¹ Fiorina, Morris P., Divided Government (New York: Macmillan, 1992), pp. 6–10Google Scholar, notes that the first half of this century, when most of the current theories of executive-legislative relations were formulated, was an unusually consistent period of unified government (from 1900 to 1952, control of the national government was divided only 15 per cent of the time), and suggests that this may have led to an excessively strong commitment to the impression that the American political system worked best the more closely separation of powers could be made to resemble British two-party politics. Cf. Sundquist, James L., ‘Needed: A Political Theory for the New Era of Coalition Government in the United States’, Political Science Quarterly, 103 (1988), 613–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

² Ginsberg, Benjamin and Shefter, Martin, Politics by Other Means (New York: Basic Books, 1990)Google Scholar; Cutler, Lloyd N., ‘Some Reflections about Divided Government’, Presidential Studies Quarterly, 17 (1988), 481–92.Google Scholar

³ Mayhew, David, Divided We Govern: Party Control, Lawmaking, and Investigations, 1946–1990 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1991).Google ScholarFiorina, , Divided GovernmentGoogle Scholar, also notes that presidential appointments and treaties are only slightly more likely to be rejected during periods of divided control, although Rohde, David W. and Simon, Dennis M., ‘Presidential Vetoes and Congressional Response: A Study of Institutional Conflict’, American Journal of Political Science, 29 (1985), 397–427CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Ringelstein, Albert C., ‘Presidential Vetoes: Motivations and Classification’, in Bailey, Harry A. Jr., and Shafritz, Jay M., eds, The American Presidency (Chicago: Dorsey Press, 1988)Google Scholar, show that presidents are more likely to veto legislation when the opposition party controls more congressional seats.

⁴ McKay, David emphasizes this advantage in Domestic Policy and Ideology: Presidents and the American State 1964–1987 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵ Arnold, Douglas, The Logic of Congressional Action (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1990)Google Scholar draws the distinction between ‘coalition leaders’ and ordinary legislators. His category of coalition leaders includes presidents, members of the White House staff and department and agency heads, majority and minority party leaders in Congress, committee and subcommittee chairs, interest group leaders and outside political entrepreneurs (chaps. 1 and 5); here I focus on an especially pivotal class of coalition leaders, the majority party leadership in Congress. Fenno's distinction among legislators' career goals is the basis for much of this line of theorizing about differences in legislators' preferences for strategies. See Fenno, Richard F. Jr., Congressmen in Committees (Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown, 1973)Google Scholar; Fenno, Richard F., Home Style: House Members in their Districts (Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown, 1978).Google Scholar

⁶ Mouw, Calvin and MacKuen, Michael, ‘The Strategic Agenda in Legislative Polities’, American Political Science Review, 86 (1992), 87–105, at pp. 91–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁷ Mouw, and MacKuen, ‘Strategic Agenda’, p. 95Google Scholar; on the strategy of ‘anticipated reactions’, see the perceptive discussion in Peterson, Mark A., Legislating Together (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990), chap. 2.Google Scholar

⁸ Avoiding gridlock is not automatically the dominant goal of legislative leaders; there may be occasions when holding to the party's position is the preferable course, even when it leads to interbranch conflict and policy stalemate. Because party leaders are visibly, and officially, responsible for the collective achievements of the institution, however, their incentive vastly exceeds that of ordinary legislators to define their own interests and to calculate actions in light of collective goals.

⁹ Peterson, , Legislating TogetherGoogle Scholar, stresses this relative equality with the image of ‘tandem institutions’ and he argues (chap. 2) against the notion that either the president or the congressional leadership will pursue a strategy that relies solely on attempting to avoid conflict by anticipating reactions.

