Searching for the Right Balance? Managing Foreign Policy Decisions under Eisenhower and Kennedy

Abstract

Foreign policy decision making during a U.S. presidential administration's tenure in office is dynamic. The evolution model of decision making suggests that Presidents will use three structures to make decisions: a formal interagency process, and informal process based in a small group of senior advisers, and a confidence–based process where the President seeks often-private advice from the advisers he trusts the most. This essay goes beyond the evolution model by focusing on how Presidents and their senior advisers continually re-evaluate decision making, often concluding that the process needs major restructuring. Pressures to change are typically institutional; however, whether meaningful changes in the process are actually implemented depends on the President's idiosyncratic decision style. Case studies of Eisenhower (a preference for a formal style) and Kennedy (a preference for an informal style) illustrate how both men contemplated significant changes in their decision making process, but neither could ultimately implement them.

Notes

¹Administrations’ initial presidential directives detailing the NSC process as well as Johnson's National Security Action Memorandum 341 that was an attempt to redesign his decision making process are available on line through the Federation of American Scientists (http://fas.org/irp/offdocs/direct.htm) as well as through the websites of each presidential library.

²Studies of Iran-Contra or planning for post-war Iraq focus on these issues specifically. See Draper 1991; Phillips 2005; Tower Commission Report 1987. For a general look at these issues, see Pious 2008.

³Truman rarely attended NSC meetings until the outbreak of the Korean War. This was a deliberate attempt to ensure that the council would not be elevated to decision-making status through his participation (Hamby 1988, 61–2; Hammond 1961, 232–33).

⁴Statutory members of the NSC at that time included the president, vice-president, secretaries of state and defense, the director for mutual security, and the director of defense mobilization. Eisenhower added the secretary of the treasury as a permanent member. Advisers to the NSC included the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the director of central intelligence, and the special assistant to the president for cold war planning.

⁵One critic of Eisenhower revisionism and defender of the Kennedy legacy, Arthur Schlesinger, argued with Greenstein and Immerman's (2000) suggestion that the incoming president in 2000 should look to the Eisenhower national security process as a model. In a twist, however, Schlesinger pointed out that Eisenhower's own Board of Consultants on Foreign Intelligence Activities criticized the administration in its report of 1956 arguing that covert operations were not integrated well enough into the formal policy machinery, both in terms of decision making or long-range strategic planning. Here, he is essentially suggesting that Eisenhower's formal machinery was not always as formal as people suggest (Greenstein and Immerman 2000; Schlesinger 2000, 349–51).

⁶A recent study of presidential commissions suggests that commissions are most useful in producing organizational reforms (such as PACGO), rather than changes in policy changes (Tama 2014). This article was suggested by an anonymous reviewer.

⁷In his memoirs, Eisenhower gives no details on why the plans were not implemented. He only mentions “baffling obstacles” as the reason he never submitted the idea to Congress (Eisenhower 1965, 638).

⁸Typically, this is seen as part of an informal process; however, the new role of the national security advisor and his staff did have a key formal component. Presidential directives in the form of National Security Action Memoranda (NSAMs) were written by Bundy and distributed to the departments as the formal decisions of the president (A. Preston 2001, 644).

⁹In Sorensen's private papers at the Kennedy Presidential Library, folders on national security policy begin in May of 1961. See Sorensen 1961–1964.

¹⁰The ExComm met 15 times in October 1962, 16 times in November 1962, seven times in December 1962, twice in January 1963, twice in February 1963, and only once in March 1963. The issue discussed was Cuba until meeting number 35 of December 11, 1962, when relations with Brazil were addressed. Military assistance to Congo was debated in meetings 36 and 37, both on December 17, 1962. Issues related to European security were discussed at meetings 38 (January 25, 1963), 39 (January 31, 1963), 40 (February 5, 1963), 41 (February 12, 1963). Meeting 42 (March 29, 1963) addressed Cuban issues again. See Kennedy Library Finding Aids 2013.

¹¹Standing Group files are filled with documentation, intelligence reports, and departmental briefing papers. See Kennedy Administration 1963b.