bed CO On of Natio nal Security 4. “fire 196] HE ORGANIZATION OF WORK ON MILITARY AND FOREIGN POLICY in the government is a subject which engages a smal group of a.. experts and students of certain branches of politica: science. There ‘s only one try iy important thing to be sac on the sb} fect: the work should Ine orga nized in ways congenial to the incumbent -P resident. When a man » becomes President his working styie has areacdy been set, even if he is, by Presicentia.. ‘arcs, young. His character and experience have already 1 faugnt him how best to adsorb information, hear cting opinions, deal w:th subordinates, array the alternatives, assess re impact of one course in one area on a: the ctner areas wrere he bears responsibili ty, weigh the ming for action in one Seld against things pro- ceeding in others—and, , to reach a decision with whose heavy consequences he will have to | ive, and, along with him, the nation and a mankind, Men do these things in quite distinctive wavs. What matters is wat they decide, not how they reach a decision which, in its essence, v os always involve values and perceptions, memories and dreams they can never vt holly articulate. Inder the American Constitution only one man is commander-in- ove “and he is also charged with the conduct of forcign affairs. In comp:ex’ wavs those powers are snared with the Congress; but within the executive rene ont v the President (and Vice President) have oeen elected. All otiers are annointed by the President, or are resnonsibic to appointed Tt follows that the tas’c af the executive branch is to. respond to the {r60] The Organization of National Security Affairs, 1961 16] President's working style as well as to his policy. Having secn and done some work in Washington under six successive Presidents, I still find it remarkable how that massive bureaucracy shifts its stvic, ton e, and manner as Presi dents come and go, white m niaining, in each of mtg Ceparime emts, a stubborn continuity of its own There will always be these who believe they President what cent to be’ done, who belicve if he were only better in- formed, he would agree with them. And they may postpone, deflect, even cefy orders—or take their case to the press. There wi a always be abiding bureaucratic vested interests and habits. For example, Kennedy once, in his early days as President, wanted a sign removed which he thought inappropriate. He asked, casually, that a subordinate take care’ of the matter. He was told a few days later by the attorney § general that 1 know Detter than the _was still there. He tried again. The effort failed. He finally determined the obscure unit of bureaucracy which had responsibility, the exact pom within it where power. over signs lay, and personally gave the order. He concluded: “TI understand now. A’Presicent must say something three timres to be obeyed. ” And most Presidents will find something !ike this truce, fron time to time, in far graver matters. But when al! this 4 inevitable personal proprictorship over the nationa interest and bureaucratic inertia is taken into account, the responsive of the executive branch to the single indivicual who leads it is aking o minor recurrent miracle. . ~ ‘It took some time, but the military and foreign policy complex wa reshaped by Kennedy. The heart of it lay in two men: his secretary © defense and his secretary of state. Tn Robert S. McNamara he found a man to whom ‘he was prepared t entrust extraordinary and rarely diluted authority in the Pentagor VieNumara chose his own team of civilian subordinates. And, with May well Taylor’s movement to the-post of chairman of the Joint Chilis Stat on October 1, 1962, Kennedy had a military team with which he W comfortabie, ) Despite his undisputed primacy in the Pentagon, McNamara cic plined himself to a perception which greatly cased ‘the task of both Ker nedy and Jonnson, as well as Rusk, He understood that military power a: the servant of iarger political purposes. We knew that military acttp indeed, the routine day-to-day operation of a military establ ishmenfi t large as America’s , had profound polit tical and diplomatic signi ificance. & intermingling of military and political policy and action is so deep th clean lines can only rarety be drawn. He consciously and systematic eferred, therefore, to the secretary of state. when Rusk took a firm S®: tion, And his formal advice to the Presidents he served was routinc’¥ his total accentance of" decision at which the President would arrive after weighing all the eC