¹⁰ Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, 23 05 1987, p. 1083.Google Scholar

¹¹ See, for example, Davidson, Roger H., ‘Congressional Leaders as Agents of Change’, in Mackaman, Frank, ed., Understanding Congressional Leadership (Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly, 1981)Google Scholar; Davidson, Roger H. and Oleszek, Walter, ‘From Monopoly to Management: Changing Patterns of Committee Deliberation’, in Davidson, Roger H., ed., The Postreform Congress (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992)Google Scholar; Rieselbach, Leroy, ‘Purposive Politicians Meet the Institutional Congress: A Review Essay’, Legislative Studies Quarterly, 17 (1992), 95–111CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sinclair, Barbara, ‘Congressional Leadership: A Review Essay and a Research Agenda’, Leading Congress: New Styles, New Strategies (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 1990)Google Scholar; Sinclair, Barbara, ‘The Emergence of Strong Leadership in the 1980s House of Representatives’, Journal of Politics, 54 (1992), 657–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹² Conversely, since the success of blocking strategies usually depends on familiarity with established rules, the minority party will prefer fixed institutions.

¹³ Peterson, Mark, Legislating Together: The White House and Capitol Hill from Eisenhower to Reagan (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990)Google Scholar; Greenstein, Fred, ‘Change and Continuity in the Modern Presidency’, in King, Anthony, ed., The New American Political System (Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute, 1978), pp. 45–86.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Davidson, Roger, ‘The New Centralization on Capitol Hill’, Review of Politics (1988), 345–64Google Scholar; Smith, Steven, Call to Order: Floor Politics in the House and Senate (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1989)Google Scholar; Shepsle, Kenneth A., ‘The Changing Textbook Congress’, in Peterson, Paul and Chubb, John, eds, Can the Government Govern? (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1989).Google Scholar

¹⁵ Cary Covington notes that strategies of advocacy vary widely in their visibility, ‘“Staying Private”: Gaining Congressional Support for Unpublicized Presidential Preferences on Roll Call Votes’, Journal of Politics, 49 (1987), 737–55.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Consider the four major models of presidential influence in Congress. Two conceptualize presidential power within the Washington community. The bank account model supposes that the president enters office with a fixed, non-renewable quantum of power resources, and that each use of influence diminishes subsequent opportunities for success. See Light, Paul, The President's Agenda: Domestic Policy Choice from Kennedy to Carter, with Notes on Ronald Reagan (Baltimore, Md: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982)Google Scholar; Sullivan, Terry, ‘The Bank Account Presidency: A New Measure and Evidence on the Temporal Path of Presidential Influence’, American Journal of Political Science, 35 (1991), 686–723.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Neustadt's well-known model, on the other hand, calls to mind the metaphor of political investment, in which success in the past leads to an enhanced reputation and thus begets success in the future; Neustadt, Richard, Presidential Power: The Politics of Leadership (New York: Wiley, 1980)Google Scholar; Edwards, George C. III, At the Margins: Presidential Leadership of Congress (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1989)Google Scholar; Mouw, Calvin and MacKuen, Michael, ‘The Strategic Configuration, Personal Influence, and Presidential Power in Congress’, Western Political Quarterly, 45 (1992), 579–608.CrossRefGoogle Scholar There is some evidence in support of this model, but only for influence on legislators of the president's own party. Two other models link influence in Congress to the president's popularity with the public at large. Polsby's original formulation argued that Neustadt's emphasis on elite bargaining had been replaced in the modern era with a plebiscitary presidency whose influence in Congress sprang from the president's ability to appeal directly to the legislators' constituents. This conception is quite close to Neustadt's notion of presidential prestige; it proposes essentially that the higher the level of public approval of the president's job performance, the greater will be the level of support for the president's programme in Congress. See Polsby, Nelson W., ‘Interest Groups and the Presidency: Trends in Political Intermediation in America’, in Burnham, Walter Dean and Weinbey, Martha Wagner, eds, American Politics and Public Policy (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1978)Google Scholar; Bond, Jon R. and Fleisher, Richard, ‘Presidential Popularity and Congressional Voting’, Western Political Quarterly, 37 (1984), 291–306.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Kernell elaborates a variant on the presidential popularity model. See Kernell, Samuel, Going Public: New Strategies of Presidential Leadership (Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly, 1986).Google Scholar He notes that the increased autonomy of Congress members convinces them that the president's general popularity could neither help nor hurt them; the president must actively campaign for public support (by going public) on a measure in order to marshall the targeted show of popularity needed to influence legislators. Each of these models has been subjected to careful empirical testing, and, with only minor qualifications, none shows evidence of presidential influence over how members of Congress vote on legislation. Bond, Jon R. and Fleisher, Richard, The President in the Legislative Arena (Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, 1990)Google Scholar, review the voluminous research and provide the most definitive tests. Overall, roll-call voting essentially reflects Congress members' own policy views and their perceptions of constituents' preferences and relevant national trends.

