Lehman, John. Making War: The 200-Year-Old Battle Between the President and Congress Over How America Goes to War. New York: Scribner's, 1992.
MI 20.2: Lehman "draws on historical examples dating from Barbary Coast Pirates to Desert Storm. [His] research is exceptional, and the footnotes provide many valuable resources."
Treverton, FA 71 (Summer 1992), says that "[t]his engaging essay, part memoir, begins with Desert Storm and ends with Panama, with constitutional theory and history in between. Lehman ... is wise enough to recognize that the Constitution hardly settled the tussle over war powers.... He is also honest enough to admit that while he favors a strong president in principle, he tends, like most of us, to look more favorably on Congress. Lehman emphasizes the leverage of congressional investigation..., and he concludes that Congress' power of the purse has been roughly the check on executive discretion that the Founding Fathers had in mind."
Manget, Fred F.
1. "Another System of Oversight: Intelligence and the Rise of Judicial Intervention." Studies in Intelligence 39, no. 5 (1996): 43-50.
"In effect, the judicial review of issues touching on intelligence matters has developed into a system of oversight.... Congressional inroads on all types of executive branch foreign affairs powers ... increased in the 1970s." Judicial oversight exists "in effective and powerful ways that go far beyond the conventional wisdom that national security is a cloak hiding intelligence activities from the Federal judiciary.... Federal judges are the essential third part of the oversight system in the United States, matching requirements of the laws to intelligence activities and watching the watchers."
2. "Presidential Powers and Foreign Intelligence Operations." International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 5, no. 2 (Summer 1991): 131-153.
"Foreign intelligence operations are conducted under a direct line of authority from the powers granted to the president by the Constitution. As the needs of the nation for security from external threats have grown, so have the foreign affairs and war powers of the executive branch. Today, they clearly and directly encompass foreign intelligence operations, whether such operations have Congressional sanction or not."
McCarthy, Gregory C. "GOP Oversight of Intelligence in the Clinton Era." International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 15, no. 1 (Spring 2002): 26-51.
"While varying greatly by issue and period, both select committees performed commendably" during the Clinton years. "Although comity would generally characterize the [SSCI's] approach, a notable exception is ... [t]he nomination of Anthony Lake" to be DCI. The "nadir of [HPSCI's] effectiveness" was the Torricelli case, which "was a disaster" for the committee. Overall, however, "the committees allowed Congress to play a major and mostly positive role in oversight."
Orman, John M.
1. Presidential Secrecy and Deception: Beyond the Power to Persuade. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1980.
Wilcox: "Critical study of executive secrecy."
2. Presidential Accountability: New and Recurring Problems. Contributions in Political Science, No. 254. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1990.
Surveillant 1.5 notes that there is a chapter on "Presidential Accountability in Controlling Intelligence." The book also "looks at the conflict between national security and civil liberties." The author's conclusion is that "Americans have lost the desire to hold presidents accountable for their actions."
Periscope. Editors. "Judge Webster on Oversight." 15,
no. 1 (Winter 1990): 5, 10.
Remarks by DCI Webster, 8 February 1990.
Pincus,
Walter. "Taking Intelligence into the 21st Century." Washington
Post National Weekly Edition, 27 Feb.-5 Mar. 1995, 32.
HPSCI chairman Larry Combest "is determined that his committee play a major role in reshaping U.S. intelligence for the 21st century."
Reisman,
W. Michael, and James E. Baker. Regulating Covert Action: Practices, Contexts, and Policies of Covert Coercion Abroad in International and American Law. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992.
Choice, Jul./Aug. 1992, says this is a "comprehensive and authoritative study of the international and domestic US legal aspects of covert operations.... [It is] thoroughly documented and well written." Peake, FILS 2.4, finds that the book suffers from "semantic and definitional confusion ... [but is] well-written [and] well-documented."
According to APSR 87.1, the book "focuses most of its attention ... on international law.... [The authors] find a international legal regime on intervention (particularly covert intervention) that is asymmetrically more permissive of U.S. action than most traditionalists could accept.... [This is a] tightly reasoned (though terse) book..., [with] copious endnotes, and annotated bibliography.... [I]mportant substantive matters have inevitably been skimmed, others omitted, while the treatment of the cases ... is brief in the extreme."
