The Bush Administration

from Oral History RoundtablesThe Bush administration was home to a particularly collegial team of senior nationalsecurity policymakers. They had worked together in the Ford and Reagan administrations and held compatible views on both the substance of policy and how it should be made. And during the Bush administration they faced "a world transformed" (the apt title of the unique memoir co-authored by the president and his national security adviser). This roundtable examines the National Security Council process during the Bush administration, as seen through the eyes of officials a level or two below the principals. They were responding to substantial changes throughout the world: Tiananmen Square, the fall of the Berlin wall, the unification of Germany, the Gulf War, the breakup of the Soviet Union, and the disintegration of Yugoslavia. As they address specific questions about the policy process (reprinted as Appendix A), the participants in the roundtable recorded in this transcript tell the story of a National Security Council whose collegiality and substantive effectiveness extended to a number of key NSC and State Department officials (although not to some at the assistant secretary level). This is the third in a series of roundtables held by the National Security Council Project, co-sponsored by the Center for International and Security Studies at the Maryland School of Public Affairs and the Foreign Policy Studies program of the Brookings Institution. Transcripts of two previous roundtables on the Nixon NSC and the role of the NSC in international economic policymaking have been published. Three additional transcripts on the role of the national security adviser, the NSC and U.S. policy toward China, and on the NSC and arms control policy will be published in the near future. Other roundtables are planned for the fall of 2000. These have been conducted for their own independent value. They also will provide useful input to a report on the NSC we plan to publish in the fall of 2000 and a book to be published in 2001. We are grateful to the participants for coming and talking with candor and insight. We would also particularly like to thank Karla Nieting for help in organizing the roundtable and her work with the participants in bringing this edited version of the proceedings to publication. Responsibility for any remaining errors rests with us. I.M. "Mac" Destler is a Senior Fellow at the Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland. Ivo Daalder is a Fellow at the Brookings Institution

China Policy and the National Security Council

from Oral History RoundtablesOver the past three decades, no area of U.S. foreign policy has been more dramatic than the opening and development of relations with the People"s Republic of China. And on no policy subject has the National Security Council played a more central role. From Henry Kissinger"s secret journey to Beijing in July 1971 to Anthony Lake"s trip a quarter century later in the wake of military confrontation in the Taiwan Straits, the assistant to the president for national security affairs has personally played a leading role. All governments take it particularly seriously when the American president sends his personal aide to them on a negotiating mission. The Chinese government has particularly invited, and welcomed, such White House engagement in diplomacy. This pattern has created particular problems, however, for the secretary of state, the State Department, and the overall coordination of U.S. policy both toward China and toward relations with other countries that have strong stakes in how Washington and Beijing interact. With these policy and organizational concerns in mind, the Brookings Institution and the Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland convened this Oral History Roundtable bringing together officials from the National Security Council, the Department of State, and other government agencies to discuss how China policy was actually made over the past decades. We were delighted with the quality and range of policy players who were able to join in the discussion. When we learned that Ambassador Winston Lord a key policy participant over twenty-five years could not be present, we invited him to provide comments at appropriate points in the discussion. He did so, and these have been inserted and highlighted in the text. (We would refer readers also to Lord"s discussion of the China opening in our Oral History Roundtable on the Nixon administration.1) This is the fifth in a series of Oral History Roundtables carried out as part of the National Security Council Project, co-sponsored by the Brookings Institution and the Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland (CISSM). We are grateful to the participants who gave freely of their time and insights. We also wish to express our appreciation to Shakira Edwards, who served as the primary editor of the manuscript, to Josh Pollack, who helped organize the meeting and worked with the original transcript, and to Karla Nieting, who brought the project to completion. I.M. "Mac" Destler is a Senior Fellow at the Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland. Ivo Daalder is a Fellow at the Brookings Institution

The Clinton Administration

from Oral History RoundtablesThe Clinton administration entered office at a time of great opportunity and challenge. The end of the cold war meant that the new administration had the rare opportunity to craft a foreign policy for a new age. The defining U.S.-Soviet rivalry was gone and the United States had emerged as a uniquely powerful state. The question and the challenge then was how the United States would use its power and for what purposes. What were the new threats in the new world? Among the challenges that the new administration identified were the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, terrorism and the vulnerability of civilian and military infrastructure to cyberattack, and the rise of internal conflicts with potentially huge humanitarian costs. But the new era also offered great opportunities, not least by advancing democracy and economic prosperity. Therefore, U.S. foreign policy would increasingly have to take account of economic policy. The Clinton administration structured its National Security Council staff to reflect these priorities. It created new directoratesincluding the first ever dedicated to nonproliferation and export controls, as well as a directorate addressing global issues and multilateral affairs, with responsibility for managing the growing challenges and opportunities in an increasingly globalized world (ranging from drug trafficking and counterterrorism to peacekeeping, humanitarian affairs and the promotion of democracy). It also established the National Economic Council to integrate domestic and international economic policy. The NEC staff dealing with the latter set of issues was dual-hatted, reporting to heads of both the NEC and the NSC. Another innovation of the Clinton NSC was the creation of a communications and press component. Traditionally considered a function of the White House press staff, the new administration began to see the need to more effectively articulate its foreign policy in the wake of crises in Somalia and Haiti. The emphasis placed on an effective communication was not without controversy, however, as the administration as a whole was criticized for placing too much emphasis on style rather than substance. This is the seventh in a series of roundtables held by the NSC Project, which is cosponsored by the Center for International and Security Studies at the Maryland School of Public Affairs and the Foreign Policy Studies program of the Brookings Institution. Transcripts of five previous roundtables on the Nixon NSC, the role of the NSC in international economic policymaking, the Bush NSC, the role of the national security adviser, and the role of the NSC in arms control policy have already been published and are available on the Brookings website at http://www.brookings.edu/fp/projects/ nsc.htm. A sixth transcript on the NSC and U.S. policy toward China will be published in the near future. These seminars have been conducted for their own independent value. They also provided useful insight for "A New NSC for a New Administration," a policy brief published by the Brookings Institution in November 2000 (also available on the Brookings website at http://www.brookings.edu/fp/projects/nsc.htm) and a book to be published in 2002. We are grateful to the participants for coming and talking with candor and insight. We are also particularly grateful to Karla Nieting for her help in organizing the roundtable, editing the transcript, and working with the participants in bringing this edited version of the proceedings to publication. Responsibility for any remaining errors rests with us. I.M. "Mac" Destler is a Senior Fellow at the Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland. Ivo Daalder is a Fellow at the Brookings Institution

