¹ Clifford, “The Presidency As I Have Seen It,” in Hughes, Emmet John, The Living Presidency (New York: Coward, McCann, and Geoghegan 1973), 315Google Scholar.

² Quoted in Life, January 17, 1969, p. 62B.

³ Quoted in Sorensen, Theodore, Kennedy (New York: Harper and Row 1965), 305Google Scholar.

⁴ On the MLF decision, see Geyelin, Philip, Lyndon B. Johnson and the World (New York: Praeger 1966), chap. 7Google Scholar; and Steinbruner, John, The Cybernetic Theory of Decision (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1974), esp. chap. 9Google Scholar.

⁵ Quoted in Schlesinger, Arthur M. Jr., A Thousand Days (Boston: Houghton Mifflin 1965), 426Google Scholar.

⁶ Kraft, Joseph, Profiles in Power (New York: New American Library 1966), 63–68Google Scholar.

⁷ Of course, one may argue that the establishment of the Secretary of Defense was of equal if not greater importance. Indeed, in the immediate postwar years the phrase “national security” was considered a near-synonym of “national defense”: James Forrestal, as Secretary of the Navy, originally backed the establishment of the N.S.C. as an alternative to defense unification. When both the Council and the Secretary of Defense were established by the National Security Act of 1947, the latter was described in the Act as the President's principal adviser in the field of “national security.” In short order, however, the N.S.C. became heavily involved in State Department and for- eign policy business, an involvement reflected in Truman's early order that the Secretary of State chair the Council in his absence. “National security policy” then became a nearsynonym of foreign policy, or at least of its “security” or “political-military” components. The latter usage is employed in this article.

⁸ Report of the Commission on the Organization of the Government for the Conduct of Foreign Policy [hereafter referred to as Murphy Commission Report] (Washington: G.P.O. June 1975), 4Google Scholar.

⁹ These pages on the N.S.C. draw particularly on the following sources: Falk, Stanley L., “The National Security Council Under Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy,” Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 79 (September 1964), 403–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar; David K. Hall, “The Custodian-Manager of the Policymaking Process,” in Alexander L. George, “Toward a More Soundly Based Foreign Policy: Making Better Use of Information,” Appendix D (Volume 2) to the Murphy Commission Report, 100–119; Hammond, Paul Y., “The National Security Council: An Interpretation and Appraisal,” American Political Science Review, Vol. 54 (December 1960)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, reprinted in Altshuler, Alan A., The Politics of the Federal Bureaucracy (New York: Dodd, Mead 1968), 140–56Google Scholar; Johnson, Robert H., “The National Security Council: The Relevance of Its Past to Its Future,” Orbis, XIII (Fall 1969), 709–35Google Scholar; the early Jackson Subcommittee hearings and staff reports (U.S. Senate, Committee on Government Operations, Subcommittee on National Policy Machinery, Organizing for National Security, Vols. I—III [Washington 1961])Google Scholar; Lay, James S. Jr. and Johnson, Robert H., “Organizational History of the National Security Council,” August 1960Google Scholar; published ibid., Vol. II, 411–68; Moose, Richard M., “The White House National-Security Staffs Since 1947,” in Clark, Keith C. and Legere, Laurence J., eds., The President and the Management of National Security (for the Institute of Defense Analyses, New York: Praeger 1969); 55–98Google Scholar; Destler, I. M., Presidents, Bureaucrats, and Foreign Policy (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1972 and 1974), esp. chap. 5 and EpilogueGoogle Scholar.

¹⁰ Study by Myron Gilmore for the Eberstadt Report, quoted in Hammond (fn. 9), 141.

¹¹ Bundy, Harvey H. and others, “The Organization of the Government for the Conduct of Foreign Affairs,” Appendix H to the Report of the Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government (Washington, D.C., February 1949), 51Google Scholar.

¹² Hammond (fn. 9), 141.

¹³ Truman, Harry S., Years of Trial and Hope (New York: Doubleday 1956), 59Google Scholar.

¹⁴ Eisenhower, Dwight D., Waging Peace (New York: Doubleday 1965), 246nGoogle Scholar.

¹⁵ The Secretary of the Treasury has never been a formal member of the N.S.C, but was regularly invited to Council meetings under Eisenhower and most other postwar Presidents. The Murphy Commission proposed that he be added as a statutory member in view of the increased importance of economic relations in foreign policy. Congress passed legislation to this end in December 1975, but President Ford vetoed it, declaring that “adequate arrangements for providing advice to the President on the integration of economic and foreign policy already exist.”

