^1/ Title 50 U. S. C. § 1701 (a) (Supp. II 1978) states that the President's authority under the Act “may be exercised to deal with any unusual and extraordinary threat, which has its source in whole or in substantial part outside the United States, to the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States, if the President declares a national emergency with respect to such threat.” Petitioner does not challenge President Carter's declaration of a national emergency.

^2/ Title 50 U. S. C. § 1702 (a)(1)(B) (Supp. II 1978) empowers the President to:“investigate, regulate, direct and compel, nullify, void, prevent or prohibit,any acquisition, holding, withholding, use, transfer, withdrawal, transportation, importation or exportation of, or dealing in, or exercising any right, power, or privilege with respect to, or transactions involving, any property in which any foreign country or a national thereof has any interest… .”

^3/ 31 CFR §535.805 (1980) provides in full: “The provision of this part and any rulings, licenses, instructions, orders, or forms issued thereunder may be amended, modified, or revoked at any time.”

^4/ The contract stated that any dispute incapable of resolution by agreement of the parties would be submitted to conciliation and that, if either party was unwilling to accept the results of conciliation, “the matter shall be decided finally by resort to the courts of Iran.” Pet. for Cert., at 7, n. 2. In its complaint, which was based on breach of contract and related theories, petitioner alleged that it had sought a meeting with the Atomic Energy Organization for purposes of settling matters relating to the contract but that the Organization “has continually postponed [the] meeting and obviously does not intend that it take place.” Complaint in Dames & Moore, v. Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, No. 79-04918 LEW (Px) (CD Cal.), at f 27.

^5/ Petitioner argues that under the TWEA the President was given two powers: (1) the power temporarily to freeze or block the transfer of foreign-owned assets; and (2) the power summarily to seize and permanently vest title to foreign-owned assets. It is contended that only the “vesting” provisions of the TWEA gave the President the power permanently to dispose of assets and when Congress enacted the IEEPA in 1977 it purposefully did not grant the President this power. According to petitioner, the nullification of the attachments and the transfer of the assets will permanently dispose of the assets and would not even be permissible under the TWEA. We disagree. Although it is true the IEEPA does not give the President the power to “vest” or to take title to the assets, it does not follow that the President is not authorized under both the IEEPA and the TWEA to otherwise permanently dispose of the assets in the manner done here. Petitioner errs in assuming that the only power granted by the language used in both § 1702 and § 5(b) of the TWEA is the power temporarily to freeze assets. As noted above, the plain language of the statute defies such a holding. Section 1702 authorizes the President to “direct and compel” the “transfer, withdrawal, transportation,… or exportation of … any property in which any foreign country … has any interest… .”

We likewise reject the contention that Orvis v. Browndl, 345 U. S. 183 (1953), and Zittman v. McGrath, 341 U. S. 446 (1951), grant petitioner the right to retain its attachments on the Iranian assets. To the contrary, we think Orvis supports the proposition that an American claimant may not use an attachment that is subject to a revocable license and that has been obtained after the entry of a freeze order to limit in any way the actions the President may take under § 1702 respecting the frozen assets.An attachment so obtained is in every sense subordinate to the President's power under the IEEPA.

^6/ Although petitioner concedes that the President could have forbidden attachments, it nevertheless argues that once he allowed them the President permitted claimants to acquire property interests in their attachments. Petitioner further argues that only the licenses to obtain the attachments were made revocable, not the attachments themselves. It is urged that the January 19, 1981, order revoking all licenses only affected petitioner's right to obtain future attachments. We disagree. As noted above, the regulations specifically provided that any attachment is null and void “unless licensed,” and all licenses may be revoked at any time. Moreover, common sense defies petitioner's reading of the regulations. The President could hardly have intended petitioner and other similarly situated claimants to have the power to take control of the frozen assets out of his hands.

Our construction of petitioner's attachments as being “revocable,” “contingent,”and “in every sense subordinate to the President's power under the IEEPA,” in effect answers petitioner's claim that even if the President had the authority to nullify the attachments and transfer the assets,the exercise of such would constitute an unconstitutional taking of property in violation of the Fifth Amendment absent just compensation. We conclude that because of the President's authority to prevent or condition attachments, and because of the orders he issued to this effect, petitioner did not acquire any “property” interest in its attachments of the sort that would support a constitutional claim for compensation.

^7/ Judge Mikva, in his separate opinion in American Int'l Group, Inc. v. Islamic Republic of Iran, — U. S. App. D. C. — , —, — F. 2d — , — (1981), argued that the moniker “Hostage Act” was newly-coined for purposes of this litigation. Suffice it to say that we focus on the language of 22 U. S. C. § 1732, not any short-hand description of it. See Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, II, ii, 43 (“What's in a name?”).

