Impeachment Hearings: House Judiciary Committee, July 30, 1974
Impeachment Hearings: House Judiciary Committee, July 30, 1974
[00.30.58] Mr. DRINAN. Those who want the Congress 'to stand up in the future will say, I am never going to allow another President to ratify the concealment from the Congress of basic facts and give to the Congress false and misleading statements about anything domestic, about anything foreign, especially about bombing operation-, in a neutral nation. I hope that all of us will say with Jerry Friedheim that we knew at the time it was wrong and we are sorry. The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentleman has expired. The gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Seiberling, has 3 minutes and 45, seconds. Mr. SEIBERLING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I find myself in agreement with the arguments of the proponents of this article on the issue that gave rise to it and that issue is the falsification of information, the misleading of Congress, the failure to consult Congress on a matter as grave as an act of war. On the, 19th of March 1969, President -Nixon approved the secret bombing of Cambodia and ordered that information on it be limited to those who had an absolute need to know. A Year later, in April of 1970, the President made this statement in a public address to the Nation: "American policy has been to scrupulously respect the neutrality of the Cambodian people." That statement -was a bald lie. Now, as Father Drinan has said, the heart, of this issue is the secrecy, the falsification. of information, and thereby the deprivation Of Congress of the ability even to exercise its constitutional powers over appropriations and over making war. And I certainly agree that just Informing a few individuals in the, Congress is -not informing the' Congress. Yet, I also find myself in agreement with the statements of some Of, the opponents of this resolution, particularly Mr. Flowers, Mr. Mann, Mr. Railsback, and Mr. Cohen. They have 'shown a sensitivity to the situation that we are in because of the, fact, that Congresses have not; always lived up to their responsibilities, and have allowed this sort of thing to go on. My mind goes back to 1940 -when President Roosevelt ordered destroyers to escort ships to Great Britain, a belligerent, which was an act of war, and yet I thought that was a great idea at the time. Now, there are a couple of other reasons why I am opposed to this resolution. Here, [holds up documents] is a collection of documents that has been published that the committee reviewed on this issue and here is a question of--here is a collection of the documents that the, committee reviewed but that have not been published and the reason they haven been published is because the administration refuses to declassify them. They are top secret. And yet there is no justification for the secrecy. The war is over. But they also, by doing that, prevent us from using as evidence in this case before the public. Some of the documents which tie the President into this very act of concealment So the concealment is continuing and prevents us from effectively presenting the facts. And there is one other reason, and that is that the Congress has passed the War Powers Act and laid down some guidelines so that from here on out every President is on notice that it is the law, the black letter law, not just the Constitution, that he must advise every Congress as soon as possible, preferably before he initiates military action. I Yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Eilberg. The CHAIRMAN-. Fifteen seconds. Mr. EILBERG. Mr. Chairman, I simply would like to associate myself with the remarks of the gentleman from Ohio, I appreciate his yielding to me and I Would like to add that I suspect that the lessons of this era have been well learned and are extremely unlikely to occur again, that my concern in impeachment is with those events that are continuing in nature and that our focus should be in that area, and I am particularly concerned with the classified information which we Cannot use. Mr. SEIBERLING. May I complete my statement. I feel particularly strongly about this. I am not known as a hawk in this Congress, to put it mildly. I voted against continuing the bombing of Cambodia last summer for, even 1 more hour. Kent State University is in my district. Four Kent State, students died 4 years ago because of the fact that the President of the United States again abused his power and invaded Cambodia without consulting the Congress. And if there is anything that we can do, that we haven't done, to stop that from happening again, we should do it. But we should not use our impeachment power to Impeach this President for acts of the, sort other Presidents have taken with impunity the same sort of action and for. which the Congress bears a very deep measure of responsibility. [00.36.04]