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Turning to the negative side, there are also areas of consensus--
even among former Eisenhower aides--about shortcomings of the Council's
operations:

- The Council should have been more selective in its agenda, spending more time on important issues rather than trying to "paper the world with policy papers: as one former participant put it.

- A greater effort should have been made to sharpen alternatives in terms of *substance* rather than institutional viewpoint.

In fairness to Eisenhower it should be noted that as he began his
second term he expressed a desire to move "from weekly consideration
of policy *documents* to more free debate on policy *issues*." Cutler
faithfully records this but quickly notes that "Without an integrated
advance-prepared text as a discussion base, loose debate among busy
men preoccupied with departmental issues seldom produces helpful
results." (No Time for Rest, p. 351).

Beyond the above agreement opinion divides sharply. Particularly
divided is testimony regarding the value of Council debate. Some say
that Eisenhower simply used it to ratify positions previously agreed
upon by subordinates (those holding this view are generally individuals
who were not participants) and others (who *were* present) say it was a
collection of tough-minded individuals who gave tough opinions. In sum
one can conclude that, under fire, the Council's supporters tend to
overlook its shortcomings while making excessive claims regarding its

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effectiveness, e.g., "if the Planning Board had still been in existence
the Bay of Pigs would not have happened". On the other hand, its critics,
stimulated by policy differences, tend to blame the Council's procedures
for what they consider Eisenhower's mistakes, e.g., massive retaliation.

d. The operations Coordinating Board (OCB)

The OCB was the post-decision counterpart of the Planning Board.
It had elements both of a coordinating and evaluating mechanism. In
describing its role, Dillon Anderson, one of Eisenhower's Special
Assistants, mentioned coordination but stressed its review function:

"This Board receives reports and keeps under continuous
review the status of national security programs being
carried out by the various departments. It likewise
informs the Council, by means of periodic reports, what
action is being taken and what progress is being made
toward the achievement of each policy objective."

The key words in the above description are "This Board _receives reports_" (emphasis added). This passive mode was one of the OCB's greatest weaknesses. As one former OCB staff member put it, "It took me three attempts and five weeks to get from DOD a reasonably honest statement of what it (DOD) was doing in Turkey."

Robert Cutler who, as a member of the (W.H.) Jackson Committee
participated in the design of the OCB, emphasized its dual role--"a
coordinator and expediter and a follower-up and a progress reporter."
Contrasting the OCB with its predecessor, the Psychological Strategy
Board, Cutler wrote:

"The purpose of the new established OCB was not only to
coordinate and integrate psychological with national
strategy, but also, and more importantly, to act as

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the coordinating and integrating arm of the NSC for all
aspects of the implementation of national security policy."

By the end of the Eisenhower administration the OCB had become--
and still is-- the most maligned element of the Eisenhower NSC system.
Some observers even charge it with the major blame in having dis-
credited the entire NSC system. It is interesting that it should
have stirred such strong emotions (a top Eisenhower aide says the
criticism came principally from those being "skewered"), and yet by
general agreement (including those who worked most closely with it
and continue to advocate a more structured process), it failed in its
major purpose.

The reasons for its failure and the consequences of that failure
are instructive to the question of how the President assures himself
of adequate coordination and faithful implementation.

The Chairman of the OCB had no authority in his own right, and
in the absence of unanimity among its members it could not act. The
OCB was designed to do a job which the bureaucrats did not want done,
most of all its State Department Chairmen. Many of those interviewed
even supporters of the Eisenhower system, believe that the State De-
partment Chairmen were less than even handed in their direction of
the OCB, and often kept matters off the agenda which State did not
wish to have discussed. Other agencies had similar concerns; for
example, Treasury and BOB did not wish budgetary matters discussed.
It seems apparent that there was a great deal of "logrolling" in the
OCB which could have been cured by more assertive and independent
leadership with Presidential authority.

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Those most closely involved in its operations recognized this
and other weaknesses and sought to remedy them. In 1957 the OCB was
made part of the structure of the NSC and in 1960 the Special Assistant
for National Security Affairs assumed its Chairmanship. Furthermore,
its infamously enormous reporting schedule was reduced. But these
adjustments came too late for a fair trial and in the absence of more
direct Presidential interest they made no appreciable difference.
Eisenhower himself, in the "Afterthoughts" of his memoirs noted of
the OCB:

"It functioned fairly well. However, I came finally
to believe that this work could have been better done
by a highly competent and trusted official with a small
staff of his own, rather than by a committee whose members
had to handle the task on a part-time basis."