r6> Tur KENNEDY ADMINISTRATION ere ions bearing on the problem. In McNamara's time the Pentagon oc, Of course, am ample ra nge of differences with the State Depart- ment at work! ng. levels. These were usually quietly resolved oy the two secretaries, The intimacy, ease, and mutual royalty with which McNamara anc 2usk Worxed was oniv matched in the post-1945 years, perhaps, by sae Acheson-Lovett team in the Truman administration. Dean Rusk was oat least as ‘self-dise’plined as McNamara, but in a Nerent wav. He hac a ceep understanding of milita ary problems, based on rong and variec éxoerience. His basic view, however, was that diplomacy aad Taled—he had feiled—whenever resort to force was regarded as nec- essary. He knew also that, in the world as it was in the 1960s, force was ne ecepee element in. the equation of diplomacy. For example, his eG rest of me, between Kennedy's election and the Inaugural, was to wn the best answer IT could to the thought most on his mind: How do deal with the world while a avoiding nuclear war? He o%ten referred to Sie trade union’ "oF foreign ministers. He felt it to be a club of men whose Cuty it was to see if the human race could come through a beat le passage out destroying civilization.: His. evident sincerity on this nyaryt response, : , ° e Qt story ACH Mew Strativeiy, Rusk’s problem was vastly more complex than ‘cNamara’s because Kennedy was determine | intimately wit “oveien a®airs and to reshape Foreien noliey, piece by niece, MaNemmea’ ~poreanization of the Pentagon and of t the American force structure was “ps, ever. more radical than Kennedy’s innovations in forcign poticy: cennedy did not monitor that reorganization in the way he engaged : S bike aS a 4 cign policy. ; > ay TD, . “Lf + . . ‘ “or a strong President the difference was inevitable. The President js, scan ; Taye i in fore} i 1 sent pabiy, a major Cay-to-cay actor in foreign affairs, as we!l as the ‘sit as : itect of foreign policy. He meets and negotiates directly with <n endless os vey i , ~ ow ot caicts of government and foreign ministers. On smal! occasions rarac, he is expected to articulate ferci ign policy in detail not expected uintin military affairs. Therefore, ma nv more hands were at work, in the House and elsewhere, 1 forcien than | in miifary affairs during Ken- ‘nm this’setting, Rusk drew a sharp line between his two roles: adminis- tor af the State Department and personal adviser to the President. He verry respecied the post of secretary of state. He never forgot he was in a “ne stretching back to Jeferson, But modeling himself on George Mar- Rusk kent hus ego under extraordinarily tight rein. He was, I think aculgent man i ever worked with, Lo was the senior adviser vice on questions he believed men “should aperoacn en che knees.” sto gusremnationy avoided cebate ir large mect- ate ta his oMce and of no service to the &, “twas, in Aig vie Lo 7 ” sat “ 4 te Tenet a . ete won TA nann ,The Organization of National Security A fairs, 1961 1623 and privately, at the President's request or when he judged the time was right. The primacy Rusk accorded his relations with the President had: tts cost. He could not fully brie! his subordinates on all that transpired bes tween himself and the President. The risk of Ieaks was always realy and a President needs and deserves private counse!, with free give and take, not promptly spread throughout the bureaucracy. But that meant Rusks’s sub- ordinates in the State Department from time fo time were Nying blind—a situation Rusk felt they s ; hould accept with the same equanimity as officers who execute orders without knowing all the considerations which led the commanding genera! to issue them. On the other hand, within the State Department Rusk encouraged at planning. meetings of senior aides wide- ranging discussions, including the advancing of “unthinkable thoughts.” In the more or less regular sessions we had together, usually over the weck- end, when I was State Department planner, ne was speculative, reflective, and candid. But advising the President was his ultimate duty, as he saw it, along with executing the President's decisions. The only show. ‘of emotion T ever saw Rusk a How himself was in a disheartened and disheveled meet- ing immediately after the Bay of Pigs cebacie. It took place in the Cabinet Room. The President had stepped out. He-pounded the arm of the Presi- dent’s chair and said: “It is this.man we must think about.” Unlike McNamara, Rusk did not choose al! ! is lor even. many of | initial subordinates. Ee