childmind is the junior-grade cynicism of so many adult minds that regards any belief in any President's essential good faith as impossibly naive.

In reality, the naivete is quite the other way around-the awfulness of the presidency having a profoundly sobering effect upon its holder-but it is no good putting the point forward since practically nobody is going to credit it anyhow. The plain fact, therefore, is that the institution of the presidency is scarcely warmed up for truly effective action short of two years and is then compromised and enfeebled, by suspicions of "politic," in the second two-year span. Give two more years-an aggregate, that is, of six-with the incumbent unarguably removed from any motive of personal ambition and he could do the kind of job that ought to be done.

Some will argue, of course, that a President barred from reelection would be too long a lame duck, without power to "reward or punish." But this objection is more apparent than real. For while on domestic affairs this disability could be said to exist, it is now not domestic but foreign policy that is the real name of the game and the real burden--of the American presidency.

And in the field of foreign policy a President can't become too lame-duckish not to be able to operate effectively. This is because of the special constitutional power given to him in this area. One points here to a Harry Truman who, while down to 23 per cent in the Gallup Poll, never lost a single foreign policy battle in Congress.

Now, for what is, generally speaking, an eight-year term: what is wrong is the ghastly erosion upon the physical, moral and spiritual strength of the President that so long and so cruel a span of responsibility will bring in the kind of world in which we now live. Six years he can survive. Eight years, to put it baldly, will put his very life in clear and imminent danger.

[From the Washington Post, Mar. 26, 1971]

TALK OF ONE-TERM PRESIDENCY GAINS

(By Marquis Childs)

It is hardly a coincidence that with President Nixon's swift and continuing decline in the polls he is almost daily interviewed on television and the press by sympathetic interviewers. This latest campaign in which the hand of administration advertising and publicity specialists is so evident, might be called "The Selling of the President 1971."

The newest campaign could raise his rating, as it has in past years not only for Mr. Nixon but for his predecessors. Yet with no well-defined constituency giving him their belief and support, the rise and fall of the polling barometer is volatile. As one of the pollsters put it, "his popular suport is a mile wide and an eighth of an inch thick."

The current drive comes at a time when men in the field in Vietnam and in the helicopters over Laos describe the operation as a route while the Pentagon surfaces with the phrase "mobile maneuvering" and the President himself calls it a perfect withdrawal. The defeat of the SST in Congress was a severe blow to Mr. Nixon's prestige, since the White House had orchestrated an all but unprecedented propaganda campaign to sell the supersonic transport plane.

Despite his strong disavowal in his interview with Howard K. Smith of any intention of renouncing a second term and following the Lyndon Johnson retirement route, speculation will continue. The difficulties facing a President today are so enormous, so complex, so riddled with partisanship that no Chief Executive can emerge at the end of four years with the prospect of a majority of the electorate. This is the somber view of those who believe the one-term President is likely to be a fixed phenomenon of the last third of the 20th Century.

Two years ago Majority Leader Mike Mansfield and Sen. George Aiken, the ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, put in a series of constitutional amendments. One was the amendment giving the vote to 18-to-21-yearolds. With final action by the House, this now goes to the state legislatures, with the possibility that it will be ratified in time for 1972.

One of the Mansfield-Aiken amendments that got little notice at the time would limit a President and Vice President to one term of six years. It also provided that a person who has been elected as Vice President for any term would be eligible for election as President at a later term.

This seemed pretty far out at the time, even with the Johnson example so recently in mind, and action still seems highly improbable. But the idea of an amendment limiting a President to one term extended in years is beginning to attract interest. In a recent speech at Austin College in Sherman, Tex., Sen. Gale McGee talked about the growing belief that one term in a time of troubles such as ours is the fate of every President.

"Remembering the political explosions which persuaded President Johnson not to run again," McGee said, "and the current speculation in regard to President Nixon's dropping political stance, I think we ought to be giving serious thought to the wisdom of one-term Presidents but lengthening that term to seven years.

"Most political scientists would agree that a single four-year term does not really give a new President, once he was elected, enough time to launch his program or live up to his commitments before he has to shift political gears to try for a second term. What would be the consequences if a President knew he had only one term, but would have seven years in which to put his programs into action? I think we ought to be discussing very seriously such a prospect."