The failure of the OCB lay in its organization, not in its concept.
But it became so notorious as an institution that it did discredit
the concept of formal inter-departmental coordination. In the long
run the next President seems to have been the loser. One official
who has worked in the last three administrations notes that because
Kennedy's abolition of the OCB left him without adequate staff work,
many things were initially left undone and the Bundy staff began to
do them.

## 5. Eisenhower (Summary)

Eisenhower had reasonably good information about the external
national security environment, but he was entirely dependent upon the
operators for interpretation. He had very little information about
what went on inside the policy process.

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His policy formulating machinery was good but it lacked a final
objective scrutiny which he was not prepared to give it. Its production
remained largely under the control of the departments and agencies.
The Special Assistants had their own staffs' analyses of policy proposals
but these were not employed to illuminate for the President the real
alternatives available.

Responsibility for the implementation of policies rested with
the departments. The theory behind the OCB's responsibility to elaborate
policy was good, although as one non-participant described, it had
overtones of the "Indians" assembling after their bosses had come to
an agreement to decide what it was their bosses had decided upon.
The trouble was that unless the departments could agree at a lower level,
there was no discipline to assure their resolution at lower than
Presidential level. As a result, many such issues were brought to
the President because they could not be decided elsewhere. However,
he had no means of plucking these out of the system before damage was
done or opportunities lost. After the fact, his former aides with they
had brought to his attention more of the problems revealed in the OCB.
In practice he knew very little of its activity.

Much of what has just been said about coordination applies equally
to evaluation. The country guidelines established by the OCB provided
a ready framework for evaluation--perhaps more comprehensive and detailed
than anything since--but they were not effectively used as a means
of measuring performance against intention.

The Eisenhower NSC system has come to be the example of the
formal-policy oriented system. Yet it was an imperfect example.

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The system itself had congenital defects and these were compounded by
the operators.

Setting policy is one means of exerting guidance but its effect-
iveness as a mover of institutions depends upon an additional appli-
cation of power. The process was _centered_ at the White House but
not _driven_ from there. Outside the White House power was fragmented
among the "great baronies."

The NSC system provided a type of insurance against gross failure
to anticipate and coordinate; insurance as it were against the hasty,
the ill-considered and the free-wheeling. It was not a system for
ensuring movement--to say nothing of imagination. A President needs
both--protection as well as effective means of getting his work done.
The bureaucracy needs the discipline, structure and assurance provided
by the system. And to a certain extent these are of value to a President,
But to let the process be dominated by an insurance mechanism is to
deny it dynamism and responsiveness. As Sidney Souers has written of
the NSC committees, "(They) suffered from a lack of definite mission...
and most of all, from authoritative direction."

6. Transition: From Formality to Informality

Several broad principles governed President Kennedy's abolition
of the NSC system. Paramount among these was the intention to strengthen
the responsibility of the individual departments. Closely related was
the desire to work directly with the responsible agencies in the planning
and operational follow-up, without the intervention of extensive formal
machinery. The distinction between planning and operation at the
Presidential level was adjudged unrealistic. Finally, the primacy

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of the Council advisory function was de-emphasized. It became "one
instrument among many" and not "an end in itself".

The future role of the White House staff was foreshadowed in
Kennedy's announcement of Bundy's appointment:

"I have asked Mr. Bundy to review with care existing staff
organization and arrangements, and to simplify them wherever
possible toward the end that we may have a single, small,
but strongly organized staff unit to assist me in ob-
taining advice from, and coordinating operations of, the
government agencies concerned with national security af-
fairs." (Emphasis added)

In his subsequent letter to the Jackson subcommittee on September 4,
1961, Bundy wrote:

"...the business of the National Security staff goes
well beyond what is treated in formal meetings of the
National Security Council. It is our purpose, in
cooperation with other Presidential staff officers, to
meet the President's staff needs throughout the
national security area."