¹⁷ Rivers, Douglas and Rose, Nancy, ‘Passing the President's Program: Presidential Influence in Congress’, American Journal of Political Science, 29 (1985), 183–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See Sinclair, Barbara, Congressional Realignment 1925–1978 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1982)Google Scholar, and ‘Agenda Control and Policy Success: Ronald Reagan and the 97th House’, Legislative Studies Quarterly, 10 (1985), 291–314Google Scholar, for a partially analogous analytical treatment of the legislative agenda.

¹⁸ Mouw, and MacKuen, , ‘Strategic Agenda’.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Mouw, and MacKuen, , ‘Strategic Agenda’, p. 100.Google Scholar

²⁰ Some years ago, Krehbiel, Keith, ‘Spatial Models of Legislative Choice’, Legislative Studies Quarterly, 13 (1988), 259–319, p. 313CrossRefGoogle Scholar, remarked that ‘the invitation to legislative scholars to learn more about spatial models of legislative choice rests more on promise than performance’, but several scholars, for instance Krehbiel, , Information and Legislative Organization (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1991)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Kiewiet, D. Roderick and McCubbins, Matthew D., The Logic of Delegation: Congressional Parties and the Appropriations Process (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991)Google Scholar from the formal theory side, and Rhode, David W., Party Leaders in the Postreform House (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1991)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Sinclair, , ‘Emergence of Strong Leadership’Google Scholar, and Smith, , Call to OrderGoogle Scholar, from the empirical side, have illustrated the potential gains from combining deductive theory with detailed empirical work.

²¹ McKelvey, Richard D., ‘Intransitivities in Multidimensional Voting Models and Some Implications for Agenda Control’, Journal of Economic Theory, 12 (1976), 472–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mueller, Dennis C., Public Choice II (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), chaps. 5–8.Google Scholar

²² Shepsle, Kenneth A. and Weingast, Barry, ‘The Institutional Foundations of Committee Power’, American Political Science Review, 81 (1987), 85–104CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Krehbiel, Keith, ‘Why Are Committees Powerful?’ American Political Science Review, 81 (1987), 929–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Weingast, Barry R., ‘Floor Behavior in the US Congress: Committee Power under the Open Rule’, American Political Science Review, 83 (1989), 795–815CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Weingast, Barry and Marshall, William, ‘The Industrial Organization of the Congress’, Journal of Political Economy, 96 (1988), 132–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hammond, Thomas H. and Miller, Gary J., ‘The Core of the Constitution’, American Political Science Review, 81 (1988), 1155–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²³ Dion, Douglas, ‘The Robustness of Structure-induced Equilibrium’, American Journal of Political Science, 36 (1992), 462–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Snyder, James M., ‘Committee Power, Structure-Induced Equilibria, and Roll Call Votes’, American Journal of Political Science, 36 (1992), 1–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁴ Riker, William H., ‘Implications from the Disequilibrium of Majority Rule for the Study of Institutions’, American Political Science Review, 74 (1980), 432–50.CrossRefGoogle ScholarShepsle, Kenneth A., ‘Institutional Equilibrium and Equilibrium Institutions’, in Weisberg, Herbert, ed., Political Science: The Science of Politics (New York: Agathon, 1986)Google Scholar, and others have argued against Riker's position, contending that familiarity with established institutions and uncertainty about the consequences of change result in the choice of institutions being relatively more stable than the choice of policies. But these arguments have not so much re-established the original assumption as stimulated interest in the functions served by legislative institutions and the conditions under which institutions should be expected to change.

