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Article Excerpt
The assistant to the president for national security affairs--as the job has been officially titled since the early 1970s, but informally termed National Security Council (NSC) advisor--and the staff serving under that person make up one of the most important White House offices in its impact on policy. In some administrations, that impact is so strong that foreign and national security policy making are essentially centralized in the hands of the NSC advisor, with minimal input from cabinet-level departments such as State or Defense. Few today--or even back then--could identify President Richard M. Nixon's first secretary of state, even though he had been Dwight D. Eisenhower's second attorney general (William Rogers, by the way). By contrast, Nixon's NSC advisor, Henry Kissinger, was a household name and a recognizable media figure. Indeed, such was the power of the position that, when Nixon eventually appointed Kissinger as secretary of state in 1973, he retained his job as NSC advisor, relinquishing it in May 1975, only at President Gerald R. Ford's insistence. In other administrations, NSC advisor and departmental input in the policy process were more balanced. Such was the case, for example, during General Brent Scowcroft's tenure in the job under President George H. W. Bush. In still other administrations, the policy roles of the NSC advisor and staff have been more attenuated. The latter has been rarer since the 1960s. But there have been cases, such as during Alexander Haig's tenure as secretary of state, when departmental dominance was asserted, although in Haig's case, not successfully or for very long.
As with many of the units and offices within the White House staff, there is little statutory or legal constraint (beyond budgetary limits) in how the role of NSC advisor is defined or how the NSC staff is organized and operates. Much is the result of tradition, presidential inclination, and the personalities, prior experiences, and interpersonal dynamics among the "principals"--the president's key advisors, the NSC advisor included. Indeed, matters are so fluid that there is no common agreement on whether the informal title is NSC "adviser" or "advisor" (I will follow the preference of recent administrations and use the latter).
For presidential transitions, the role of NSC advisor and the organization of the NSC staff must clearly be of special attention and concern. Not only have they become the president's most important source of policy advice on foreign and national security policy, the NSC advisor-designate almost always plays a major role in how national security policy making will be organized and in filling NSC staff positions. Plus, in the short run of a new presidency's early--and critical--days and months, they are readily available sources of information and counsel: They are nonconfirmable positions that can be filled more quickly than is the case for the subcabinet.
Historical Development
The evolution of the role of the NSC advisor and staff has been significant. Their precise time of origin as key players in the process, particularly the NSC advisor, is subject to some debate. But the history is instructive.
Foundation: The Truman Years
At least organizationally, a plausible case can be made tracing at least some impact back to the National Security Act of 1947, which first statutorily established the NSC as an advisory body to the president. (1) As part of the act, the position of NSC "executive secretary" and an NSC staff were created to facilitate the council in its work. The White House successfully maneuvered to place both under direct presidential control rather than lodging them in the Pentagon, as then-navy secretary and later first defense secretary James Forrestal had strenuously lobbied in favor of. Harry S. Truman further curbed Forrestal's efforts at control by having the secretary of state rather than defense preside over NSC meetings in his absence.
Yet the Truman national security system was a weak one. Truman distrusted the collective deliberative apparatus thrust upon him by the Republican-controlled 80th Congress. Until the Korean War broke out in June 1950, he attended only 12 of 57 NSC meetings (Inderfurth and Johnson 2004, 27). (2) During the war, the NSC met every Thursday, and Truman attended 64 of its remaining 71 meetings (NSC 1997, 3). As for the NSC staff, it was a presidential instrument from the start, although not a very strong one. Truman's choice as its first executive secretary--Rear Admiral Sidney Souers--was a pale imitation, if that, of even the weaker NSC advisors in subsequent administrations. Most accounts of the history of the NSC and its staff mention Souers and his successor under Truman, James S. Lay, Jr., but they are rarely included in lists of "NSC advisors." At most, they served as somewhat limited policy coordinators and staff facilitators, not sources of substantive policy advice, much less embodying other aspects of the modern NSC advisor's role. Yet they were steadfast in maintaining presidential control over the NSC; it would serve at most in an advisory but not a constraining capacity for the president.
There were organizational weaknesses. The NSC staff was small and largely drawn from departmental detailees. (3) Initial position papers for council discussion were prepared by the State or Defense Department, not by a departmentally independent NSC staff. As well, the working groups established to consider these papers--before they rose to the full NSC--were drawn from the affected departments (Falk 1964, 408; Nelson 1985, 368-71; Souers 1949, 538-39).
In the view of James Lay, the staff members detailed from departments to work for the NSC "tended to become or be looked upon as foreigners to their respective departments." But at the same time, the "consultants" from the departments who directly reviewed policy papers with the NSC's executive secretary "looked upon their passive role as secondary to their heavy departmental responsibilities, [and] gave less and less attention to NSC affairs." Interagency coordinating and vetting, at a higher level but below the full meetings of the NSC, were nonexistent.
