The case for a six-year presidency

Title

Creator

Valenti, Jack

Language

English

Source

Panorama Volume XX (No. 10) October 1968

Year

1968

Rights

In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted

Abstract

This is an excerpt from an article written by an assistant of President John Kennedy

Fulltext

■ This is an excerpt from an article written by an assistant of President John Kennedy. THE CASE FOR A SIX-YEAR PRESIDENCY No commentator or ob server of the Presidential scene has yet focused on the radical changes in the dimen sions and demands of the Presidency of the United States. Yet each passing month makes it more appa rent that the man who holds that office has to deal with problems so monstrous, so disruptive, so resistant to per manent solution that the re election process is no longer suitable. The President can not be allowed to be diverted from his hard duties and even harder decisions by the socalled normalcies of politics and re-election. The Consti tution should therefore be amended to provide for one six-year term, with consecu tive re-election ruled out. President Johnson once re marked to a meeting of his staff that, in the Presidency in this modern age, to be 90 and 55/100 per cent right was not enough. Perfection was not a goal to be sought; it was mandatory. Thus, it becomes rational and reason able to strip the Presidency of all fat, to take from it that which is not essential to make more purposeful that which is. The re-election process becomes blubber, a national bloat weighing down on the efficiency of the Presidency. Andrew Jackson, James K. Polk, William Henry Harri son, Andrew Johnson, Grover Cleveland, and William Ho ward Taft advocated, at one time or another, the six-year term. In fact, the average length of time that a Pres ident serves in the White House is five years. Thus, history, tradition, even expe rience, are not offended by this proposed change. The modern argument against the six-year term is based on the lame-duck is sue. The minute a President is elected for a six-year term, the argument goes, he imme 6 Panorama diately becomes a lame duck. But the same can be said to day when he is re-elected, for the Twenty-second Amend ment of the U.S. Constitution forbids more than two fouryear terms. The powers of the Pres ident are a paradox, they are both limitless and limited. The use, the efficacy, to which they are put depend on the skill and the persua sion and the toughness of the leader. If one is to be a lame duck in the first week of his second term, why not let him become that in the last years of his six-year term, for lame ness is not necessarily in herent in a last term. It is applicable to the strength of President, and if a particular President is weak, ten more terms won’t sustain him; and if he is strong, one six -year term, lean, boned, and sturdy, is all he needs to leave his mark on the future. As one who worked for three years in the very inner eye of the Oval Office and the Mansions (under President Kennedy), I am convinced that if the Presidency is not merely to survive, but to cope and heal, to lead and to challenge — and to succeed, it must undergo serious re structure. No doubt there will be studies made of' the Pres idency as it enters the last quarter of this century. It has worn its years well and borne its duties better. But it has now changed, with a change so deep and perilous that only the most casual and frivolous citizenry would turn away from the restyling of the machinery and tenure of * the Presidency. It is wise to study the Pres idency. It is a mark of na tional good sense. And the large first step to be taken is the removal of the re-elec tion process and the diver sion and the difficulties it fastens on the President in a time when all his powers of concentration and Consti tutional authority need to be free. — By Jack Valenti in the Saturday Review, August 3, 1968 issue. October 1968 7

pages

6+

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