Within this Constitutional framework each branch should co-operate fully with each other for the common good. However, throughout our history the President has withheld information whenever he found that what was sought was confidential or its disclosure would be incompatible with the public interest or jeopardize the safety of the Nation.
Because it is essential to efficient and effective administration that employees of the Executive Branch be in a position to be completely candid in advising with each other on official matters, and because it is not in the public interest that any of their conversations or communications, or any documents or reproductions, concerning such advice be disclosed, you will instruct employees of your Department that in all of their appearances before the Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Government Operations regarding the inquiry now before it they are not to testify to any such conversations or communications or to produce any such documents or reproductions. This principle must be maintained regardless of who would be benefited by such disclosures.
I direct this action so as to maintain the proper separation of powers between the Executive and Legislative Branches of the Government in accordance with my responsibilities and duties under the Constitution. This separation is vital to preclude the exercise of arbitrary power by any branch of the Government.
By this action I am not in any way restricting the testimony of such witnesses as to what occurred regarding any matters where the communication was directly between any of the principals in the controversy within the Executive Branch on the one hand and a member of the Subcommittee or its staff on the other.
Sincerely,
Dwight D. Eisenhower
MEMORANDUM
For: the President.
From: the Attorney General.
One of the chief merits of the American system of written constitutional law is that all the powers entrusted to the government are divided into three great departments, the Executive, the Legislative, and the Judicial. It is essential to the successful working of this system that the persons entrusted with power in any one of these branches shall not be permitted to encroach upon the powers confided to the others, but that each shall be limited to the exercise of the powers appropriate to its own department and no other. The doctrine of separation of powers was adopted to preclude the exercise of arbitrary power and to save the people from autocracy.
This fundamental principle was fully recognized by our first President, George Washington, as early as 1796 when he said: “... it is essential to the due administration of the Government that the boundaries fixed by the Constitution between the different departments should be preserved....” In his Farewell Address, President Washington again cautioned strongly against the danger of encroachment by one department into the domain of another as leading to despotism. This principle has received steadfast adherence throughout the many years of our history and growth. More than ever, it is our duty today to heed these words if our country is to retain its place as a leader among the free nations of the world.
For over 150 years—almost from the time that the American form of government was created by the adoption of the Constitution—our Presidents have established, by precedent, that they and members of their Cabinet and other heads of executive departments have an undoubted privilege and discretion to keep confidential, in the public interest, papers and information which require secrecy. American history abounds in countless illustrations of the refusal, on occasion, by the President and heads of departments to furnish papers to Congress, or its committees, for reasons of public policy. The messages of our past Presidents reveal that almost every one of them found it necessary to inform Congress of his constitutional duty to execute the office of President, and, in furtherance of that duty, to withhold information and papers for the public good.