U.S President

The president of the United States is by far the best known politician both within the United States and around the world. Americans who struggle to recall the name of their representative, senator, or governor almost certainly know the name of the president. Citizens of other countries from Iraq to China, Australia to Russia, are generally familiar with the president's name and photograph and have an opinion on his performance in office. The fame that U.S. presidents enjoy today is appropriate, for the person who holds that office is at the center of both American politics and world affairs. Yet the president is not all-powerful at home or abroad. U.S. presidents are of ten frustrated overseas (for example, in their attempts to bring peace to the Middle East or Northern Ireland), and domestically it is well to remember that, as the political scientist Charles O. Jones has emphasized, the United States does not have a presidential system of government in the sense that presidents are free to make and implement policy.

Powers of the Office

The Constitution, as is well known, created a system of checks and balances to prevent tyrannical government. The political scientist Richard Neustadt correctly noted that the Constitution did not create a system of separated powers favored by theorists such as Montesquieu, in which legislative, judicial, and executive powers were kept separate from one another. Rather, the Constitution gave pieces of all these powers to all branches of government. The power to oversee the departments and agencies of the federal government is given to Congress and the courts as well as to the president; Congress as well as the president is involved in foreign policy through Congress's powers to block the appointment of ambassadors and decide whether to accept or reject treaties, and through its general power of the purse through which it decides how much, if at all, to fund policies proposed by the president and his officers.

The Constitution is also particularly brief and ambiguous in describing the powers of the president. The president is given the rights to nominate ambassadors and other officers of the United States and to require their opinions in writing, to veto legislation (subject to override by a two-thirds majority), to report on the state of the union, to negotiate treaties, and to be commander in chief. The Constitution therefore provides a mixture of both precise and ambiguous powers to the president. There was no doubt from the earliest years of the republic that the power to veto legislation provided presidents with an enormously valuable bargaining chip in the legislative process. In the case of other Constitutional grants of power, it has taken many years of practice and interpretation to define what they mean. At the time the Constitution was written, the role of the British king as commander in chief had become merely ceremonial and honorific. Yet by the late twentieth century, U.S. presidents had successfully asserted that this title empowered them to order American forces into battle even if Congress had not used its undoubted constitutional right to decide whether or not to declare war. In the Cold War nuclear era, the implications were sobering. On a less dramatic level, the question of which officers and officials of the United States the president can not only appoint but dismiss is similarly ambiguous in the Constitution. The matter was not fully settled by the Supreme Court until the twentieth century; for example, the president can fire the Attorney General or the Secretary of State, but cannot fire members of independent regulatory commissions or independent counsels. In important respects, therefore, the powers of the president have accumulated over the centuries rather than invariably originating unambiguously from the Constitution.

The Constitution gave the president one enormous advantage compared with the other two branches of government, namely the singularity of the office. Power in Congress is widely fragmented between two chambers and among numerous committees, subcommittees, and part leaders. Individual legislators are hesitant to grant much of their own power to anyone. The president in contrast enjoys a solitary splendor. As Alexander Hamilton recognized in the Federalist Papers, the president is much better placed to act with speed and dispatch in making decisions than the fragmented Congress. The president's bargaining position with Congress is also enhanced by its divisions and his singularity.

Presidents enjoy one important advantage because of a constitutional practice rather than the Constitution as such. The president is uniquely positioned to claim to be the person who can speak for the United States and the national interest, particularly during crises and emergencies. This reflects the fact that, contrary to the plan for electing the president set out in the Constitution, the president is in practice elected directly by the people voting state by state. Thus the president can claim with some plausibility to be the only politician to have been elected by all the people, in contrast to legislators elected by a single state or district. Yet all these Constitutional advantages must be set against the constraints the Constitution provides and that we have discussed above. The most obvious are worth reiterating. Presidents cannot legislate without Congress. Presidents cannot even implement established policies unless Congress, which has the power of the purse, provides the funding. The contrast with a prime minister who can rely on a disciplined parliamentary majority (as is generally the case in Great Britain) is striking.

