Putting Checks on White House

The Tower Commission said there is nothing wrong with the National Security Council process; that the recent major breakdown in the council’s function was due to the fact that the process wasn’t used. It went on to say that it is not necessary that presidential appointees to the council be approved by the Senate.

I disagree. We the people need more control over those in position to exert great influence over or usurp power from the President. It is obvious that unscrupulous and ignorant men were the prime cause of the current debacle by substituting their unethical codes and procedures for established legal process. That is disturbing.

It becomes downright frightening when one recalls that similar secret seizures of power by greedy men who were contemptuous of Congress and the people occurred in the Nixon Administration just 15 years ago. Among the renegades then was President Nixon’s chief of staff.

If two such episodes of secret government by the few, smacking of dictatorship, can occur within 15 years, it tells me there is something very wrong with the process. What is to keep them from occurring again in the next 500 or so years of our still relatively young nation? Who can believe that other unscrupulous, dishonest and/or power-mad persons won’t get into the White House?

I urge that more safeguards against them be put into effect now. A congressional commission should be appointed to study the entire White House apparatus, including the roles of the chief of staff and the national security adviser, and to propose legislation to help prevent future betrayals of our country.

Particular attention should be devoted to the role of the President’s chief of staff. We definitely must face the fact that Ronald Reagan won’t be our last puppet President or Donald Regan our last de-facto chief executive. Just as now, we could elect one man and find that another is actually running the country. Their future counterparts could be even more villainous.

I therefore urge that both the chairman of the National Security Council and the President’s chief of staff be subject to confirmation by the Senate and that the National Security Council process be amended to insure that at least a few key House and Senate members and the secretary of state are kept informed of their activities on a day to day basis, perhaps by having their liaison men sit in on council deliberations.

LEWIS B. NEWMAN

Torrance