Beer Says Growth Of the Presidency Causes Watergates

Samuel H. Beer, Eaton Professor of the Science of Government, has predicted that reforms cannot prevent another Watergate scandal because its cause--the tendency toward an "overmighty executive"--is deeply rooted in the nature of modern society.

In a paper to be presented this morning at the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions in Santa Barbara, Calif., Beer says this tendency has joined "an enfeebled sense of social purpose" and "an incoherent pluralism" in unbalancing government and politics. He says the tendency can be contained and its bad effects "ameliorated by good intentions and prudent reform." But Beer adds, "The lesson, in short, is: Don't expect too much."

Beer's paper, which is entitled "Watergate: The Imbalance of Government and Politics," will be presented as part of a four-day conference of scholars which will explore the broad implications of Watergate and may ultimately influence the report of the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities.

Harvey Wheeler, senior fellow for the center, said Friday in California that the Senate Committee is in "a state of near panic" as the deadline for their report--late February--approaches. The committee, Wheeler added, has "need for any help they can get."

Samuel Dash, chief counsel for the committee, Fred D. Thompson, its minority counsel, and Rufus L. Edmisten, a deputy counsel, will all attend today's conference.

Gunnar K. Myrdal, the Swedish economist, Erik H. Erikson, professor of human development emeritus, James MacGregor Burns, professor of political science at Williams College, and Rexford G. Tugwell, a former Brain Truster for President Franklin D. Roosevelt '04, will also participate in the conference.

Beer writes in his 39-page paper that post-Watergate reformers should center their work around existing institutions and not try "to deduce a more perfect method from some abstract view of men and politics."

President Nixon is "a man ready to believe that he is ringed with enemies whom a higher duty calls upon him to destroy by whatever means," Beer writes.

However, Beer's paper favors a strong president on the grounds that "as in the case of the New Deal the new view of the national future and the new political support for its achievement will be discovered and set in motion by a presidency already elected to office."