Impeachment Hearings: House Judiciary Committee, July 30, 1974
Impeachment Hearings: House Judiciary Committee, July 30, 1974
[00.19.25] The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Alabama, Mr. Flowers, is recognized for 3 minutes and 45 seconds. Mr. FLOWERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don't object to the fair air consideration of this, I will say to my friend from Michigan, I only object to anybody voting for it. This is a bad rap for President Nixon and we ought to recognize it as that. Let's remember what the President's purpose was in Vietnam or Southeast Asia, and it was to get us out of there and let us remember those advisers that advised him in the early spring of 1969 earned their stars under President Lyndon Johnson, a Democrat, if you will. I don't intend to demean the author of this article in any way and I honor your conscience, Mr. Conyers, and those others who join in this effort. But by the same token, you all don't have a corner on conscience in this or *in any consideration we have here and by the same token my conscience dictates to me that I speak out against this article of impeachment. We might as well resurrect President Johnson and impeach him posthumously for Vietnam and Laos as impeach President Nixon for Cambodia. How many articles of impeachment were filed against President Johnson for what he had done in getting us into the war in Southeast Asia? I don't recall that any were. I was not a Member of Congress during his administration. We might as well resurrect the Memory of John Kennedy for the Bay of Pigs. President Eisenhower had his U-2 incident. President Truman in Korea. I don't know. We could go back almost throughout history, and remember the Alamo. I don't remember who the President -was-but Davey Crockett may have been a, member of CIA. Congress has acted. We have passed the war powers limitation bill and I believe that is action setting forth our judgment on this situation. We don't need to spell it out any further. We, ought to vote this down by a large margin. I notice when you say Vietnam a certain number of people still jump up. Let's see if they do on this. I hope not, because this is a bad rap for President Nixon and I call on all members of this committee to vote against this article. The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Mann, is recognized for 3 minutes and 45 seconds. Mr. MANN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is unfortunate that the relationships between the President and the elected representatives of the people in Congress have deteriorated down over these 198 years to the point that the President cannot confide in the Congress and that Congress -whose duty it is to declare war. That situation exists, ladies and gentleman and it exists today. And we look ourselves straight in the eye and decide -what can we do about it? To further exacerbate that problem by recriminations for past conduct is not the answer, unless we can attribute to that President a motivation that is treasonous, and none of us would do that. There is no neat way to fight a war and the judgments made under those circumstances can only be viewed in the light of history and the judgments of Congress as it failed to declare war. What were we doing in Vietnam without a declaration of war? Appropriating funds, tacitly approving the commitment of troops. We have lately undertaken a definition of the powers, the, respective powers of the President, and the Congress, and so we should. And we should refer to article I. section 8 of the Constitution and see that there responsibilities upon the Congress with reference, to the operation of our armed services. To make rules for the government and regulations of the land and naval forces and other powers. So let us direct our attention to improving and restoring those rules and regulating regulations, those relationships, those trusts, that will not cause us to engage in a confrontation when that important item of national defense or national security is involved. [00.24.52]