lived and worked with an array of men Kennedy wished to see engagec on one aspect or another of forcion affairs. Vhis Rusk accepted, de ealing with all in an even-handed, reserved way which did not exclude moments of sensibility and humor, as wei! as shrewd assess- mont. Like a high-ranking general in the field, he accepted the flow of subordinates that came his way as. decreed by distant higher authority; uthough, also like a high-ranking general, he used his influence -occasion- ay to get the key men he wanted most. The degrce to which he woulg share his thoughts inevitably varied among his subord inates: but there werg no “Rusk men” in his State Department, only fellow soldiers of the ling The post of secretary of state in the 1960s was certainly the mom exacting post in the government. It was loaded with inescapa ve > overheagy commitments: protra acted ordeals before congressions, committees: ove seas trips to international conferences, an endless flow of meetings wif ambassadors; White House and diplomatic dinners; state visits, with tt need for fine-grained exchanges with foreign ministers; an intense series 6f bitateral exchanges at the annual gathering of the forcign ministers i September for the United” Nations “General Assembly—all! this plus te necd to administer a large ceparimen'; to be futly informed on the state & a Sssionable world: to 5 be responsibie for the dai y flow ot cables to eveEy corner of the globe, of which a half-dozen were “able to carry heavy freighat wate he and reauire that every word be weighed; and then, the need to be preparee 4 to render acvice to the President at ¢ any hour of the day or night. E LH fe Af ears avantar, Meet a roe tat sé Yeoerlan AT on ‘
Og Tuas KENNEDY ADMINISTRATION Cees Tus business in his home or some other congenial place; he has eater contrat over his schedule and over whem he sees; he is debarred rom appearing before congressional committees: and his staff is small. Both the Pre esident and his advisers were caught up in the 1960s in a ‘ttle noticed but quite revo! lutionary chavze in the scale and intensity of ‘en affairs which had occurred in the period between, sav, 1945 and The change in scale arose from the coming to sta tehood of a great y former colonial nations. Membership in the United Nations, fer exampic, was §9 in 1949, and 112 in 1963. Even more important, how- , Was the growing intens:ty of the prodiems in the southern continents, as rhe Ccrive for modernization, accelerated and the focus of the Cold War struggle came to rest upen them. _ atis oniv a partiai exaggera ition to say that the secretary of state from 1945 to 1952 was a super-assistant secretary of state for Eurone. Americ L faced, cificult problems in postwar China; the Japanese occupation and the Treaty; the troubled birth of Israel; anc war in Korea. But Latin Amer- sea was quiet. The ferment in Africa, the Middle East, South and South- east Asian was prmariv.a headache for the European colonial powers. Acnesan's Hfe as secretary of state was overwhel! eimingty taken up with prob- ems ng me axis from Loncon to Moscow. His most important act Jn iain American vo vopart of larch 1950 to de scquestered—“‘locked away and hidden from ‘nnecent eyes Ac yesen's advice to Truman that the-United States face un to tne attack In Xerea in June 1950 was Cetermined rather more by his concern for the balance of rewer in Europe than in Asia: he viewed the iG atic as a direct challenge Sy Moscow to Washington that had to be met frascent NATO were to emerge as viable. —— Kennecy and Johnson, Rusk and McNamara dealt with a quite vane world. The planet had become a. sing'e, sensitively interacting, | community. From the point of view of American policy, as well as nand Chinese, history had: destroved the shield of colenialism; and won Ame crica was in.a new state of ferment. In the 196es the intensity of communications between Latin America and Was: lington, and the “gravity of the issues, almost matched those of Europe in the immediate vostwar years, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia proved capable of gen- vreting, at any moment, crises of the first order of magnitude; and this’ ~veant they requ rec endless attention and monitoring, even in apparently vot times. In short, the iraditional orientation of American foreign policy ross the North Atlantic had demonstrably ended, : ’ ‘tis this revelution in the world’s political structure that explains mere “an anything else the rise in importance of the post of special assist- artto