[R-G] 1973 Prediction - United States under authoritarian rule

[Nicholas Morcinek]

The President has the power to seize property, organize and control the
means of production, seize commodities, assign military forces abroad,
call reserve forces amounting to 2 1/2 million men to duty, institute
martial law, seize and control all means of transportation, regulate all
private enterprise, restrict travel, and in a plethora of particular
ways, control the lives of all Americans. . .

"Most [of these laws] remain a potential source of virtually unlimited
power for a President should he choose to activate them. It is possible
that some future President could exercise this vast authority in an
attempt to place the United States under authoritarian rule.

While the danger of a dictatorship arising through legal means may seem
remote to us today, recent history records Hitler seizing control
through the use of the emergency powers provisions contained in the laws
of the Weimar Republic

Joint statement by Sens. Frank Church (D-ID) and Charles McMathias
(R-MD) September 30, 1973