²⁵ Uncertainty is at the crux of Riker's concept of ‘heresthetics’. See Riker, William H., The Art of Political Manipulation (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1986).Google ScholarKrehbiel, , InformationGoogle Scholar, propounds a theory of legislation centred on uncertainty, envisioning legislators as successively modifying their beliefs and prospective actions at each stage of a signalling game.

²⁶ Austen-Smith, David and Riker, William H., ‘Asymmetric Information and the Coherence of Legislation’, American Political Science Review, 81 (1987), 897–920CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Austen-Smith, David, ‘Information Transmission in Debate’, American Journal of Political Science, 34 (1990), 124–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁷ Diamond, Peter and Rothchild, Michael, eds, Uncertainty in Economics (New York: Academic Press, 1978).Google Scholar

²⁸ A third category, monitoring uncertainty, springs from ambiguity about the observation or interpretation of others' actions, and gives rise to problems of moral hazard. Definitive of principalagent problems such as those relevant to political oversight of bureaucratic agencies (cf. Bendor, Jonathan, ‘In Good Times and Bad: Reciprocity in an Uncertain World’, American Journal of Political Science, 31 (1987), 531–58)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, monitoring uncertainty is a key problem in policy implementation, but less germane than the other two to our interest in the policy-formation stage.

²⁹ Riker, , The Art of Political ManipulationGoogle Scholar; cf. Mouw, and MacKuen, , ‘Strategic Agenda’.Google Scholar

³⁰ In a word, uncertainty about the linkage between policies and consequences weakens the connection between interests and choices. This is an instance of the problem of adverse selection, the situation in which decision makers know that the options have different consequences, but lack adequate information to distinguish which options are associated with the best consequences. Quirk, Paul J., ‘The Cooperative Resolution of Policy Conflict’, American Political Science Review, 83 (1989), 905–22)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Austen-Smith, , ‘Information Transmission’Google Scholar show that uncertainty is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for meaningful consultation.

³¹ Pitkin, Hannah, The Concept of Representation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), chap. 7.Google Scholar

³² Kingdon, John W., Congressmen's Voting Decisions, 2nd edn (New York: Harper, 1981).Google Scholar

³³ Chamberlin, John R. and Courant, Paul, ‘Representative Deliberations and Representative Decisions: Proportional Representation and the Borda Rule’, American Political Science Review, 77 (1983), 718–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³⁴ Majone, Giandomenico, Evidence, Argument and Persuasion in the Policy Process (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1989)Google Scholar. Majone draws the parallel with Lakatos's image of scientific theories, in which a core of resistant ideas is surrounded by a periphery of relatively more malleable subsidiary ideas and implications. This would appear to imply quite stringent limits on the possibility that new information could falsify established beliefs or policy preferences. This analogy with scientific theories may be appropriate for well-developed policy models used in decision situations where information is robust and readily available. This is seldom the case, I would argue, with economic policy making. Given widespread theoretical disagreement among economists, and given that adequate data are seldom available either on the current state or the prospective path of the economy, politicians' models of ‘how the economy works’ must surely consist mostly of ‘protective belts’ surrounding a tiny core, a situation that certainly prevailed during the 1950s and 1960s, when a classical model in growing disarray confronted a Keynesian model of which politicians were still suspicious and uncomprehending. Below, I argue that the disparity in the relative sophistication with which either side grasped the relevant policy model was a crucial element in the outcome of the deliberations between the White House and Democratic congressional leaders.

