ARTICLE CONCLUDES TRUMAN DID NOT VIOLATE THE CONSTITUTION IN SENDING TROOPS TO KOREA CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., March 14 -- Relying upon declassified State Department records and a careful review of congressional debates, a University of Virginia legal scholar has concluded that President Harry Truman was not, as has been widely charged over the years, an "imperial president" in his handling of the commitment of U.S. combat troops to defend South Korea in June 1950. His conclusions have relevance to recent debates over President Clinton's constitutional power to send troops to Haiti and Bosnia without formal legislative sanction. The conventional wisdom in recent decades has been that Truman simply ignored Congress in responding to the June 25, 1950, North Korean invasion of South Korea. This usurpation of the congressional power "to declare war," it is widely held, paved the way for President Lyndon Johnson to send hundreds of thousands of American soldiers to Indochina in 1965 without the consent of Congress. Even some recent scholars who have concluded that Congress constitutionally authorized troops to Vietnam have contended that Truman violated the Constitution in 1950. Writing in the current issue of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy (Winter 1996), professor Robert F. Turner, associate director of U.Va.'s Center for National Security Law, argues that Truman "played it by the book" and that his actions in Korea were fully consistent with the interpretation of his powers under both the Constitution and the U.N. Charter given by congressional leaders and with the advice he received immediately following the Korean attack in consultation with many of those same leaders. "Like most scholars who work in this area, I had generally accepted the popular view that Truman elected to bypass Congress -- and I always thought it was an arrogant blunder," Turner said. "But as I read the once top-secret official minutes of TrumanŐs meetings with congressional leaders, and reviewed the relevant debates in the Congressional Record and hearing transcripts, it became increasingly apparent that Truman has been treated unfairly on this issue." According to Turner, who has served as chairman of the American Bar AssociationŐs Standing Committee on Law and National Security and was the first president of the congressionally-established U.S. Institute of Peace, the 1945 Senate debates on ratification of the U.N. Charter, and the House and Senate debates on passage of the U.N. Participation Act later that year, demonstrate that Congress understood it was empowering the President to use military force pursuant to decisions of the U.N. Security Council without having to return to Congress for approval of each specific operation. The unanimous report of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee recommending approval of the Charter explained that "enforcement action" by U.S. troops "upon the order of the Security Council would not be an act of war but would be international action for the preservation of the peace and for the purpose of preventing war. Consequently, the provisions of the Charter do not affect the exclusive power of the Congress to declare war." A House report noted further that "ratification of the Charter resulted in the vesting in the executive branch of the power and obligation to fulfill the commitments assumed by the United States thereunder." Ironically, Turner notes, one of the few concrete examples used during the Senate debate on consenting to the ratification of the U.N. Charter to illustrate the power being given to the President involved a conflict in the Balkans. On July 25, 1945, Senator Scott Lucas (D-Ill.), a member of the Committee on Foreign Relations, observed that, in addition to the PresidentŐs broad constitutional power to use military force without congressional approval to defend the country against foreign attack or "for the purpose of faithfully enforcing the laws of the land, including treaties, in situations which may involve the property rights, or personal rights, of an American citizen," the U.N. Charter would give the President "additional power which he does not now have." As an example, he offered a hypothetical case: We will assume that, in the absence of this treaty, a dispute takes place between Bulgaria and Rumania which threatens the peace of Europe. If there be no American interest involved, either a personal or property interest, I do not believe that the President would have any authority to send troops for the purpose of quelling such a disturbance taking place between those two nations. Senator J. William Fulbright then asked: "Will this charter be a recognition that our nation may become involved in that dispute?" Sen. Lucas responded: "There can be no question about it." No one challenged that interpretation. Turner said he was particularly surprised by what he learned from studying declassified State Department memoranda recording meetings Truman held with cabinet members and congressional leaders immediately after the Korean attack. Contrary to the common perception, immediately upon returning to Washington from Missouri on Sunday evening, June 25, 1950, Truman instructed Secretary of State Acheson to put the departmentŐs Ňbest brainsÓ to work on preparing an address to a joint session of Congress. The State Department had already contacted key congressional leaders to keep them informed about developments in Korea, and Truman scheduled a meeting for Tuesday morning with an expanded list of House and Senate leaders. In the meantime, he telephoned Sen. Tom Connally (D-Tex.), chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and the man who had been responsible for ushering the U.N. Charter through the Senate five years earlier, and asked whether he should ask Congress for a declaration of war "if I decide to send American forces into Korea?" according to Turner. Sen. Connally recounts in his autobiography that he told the President: "You might run into a long debate by Congress, which would tie your hands completely. You have the right to do it as commander-in-chief and under the U.N. Charter." Truman received overwhelming bipartisan support both in subsequent personal meetings with congressional leaders and through statements made on the floor of the House and Senate, Turner said. At Acheson's direction, the State Department drafted a joint resolution of support for consideration by Congress along with the address the President had earlier requested. But Congress recessed for 10 days later that week for the Fourth of July holiday, and at 4 p.m. on July 3 the President met with Senate Majority Leader Scott Lucas -- the only congressional leader still in Washington -- and several senior administration officials. After Acheson distributed copies of the draft resolution of approval, Truman asked Sen. Lucas for his advice. The Senate Majority Leader responded, according to the once top-secret memorandum of the meeting, that "he frankly questioned the desirability of this" and that "the President had very properly done what he had to" without formal congressional involvement. Truman replied that "it was very necessary to be very careful that he would not appear to be trying to get around Congress and use extra-Constitutional powers," but said it was "up to Congress whether such a resolution should be introduced." Lucas responded that "many members of Congress had suggested to him that the President should keep away from Congress and avoid debate." Rather than addressing a joint session of Congress, the Majority Leader recommended Ňthat the President might deliver this message as a fireside chat with the people of the country." In the end, following the consistent advice he had received during extensive personal consultation with Congress, Truman took that approach. Later, when the conflict in Korea became unpopular, congressional Republicans wasted no time in denouncing Truman for usurping the power of Congress to declare war, Turner noted. TrumanŐs approval rating fell to 20%, and the myth that he had simply chosen to "ignore" Congress was born, according to Turner. He adds that some of TrumanŐs most outspoken critics in 1951, senators who alleged that the President had violated the Constitution by usurping the power of Congress to declare war, had less than a year earlier argued in the Senate that the President was right to have sent troops to Korea and was authorized by the Constitution to do so. Turner concludes his article by observing that -- irrespective of the constitutional requirements -- for prudential reasons "a wise President will seek to keep Congress informed about potential national security problems on a regular basis, will consult prior to embarking upon major new initiatives, and will seek the formal approval of Congress for significant military operations." ### March 13, 1996 For further information or a reprint of the article, Robert Turner may be contacted at (804) 924-4080.