The final products--staff reports to the NSC--"were too frequently unacceptable when they reached the Council table. It was difficult for the staff to exercise initiative in developing forward-looking policies." As a result, Lay notes, "more and more, individual departments preferred to send their draft recommendations directly to the Council without any staff coordination, with inevitable clashes and delays at the Council table." (4) According to the history of the NSC on the White House Web site, the planning process prior to NSC meetings "suffered from haphazard staffing and irregular meetings and was sometimes bypassed entirely. The executive secretaries of the Council had no real authority or influence beyond managing the process" (NSC 1997, 3).
Organizational Change: The Eisenhower Years
Not surprisingly, change came quickly in the organizationally attentive Eisenhower presidency. Eisenhower's agent for reform was Boston banker Robert Cutler. (5 During the 1952 transition, Eisenhower and Cutler met to discuss needed improvements. By late March, following extensive consultation with former Truman-era officials and others inside and outside of government, Cutler presented to Eisenhower the architecture of a new national security process, which, with some tinkering, the president approved.
One major change was the appointment of a new White House official--Cutler himself--as the major domo of the process, above the executive secretary level. Eisenhower informed Cutler that he had decided on a new title for his position--several had been discussed--"Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs." Cutler's first presidential charge was to put his report into action.
The other organizational changes closely tracked with correcting the deficiencies of the Truman years. The most noticeable feature of the new system was the creation of what came to be dubbed "policy hill." Its organizational topography included a more regular, better organized, and higher-level planning operation before matters were considered at full council meetings: the NSC Planning Board. As the upside of policy hill, the main task of this interagency group was not only to find areas of consensus and policy agreement but also to ensure that policy alternatives, where agreement could not be obtained beforehand, were placed before the full NSC. Meeting weekly, it especially took care to make sure that departmental points of disagreement--so-called policy splits--were clearly brought to the attention of the NSC's members. With Cutler as chair, the Planning Board began to set the foundation of the modern NSC advisor's role.
With respect to the NSC staff, Cutler retained Lay as executive secretary and S. Everett Gleason as Lay's deputy. In Cutler's view, their institutional memory from the Truman years would be helpful. They are "devoted, capable, and well-informed," he told Eisenhower. "They will provide continuity, effectively operate the staff mechanism, and greatly help in the policy planning." (6) It is a significant lesson in the importance of the continuity of expertise and substantive knowledge in the transition from one administration to the next.
At the top of policy hill were regular meetings of the NSC (generally weekly, on Thursday mornings--usually two hours in length but sometimes reaching four--with Eisenhower in attendance) and the creation of written "records of action" reflecting NSC deliberations and presidential decisions. (7) Cutler and his successors also played a role in meetings of the Eisenhower NSC--not in tendering personal advice but in fairly presenting the view of others and in keeping the discussion on track.
What would come to be the down slope of policy hill--the Operations Coordinating Board (OCB)--was not the product of Cutler's direct handiwork, but the result of another board, the Jackson Committee (of which Cutler was a member). Chaired by William H. Jackson--a businessman and former CIA official who also had served as acting NSC special assistant in the latter months of 1956--its purpose (much like Cutler's) was to examine and improve on the policy mechanisms of the Truman years, in this case the Psychological Strategy Board. (8) In September 1953, the committee recommended that the new OCB would have as part of its duties the development of psychological strategy aimed at Cold War propaganda. But it was given a broader mandate: It would monitor and coordinate policy implementation by agencies and departments. (9) The new OCB was chaired (until January 1960) by the undersecretary of state (initially Eisenhower's wartime chief of staff, General Walter Bedell Smith), and its members consisted of representatives from other agencies and departments (much like the Planning Board), as well as Cutler from the NSC. (10)
Creation of the Planning Board, while important, was not the only alteration in process. Effective day-to-day operations, as much as good organization and structure for policy planning, were objects of Cutler's scrutiny and remedy. Much would lay the foundation for the NSC advisor as an "honest broker" of the deliberative process; in fact, it was the leitmotif of Cutler's understanding of the job. Cutler's early recommendations for reform included a strong charge--indeed, "an unbreakable engagement" in his words--that NSC principals be briefed by their Planning Board representatives before council meetings. Cutler also stressed that every Planning Board participant "must express and stand by his honest views; those views, if substantial conflicts cannot be fairly resolved, may never be suppressed or compromised, but should be reported to the Council." (11) Indeed, the report clearly states that each Planning Board member "has the right to have included in any report sent up to the Council, in his own words, any disagreement on the part of his department or agency with any part of such report." (12) Here we see the importance of the NSC advisor as a fair and honest broker of the policy process.
Other changes made included better circulation of policy papers before NSC meetings, clear agendas (set by Cutler and his staff), and regular briefings of Eisenhower by Cutler of agenda matters on the afternoon before NSC meetings. Cutler also included in his recommendations a clear list of his own duties as NSC special assistant. Some reflected elements of brokerage: oversight of the deliberative process and power to remedy any deficiencies. Cutler had "responsibility for the rate of flow of work through the Planning Board, and the manner of presentation and quality of such work." Cutler presided at Planning Board meetings, but he saw as his special duty--and here we explicitly see direct brokerage--to "lead the discussion in such manner as to bring out the most active participation by all present." It also was Cutler's duty to bring "to the attention of the president with recommendations for appropriate action, [and any] lack of progress of an agency in carrying out a particular policy which has been assigned to it." (13) Cutler's role as honest broker was not restricted to organizational matters: Brokerage also occurred in NSC meetings. As Greenstein and Immerman summarize, "The assistant for national security affairs played an active, but largely procedural part in the deliberations. He kept the debate on track, directed the council's attention to disagreements and ambiguities, and watched for signs of policy slippage" (2000, 342). According to Bowie and Immerman, Cutler and his Eisenhower-era successors "effectively if imperfectly promoted multiple advocacy by playing a role that closely approximated Alexander George's model 'custodian manager'" (1998, 257).