The Presidency in the Political System

The Constitution therefore confers both opportunities and constraints upon the president. As we have seen, American presidents share all their powers with other branches of government. Presidents can achieve their policy goals only by winning the support of other political actors. The nature of American politics makes the challenge all the greater. Political parties in the United States are famously (or notoriously) less disciplined than parties in parliamentary systems; the president's unofficial role as leader of his party nationally does not automatically result in legislators from that party supporting one of the president's bills in Congress, particularly if their constituents' interests or opinions conflict with it. Attempts by even the most prestigious presidents to punish members of their own party who have failed to support them (such as Roosevelt in the 1930s) have harmed presidents more than the objects of their wrath. American political parties historically have not coalesced around explicit ideologies to which presidents can appeal for support. It is true that in the late twentieth century the parties in Congress achieved much greater cohesion than in the past, with much larger proportions of legislators voting with their party much more of ten than in previous years. Yet, as President Clinton experienced when his proposal for national health insurance failed in a Congress controlled by his own Democratic Party without even a formal vote being taken, higher party unity scores do not necessarily result in support for a particular presidential proposal from his own party. As Richard Neustadt argued, the power of the president is the power to persuade.

Fortunately for presidents, they enjoy a number of advantages not enumerated in the Constitution to help them in their attempts to persuade. Particularly in times of acute crisis, such as the beginning of a war, the president's dual role as head of state as well as head of government causes a "rally effect" in which the public and other politicians unite in support of the nation's leader. Presidents can reward support with government contracts for the legislator's constituency, appointments for friends, or support for the legislator's own favorite proposal. Most importantly, presidents have the ability to "go public" in the words of Samuel Kernell, appealing to the public for support over the heads of other politicians. The rise of the electronic media, first radio and then television, has enabled presidents to establish a direct, almost personal relationship with voters that skilled presidents such as Ronald Reagan or Bill Clinton have used to good effect. It is probably advisable for presidents to use this tactic on a limited number of important issues lest it lose its impact. If used wisely, it can be decisive.

The degree to which presidents are successful in persuading other politicians to follow their lead has varied significantly. Three different cycles can be distinguished. First, success varies over the course of a presidency. Even those presidents regarded as the most successful in gaining support from Congress have found that toward the end of their presidencies their success has faltered. Both Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson experienced dramatic success in obtaining legislation from Congress only to experience subsequent periods of frustration and failure. Second, a president's success may be influenced by reactions to events that occurred under his predecessors. Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter both suffered from the belief that under their predecessors an overly powerful "imperial presidency" had developed. Ronald Reagan benefited from a fear that under Carter and Ford the presidency had become "imperiled, not imperial." Third, there have been longer-term historical variations. The unimposing presidents that James Bryce had in mind when he discussed the office in his magisterial book, The American Commonwealth, gave way to the strong presidencies of Theodore Roosevelt and (after William Howard Taft) Woodrow Wilson. The uninspiring presidents after Wilson were followed by the strong leadership of Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman.

The Office

The Constitution talks of the president, but in the modern era, at least, the presidency is not merely the president but a sizable political institution employing over 1,500 people. By way of contrast, the Executive Office contained less than half that number (703) in 1943 when Roosevelt had a world war to run. Some of these people are civil servants, notably in the Office of Management and Budget that constructs the president's budget and monitors the regulations that agencies and departments develop. Around 400 are members of the White House staff, a group of political appointees whose role and power varies from the relatively mundane (arranging travel, answering correspondence) to the extremely important (writing speeches, advising on policy issues.)

The growth in the size of the Executive Office might be seen as reflecting merely the growth in the responsibilities of governments in all advanced industrialized economies and in the international role of the United States. It is important to note, however, that new functions or responsibilities of American government could have been entrusted to established departments such as State or the Treasury. After all, American presidents are given far more freedom to make political appointments to the top positions in government departments than most democratic heads of government enjoy, and the number of such political appointees continues to grow. Newly elected presidents in the United States can make about 5,000 political appointments; a British prime minister in a country with admittedly only about one-fifth of the U.S. population can make fewer than two hundred.

