Thesis advisor: Seth Jacobs / Congress' 1964 passage of the Tonkin Gulf Resolution represented the pinnacle of the legislature's conscious repudiation of its role as superintendent of America's foreign policy to the executive branch. Conversely, for most diplomatic historians, the passage of the 1973 War Powers Act marked Congress' reawakening to its supervisory role and the collapse of what historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. termed the "Imperial Presidency." In fact, it was the 1970 repeal of the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, a resolution that embodied everything Congress had abdicated and all the dangers that abdication represented, that actually served to announce Congress' unwillingness to acquiesce to presidential foreign policy. The repeal of the Tonkin Gulf Resolution had long-term implications for the exercise of America's cold war foreign policy, effects that were most keenly felt by President Gerald Ford when Congress refused to allow U.S. intervention in Angola despite Ford's personal pleas to both legislative branches. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2007. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: History. / Discipline: College Honors Program.

The subject of this thesis is the Imperial Presidency. Arthur Schlesinger is the author of this term in the realm of Political Science. His book was a reaction to the gradual accretion of political power in the office of the President of the United States. Imperial Presidency is described by variables: a) The President overreaches his powers given to him by the Constitution of the USA; b) The President is not limited by other branches of power. The theories behind this thesis are called the unilateral action theory and the unitary presidency theory. After designating variables in the thesis we should be able to answer the question: "What kind of political behaviour describes imperial presidency?"