In other words, having abolished the previous Eisenhower machinery,
the "new" NSC staff would take its place. This was not seen as an
intrusion in the direct lines of contact between the President and
his cabinet. "Their task was that of all staff officers: to extend
the range and enlarge the effectiveness of the man they serve."

Things did not turn out as Kennedy intended--particularly with
the State Department which was the key element in the new approach.
In his initial organizational changes, Kennedy sought to reinforce

-41-

the Secretary of State's position by keeping foreign assistance under
his control despite pressures to the contrary. For the same reason,
the Peace Corps was placed under the Secretary of State--this time
over strenuous objections. Kennedy subsequently addressed a letter
to all US ambassadors re-affirming their authority over agencies in
the field.

Despite the early Kennedy emphasis and effort to get the Depart-
ment of State to assume responsibility, a feeling set in that the
Department was not willing or able to assume the task. Accordingly,
the Bundy staff, with its constantly increasing access to information
on national security problems, and its sensitivity to President Kennedy's
desire to stay on top of things, became prime initiators and coordinators
of activity. State Department officers complained that they didn't
have time to do their job because they were kept busy responding to
"White House" request. Active Presidential assistants, on the other
hand, reflected the feeling that the State Department's channels were
clogged, and its officers were lacking in imagination, perception and
sensitivity to the President's interest.

The problem does not rest entirely with State and neither has
State's performance been uniformly bad. State's batting average in
this and other connections has been good wherever there have been
good assistant secretaries. At the same time the top echelon of the
Department has never succeeded in pulling together all the threads
of its assumed responsibility, either in connection with its own
bureaus or in its relations with other departments and agencies.
Another problem, one which occurs at all levels of the process is
that too few State Department officers have acquired a sufficiently

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broad frame of reference to enable them to sense the Presidential
perspective of issues. Finally, the open-options approach to decision
making complicates life for the State Department. While a President
is justified in feeling that since the responsibility is his the
bureaucracy should wait for him, a certain predictability would en-
hance their ability to support him.

This experience has led some of the original Kennedy people to
have second thoughts about the wisdom of their wholesale abolition
of the NSC mechanism. As one of them phrased it, "We aimed at
Eisenhower and hit Kennedy." Another Kennedy Assistant when asked how
much conscious thought had been given to process in this period said:
"We did away with the old and did not put anything in its place."

Most all of those interviewed say that State "dropped the ball."
Some say that the Kennedy administration "super-stars" and Bundy staff
"meddlers" made State's task impossible. Others suggest that, in any
event, President Kennedy always intended to be his own Secretary of
State. But there is a great deal of evidence that both Kennedy and
Bundy made a concerted effort to force State to assume its new
responsibilities. The gradual manner in which the Bundy staff de-
veloped tends to bear this out. Contrary to prevailing impressions
the original Bundy staff numbered no more than four or five.

7. Postlude: Retreat from Informality

In addition to the efforts of the White House staff to fill the
coordination gap, there slowly developed in the Kennedy and Johnson
administrations a line of experience with the Special Group for
Counterinsurgency ("Speical Group (CI)"). As the result of an overall

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direction, coordination and supervision of interdepartmental activities
of the United States Government overseas."

The announcement of NSAM 341 drew a clear distinction between
the Secretary's previous coordinating function and the new formal and
specific overall directive authority. As General Taylor explained
it, President Kennedy's statement abolishing the OCB conferred "rather
limited authority" on the Secretary whereas President Johnson had now
taken "a portion of his own Presidential responsibility and given
it to the Secretary of State as his agent".

In theory, the potential benefits to the President of NSAM 341
could not have been clearer: to achieve coordination at a high inter-
departmental level, thus reducing the role of the White House staff
in this connection, and to achieve "a greater selectivity in bringing
to the President those things which are of top priority." As Theodore
Sorenson has said, "Procedures do, of course, affect which issues reach
the top and more than the final act itself."

The details and subsequent experience of NSAM 341 are covered more
fully in Chapter IV. It has not fulfilled the hopes of its authors
but this is not necessarily the fault of its structure. Despite the
unequivocable language of the NSAM and the President's subsequent
prodding, the Secretary of State has shown little or no interest in
availing himself of its powers and the President himself has not
directed any significant business its way. Many observers would doubt
that President Johnson really intended to give away any of his respon-
sibility. Another President, more disposed to delegate responsibility,
could make it a useful means of support.