The theory in the past was that a President in his first term must move fast to get through as much of his program as possible. In his second term he was more or less a lame duck, since he could not be re-elected-the 22d amendment spelled out this limitation-and he could only consolidate his earlier achievements. In the past decade it simply hasn't worked that way, and the one-term, four-year President found himself a prisoner of troubles beyond his control.

[From the Washington Star, Jan. 2, 1964]

FOCUS ON THE NEWS: REFLECTIONS ON TWO-TERM LIMIT

(By Charles Bartlett)

Congress could profitably consider a modification of the two-term limit that it set for Presidents in 1947 when it begins this January to consider the constitutional problems of presidential succession and disability.

The mood is not ripe to launch a repeal of the Twenty-second Amendment to the Constitution-most political scientists and many politicians dislike it intensely but the public finds comfort in the amendment's protection against what Thomas Jefferson described as the danger "that the indulgence and attachments of the people will keep a man in the chair after he becomes a dotard."

But the amendment could be constructively revised without being repealed. It now reads: "No person shall be elected to the office of President more than twice. "This could be significantly changed to read: "No person shall be elected to the office of President for more than two successive terms. .

OPENS WAY TO THIRD TERM

The change would allow a man who had served eight years as President to make a third race for the post after he had been out of power at least four years. For example, Dwight Eisenhower would have been ineligible under the change for re-election in 1960 but he could run if he wished in 1964.

The limit of "two successive terms" would accomplish the main objective of the present amendment-it would avert the use of the presidency as a political vantage point from which to secure repeated re-elections, A President is a cynosure of public attention, a fact which brings him enormous advantages in an election. No man could run as an incumbent for a third term under the proposed change.

But this revision would also meet the sharpest objection to the present amendment-it would remove the "lame-duck" weakness from a President's second term. Congress could no longer discount a second-term President as a fading factor in political life because he might come back after four years on the sidelines.

The proposal gains poignancy from the case of John Kennedy, who hoped that popular support at the polls in November would afford him the base for a strong second term. But the advantages of a sweeping victory would inevitably have been diminished by Congress' awareness that he was moving toward the end of his opportunity to wield presidential power.

The limitation of "two successive terms" was proposed by Democratic Senators Spessard Holland of Florida and Warren Magnuson of Washington in the

Senate debate of 1947. Holland argued, before his proposal fell to a vote of 50 to 34, that this was now a young man's world in which young Presidents would be elected. He said the Constitution should not bar a man who had proved his capacity for national leadership in two terms as Chief Executive from all further availability for the post.

Mr. Kennedy had not, as far as is known, decided what he would do when he left the White House at the age of 51. He might have disliked the idea of seeking the office at a later date-he often said that eight years were enough. But certainly his talents and experience should have been available if they were needed.

JEFFERSON FAVORED ONE TERM

Many distinguished men beginning with Mr. Jefferson have argued that the President should be limited to a single term. The Democratic platform of 1912 proposed a single term. But popular acceptance of a second term has been firmed by a modern sense of the complexities involved in the office and the value of experience.

Some 22 of the 36 States which ratified the Twenty-second Amendment apply no curbs to the tenures of their own Governors. The most common device among the others is a restriction to two consecutive terms. It is not clear why the States should be more generous with these limits on power than the Federal Government.

George Washington established the two-term precedent with his desire to return, at the age of 65, to Mount Vernon. But he also opposed contemporary efforts to put constitutional limits on a President's service. “I can see no propriety," he said, “in precluding ourselves from the service of any man who on some great emergency shall be deemed most universally capable as serving the public."

[From the Washington Star, July 16, 1968]

LONG PRESIDENTIAL TENURE APPEALS

(By Charles Bartlett)

The setting sun of the Johnson administration is casting sufficient glow to yield support to those who argue that a one-term resident would be far from bereft of power.

The paralyzing pall which gripped the capital until March 31 has lifted. The President's proposals are moving through Congress at a pace which delights their advocates. There is movement of a constructive quality in diplomatic dealings. Johnson's standing with the public has dramatically improved.

