Abstract
The selection of the National Security Adviser depends in large part on the compatibility of views about the basic premises of national security policy and on the congruence of operating styles. By serving at the President’s pleasure the adviser is an extension of him in the policymaking process, hence the President’s choice has a direct impact on how other questions about the control of that process will be answered. As Nixon stated: “I planned to direct foreign policy from the White House. Therefore I regarded my choice of a National Security Adviser as crucial. Considering the importance I placed on the post, I made my choice in an uncharacteristically impulsive way.”1 This chapter examines the correspondence between Nixon’s and Kissinger’s beliefs regarding world politics and strategy and tactics for achieving national goals, the definitions of their roles by the principal policymakers, and the impact of these on the organization of the formal and informal policymaking structures which could have affected the consistency between Kissinger’s beliefs and his policy preferences and/or actions while in office. In addition, it examines whether these structures manifested any of Kissinger’s beliefs.
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Notes
Richard Nixon, The Memoirs of Richard Nixon (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1978), p. 340.
Danielle Hunebelle, Dear Henry (New York: 1972), p. 43.
Kissinger, White House Years, p. 7. Marvin Kalb and Bernard Kalb, Kissinger (Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1974), pp. 15–16, 19, 21. Hunebelle, Dear Henry, p. 60.
Nixon, “The Nature of the Presidency,” in Hedley Donovan, Roosevelt to Reagan (New York: Harper & Row, 1985), p. 112. “Nixon Speaks,” p. 314.
Gerald R. Ford, A Time to Heal (New York: Berkley Books, 1980), pp. 28–29, 126. Ford states that after meeting with Nixon who recommended that he keep Kissinger but not give him a totally free hand, he called Kissinger and told him, “‘Henry… I need you. The country needs you. I want you to stay. I’ll do everything to work with you.’”
Nixon, US Foreign Policy for the 1970’s: A New Strategy for Peace, (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1970) pp. 17–23. US Foreign Policy for the 1970s: Building for Peace, (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1971), pp. 226–29. US Foreign Policy for the 1970s: The Emerging Structure of Peace, (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1972), pp. 208–11. Kalb and Kalb, Kissinger, pp. 85–86. Morris, Uncertain Greatness, pp. 80–81. I. M. Destler, Presidents, Bureaucrats and Foreign Policy, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1974), pp. 118–23.
John P. Leacacos, “Kissinger’s Apparat.” Foreign Policy 5 (Winter 1971–72), pp. 3–14.
I. M. Destler, “National Security Advice to US Presidents: Some Lessons from Thirty Years,” World Politics 2 (January 1977):150, 155, 158–9. Ford, A Time to Heal, pp. 315–16.
Kissinger, White House Years, pp. 28–29, 48, 805. Nixon met with Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin on February 17, 1969. The practice of excluding Rogers — established before Kissinger’s position was settled — continued throughout Nixon’s term of office. When a state visitor was received in the Oval Office by Nixon for a lengthy discussion Kissinger was the only other American present. U. Alexis Johnson, The Right Hand of Power (Englewood, Cliffs, NJ.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1984), pp. 552–53. Ambassador Johnson agrees that this was indeed the practice.
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© 1991 Gerry Argyris Andrianopoulos
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Andrianopoulos, G.A. (1991). Kissinger Organizing Power for Decision-Making. In: Kissinger and Brzezinski. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-21741-0_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-21741-0_6
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