Turner, NSLR, May 1995, believes the book "provides an excellent overview of legal issues associated with the coercive use of military, economic, diplomatic, and ideological tools. It is particularly valuable in discussing the low-intensity use of military force.... The book also includes a discussion of a number of controversial covert operations," including Iran in 1953, the abduction of Eichmann in 1960, the Bay of Pigs, U.S. intervention in Chile, and the Rainbow Warrior episode in 1985. "If the book has a major flaw, it is that the narrow title may deprive it of the broad readership it warrants. It is highly recommended."
Smist, Frank J., Jr. Congress Oversees the United States Intelligence Community, 1947-1989. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1991. Congress Oversees the United States Intelligence Community, 1947-1994. 2d ed. 1994.
Valcourt, IJI&C 5.2, calls this the "finest outsider's overview to date of the early years of oversight by both the Senate and House." It is "mandatory reading for those who want to put the pre- and post-Church periods into perspective ... [and] can be considered the standard reference work on the first period of oversight." Cline, PSQ 106.2, refers to Smist's "nitty-gritty research" which has produced "an extremely useful book" and an "important contribution to history." Cline's "only reservation" concerns the author's "enthusiasm for the benign role of Congress as an investigative agent prying out intelligence mistakes and scandals."
Writing with regard to the second edition, Cohen, FA 74.2 (Mar.-Apr. 1995), notes that the "dates in the title are misleading": the book "covers primarily 1975 to 1993." In addition, Smist's work "is heavy on names and dates but rather thin on analysis. Nonetheless, it is a useful monograph." O'Reilly, JAH 78.3, seems less than pleased that Smist focused on the process of oversight rather than what the intelligence community was doing. Hilsman, APSR 86.2, accepts that the work is a "careful, scholarly history," but finds Smist's recommendations "unexceptionable." Also lacking is a discussion of the "politics" involved in the process.
Snider, L. Britt. Sharing Secrets with Lawmakers: Congress as a User of Intelligence. Washington, DC: Central Intelligence Agency, Center for the Study of Intelligence, 1997. [https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/sharing-secrets-with-lawmakers-congress-as-a-user-of-intelligence/toc.htm]
The trend toward large-scale sharing of intelligence with Congress began in the mid-1970s, accelerated with the establishment of the oversight committees in both Houses, and has grown steadily since 1992.
For a condensed version of this insightful mongraph from President Clinton's nominee for CIA Inspector General, see L. Britt Snider, "Sharing Secrets with Lawmakers: Congress as a User of Intelligence," Studies in Intelligence (Spring 1998): 47-69. [https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/spring98/Congress.html]
See also, James McCullough, "Commentary on 'Congress as a User of Intelligence,'" Studies in Intelligence (Spring 1998): 71-74 [https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/spring98/mccullou.html]. This is the text of remarks made at a 20 March 1997 conference at Georgetown University, where discussions centered around Snider's monograph.
Spaulding,
Suzanne. "A View from the Senate." National Security Law Report
19, no. 3 (Jun. 1997): 1, 9-14.
The former SSCI General Counsel (until July 1997) discusses recent legislative activities concerning intelligence matters. Included are comments on issues related to the handling of classified information and the export of encryption technology.
Sturtevant,
Mary. "Congressional Oversight of Intelligence: One Perspective."
American Intelligence Journal 13, no. 3 (Summer 1992): 17-20.
Treverton,
Gregory F. "Intelligence: Welcome to the American Government."
In A Question of Balance: The President, the Congress and Foreign Policy,
ed. Thomas E. Mann, 70-108. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1990.
Van Wagenen, James S. "Critics and Defenders: A Review of Congressional Oversight." Studies in Intelligence (1997): 97-102.
This review begins with the Continental Congress and continues through the Aspin/Brown Report of 1996.
U.S. Congress. Senate. Select Committee on Intelligence. Legislative Oversight of Intelligence Activities: The U.S. Experience. Washington, DC: GPO, 1994.
Return to Oversight
Table of Contents
Return to Main Table of Contents