persian Gulf presence, without thenencumbrances of prior debate. But I don’t think it is any sortnof a legal challenge to write a descriptive paragraph thatnclearly separates out the future Koreas and Vietnams fromnfuture Grenadas or Persian Gulfs. Basically, we’re notntalking about naval and air actions or marine team landings,nwe’re talking about the United States Army in combat onn18/CHRONICLESnnnforeign soil. And I think such expeditions (overseas wars)nshould be declared or not fought at all.nOne of the obfuscating factors in getting this hammerednout is the ambivalent stance of Congress. My law professornfriends have drawn out for me examples of what they call thentypical congressman’s “studied ambiguity” on the subject.nIt’s a fact that today the artful dodging of controversialnquestions is the road to reelection. They say that duringnVietnam and in some conflicts since. Congress has shownnitself to be consistently unwilling to end the fighting — innfact quite willing to continue to fuel it: “anything for thenboys overseas!!”—but at the same time quite resourceful innscattering the landscape with rationalizations whereby thenCongress could continue to claim that “it wasn’t really itsnwar.” In general, the modern congressman is quite likely tonbe happy to let the President call the shots on war and peacenwhile he devotes himself to the construction of his privatenpolitical bomb shelter.nI have an interesting study of different wartimencongressmen’s reactions to queries about their views on thenVietnam War in the light of their signatures on the TonkinnGulf Resolution:n— “prevent further aggression?”; “I was sure theyntold me they meant only aggression against ournarmed forces!”n”Oh, that was only to handle further provocationsnagainst destroyers in the Tonkin Gulf.”n”I was told we were just going along with one ofnold LBJ’s international bluffs.”nForeign Relations Committee report: “Although itncan be interpreted to authorize full-scale war, thatnwas not our intent at the time.”nEvery day our newspapers report the details of somensquabble over legislative vs. executive control of foreignninvolvement. They are competing for the prestige ofnrunning it. I’m talking about the other end of the stick — thenobligation to take responsibility for it and stick with it when itnturns to worms. If you want to see that flip-flop acted out innspades, come to a prison camp. When there’s reprisal andntorture being meted out, some prisoner officers, senior andnthus responsible, will shirk all leadership duties because theynknow they’ll be spotiighted, hammered, and exposed to badnpress at home. But let the heat come off, and those samenrankers who had been cowering in their cells for months,neven years — not answering wall taps of those seekingnguidance, dodging their responsibility of command —nsuddenly surface and present their credentials to lead thenhomecoming tickertape parade. That happened. Everybodynwants the prestige of control when the heat’s off, but manynshuck it like a hot potato when the fat is in the fire.nAmerican congressmen — Vietnam antiwar congressmennwho were lengthening the conflict even as American bodiesnwere piling up — were able to get off easy with theirnconstituents in spite of their signatures on the Tonkin GulfnResolution. The American public didn’t hold them responsiblenbecause there was just enough ambiguity in the airnabout just exactly where this resolution (new word) fit in.n