All modern presidents have felt, however, that they needed their own staffers to advise them from within the White House rather than relying on the cabinet secretaries. In part this results from the fact that issues do not correspond to departmental boundaries; a foreign policy crisis will almost certainly involve the Department of Defense, the Treasury, and the Department of Justice as well as the State Department. It also reflects, however, presidents' suspicions about the responsiveness of the civil service in government departments and the commitment of cabinet secretaries to the president's agenda. After all, many political appointments are made more for political reasons (ensuring that there are enough women or minorities in the president's appointments) rather than because those selected are known to have a clear commitment to the president's policy preferences. Indeed, of ten presidents must make appointments to positions in policy fields that they have rarely thought about, and they have no clear preferences until a problem develops. Moreover, political appointees in departments must operate in a political setting in which many influences upon them—powerful congressional committees, the opinions of the permanent bureaucracy, interest groups—can pull them away from the president's priorities and policy positions.

Unlike the leaders of most advanced democracies, American presidents are presented with the challenge of constructing the core executive for themselves. British prime ministers used to walk through the front door of 10 Downing Street to take charge of a prime ministership that was ready to use and with key officials (who are permanent civil servants)in place. U.S. presidents arrive to find that their predecessor has removed all key files and computer discs. A number of obvious dangers lie in wait for the new president in constructing his or her administration. Some presidents (Johnson, Nixon) are said to have created a severely hierarchical structure for the White House staff that screened out and sheltered them from bad news or contrary opinions that they needed to hear. Others (Carter for most of his administration, Clinton for periods of his) have been criticized for allowing too much access to them by too many of their staff, resulting in incoherent decision making and excessive demands on their time, down to, in Carter's case, allegedly deciding on who could use the White House tennis courts. Reagan claimed that members of his Executive Office, notably Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North of the National Security Council staff, had organized the illegal sale of weapons to Iran and transfer of the proceeds to right-wing rebels in Nicaragua. In short, the Executive Office, if organized ineffectively, can harm presidents as well as helping them. An appropriate structure for the White House staff and the Executive Office in general will avoid these dangers. It will also, however, take into account the styles and personalities of the incumbent; an appropriate structure for one president may be inappropriate for another.

The Presidency and the World

Presidents of the United States are elected only by Americans, but their policies and performance matter to people throughout the world. Although the end of the Cold War meant that presidents were no longer as obviously leaders of a mighty "Western" coalition, the dominant position of the United States in the world has compelled U.S. presidents to accept a role of global leadership. Post–Cold War presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush came into office determined to be more domestically oriented than their predecessors but were unable to escape the demands of world leadership. Global issues ranging from climate change to trade, from bringing peace to the Balkans to combating international terrorism against the United States, from countering the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait to settling disputes with the European Union over the use of growth hormones in beef cattle, have regularly forced themselves onto the agendas of the post–Cold War presidents.

Leaders in other countries are as much a part of the attentive audience for presidents as, for example, representatives in Congress. The annual meeting of the leaders of major advanced industrialized nations known as the G8 brings presidents (and more extensively, their staffs) into regular dialogue with foreign counterparts. Certain foreign leaders (the British prime minister, the Russian president) expect to speak with the U.S. president regularly and informally on major global issues. Almost all foreign heads of government prize the publicity and prestige that a visit to the White House brings. Foreign leaders know that, given the extent of American economic, diplomatic, and military power, a decision not to become involved in a problem that concerns them is as much a policy decision on the part of the American president as a decision to become involved. Presidents frequently find themselves practicing what Robert Putnam termed the "two level game" of balancing the sometimes conflicting, sometimes coinciding demands of global politics on the one hand and domestic politics on the other.

The Presidency in a New Century

The history of the U.S. presidency has been a history of expansion. The institution has grown in terms of the number of people it employs, in terms of the range of policy problems for which presidents are held accountable, and in terms of the international responsibilities of its incumbent. In spite of the misleading adage that "all politics is local," Americans feel that through the medium of television they have a closer connection with the president than with any other politician. Yet all the prominence and responsibilities that befall a modern president must still be handled within the framework established by an eighteenth-century document, the Constitution, that created not a presidential system of government but a system of separated institutions sharing the powers of government. The president, whose international prominence is so great, must always remember that at home, success depends on the ability to persuade other politicians to cooperate.

