Effective national security advising: Recovering the Eisenhower legacy

Political Science Quarterly

Volumn 115, Issue 3, 2000, Pages 335-345

  Greenstein, Fred I ^a,b   Immerman, Richard H ^a,c  

^a CENTRAL QUEENSLAND UNIVERSITY   (Australia)

^b PRINCETON UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^c TEMPLE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0040185708     PISSN: 00323195     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/2658121     Document Type: Article

References (27)

1. Fred I. Greenstein, The Hidden-Hand Presidency: Eisenhower as Leader (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994); and most recently, Greenstein, The Presidential Difference Leadership Style from FDR to Clinton (New York: Free Press, 2000), esp. chap. 4. See also Richard H. Immerman, "Confessions of an Eisenhower Revisionist: An Agonizing Reappraisal, " Diplomatic History 14 (Summer 1990): 319-342.
2. Fred I. Greenstein, The Hidden-Hand Presidency: Eisenhower as Leader (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994); and most recently, Greenstein, The Presidential Difference Leadership Style from FDR to Clinton (New York: Free Press, 2000), esp. chap. 4. See also Richard H. Immerman, "Confessions of an Eisenhower Revisionist: An Agonizing Reappraisal, " Diplomatic History 14 (Summer 1990): 319-342.
3. Fred I. Greenstein, The Hidden-Hand Presidency: Eisenhower as Leader (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994); and most recently, Greenstein, The Presidential Difference Leadership Style from FDR to Clinton (New York: Free Press, 2000), esp. chap. 4. See also Richard H. Immerman, "Confessions of an Eisenhower Revisionist: An Agonizing Reappraisal, " Diplomatic History 14 (Summer 1990): 319-342.
4. Peter Roman, Eisenhower and the Missile Gap (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995).
5. This critique was reflected throughout the hearings conducted by the U.S. Senate Committee on Government Operations' Subcommittee on National Policy Machinery. The hearings began in 1959 under the chairmanship of Senator Henry M. Jackson (D-WA). See Henry M. Jackson, ed., The National Security Council: Jackson Subcommittee Papers on Policy-Making at the Presidential Level (New York: Praeger, 1965).
6. On the organization and fundamental components of Eisenhower's national security process, see Robert R. Bowie and Richard H. Immerman, Waging Peace: How Eisenhower Shaped an Enduring Cold War Strategy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), esp. chap. 5.
7. Biographies of Eisenhower are numerous. For an explicit discussion of Eisenhower's pre-presidential career as preparation for his management of security after1953, see Bowie and Immerman, Waging Peace: How Eisenhower Shaped an enduring Cold War Strategy, esp. chap. 2.
8. Dwight D. Eisenhower, The White House Years: Mandate for Change, 1953-1956 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1963), 114.
9. Dwight D. Eisenhower, "The Central Role of the President in the Conduct of Security Affairs" in Amos A. Jordon, eds., Issues of National Security in the 1970s: Essays Presented to Colonel George A. Lincoln on his Sixtieth Birthday (New York: Praeger, 1967), 207.
10. Proceedings of the Cabinet Meetings, 12-13 January 1953, "Cabinet Meeting January 12-13, 1953, " Cabinet series, Dwight D. Eisenhower Papers as President of the United States, 1953-1961 (Ann Whitman File), Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, KA (hereafter cited as AWF).
11. George Marshall testimony, NSC Study, 19 February 1953, "NSC - Organization and Functions [1949-1953] (5), " NSC series, Administrative subseries, Records of the White House Office of the Special Assistant for National Security Affairs, Eisenhower Library.
12. Unlike the cabinet, the NSC has a statutory basis. It was instituted in the National Security Act of 1947. During the period of the Eisenhower presidency, its statutory members were the president, vice president, secretary of state, secretary of defense, and director of the office of defense mobilization. Because of the importance of economic solvency in his national security policy, Eisenhower added the secretary of the Treasury and the director of the Bureau of Budget to this group. The director of the Central Intelligence Agency and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff attended NSC meetings in an advisory capacity. Critics of the process had the mistaken impression that the Eisenhower NSC was a huge and unwieldy body, an impression that may have been fostered by the attendance when appropriate of a variety of staff aides, who sat along the wall but did not take part in the discussions.
13. Memorandum of NSC meeting, March 19, 1953, "137th meeting of the NSC, " NSC series, AWF; Brief Notes on Planning Board Meeting, May 6, 1953, CJCS 334 (NSC) 1953, U.S. Department of Defense, Records of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Record Group 218, National Archives II, College Park, MD.
14. Memorandum of NSC meeting, March 19, 1953, "137th meeting of the NSC, " NSC series, AWF; Brief Notes on Planning Board Meeting, May 6, 1953, CJCS 334 (NSC) 1953, U.S. Department of Defense, Records of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Record Group 218, National Archives II, College Park, MD.
15. Greenstein, Hidden-Hand Presidency, 128-29.
16. Entry for 1 March 1954, Clarence Randall Journals, volume 1, "Washington After the Commission, " Princeton University, Clarence Randall Papers, Princeton, New Jersey.
17. Gordon Gray to Eisenhower, 13 January 1961, "Gray, Gordon, " Name Series, AWF.
18. John P. Burke, Fred I. Greenstein, with the collaboration of Larry Berman and Richard Immerman, How Presidents Test Reality: Decisions on Vietnam, 1954 and 1965 (New York: Russell Sage, 1989), 72-73.
19. Cutler's statement may seem to have been an expression of opposition to American military involvement in Indochina, but on other occasions he warned against departures from the existing policy that would have increased the likelihood of a communist victory in Indochina.
20. Dwight D. Eisenhower, "The Central Role of the President in the Conduct of Security Affairs" in Jordon, ed., Issues in National Security in the 1970s, 214; entry for December 6, 1960, in Robert F. Ferrell, ed., The Eisenhower Diaries (New York: Norton, 1981), 379-80.
21. Dwight D. Eisenhower, "The Central Role of the President in the Conduct of Security Affairs" in Jordon, ed., Issues in National Security in the 1970s, 214; entry for December 6, 1960, in Robert F. Ferrell, ed., The Eisenhower Diaries (New York: Norton, 1981), 379-80.
22. Report to the President by The President's Committee on Informational Activities [Jackson Committee], 30 June 1953, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952-54, 2:1854-55.
23. Informal note of Jackson Committee meeting, 28 March 1953, "Special Assistant (Cutler) memoranda, 1953 (1), " Executive Secretary's subject file series. Papers of the White House Office of the National Security Council Staff, Eisenhower Library.
24. "As early as 1954, " he went on to say, "I had concluded that the American contingent in NATO should immediately be substantially reduced. After long discussions with the state and defense departments and the CIA, however, I had to change my mind." Eisenhower, "The Central Role of the President in the Conduct of Security Affairs, " 215.
25. George L. Alexander, "The Case for Multiple Advocacy in Making Foreign Policy, " American Political Science Review 66 (September 1972): 751-85.
26. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Columbia Oral History Interview, 20 July 1967. Our citation comes from the original draft transcript of the oral history that is available at the Eisenhower Library. The transcript released to the public omits the passage that we quote.
27. The greatest contretemps of the Eisenhower presidency was the Soviets' downing of a U.S. U-2 plane in the spring of 1960, an event that doomed a planned summit conference between Eisenhower and Nikita Khrushchev. The plane in question was overflying the Soviet Union as part of a highly classified program that had not been brought to the attention of the NSC.