Arms Control Policy and the National Security Council

from Oral History RoundtablesDuring the cold war, arms control policy was a focal point in relations between the United States and the Soviet Union. The progress of negotiations was closely tracked by observers both within and outside of successive administrations, and the outcome of such negotiations frequently proved to be a harbinger of the entire superpower relationship. Thus the process for making policy was crucial. Since arms control, almost uniquely among national security issues, involves both the expertise and equities of all the key national security agencies including the Departments of State and Defense, the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, the Joint Staff, and the Intelligence Community the National Security Council has long played a central role in coordinating policy making and implementation. This process has often worked well defining the central issues, and helping to forge interagency consensus on policy directions. But it has also broken down on occasion either because the issue proved to be too difficult or contentious or because some players decided to ignore the interagency process altogether. To shed light on this variation, the National Security Council Project convened a roundtable panel on March 23, 2000, to explore the ways NSC"s in different administrations worked to coordinate U.S. policy on arms control. Participants in this roundtable represented a broad range of experiences across administrations, from Eisenhower to Clinton. Participants were asked to respond to a set of questions (Appendix A) to draw upon their understanding of how the decision making processes on arms control worked in relation to the National Security Council. This is the sixth in a series of roundtables held by the NSC Project, which is cosponsored by the Center for International and Security Studies at the Maryland School of Public Affairs and the Foreign Policy Studies program of the Brookings Institution. Transcripts of four previous roundtables on the Nixon NSC, on the role of the NSC in international economic policymaking, on the Bush NSC, and on the role of the national security adviser have already been published and are available on the Brookings website at http://www.brookings.edu/fp/ projects/nsc.htm. Two additional transcripts on the NSC and U.S. policy toward China and on the Clinton administration NSC will be published in the near future. These seminars have been conducted for their own independent value. They also provided useful insight for "A New NSC for a New Administration," a policy brief published by the Brookings Institution in November 2000 (also available on the Brookings website at http://www.brookings.edu/fp/projects/nsc.htm) and a book to be published in 2001. We are grateful to the participants for coming and talking with candor and insight. We are also particularly grateful to Karla Nieting for her help in organizing the roundtable, editing the transcript, and working with the participants in bringing this edited version of the proceedings to publication. Responsibility for any remaining errors rests with us. I.M. "Mac" Destler is a Senior Fellow at the Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland. Ivo Daalder is a Fellow at the Brookings Institution

The Nixon Administration

from of Oral History RoundtablesThe Nixon administration brought far-reaching changes to the National Security Council. Building on a strong mandate from (and a strong policy relationship with) the President, National Security Assistant Henry A. Kissinger achieved operational policy dominance greater than any predecessor or successor. His role and methods generated enormous controversy. They were also tied to substantial policy achievements: an opening to China, arms control agreements with the Soviet Union, and eventually an historic, albeit flawed, Vietnam peace accord. One means of gaining insight into how the Nixon NSC actually worked is to ask those who were there. This was the purpose of the Nixon NSC Oral History Roundtable, conducted on December 8, 1998, at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. Thirty years almost to the day after Kissinger and other Nixon transition planners developed a blueprint for a new system, we brought together a group of ten veteran practitioners and observers of American foreign policy who were directly involved in the Nixon process to share their recollections with us. The participants drew on their experiences as advisers in the Nixon transition; as members of President Nixon"s NSC staff; and as officials who dealt with the Nixon NSC from important vantage points in other agencies. For over three hours, they spoke informally about how and why the new system was established, how it operated, and how it evolved over time. The discussion confirmed much that is already in the public domain, but it also brought to light new facts and insights. We hope students of the Nixon administration and of the modern foreign policy process and its institutions will find it useful. I.M. "Mac" Destler is a Senior Fellow at the Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland. Ivo Daalder is a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution

INTERNAL COMPETITION OVER FOREIGN POLICY-MAKING: THE CASE OF U.S. ARMS SALES TO IRAN

Two models of foreign-policy making, the bureaucratic politics model and the royal court model, are helpful in explaining U.S. arms sales to Iran in 1985 and in 1986. The bureaucratic politics model is particularly useful in clarifying both the positions taken by the leaders of the foreign policy bureaucracy to the arms sales proposals and the behavior of these officials as the sales were implemented. However, the royal court model best ac- counts for the decisive role of the president and the deference given to those advisers perceived to be acting in his interests. Copyright 1990 by The Policy Studies Organization.