Bibliography

Burke, John P. The Intuitional Presidency: Organizing and Managing the White House from FDR to Clinton. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000.

Edwards, George C. At the Margins: Presidential Leadership of Congress. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1969.

Greenstein, Fred I. The Hidden Hand Presidency; Eisenhower as Leader. New York: Basic Books, 1982.

Hart, John. The Presidential Branch. New York: Pergamon, 1987.

Rockman, Bert A. The Leadership Question: The Presidency and the American System. New York: Praeger, 1984.

Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr. The Imperial Presidency. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1973.

Skowronek, Stephen S. The Politics Presidents Make: Leadership from John Adams to George Bush. Cambridge, Mass.: Belkap Press, 1993.

As commander in chief, the President of the United States oversees not only all U.S. military forces, but U.S. national security as a whole. In this capacity, the President exercises executive command and control of intelligence agencies, and issues executive orders and presidential directives that shape national security policy. The nation's 14 largest intelligence agencies belong to the Intelligence Community, whose leader, the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI), reports directly to the President. Executive oversight of intelligence also emanates through the National Security Council (NSC) and the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB). The President in turn presents intelligence budgets to the U.S. Congress, which exercises checks and balances on executive power.

Architect of National Security

The modern age of national security began in 1947, with the passage of the National Security Act, which reorganized the Department of Defense (DOD) and established the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and NSC. Prior to that time, the President had always exercised control over the armed forces as commander in chief, but now he also supervised a nascent security and intelligence apparatus destined to grow considerably over the years.

The modern President articulates much of his role as director of national security policy through executive orders and, more recently, presidential directives. Executive orders, which originated under the administration of President Theodore Roosevelt and grew considerably in number after World War II, are theoretically subject to congressional override, but in practice amount to executive edicts. Important executive orders from the 1970s and onward have addressed issues such as the organization of the Intelligence Community and the handling of classified documents.

Whereas executive orders are open to the public, presidential directives are classified, and knowledge of their content only emerges, if at all, after the fact. These directives have guided security and intelligence policy since the administration of President John F. Kennedy, and each administration has sought to place its own stamp on them by giving them specific titles as a class. For example, they were known as national security directives under George H. W. Bush, presidential decision directives under William J. Clinton, and national security presidential directives under George W. Bush.

In 1986, Congress called on presidents to issue an annual National Security Strategy (NSS), a document outlining the blueprint for national security. Prior to the 2002 NSS of George W. Bush, these usually did little more than simply restate policies then in effect. The Bush NSS, on the other hand, outlined an explicit framework for U.S. actions to be taken in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The Advisors

In directing intelligence policy, the President relies on Cabinet-level advisors whose departments have a role in national security. Most notable among these are the secretaries of State, Defense, Homeland Security, Energy, and the Treasury, as well as the Attorney General. Other Cabinet officials, including the secretaries of Agriculture, Commerce, and Transportation, also support some national-security functions, and may be called upon for advice relating to their specific areas.

The role of the Vice-President as advisor varies as a function of his relationship with the President. Kennedy, for instance, worked little with Lyndon B. Johnson, whose inclusion on the winning 1960 ticket had resulted from a marriage of convenience designed to attract conservative Southern Democrats. On the other hand, George W. Bush has relied heavily on Vice-President Dick Cheney, who served in the administration of his father.

The NSC. The Vice President is, along with the secretaries of State and Defense, a statutory member of the NSC, as is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the DCI. The chairman of the NSC is the President himself. Intended to serve as the principal advisory board on matters of national security and foreign policy, the NSC has in practice functioned to a level of importance determined by the chief executive.

In general, Democratic presidents have tended to take an ad hoc approach to the NSC, while Republicans, starting with Dwight D. Eisenhower, have relied more heavily on the NSC, or at least on the National Security Advisor, who played an important role in the administrations of Richard M. Nixon, George W. Bush, and others. The role of the National Security Advisor, officially titled the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, is not mentioned in the National Security Act, and emerged only during the Kennedy administration.

