Thread by @AnnieJacobsen

Some history👇on the modern resurgence of presidential power (from SKV):

"During the Church Committee investigations President Ford met with Chief of Staff Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Chief of Staff Dick Cheney to discuss how to keep secrets and restore presidential power..."

...As the committees prepared to release their reports, there was a stunning move from the White House. President Ford met with Rumsfeld and Cheney, who told him the reports had to be suppressed. Rumsfeld said, “We are better off with a political confrontation than a legal one.”

Dick Cheney advised the President that the White House should object to the release and attempt to block the reports on grounds that it compromised national security. President Ford agreed.

A new team of presidential advisors was needed, Rumsfeld told the president, leading Ford to dismiss several key members of his cabinet.

Schlesinger was let go as secretary of defense, replaced by Rumsfeld; Cheney became White House chief of staff; CIA director William Colby was replaced by George H. W. Bush; Kissinger stayed as secretary of state but was replaced by Brent Scowcroft as national-security advisor.

Later, Ford expressed regret for taking these actions. “I was angry at myself for showing cowardice in not saying [no] to the ultraconservatives,” he said. “It was the biggest political mistake of my life. And it was one of the few cowardly things I did in my life.”

Excerpted from👇:

SURPRISE, KILL, VANISH: The Secret History of CIA Paramilitary Armies, Operat... amazon.com/dp/0316441430/…

Photograph by David Hume Kennerly from the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library.