It is true that the bureaucracy has become less tightly attuned to the will of the White House. Inevitably career officials are looking beyond this administration, as they do in the final months of any president. The Democratic leaders on the Hill are uncomfortably detached but this is due much more to Speaker McCormack's age and Sen. Mansfield's distaste for the war than to Mr. Johnson's imminent retirement.

The national scene is certainly far more stable than it would be if the President were directing every resource and ploy at his own re-election. Partisan rancors bristle all around but they do not buffet the White House or tear at the credibility of its inhabitant.

Political abstinence must not come easily to Johnson but there is no evidence that he is faltering. Although accused of laying plans to dominate the Chicago convention, he has no hotel reservations there and appears at this moment to be disposed to pay no more than a flying visit to the stockyards.

One illustration of how his potential for good depends upon his purity is the issue of furnishing jet aircraft to Israel. All the Democratic candidates have responded to the pressures of their Jewish contributors by calling for the supply of these planes which the President has to date withheld.

If Johnson were playing politics, he would undoubtedly need to join the chorus and commit the planes because his party relies so heavily for funds on pro-Israel sources. But such a commitment would sorely cripple the initiative towards peace in the Middle East.

Another initiative facilitated by the President's retirement is a study of the presidency, the first to be undertaken in 30 years. The White House staff is examining how the study can be set up to deal constructively with the vast changes in the functions and responsibilities of the office.

Jack Valenti, Johnson's friend and former aide, raised last week the idea of a single, six-year term for presidents and Johnson is said to have shown interest in the notion, aimed at freeing chief executives from the preoccupation with reelection which inexorably handicaps their performance.

"Getting re-elected has been and will always be a prime motive of an elected president," Valenti said with substantiation from Alexis de Tocqueville who wrote 100 years ago that this was the principal aim of an American president.

It is exciting to contemplate the attitude of a president liberated from this ambition and the suspicions which it generates. If he were given six years, the House members could be given three-year terms so there would still be a midterm test of popular sentiment.

One way of softening the disadvantages of a one-term president would be to impose retirement limits on members of Congress so the chief executive would not be left to deal with Nestors made powerful but intransigent by the hardening of age.

There is a clear need, reflected in the critical attitudes of the young, to freshen the processes and rescue government from its aroma of stale politics. Washington's reanimation since March is an indication that a tightening of tenure may be one solution.

[From the New York Times, Dec. 8, 1968]

A SINGLE SIX-YEAR TERM FOR PRESIDENT IS ADVOCATED

Austin. Tex., Dec. 6 (AP)-Marvin W. Watson, Postmaster General and former White House aide, said today that the strains of the Presidency were so great that no man should be expected to hold the job for eight years.

Speaking to a group of graduate business students at the University of Texas, Mr. Watson advocated a single six-year term for Presidents.

"Within the next 12 years," he said, "I am certain that there will be a change in the length of the term of this office.

"The President should not be compelled to play any kind of politics in seeking a second term. Additionally, the strains in this modern age are so great that no man should be expected to exist in it for eight solid years."

[From the Washington Post, July 12, 1968]

PRESIDENTIAL TERM OF SIX YEARS URGED

Former top White House aide Jack Valenti proposed yesterday that Presidents be elected to single six-year terms.

Valenti, who served as one of President Johnson's most intimate advisers before becoming president of the Motion Picture Producers Association, said the Chief Executive at present had to spend too much time worrying about re-election.

"The Presidency has come to grips with problems so monstrous, so disruptive. so resistant to permanent solution that the re-election process is no longer suitable," he told a National Press Club luncheon.

"The President cannot be allowed to be diverted from the hard duties and even harder decisions by the so-called normalcies of politics and re-election," he said. "What ought to be enacted is one six-year term, with no consecutive re-election possible."

Valenti said that the re-election process has become "blubber, a national bloat weighting down on the efficiency of the Presidency."

[From The Advocates (transcript of television debate), Dec. 21, 1971]

SHOULD OUR PRESIDENTS BE LIMITED TO A SINGLE SIX-YEAR TERM?

Participants: Jack Cole (Pro)-Representative William Frenzel, (R. Minn.), introduced bill to limit Presidents to single six-year term; Jack Valenti, former Aide to President Johnson, President of Motion Picture Association; and Robert Rutland, Professor of History, University of Virginia.