³⁵ Kingdon, John W., Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies (Boston, Mass.: Little Brown, 1983)Google Scholar; Schulman, Paul R., ‘The Politics of “Ideational” Policy’, Journal of Politics, 50 (1988), 263–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³⁶ Stein, Herbert, The Fiscal Revolution in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969), chap. 7.Google Scholar

³⁷ Griffith, Robert, ‘Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Corporate Commonwealth’, American Historical Review, 87 (02, 1982).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³⁸ King, Ronald F., ‘Continuity and Change: Fiscal Policy in the Kennedy Administration’, in Harper, Paul and Krieg, Joann P., eds, John F. Kennedy: The Promise Revisited (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1988), pp. 171–82Google Scholar; Roberts, Paul Craig, The Supply Side Revolution (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1984).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³⁹ Eisenhower, Dwight D., Mandate for Change, 1953–56 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1963), pp. 307, 439Google Scholar; cf. Friedman, Milton, ‘The Changing Character of Financial Markets’, in Feldstein, Martin, ed., The American Economy in Transition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), pp. 78–86Google Scholar. Sloan, John W., Eisenhower and the Management of Prosperity (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1991)Google Scholar engagingly portrays each of the major players in Eisenhower's economic policy system. Unfortunately, Sloan covers the 1958 recession (pp. 146–9) solely from the perspective of the White House, rather than taking account of the initiatives flowing from both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.

⁴⁰ Time, 17 03 1958, p. 15Google Scholar; New York Times, 15 03 1958, pp. 1, 9Google Scholar; 17 March 1958, p. 12. For a more detailed exposition of both Democratic and Republican proposals to combat the recession, see Morgan, Iwan W., Eisenhower Versus the ‘Spenders’: The Eisenhower Administration, the Democrats and the Budget, 1953–60 (London: Pinter Publishers, 1990), chap. 5.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Time, 24 02 1958, p. 14Google Scholar; Newsweek, 10 03 1958, pp. 27, 29Google Scholar; New York Times, 22 03 1958, pp. 1, 8Google Scholar; 1 April 1958, pp. 1, 25. The mid-February Gallup Poll reported that more than two-thirds of the public saw the Democrats as the party better able to maintain prosperity.

⁴² Wall Street Journal, 1 03 1958, p. 12Google Scholar; New York Times, 6 04 1958, p. 1Google Scholar; Murphy, Charles J. V., ‘The White House and the Recession’, Fortune, 57 (05 1958), p. 106Google Scholar. The concern over Eisenhower's weak leadership and declining political support was evident in the White House as well. See Hauge, to Adams, , 25 02 1958Google Scholar, Box 22, Areeda Papers, Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library (DDEL); New York Times, 9 03 1958, p. 54Google Scholar; 11 March 1958, p. 20; 12 March 1958, p. 1.

⁴³ In his magisterial study of the Eisenhower, , Kennedy, and Johnson, years, Politics and Policy: The Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson Years (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1968)Google Scholar, James L. Sundquist finds in the last two years of the Eisenhower administration strong evidence for the responsible parties thesis. Following the 1958 elections, liberals formed the Democratic Study Group and the Democratic Advisory Council, and concentrated on formulating a liberal national platform. Although it served an expressive function well, this movement won no major legislative battles and typically worked at cross purposes to the leadership's attempt at policy integration.

⁴⁴ Time, 17 03 1958, pp. 13Google Scholar; 24 March 1958, pp. 20–1; Newsweek, 31 March 1958, pp. 23–4.