^8/ At least since the case of the “Wilmington Packet” in 1799, Presidents have exercised the power to settle claims of United States nationals by executive agreement. See Lillich, The Gravel Amendment to the Trade Reform Act of 1974, 69 Am. J. Int'l L. 837, 844 (1975). In fact, during the period of 1817-1917, “no fewer than eighty executive agreements were entered into by the United States looking to the liquidation of claims of its citizens.” McClure, International Executive Agreements 53 (1941). See also 14 M. Whiteman, Digest of International Law 247 (1970).

^9/ Those agreements are 30 U. S. T. 1957 (1979) (People's Republic of China); 27 U. S. T. 3993 (1976) (Peru); 27 U. S. T. 4214 (1976) (Egypt); 25 U. S. T. 227 (1974) (Peru); 24 U. S. T. 522 (1973) (Hungary); 20 U. S. T. 2654 (1969) (Japan); 16 U. S. T..1 (1965) (Yugoslavia); 14 U. S. T. 969 (1963) (Bulgaria); 11 U. S. T. 1953 (1960) (Poland); 11 U. S. T. 317 (1960) (Rumania).

^10/ Indeed, Congress has consistently failed to object to this long-standing practice of claim settlement by executive agreement, even when it has had an opportunity to do so. In 1972, Congress entertained legislation relating to congressional oversight of such agreements. But Congress took only limited action, requiring that the text of significant executive agreements be transmitted to Congress. 1 TJ. S. C. § 112b. In Haig v. Agee, TJ. S. (1981), we noted that “Despite the longstanding and offi- T promulgated view that the Executive has the power to withhold -ts for reasons of national security, Congress in 1978, 'though it ;n enacted legislation relating to passports, left completely un- oo broad rule-making authority granted in the earlier Act.'” oting Zemel v. Rusk, 381 U. S. 1, 12 (1965). Likewise in this case, Congress, though legislating in the area, has left “untouched” the authority of the President to enter into settlement agreements.

The legislative history of 1 U. S. C. § 112b further reveals that Congress has accepted the President's authority to settle claims. During the hearings on the bill, Senator Case, the sponsor of the Act, stated with respect to executive claim settlements that:

“I think it is a most interesting [area] in which we have accepted the right of the President, one individual, acting through his diplomatic force, to adjudicate and settle claims of American nationals against foreign countries. But it is a fact.”

Transmittal of Executive Agreements to Congress: Hearings before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, 92d Cong., 1st Sess., 74 (1971).

^11/ The rejected legislation would typically have required congressional approval of executive agreements before they would be considered effective. See Congressional Oversight of Executive Agreements: Hearings on S. 632 and S. 1251 before the Subcommittee on Separation of Powers of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 94th Cong., 1st Sess., 243-261, 302-311 (1975); Congressional Review of International Agreements: Hearings before the Subcommittee on International Security and Scientific Affairs of the House Committee on International Relations, 94th Cong., 2d Sess., 167,246 (1976).

^12/ See Hearings on the Iranian Agreements before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, 97th Cong., 1st Sess. (1981); Hearings on the Iranian Assests Settlement before the Senate Commiteee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, 97th Cong., 1st Sess. (1981); Hearings on the Algerian Declarations before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, 97th Cong., 1st Sess. (1981).

^13/ Contrast congressional reaction to the Iranian Agreements with congressional reaction to a 1973 Executive Agreement with Czechoslovakia. There the President sought to settle over $105 million in claims against Czechoslovakia for $20.5 million. Congress quickly demonstrated its displeasure by enacting legislation requiring that the Agreement be renegotiated. See Lillich, supra, at 839-840. Though Congress has shown itself capable of objecting to executive agreements, it has rarely done so and has not done so in this case.

^14/ Though we conclude that the President has settled petitioner's claims against Iran, we do not suggest that the settlement has terminated petitioner's possible taking claim against the United States. We express no views on petitioner's claims that it has suffered a taking.

^1/ Even though the Executive Orders purported to make attachments conditional, there is a substantial question whether the Orders themselves may have effected a taking by making conditional the attachments that claimants aginst Iran otherwise could have obtained without condition. Moreover, because it is settled that an attachment entitling a creditor to resort to specific property for the satisfaction of a claim is a property right compensable under the Fifth Amendment, Armstrong v. United States, 364 U. S. 40 (1960), Louisville Bank v. Radford, 295 U. S. 555 (1935), there is a question whether the revocability of the license under which petitioner obtained its attachment suffices to render revocable the attachment itself. See Marschalk Co. v. Iran National Airlines Corp., No. 79 Civ. 7035 (CBM) (June 11, 1981).

^2/ As the Court held in Armstrong v. United States, 364 U. S. 40, 49 (1960):

“The Fifth Amendment's guarantee that private property shall not be taken for a public use without just compensation was designed to bar Government from forcing some people alone to bear public burdens which, in all fairness and justice, should be borne by the public as a whole.” The Court unanimously reaffirmed this understanding of the Just Compensation Clause in the recent case of Agins v. City of Tiburon, 447 U. S. 225, 260-261 (1980).