Howard Miller (Con)-George Reedy, former Press Secretary to President Johnson; Representative Jerome Waldie, (D. Cal.); and Martin Diamond, Professor of Political Science, Northern Illinois University.

Moderator: Victor Palmieri; Executive Producer: Greg Harney; Executive Editor: Peter McGhee; Producer: Tom Burrows; and Director: Alan Muir.

This Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) program originated at KCET, Los Angeles.

ANNOUNCER. Tonight, from Los Angeles, The Advocates, Howard Miller, Jack Cole, and the moderator, Victor Palmieri.

PALMIERI. Good evening and welcome to The Advocates. Each week at this time we look at an important public issue in terms of a practical choice. Tonight the issue concerns the term of office of our Chief Executive. Specifically, our question is this: "Should our Presidents be limited to a single six-year term?" And our guest advocate, Mr. Jack Cole, says "yes."

COLE. The men who devised our Constitution came up with a marvelously democratic form of government, the national will expressed every two years carried out by an Executive, who is really carrying out the will of the national legislature, renewed by popular mandate, as I say, at the polls. Now we don't have to have a Chief Executive who's merely the most successful politician in the country. We can make his role that of a statesman, that of a man whose job it is to carry out the laws. With us tonight to tell us how and why we should achieve that end are an eminent historian from the University of Virginia, Professor Robert Rutland; a former Presidential advisor to Lyndon B. Johnson, the immediate past President of the United States, Mr. Jack Valenti; and from Washington, a Republican Congressman, William Frenzel.

PALMIERI. Our regular advocate, Mr. Howard Miller, says "no."

MILLER. Tonight's proposal would seriously weaken the regular accountability of the President to the people of the United States. After four years, a bad President would still be guaranteed another two, for the full six. But after six years, an experienced man could not stand for re-election. What we need is a system that increases accountability; not that ends it. With me tonight to oppose this proposal are Martin Diamond, Professor of Political Science at Northern Illinois University; George Reedy, a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars; and Jerome Waldie, United States Congressman from the Fourteenth Congressional District of California.

PALMIERI. This is the second appearance for our advocate, Jack Cole. He's a lawyer, a news broadcaster, a teacher of communications at Emerson College in Boston, and also for our purposes tonight, a very able advocate. Before we begin the debate, let's take a look at some background on tonight's question.

The first Constitutional Convention in 1787 was the scene of considerable debate on how long the President should serve and whether he should be eligible to serve more than one term. After more than sixty ballots concerning the Presidency, the Convention decided on a term of four years, with unlimited succession. However, until the third and fourth terms of Franklin Roosevelt, no President had served more than two terms. And in 1951, the States completed ratification of the 22nd Amendment, limiting the President to two terms. However, since the founding of the Republic, there have been 160 different proposals to extend the term to six years. Presidents Jackson, Harrison, Buchanan, Hayes, Cleveland and Taft all favored a restriction to one term. President Lyndon Johnson feels a single six-year term would work better than the present rule. Now Senators Mansfield and Aiken have introduced a bill that would amend the Constitutional description of the President's term of office. They propose that both the President and the Vice-President serve a single six-year term, with the Vice-President eligible to run for an additional term as President if he succeeded to the office by virtue of the death of the President. So that's the proposal we're debating tonight.

Mr. Cole, will you begin.

COLE. Foreigners, and especially reporters and political scientists who visit this country, are almost always struck by our politics, and especially by our presidential campaigns, which it seems begin at one minute after noon on innauguration day and wind up on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November four years later. No sooner did President Nixon take office than his would-be successors were going about the business of seeing to it that he had only one term in the White House. And, of course, Mr. Nixon, I think it's fair to say, has devoted some measure of his time since taking office to seeing to it that they didn't make it. Nor is Mr. Nixon at all unique in that respect. His immediate predecessor was a very controversial man: but every one agrees about President Lyndon Johnson, that he was a totally political man, his pockets fairly bulging with all the latest polls. So that the presidency has become in our time really a four year personality parade. It was on a purely political, press the flesh, man the fences mission to Dallas, Texas, that took President John F. Kennedy on a