⁴⁵ Meany, George, ‘The Economic Crisis’, Vital Speeches of the Day, 24 (1 04 1958), pp. 364–8Google Scholar; Meany, to Eisenhower, , 13 03 1958, Box 560, Official File (OF) 114 (DDEL).Google Scholar

⁴⁶ By early March unemployment was rated as the nation's most important problem (for the first time since 1937), and Eisenhower's performance rating had dropped to 52 per cent, its lowest to date. An early March poll of congressmen revealed that supporters of an immediate tax reduction outnumbered opponents by a margin of 4:1. See US News and World Report (VSNWR), 21 03 1958, p. 38Google Scholar; cf Stein, , The Fiscal Revolution, p. 334).Google Scholar

⁴⁷ The administration had argued successfully, on these grounds, against Senator Douglas's tax cut proposal a month earlier. See Congressional Record, v. 104 (10 02 1958), p. 1953Google Scholar; US House of Representatives, Committee on Ways and Means, General Revenue Revision: Hearings, 85th Congress, 2nd Session (1958), pt. I, pp. 1101–16Google Scholar; Joint Economic Committee (JEC), Federal Expenditure Policies for Economic Growth and Stability: Report of the Subcommittee on Fiscal Policy, 85th Congress, 2nd Session (1958), pp. 4–5Google Scholar; JEC, The Economic Report of the President: Hearings, 85th Congress, 2nd Session (1958), pp. 119–43, 275–9, 454–69Google Scholar; JEC, 1958c, pp. 22–7, 36–45.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ The Democrats' heritage of New Deal successes gave them reason to believe that stimulating consumption was both economically efficacious and politically advantageous, and their recent experience with Eisenhower tax policy added an intensely-felt further rationale: about two-thirds of the tax reduction in 1954 had gone to corporations and wealthy taxpayers. See US President, The Economic Report of the President (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1955)Google Scholar; Reichard, Gary W., The Reaffirmation of Republicanism (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1975)Google Scholar. Business groups in 1958 were, in fact, sensitive to the unfavourable public impression they would make by lobbying strongly for still more tax breaks, and they were visibly hesitant to enter the debate (New York Times, 11 02 1958, p. 21Google Scholar; Wall Street Journal, 13 02 1958, p. 1Google Scholar; New York Times, 16 02 1958, p. 56Google Scholar; Congressional Record, v. 104 (10 02, 1958), pp. 1950–5, especially p. 1953).Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Only Nixon and Mitchell advocated reducing taxes, but neither could argue convincingly against economically knowledgeable advisors, and Nixon especially was visibly frustrated at having no impact whatsoever in Cabinet discussions. The administration's public pronouncements consistently stressed the budgetary impact and aggregate inflationary effects (cf. statements by Eisenhower, , Anderson, , Mitchell, , Brundage, and Hauge, , Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States (PP), 1958, pp. 147Google Scholar; 151–2; 234–9; Walt Street Journal, 21 02 1958, p. 3Google Scholar; 24 February 1958, p. 4; New York Times, 20 02 1958, pp. 1, 39Google Scholar; 24 February 1958, p. 9; 26 February 1955, p. 7, Business Week, 22 02 1958, p. 23)Google Scholar. But the primary arguments advanced in internal White House communications focused on distribution (Eisenhower, to Anderson, , 24 03 1958Google Scholar, Box 27, RG 56, National Archives (NA); Burns interview; cf. Murphy, , ‘The White House and the Recession’, p. 250)Google Scholar. Eisenhower wrote to Burns, , ‘I am against … the slash-bang kinds of tax-cutting from which the proponents want nothing so much as immediate political advantage’Google Scholar, and he denounced an earlier Democratic tax cut bill as ‘Rayburn's vote-buying scheme’ (Eisenhower, to Burns, , 12 03 1958Google Scholar, DDEL; Saulnier, Vanderbilt Oral History Collection (VOHC); Hauge interview, Columbia Oral History Collection (COHC), pp. 75–6, 84).