the esident for nationa! security affairs. new cimension in the organization of national security affairs taxe share in the 1980s, 2s experience unfolded with operating ucy was, perhaps, to order George Kennan’s explosive’ The Organization of National Security Affairs, 1961 TOS. the structure created by the Nationa! Security. Act of 1947 and the advisory “re ‘COUNCIL it set in motion. From the beginning, the heart of the matter lay in two quite distinct problems: first, how the President chose to receive advice on national security matters; second, how coordinated staff work should be generated among ail the arms of national’sccurity policy at atime when diplomacy itself, in the old-fashioned sense, no longer sumiced, Intelugence, foreign ad, oreo | rejects’ overseas, stockpiling at home, and, above all, itary policy had to be woven together with conventional diplomacy. On sie “Srst issue, Truman, like his successors (including Eisen- hower), did not use extensively the full formal structure of the National Security Council (NSC) in actually arriving at critical, operational deci- sions. He sought the advice of the men he wanted to hear when he wanted to hear them on specific matters as they arose—notably, George Marshal! and Dear Acheson, Robert A. Lovett and Avere!l Harriman. me With respect to the second problem, coordinated staf! work was gen- erated, based on older wartime and immediate postwar precedents, bring- ing State and Defense closer together; for example, the re-e examination of military policy after the first Soviet nuclear explesion in 1949, culled NSC ies vtyy ogica! Cie- When the Soviet Union acovired nuclear weapons, and of a standoff in major weapons became more real, the possi the psyeho! “ment in the struggte also rose in oriority. After a protracted exanvination, the problem of nsycholowica! warfare came to be conceived primarily as the task of making and executing a policy that would dramatize the areus of overlap between. the purposes of the United States and those of other nations. : The Eisenhower administration recognized and accepted this conclu- sion when in 1953 it converted the Psychological Strategy Board into thy, Operations Coerdinating Board, whose function was to assure coordinatett execution of policy decisions already arrived at by the President. eo Eisenhower also elevated the formal status of the NSC and the nsé Planning Board. And, there emerged, as well, a most useful Thursday lunch at the under sccretary level,- chaired by the under secretary of stats As an occasional consultant to the Eisenhower administration, I was able to observe the evolution of ‘its forma'tzed NSC structure. I came share a judgment arrived at also by some of the men most centr ally ies volved. aWe-conclnded tit -both-the-NSG-Pianning- Board-and the” oper tions Coordination Board “(OCB Y" Ha¢ Become instruments: for- genera ating papers-that-did not, in fact; come to grips’ with the heart of-the problenss they. addressed.” At forma! NSC mcetings the President was forced to git througn the elaborate exposition of prebicms that told him little he did. net aire ady know and which did not cer pose the questions which he had &® decide. One man charged with making 2 part of this apparatus work, la ug
TE6 Tre KENNEDY AD D MINISTRATION The Organization of National Security Affairs, 1961. 167 “ithe Eisenhower administration, concluded: “If we make Ike sit through who had helped operate the machinery; and probed hard at the question many more of these pointicss meetings, we'll literally kill him.” of whether @ reform of the existing machinery could render it vital, 7 ne reason for this atrophy was quite simple. Yerstrong-secretar 1 Obs _ LT concluded that the probiem of getting full cooper ‘ation from the -~-State- doesnot wish ‘to~place critical and sensitive “ssues"intointerdepart=: oo Department of State was insurmoy unt? ible e, because. a strong seerctary of mental-committcesresyeciaily when they expand out to include representa state could, would, and, ‘perhaps, s should kecp out of darge intercenart- ves of Cenartments oniv marginally involved. Foster Dulles was ote mental committees critical clements in the diplomatic equation, IT agreed, capeme ef transiating this wish’ into action. A strong secretary of defense in effect, with a dictum of C. D. Jackson’s addressed to precisely this muy wish to ray his hands on some of the key issues of diplomacy, but , . problem: “Since you can’t ick ‘em, join "em," Leheretore-proposed that the- Coes not wish his critical