Starting in February 1964, Rostow championed the idea of Congress giving President Johnson the power to wage war in Southeast Asia, an idea that he first suggested in February 1964. Rostow pointed out in a memo to the president that the degree of escalation in the Vietnam war envisioned by the administration would pose constitutional and legal problems as the constitution gave Congress, not the president, the right to declare war and the level of escalation envisioned would be a war in everything, but name. Rostow' solution to this problem was for Congress to pass a resolution giving the president the legal power to essentially wage a war in Vietnam.