⁵⁰ New York Times, 11 03 1958, p. 1Google Scholar; 12 March 1958, pp. 1, 22; 14 March 1958, pp. 1, 17; Wall Street Journal, 11 03 1958, p. 3Google Scholar; 12 March 1958, p. 3; 13 March 1958, pp. 1, 3, 12; 14 March 1958, p. 2; Newsweek, 24 03 1958, pp. 31–2Google Scholar; Murphy, , ‘The White House and the Recession’, p. 252.Google Scholar

⁵¹ In a repeated game, it is rational for each actor to consider the future strategic costs of present actions. Hardin, Russell, Collective Action (Baltimore, Md: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982), pp. 155–230Google Scholar, shows that a repeated social dilemma is a co-ordination game, in which a co-operative outcome is possible as a Nash equilibrium.

⁵² See Huitt, Ralph K., ‘Democratic Party Leadership in the Senate’, American Political Science Review, 55 (1961), 331–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sundquist, , Politics and PolicyGoogle Scholar; Greenstein, Fred I., The Hidden Hand Presidency (New York: Basic Books, 1982).Google Scholar

⁵³ New York Times, 11 03 1958, p. 1Google Scholar; 12 March 1958, pp. 1, 22; 13 March 1958, pp. 1, 15; 14 March 1958, pp. 1, 17.

⁵⁴ The late March poll for the first time showed less than majority approval for Eisenhower's performance, at 48 per cent the lowest point of his presidency: Gallup, George H., The Gallup Poll: Public Opinion, 1935–1971 (New York: Random House, 1972), Vol. II, p. 1542–6Google Scholar; AIPO, poll no. 597, 25 03 1958.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Austen-Smith, , ‘Information Transmission’Google Scholar, drawing on microeconomic models of ‘cheap talk’ negotiation, applies the term ‘debate’ to such exchanges.

⁵⁶ In the few cases where information asymmetries gave one side or the other a potential advantage, neither side exploited it. For instance, Labor and Commerce Department statistics on aggregate economic activity were conventionally transmitted to the White House the day before they were released to the press, but the president would never have condoned the use of this information as a bargaining chip (Saulnier, VOHC), even if (as is doubtful) the advantage of one day's timing had been large enough to exploit effectively. Similarly, the Democratic leaders had a modest informational advantage over the White House when it came to parliamentary strategy, but since the issue never moved to the floor of the legislature, this potential resource was not utilized.

⁵⁷ New York Times, 16 03 1958, pp. 1, 45Google Scholar; Wall Street Journal, 14 03 1958, pp. 1, 17Google Scholar; USNWR 21 03 1958, pp. 50, 53–4Google Scholar; 11 April 1958, p. 61; Anderson, Robert B., ‘Financial Policies for Sustainable Growth’, Journal of Finance, 15 (1960), 127–39; at pp. 127–8Google Scholar; Saulnier, , COHC, p. 41Google Scholar; Hauge, , COHC, p. 84Google Scholar; Paarlberg, , COHC, p. 155.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ The literature on macroeconomic stabilization documents the differences in policy outputs that follow from elites' subscription to different models of economic dynamics: Frankel, Jeffrey A. and Rockett, Katharine A., ‘International Macroeconomic Policy Coordination when Policy-Makers Do Not Agree on the Model’, American Economic Review, 78 (1988), 318–40Google Scholar. It was not only the difference in models, however, but the difference in the degree to which the principals on either side could present and utilize their preferred economic model in policy debate. Johnson and Rayburn were sophisticated about the political aspects of the Democratic plan, but neither had given much attention to its economic underpinnings. Johnson adviser James Rowe had, in fact, urged the Senator to consult economists more frequently, as a means of increasing ‘the seriousness of thought and minimiz[ing] the political atmosphere’. (James Rowe, memoranda for Johnson, Senator Lyndon, 10 02 1958 and 24 March 1958, LBJL-Selected Names File, Box 32).Google Scholar