The formal organization of the Eisenhower NSC process was not without its critics, particularly among members of the Senate subcommittee investigation led by Senator Henry Jackson (D-WA) toward the close of the administration. (14) The charge was that it was bureaucratically cumbersome, slow in its deliberative operations, and prone to compromise and "lowest common denominator" policy recommendations.
Even today, when there is greater appreciation of the inner workings of the Eisenhower presidency and of Eisenhower's leadership style, the debate continues. As Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., asked as late as 2000, "Is the layered Eisenhower machinery really 'a precedent for effective national security advising'? On the record, surely not. It is wrong too in theory. Organization charts are less important than people." Moreover, according to Schlesinger, the Eisenhower model "is all the more wrong" at the onset of the digital age: "[T]he vertical arrangements of the past are being replaced by increasingly horizontal arrangements--which is the way that presidents like FDR and JFK operated instinctively" (2000, 351). By contrast, in the view of Laurin Henry, the author of an extensive early study of presidential transitions, "The Planning Board, the NSC, and the OCB constituted an architectonic system for policy formulation, decision, and execution of which the administration was extremely proud" (1960, 617-18). Subsequent empirical studies of decision making during the Eisenhower years bear out the merits of its national security deliberative arrangements.
The McGeorge Bundy Years: Change, but for the Better?
In the post-Eisenhower years, the job of NSC advisor evolved considerably. Eisenbower saw the NSC system and its staff as a device for effectively harnessing the relevant agencies and departments so that they would have productive input on policy options. For his immediate successor, however, that system was too ossified and bureaucratic. For John E Kennedy, the NSC advisor and staff needed to be more forcefully a presidential instrument, one serving as a direct source for presidential initiatives. Subsequent presidencies have grappled with these two organizationally different models and the different implications they bear for the role of the NSC advisor and staff.
McGeorge Bundy's tenure as NSC advisor is illustrative of some of the dilemmas. Both Kennedy and Bundy found the organizational structure of the Eisenhower policy process cumbersome and overly bureaucratic. Both the Planning Board and the OCB were quickly abolished. Kennedy, an instinctively informal as well as a highly collegial decision maker, also preferred venues other than the organized and somewhat large NSC meetings of the Eisenhower years. According to Theodore Sorensen, Kennedy's chief White House aide, NSC meetings were used--when they were used--for "minor decisions" or "major ones actually settled earlier." Kennedy "strongly preferred to make all major decisions with far fewer people present." During and after crises, the NSC would often be convened, but for the purpose of getting everyone on record and to "silence outside critics" (Sorensen 1965, 281). As Kennedy himself observed in a NBC television interview in April 1961, meetings of the NSC are "not as effective" as smaller decisions groups; "it is more difficult to decide matters involving national security if there is a wider group present" (Smith 1988, 17).
There also may have been some initial hope that a strong policy-making linkage would develop between the president and the secretary of state, perhaps along the lines of the Truman-Dean Acheson relationship. The choice of Dean Rusk, a cautious and reticent man, precluded that possibility. (Alternatively, it may have been just a rhetorical ploy to satisfy critics, with JFK intending to serve as his own secretary of state all along.)
But what developed was haphazard. The early policy process was highly problematic, culminating in the Bay of Pigs fiasco of April 1961. Bundy recognized that organizational changes were needed, but he had difficulty gaining Kennedy's attention and support. In a May 16, 1961, memo to the president, Bundy told Kennedy that although the White House was once again the "center of energy.... We do have a problem of management; centrally it is a problem of your use of time and your use of staff ... but in the process you have overstrained your own calendar, limited your chances for thought, and used your staff incompletely. You are altogether too valuable to go on this way." Bundy then proposed three correctives. One suggestion was that the president try to stick to his schedule. The second was more regular and focused meetings with Bundy: Kennedy needed a "real and regular time each day for national security discussion and action." The third was better staff work. (15)
Bundy began to fill the vacuum, especially in meeting more frequently with JFK. Organizational changes that he made increased his power and that of his NSC staff. Abolishment of the Planning Board and OCB eliminated staff positions involved in interdepartmental coordination of the policy-making and implementation processes. In their place, Bundy and his staff became more directly involved as the authors of national security policy--even though jerry-rigged "task forces" were often constituted to provide some semblance of wider coordination and input. In place of the OCB, Bundy and his staff took on the job of issuing National Security Action Memoranda informing recipients of policy directives (Preston 2006, 41). Yet Bundy's memoranda lacked the rigor of the Eisenhower deliberative process: They were directed at "action" rather than "planning," on...
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