Effective National Security Advising: Recovering the Eisenhower Legacy

The Contemporary Presidency: Organizing theNationalSecurityCouncil: I Like Ike's

“…It is true that the world is growing more complex—which is precisely why the United States needs a more coherent and integrated strategic planning capability. Eisenhower said, in an oft‐cited quote, “Organization cannot make a genius out of an incompetent … [but] disorganization can scarcely fail to result in inefficiency and can easily lead to disaster” (quoted in Greenstein and Immerman , 338)—which is why he paid such close attention to how he organized for national security.…”

“…“The Planning Board's importance to the policy‐making process cannot be exaggerated,” according to Robert Bowie and Richard Immerman , 91). Fred Greenstein and Richard Immerman , 340) go so far as to say it was “the engine of the Eisenhower national security process.” The Planning Board was “the principal policy formulating body” of the NSC. Its responsibilities were to “anticipate and identify problems and situations affecting the security objectives, commitments, and risk of the United States” and “to provide the required analysis and draft policy statements for consideration” by the NSC (Cutler ).…”

“…Fred Greenstein and Richard Immerman noted , 343, 336) that “Eisenhower's NSC system was depicted by its critics as a bureaucratic machine that spewed piles of useless paper. That is a caricature of its operation … the Eisenhower system has distinctly positive implications for the future of national security policy advising.” Bruce W. Jentleson, who reviewed the United States’ history of efforts at integrated strategic planning, concluded in 2009 that “The best example of interdepartmental coordination was executed by the NSC Planning Board in the Eisenhower administration,” (, 74).…”

Presidential Preview: Nixon’s Vice Presidency and Role in the Vietnam War, 1953–1955

“…While Nixon was heavily involved in NSC procedures, that was not the only form of decision making during the Eisenhower presidency (Herring and Immerman , 363). As Greenstein and Immerman () clearly demonstrate, Eisenhower used a mix of the formal NSC machinery with other meetings and consultations to make his policies. For instance, at the start of 1954, the president directed the formation of a special study group to analyze the situation in southeast Asia.…”

The Neutral/Honest Broker Role in Foreign‐Policy Decision Making: A Reassessment

“…Its national security process sought to ensure that departmental positions and concerns were appropriately brought to bear. As Greenstein and Immerman observe, the Eisenhower NSC system was “unlike that of a number of later presidencies in that it made full use of the expertise of the departments and agencies represented in the NSC.” But it was also a process—including the role of the NSC adviser—that counterbalanced the negative effects of bureaucratic politics and tested for substantive merits while dampening conflict and avoiding centralization of policy making in a powerful NSC adviser: “There was a general absence of the public and semipublic feuds and cleavages that have marked a number of later presidencies, as well as the tension that existed in many later presidencies between the secretary of state and the national security adviser” (Greenstein and Immerman 2000, 343, 344). According to Carnes Lord, “Strikingly, the NSC role was virtually invisible during the Eisenhower years in spite of the high level of activity associated with the Council itself and the interagency structure supporting it.…”