In addition to the four statutory members, the two statutory advisors on military and intelligence affairs, and the National Security Advisor, the Secretary of the Treasury is a regular attendee at NSC meetings. The Chief of Staff to the President, Counsel to the President, and Assistant to the President for Economic Policy are invited to attend any NSC meeting, while the Attorney General and the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) are invited to attend those meetings that pertain to their responsibilities. The directors of other executive departments and agencies, as well as other senior officials, are called to attend when appropriate. Under the George W. Bush administration, the Director (later Secretary) of Homeland Security has been a regular participant in NSC meetings.

PFIAB. Established by President Eisenhower in 1956, PFIAB is an independent advisory board within the Executive Office of the President. It consists of 16 uncompensated members, selected by the President from outside the ranks of government. PFIAB reviews the activities and performance of all agencies involved in intelligence activities, and advises the President on its assessments of their performance. It also provides the President with input on the objectives, conduct, and coordination of activities by members of the Intelligence Community.

Under the aegis of the PFIAB is the three-member Intelligence Oversight Board (IOB), established by President Gerald Ford in 1976. The IOB is responsible for oversight regarding the legality and propriety of intelligence activities, particularly—according to its charter—those "intelligence activities that the IOB believes may be unlawful or contrary to executive order or presidential directive." Originally an independent body, the IOB became a standing committee of the PFIAB in 1997.

The Intelligence Community, Budgeting, and Congress

In addition to leading the CIA, DCI serves as the President's principal advisor on intelligence matters. He also leads the Intelligence Community, which, along with CIA, includes 13 other agencies within the departments of Defense, State, Energy, Justice, the Treasury, and Homeland Security. Among the members of the Intelligence Community are the Federal Bureau of Investigation, National Security Agency, and Defense Intelligence Agency.

DCI reports to the President both directly and (depending on the operational structure of the administration in question) through the National Security Advisor. As head of the Intelligence Community, DCI presents the President with the annual Intelligence Community budget, known as the National Foreign Intelligence Program (NFIP).

In preparing the budget for intelligence and national security activities in the coming fiscal year, the President also relies on the Secretary of Defense. The latter presents the President with two budgets: the Joint Military Intelligence Program (JMIP) for military intelligence, and Tactical Intelligence and Related Areas (TIARA) for specific tactical intelligence requirements of the military services.

Using the NFIP, JMIP, and TIARA budgets, the President proceeds to establish an overall DOD intelligence budget with the help of the National Security Advisor and the OMB. He then presents these requests to Congress, which, once it approves the request, passes the annual intelligence authorization act. The latter originated in the late 1970s, as a result of congressional distrust toward the executive branch in the fallout from the Watergate scandal.

Intelligence authorization acts, in addition to numerous mechanisms for direct congressional oversight of intelligence, gives Congress influence over intelligence activities. In the case of the intelligence authorization process, Congress may refuse budgeting for certain requested activities, with the result being a tug-of-war between the White House and Capitol Hill. On the other hand, the President himself may veto intelligence authorization acts, which also include other, non-budgetary, provisions.

Further Reading

Books

Andrew, Christopher M. For the President's Eyes Only: Secret Intelligence and the American Presidency from Washington to Bush. New York: HarperCollins, 1995.

Gore, Albert. The Intelligence Community: Accompanying Report of the National Performance Review, Office of the Vice President. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1993.

Helgerson, John L. Getting to Know the President: CIA Briefings of Presidential Candidates, 1952–1992. Washington, D.C.: Central Intelligence Agency, 1996.

Mann, Thomas E. A Question of Balance: The President, Congress. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1990.

Thompson, Kenneth W. The President, the Bureaucracy, and World Regions in Arms Control. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1998.

The head of the executive branch, one of the three branches of the federal government.