pieces of business spread about for general debate -usk..of interdepartmental-coordination™be=passedon= to: the -seeretary~of anc acvice. So, also, with a strong secretary of the treasury; and most na- i. stuteyeand..a-much-smatler:staff -bebuilt-around-Bundy*to-servenarrowly “onal security problems have price tags attached to thom. Thus, extreme!y ~ Presidential purnosess Interdepartmental coordination of the kind reflected ae men were busv, day after cay, draft! ng papers on problems where the in the papers I had read was an essential part of government, and such oy components were missing. working-leve! papers should be available to the President, They represented After citing the many departments and agencies invelved in foreien raw materials which the President's senior advisers should have available irs, Eisenhower's own conclusion was this: " but they were not—and could not be—focused with suMicient precision on ; the issues the President would have to de at a particular moment. Policy decisions affecting these far-flung operations were my re- ; Sundy had arrived at a similar conclusion. * spons:bility, but for daily ¢ coordination, I early organized the Qnera- We took our pian to Kennedy, who approved. But he noted that we important afc ot seencies which were directiy we charge of ane = were somewnat odd bureaucrats? her we were, handed a substantial ee yr ”: - empire—slots, budgets, and all—and our first recommendation was to liqui- fc foreign opera tions. It functioned fair riy well, Flowover, I came ena ily “to “bel! eve that this work could have-been better cone by a iV competent and trusted official with a mel stat 0! his own, ratner than bv a committee whose members had to handle the task an Cate a good part of it. The essential decision was to separate two narts of the abiding NSC problem: assistance to the President in prenarive for and executing his Q part-time basis? , decisions; and the task of intercepartmental stall work. The latter we , ' would monitor with our small staff, but rot try to manage fram day to day. Indeed, for this very reason, a kev “eure in the Els enhower adminis- -  The-@CBrwas-lormanyaboushed. on. Ecbruary.t9yet 96, ‘On wsndrew-Goodpaster> functioned-as n° + oreemncow ng In Present at the Creation, Acheson said: “T saw my duty as: gatheri ing ‘isxs McGeorge Buncy and his successors would under , Goodpaster all the wisdom available and communicating it amid considerable competi- “ees wth all manner of national security problems re va _ ng the Presi- -. tion. The alternative we have seen in doubttu! operations in the Roosevelt Cont’s participation, on occasions when the secretary of state or defense, the : ’ Kennedy anc Johnson administrations, when the President has uscd the, ; “oetor of Central Intelligence, the chairman of the AEC, etc., did not White House staff as the agency for collection and evaluation of wisdom."5 choose to take up the matter cirectly with the President. Acheson, I believe, misiudged the matter. [f he had served as secretary of All this was quite well known to Kennedy when he asked Bundy and os “state in the 1960s, he would, I suspect, have recognized the need for, ang, me to go to work in the White House on. national security affairs—a_ welcomed, the Bundy staff. The flow of business that only the Presideng rersnective underlined for him by a special report of Senator Henry Jack- . could, in the end, decide had become so massive and the pr coccupations off son's Subcommittee on National Policy Machinery, published shortly after the secretary Of state so wide-ranging that an extra man, and staff, wad. tne 1960 election. We knew Kennedy would wish our advice on how to required: , ; ° reorganize or dispose of the machinery and staff we had inherited. We , x orieny discussed the probe in Cambridge before going to. Washington; , T. ~te-keep-the President-fully- informed: 5 agreed we would prox my y tecommend a simp! ler pian, but agreed, “also, 2. to watch over the Fnkages-boween~ States” Defense AED; thE that we should sti udy the situati on the spot rather than recommend Treasury,..Agriculture,.agd other departments increasingly ime action on the dass ef our existing “sanformat jon and prejudice. _ volved in foreign affairs; om to follow closely the Jevelopment.ofsissues-within« the. bureaucracy... Bieape o o>) Zncoming tea responsidic iudgment in Washington, I read a samp ling of nevhons a hundred penning an 29C23 paners; talked with stafl members _.° so that the President would know what lay behind recommenda