¹⁶ Quoted in Sorensen (fn. 3), 284.

¹⁷ “Bill Moyers Talks about LBJ, Poverty, War and the Young,” Atlantic, Vol. 222 (July 1968), 35Google Scholar.

¹⁸ Rostow, W. W., The Diffusion of Power (New York: Macmiilan 1972), 361Google Scholar.

¹⁹ Report in the New York Times, October 25, 1968.

²⁰ Ibid., and White House Statement of February 7, 1969.

²¹ On the operations of the Nixon-Kissinger system generally, see esp. Chester Crocker, “The Nixon-Kissinger National Security Council System, 1969–1972: A Study in Foreign Policy Management,” in National Academy of Public Administration, “Making Organizational Change Effective: Case Studies of Attempted Reforms in Foreign Affairs,” Appendix O (Vol. 6) to the Murphy Commission Report (fn. 8), 79–99; and Destler, (fn. 9), chap. 5 and Epilogue. For an insider's account of how the system was established, see Morton H. Halperin, “The 1969 NSC System,” unpub. paper prepared for the Murphy Commission.

²² Washington Post, November 9, 1973.

²³ Information provided by the N.S.C. staff, covering the period through April 28, 1976.

²⁴ New York Times, May 13, 1975; The New Republic, June 7, 1975, p. 8; and information provided by N.S.C. staff.

²⁵ The standard account of this episode is Hammond, Paul Y., “NSC-68: Prologue to Rearmament,” in Schilling, Warner and others, Strategy, Politics, and Defense Budgets (New York: Columbia University Press 1962)Google Scholar.

²⁶ Johnson (fn. 9), 714.

²⁷ Acheson, “Thoughts on Thought in High Places,” reprinted in Jackson Subcommittee (fn. 9), II, 292.

²⁸ Bundy's letter to Senator Henry Jackson, in Jackson Subcommittee (fn. 9), I, 1338.

²⁹ George, , “The Case for Multiple Advocacy in Making Foreign Policy,” American Political Science Review, Vol. 66 (September 1972), esp. 753–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³⁰ On the issue of neutral competence in U.S. public administration, see Herbert Kaufman, “Emerging Conflicts in the Doctrines of Public Administration,” in Altshuler (fn. 9), 75–77; and Heclo, Hugh, “OMB and the Presidency—the Problem of ‘Neutral Competence,’ ” The Public Interest, No. 38 (Winter 1975), 80–98Google Scholar.

³¹ For a careful, illuminating account of the development of this role, and of conflicts among the Special Assistant's roles, see Hall (fn. 9).

³² On Rostow's functions, see Moose (fn. 9), 85–86.

³³ The quote is from the first federal Budget Director, General Charles G. Dawes, who used to brief his successors about the job and end with the following: “Young man, if you retain nothing else that I have told you, remember this: Cabinet members are Vice Presidents in charge of spending, and as such they are the natural enemies of the President. Good day.” Quoted by Gordon, Kermit, “The Budget Director,” in Cronin, Thomas E. and Greenberg, Sanford D., eds., The Presidential Advisory System (New York: Harper and Row 1969), 61Google Scholar. It should perhaps be noted that Dawes was probably referring mainly to Cabinet members in charge of domestic Departments, with strong program interests and supporting constituencies.

³⁴ Neustadt, “Approaches to Staffing the Presidency: Notes on FDR and JFK” in Altshuler (fn. 9), 119.

³⁵ Quoted in the New York Times, August 23, 1973.

³⁶ On “competitive,” “collegial,” and “formalistic” management patterns in general Presidential decision making, see Johnson, Richard T., “Presidential Style,” in Wildavsky, Aaron, ed., Perspectives on the Presidency (Boston: Little, Brown 1975), 262–300Google Scholar.

³⁷ The discussion will avoid duplication of the more comprehensive organizational proposals on foreign affairs presented in Destler (fn. 9), chap. 9.

³⁸ See, for example, George (fns. 29 and 9); Hall (fn. 9); and Janis, Irving L., Victims of Groupthink (Boston: Hougliton Mifflin 1972)Google Scholar.

³⁹ See above all Neustadt, Richard, Presidential Power (New York: Wiley & Sons 1960 and 1964)Google Scholar.

⁴⁰ Quoted in Hoopes, Townsend, The Limits of Intervention (New York: David McKay 1969), 90Google Scholar.