The U.S. Constitution sets relatively strict requirements about who may serve as president and for how long. Under Article II, only a natural-born citizen of the United States is eligible to serve as president; a person born outside of the United States, even if he later becomes a citizen, may not serve. In addition, a person must be at least thirty-five years old to become president and must have resided in the United States for at least fourteen years. Under the Twenty-second Amendment, which was added to the Constitution in 1951, no person may serve as president for more than two four-year terms. The amendment further provides that a person who succeeds to the office for more than two years of an unexpired term (for example, because a sitting president dies or resigns) may serve for only one additional four-year term.

Article II also sets the parameters of the president's authority. The article provides that the president is the commander in chief of the armed services. As commander in chief, the president has the power to preserve the peace by governing a captured territory until Congress establishes civil authority over it; she also may declare martial law, which provides for the imposition of military authority over civilians in the event of an invasion, insurrection, disaster, or similar occurrence. In addition, the president can end a war through a treaty or a presidential proclamation. The power to declare war, however, is vested exclusively in Congress and not the president. In a situation of an undeclared war, under the War Powers Resolution of 1973 (50 U.S.C.A. § 1541 et seq.) the president must consult with Congress before introducing armed forces into hostilities. Nevertheless, the practical effect of the statute is somewhat limited because it recognizes the power of the president to unilaterally deploy military forces when necessary.

As the head of the executive branch, the president executes the law but does not legislate, although he submits budgets, and may propose bills, to Congress. The president's legislative power is limited to approving or disapproving bills passed by Congress. If the president approves a measure, it becomes law. If he vetoes the bill, or refuses to approve it, it goes back to either the House of Representatives or to the Senate (wherever the bill first originated). If both bodies then pass the bill again by a two-thirds margin, the president's veto has been overridden and she must sign it into law. Under the line-item veto law, the president may veto only a portion of a bill while leaving the remainder of the legislation intact (2 U.S.C.A. § 691 [1996]).

The president's executive powers also include the authority to issue proclamations and executive orders. A proclamation is a general announcement of policy, whereas an executive order has the force and effect of law by carrying out a provision of the Constitution, a federal statute, or a treaty. For example, during World War II President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an executive order confining Japanese American citizens to camps following the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

The president has the exclusive authority to represent the United States in its relationships with governments of other countries. Through the secretary of state and other officials, the president communicates with other nations, recognizes foreign governments, and makes agreements, including the negotiation of treaties. Treaties, however, must be approved by two-thirds of the Senate before taking effect. Executive agreements with other nations do not require Senate approval but still carry the force of law. For instance, the United States, through the president, has frequently entered into executive agreements to supply economic aid to other nations.

In domestic matters the president is advised by the cabinet, which is comprised of more than a dozen executive departments covering a wide range of areas, including commerce, housing, labor, and the treasury. Each department is headed by a secretary, who is responsible for its overall administration and for reporting to the president.

Should the president be unable to serve a full term, Article II and the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the Constitution provide for a line of succession. If the president dies, resigns, or is removed from office through the impeachment process, the vice president becomes the acting president. This transfer of power also occurs if the president informs both houses of Congress that she is temporarily unable to discharge the duties of president. The House of Representatives can impeach a president or indict her for treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors. If the House votes to impeach, the president is not automatically removed from office; impeachment is instead a formal charge accusing the president of a crime. The articles, or charges, of impeachment are submitted to the Senate, where the president is tried, with the chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court presiding over the proceeding. A two-thirds vote in the Senate is needed for a conviction, and the removal of the president from office. The only president to have been impeached was Andrew Johnson, who in 1868 was acquitted by only one vote. In 1974 the House Judiciary Committee voted to impeach Richard M. Nixon, but he resigned from office before the entire House could vote on the matter.

In May 1997 the Supreme Court ruled that a sitting president does not have presidential immunity from suit over conduct unrelated to his official duties. The holding came in a civil suit brought by Paula Corbin Jones against President Bill Clinton. Jones's suit was based on conduct alleged to have occurred while Clinton was governor of Arkansas.

See: Constitution of the United States; Electoral College; Executive Privilege; Presidential Powers; Separation of Powers; Watergate.

The noun has 2 meanings:

Meaning #1: the person who holds the office of head of state of the United States government
  Synonyms: President, Chief Executive

Meaning #2: the office of the United States head of state
  Synonyms: President, Chief Executive