⁵⁹ New York Times, 6 04 1958, pp. 1, 44Google Scholar; Wall Street Journal, 25 04 1958, p. 8Google Scholar; JEC, The Economic Report of the President: Hearings, 86th Congress, 1st Session (1959), pp. 400, 1088–93Google Scholar. Anderson remarked after one of these sessions: ‘They are men of great common sense. They fully appreciated, without my telling them, that facing us all was something we couldn't avoid getting together to solve’. Johnson referred to ‘facing the recession “hand in hand”’ (Murphy, , ‘The White House’, p. 252Google Scholar; Sundquist, , Politics and Policy, pp. 27–8).Google Scholar

⁶⁰ ‘The recession … has done much to bring out Mr Eisenhower's self-confidence and independence of action … [He is] now showing Congress who's boss’, Time, 28 04 1958, p. 18Google Scholar; cf. USNWR, 25 04 1958, pp. 39–41, 46–9.Google Scholar

⁶¹ On economists' views, see New York Times, 22 04 1958, p. 1Google Scholar; 29 April 1958, pp. 1, 18; 30 April 1958, pp. 1, 14; 2 May 1958, pp. 1, 14; 4 May 1958, Sec. 4, p. 3; JEC, Subcommittee on Fiscal Policy, Fiscal Policy Implications of the Current Economic Outlook: Hearings, 85th Congress, 2nd Session (1958)Google Scholar; on liberal challenges to the leadership, cf. Congressional Record, 1958, v. 104Google Scholar, pt. 4, pp. 4274–302; Sundquist, , Politics and Policy, p. 26Google Scholar; Stein, , Fiscal Revolution, p. 334Google Scholar; New York Times, 14 03 1958, pp. 1, 17Google Scholar; 17 March 1958, p. 10; 19 March 1958, p. 21; 24 March 1958, pp. 1, 41; Wall Street Journal, 14 03 1958, p. 2Google Scholar; 19 March 1958, p. 3; 20 March 1958, p. 3; 24 March 1958, p. 3;); on Johnson's views, see Schlesinger, Arthur Jr. to Johnson, 4 and 12 03 1958Google Scholar and Johnson, to Schlesinger, Jr., 6, 18 and 27 03 1958Google Scholar; Johnson, to Galbraith, John K., 18 03 1958Google Scholar in Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library (LBJL).

⁶² New York Times, 26 05 1958, pp. 1, 24Google Scholar; 28 May 1958, pp. 1, 16; Congressional Record, vol. 104 (18 06 1958), pp. 11570–98.Google Scholar

⁶³ Pruitt, Dean, Negotiation Behavior (New York: Academic Press, 1982).Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Huitt, , ‘Democratic Party Leadership’Google Scholar, emphasizes Johnson's belief that ‘good legislation is not the product of oratory and debate but of negotiation and discussion, designed not to make issues but to find common ground … He consistently refused to turn the Democrats in the Senate loose to attack Eisenhower at will, believing that no President can be cut down without hurting the presidency itself – with the American people the losers.’ Rayburn's operating style was much the same: ‘He avoided … issues that divided the party, [and preferred] to wait for Eisenhower proposals and then to seek an opposition posture’ (Sundquist, , Politics and Policy, p. 403)Google Scholar. Eisenhower's drive to avoid conflict and his skill at persuasion and eliciting co-operation are similarly notable (Greenstein, , Hidden Hand PresidencyGoogle Scholar; Ambrose, Stephen E., Eisenhower: Vol. II, The President (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984)Google Scholar, and Anderson's possession of these same traits helps to explain his close personal affinity with the president (Dale, Edwin L., ‘Tough-minded Texan in the Treasury’, New York Times Magazine, 7 07 1957).Google Scholar

⁶⁵ Gallup, , Poll, pp. 1545, 1549–50Google Scholar; Lubell, , ‘The People Speak’, Box 1173, GF 149-C, DDELGoogle Scholar; and cf. New York Times, 13 04 1958, Sec. 4, p. 7Google Scholar; Time, 14 04 1958, p. 19Google Scholar; Wall Street Journal, 15 04 1958, pp. 1, 21.Google Scholar