⁴¹ For one contemporary report, see Evans, Rowland and Novak, Robert, “Foggy Bottom Faces a Trauma,” Los Angeles Times, August 30, 1971Google Scholar, cited in Esterline, John S. and Black, Robert, Inside Foreign Policy (Palo Alto, Calif.: Mayfield Publishing Company 1975), 231Google Scholar. It refers to an instruction by Secretary Rogers warning against “written memoranda raising questions about such dramatic policies as Mr. Nixon's approach to mainland China.”

⁴² Destler (fn. 9), 292.

⁴³ Johnson (fn. 9), 716.

⁴⁴ Destler, , “Comment: Multiple Advocacy: Some Limits and Costs,” American Political Science Review, Vol. 66 (September 1972), esp. pp. 787–89CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴⁵ Acheson quoted in Steinbruner (fn. 4), 332.

⁴⁶ Allison, , “Conceptual Models and the Cuban Missile Crisis,” American Political Science Review, Vol. 63 (September 1969), 711CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴⁷ Hughes, , “Relativity in Foreign Policy,” Foreign Affairs, XLV (July 1967), 676Google Scholar.

⁴⁸ Acheson, , Present at the Creation (New York: Norton 1969), 734Google Scholar.

⁴⁹ Acheson, , “The Eclipse of the State Department,” Foreign Affairs, XLIX (July 1971), esp. pp. 603–06Google Scholar.

⁵⁰ Murphy Commission Report (fn. 8), 4.

⁵¹ Destler, , “The Nixon NSC: Can One Man Do?” Foreign Policy, No. 5 (Winter 1971–72), 28–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Destler (fn. 9), chap. 9.

⁵² Allison, “Overview of Findings and Recommendations From Defense and Arms Control Cases,” Appendix K (Volume 4) to the Murphy Commission Report (fn. 8), 38. The language quoted is in reference to a White House staffing proposal put forward by Francis Bator.

⁵³ Robert H. Johnson, for example, has suggested eliminating the N.S.C. and other parallel bodies, replacing them with less formal Cabinet-level councils appropriate to particular problems under consideration, and supporting them all with a unified “Cabinet staff.” One of “perhaps four deputies” would handle “foreign security” issues, another would concentrate on “international interdependence” issues; the other two would cover domestic matters. (See, for example, his “Managing Interdependence: Restructuring the U.S. Government,” in John Sewell, ed., The U.S. and World Development: Agenda for Action igyy [Overseas Development Council, forthcoming].) Graham T. Allison and Peter L. Szanton have urged that “an executive committee of the Cabinet become the chief forum for high-level review and decision of all major issues combining ‘foreign,’ ‘domestic,’ and ‘economic’ implications.” See Remaining Foreign Policy: The Organizational Connection (New York: Basic Books 1976), chap. 4Google Scholar. This “ExCab” would be supported by a staff incorporating those of the N.S.C., the Domestic Council, and the Economic Policy Board.

Although the implications of such proposals require analysis beyond the scope of this article, they should certainly not be dismissed as lightly as the Murphy Commission Report (fn. 8), 36, rejects a similar proposal. Employing the Cabinet in this way would not necessarily prove “cumbersome and inefficient” because the Cabinet would seldom need to meet as a whole—the real business would be done by ExCab, the Staff, or the particular Cabinet subgroups.

A key issue here is whether current governmental organization gives undue prominence to national security concerns and excessive influence to national security institutions. Graham Allison so argues in his Murphy Commission studies. And though the “militarization of American foreign policy” in the fifties and sixties seems to have had causes mainly outside the structure of Presidential advisory institutions, the continuing institutional emphasis on national security policy as a relatively separate and superior sphere is certainly open to question today. Broadening the N.S.C. and staff to encompass general Presidential policy would remedy these limitations. If such reform were to name the highest aide working full time on national security a Deputy Assistant to the President, it would certainly make him less likely to eclipse Cabinet members. The question then arises, of course, whether he would have enough leverage at that level to play the staff role strongly and effectively. Certainly he and the other major deputies would need to deal directly with the President.

⁵⁴ Halperin, Morton H., Bureaucratic Politics and Foreign Policy (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution 1974), 63–64Google Scholar.

⁵⁵ Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report of February 15, 1975, for example, indicated that the request had “little support.”

⁵⁶ Hammond (fn. 9), 154.

⁵⁷ This might prove easier if one of the Cabinet staff proposals noted in footnote 53 was adopted.

⁵⁸ Johnson (fn. 53), chap. 5.

⁵⁹ Galbraith, , Ambassador's Journal (Boston: Houghton Mifflin 1969), 7Google Scholar.