"This book is based on the Gino Speranza Lectures for 1963, delivered at Columbia University on April 18 and May 9, 1963"--P. [vii].

This inside account of decision making in the White House describes the organizational challenges the President faces. The Economic Policy Board was one of the most systematic and sustained attempts to organize advice for the President in recent decades. The author examines the Board's deliberations over three controversial policy issues, drawing on scores of interviews with cabinet officials and career civil servants.

Presidents are surrounded by political strategists and White House counsel who presumably know enough to avoid making the same mistakes as their predecessors. Why, then, do the same kinds of presidential failures occur over and over again? Why Presidents Fail answers this question by examining presidential fiascos, quagmires, and risky business-the kind of failure that led President Kennedy to groan after the Bay of Pigs invasion, 'How could I have been so stupid?' In this book, Richard M. Pious looks at nine cases that have become defining events in presidencies from Dwight D. Eisenhower and the U-2 Flights to George W. Bush and Iraqi WMDs. He uses these cases to draw generalizations about presidential power, authority, rationality, and legitimacy. And he raises questions about the limits of presidential decision-making, many of which fly in the face of the conventional wisdom about the modern presidency.

Examines the history of the office of national security in the United States from its inception, describing how the role of the national security advisor to the president has evolved between the 1950s and 2000s, and discusses the influence of the national security advisor on the commander in chief's decisions.

“The NSC, part star chamber, part gladiator arena, and part Game of Thrones drama is expertly revealed to us in the pages of Gans’ primer on Washington power.” — Kurt Campbell, Chairman of the Asia Group, LLC Since its founding more than seventy years ago, the National Security Council has exerted more influence on the president’s foreign policy decisions—and on the nation’s conflicts abroad—than any other institution or individual. And yet, until the explosive Trump presidency, few Americans could even name a member. “A must-read for anyone interested in how Washington really works” (Ivo H. Daalder), White House Warriors finally reveals how the NSC evolved from a handful of administrative clerks to, as one recent commander-in-chief called them, the president’s “personal band of warriors.” When Congress originally created the National Security Council in 1947, it was intended to better coordinate foreign policy after World War II. Nearly an afterthought, a small administrative staff was established to help keep its papers moving. President Kennedy was, as John Gans documents, the first to make what became known as the NSC staff his own, selectively hiring bright young aides to do his bidding during the disastrous Bay of Pigs operation, the fraught Cuban Missile Crisis, and the deepening Vietnam War. Despite Kennedy’s death and the tragic outcome of some of his decision, the NSC staff endured. President Richard Nixon handed the staff’s reigns solely to Henry Kissinger, who, given his controlling instincts, micromanaged its work on Vietnam. In the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan’s NSC was cast into turmoil by overreaching staff members who, led by Oliver North, nearly brought down a presidency in the Iran-Contra scandal. Later, when President George W. Bush’s administration was bitterly divided by the Iraq War, his NSC staff stepped forward to write a plan for the Surge in Iraq. Juxtaposing extensive archival research with new interviews, Gans demonstrates that knowing the NSC staff’s history and its war stories is the only way to truly understand American foreign policy. As this essential account builds to the swift removals of advisors General Michael Flynn and Steve Bannon in 2017, we see the staff’s influence in President Donald Trump’s still chaotic administration and come to understand the role it might play in its aftermath. A revelatory history written with riveting DC insider detail, White House Warriors traces the path that has led us to an era of American aggression abroad, debilitating fights within the government, and whispers about a deep state conspiring against the public.

This foreign policy analysis textbook is written especially for students studying to become national security professionals. It translates academic knowledge about the complex influences on American foreign policymaking into an intuitive, cohesive, and practical set of analytic tools. The focus here is not theory for the sake of theory, but rather to translate theory into practice. Classic paradigms are adapted to fit the changing realities of the contemporary national security environment. For example, the growing centrality of the White House is seen in the 'palace politics' of the president's inner circle, and the growth of the national security apparatus introduces new dimensions to organizational processes and subordinate levels of bureaucratic politics. Real-world case studies are used throughout to allow students to apply theory. These comprise recent events that draw impartially across partisan lines and encompass a variety of diplomatic, military, and economic and trade issues.