THE PRESIDENCY---V EVALUATION OF NEW INSTITUTIONS THAT HELP PRESIDENT KEEP UP WITH PACE OF HISTORY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP70-00058R000100130119-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: November 17, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 3, 2000
• Sequence Number: 119
• Content Type: NSPR

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The Presidency?V
111
Evaluation of Yew Institutions That Help
President Keep Up With Pace of History?
sy wits items
CPYRGHT smug is rse ere tosi
WASHINGTON. lune 11 --
? The American Presidency, like
most other natiOnal institutions,
Is in a race with the pace it House
of
American history.
So swift is that pace and so
vast the growth of the American Toda the Cabinet (minus
Republic and Its reaPonalkatiaa? joke Foster Dulles, Secretary of.
that all national institutions? State, who was off in California
and the habits of the mak Who Scalding Nikita S. Khruitischev,
tun them__Anevitably lag behind. his favorite target I arrived at
This is true in a special sense
of all political institutions. It is
true, regardless of the party in
power, not only of the Presi-
dency but of the Congress with
Its multiplicity of overlapping
'committees and its cult of sen-
iority.
It is true not only of the ma-
emery for electing Presidents
but also of the methods of se-
lecting powerful assistants to
the President. And the problem
of change in Washington is es-
pecially difficult. For change
depends most of the tirne on the
men who have benefited by the
political habits and machinery
of the past.
In this series of articles, of
which this is the last, an effort
has been made to draw a dis-
tinction between the President
and the Presidency, and to re-
port on some of the men and
Institutions that carry on the Va., for s survey of problems.
burdens of the office during the with the lords of the Pentagon,
President's illness. representatives of all the Cabi-
All these men are caught in net members met at the White
this race with the fierce transi- House. They recorded whatever
tion of the time. They are all decisions had been taken 80 that
conscious of the need of change. tbuy could follow up on the
And while they do not change as action promised.
fast as events, it does not fol- Different From British
low that progress has not been
made.
Cabinet Meeting Day
This, for example, was Cabi-
net meeting day in Wadhington
is usually on Fridays). The
only resemblance it bore to
Cabinet meetings of Franklin
D. Roosevelt's time Trails that it
was held in the W
Cabinet Room.
The. Cabinet under F. D. R.
was a story-telling bee?infor-
mal, unprepared, and unrecorded.
When, after the war, officials
and historians wanted to know
what happened in these Cabinet
the White House, eaLh with his
black Cabinet diary.
secreary to the Cabinet,
II IC MftentelligiNierklid
prepared an agenda. For each
Item on the agenda there was a
background memorandum, set-
ting out the points at issue, and
a fa:sandhi statement. indicating
what the various proposals would
cost, if adopted.
When Vice President Richard
M. Nixon, pinch-hitting for the
Provident, called the meeting to
order, the Cabinet members did
not have to be told the back-
around of the problem (this took
up most of the time in the
Roosevelt meetings). The prob-
lems had been defined and thai
papers circulated to the mem.'
bora by the Cabinet secretariat
earlier in the week.
Furthermore, a record of the
meeting was kept by Mr. Rs.bb.
And as soon as Mr. Nixon endedi
the meeting to go to Quantico,
This is not to say that the
Cabinet is now an agency of the
Presidency comparable, say, to
the British Cabinet. It does not
have the power of decision, as
the British do under the system
of Cabinet responsibility. Nor
does it deal with national se-
curity matters.
Its responsibility is to report
and recommend policy on nome
matters---agriculture, natural
sources, justice, etc. Nations)
security questions are dealt Is it h
In the National Security Council.
The council is now the most
powerft.1 agencyf tl
o. r.-
Aet of 1047, as amended in 1041.
This act did four things:
1. Itstablished the Department
of Defense (instead of sepa-
rate departments of Army,
Navy and Air Force).
2. Created the Central Intelli-
gence Agency for the collee-
tion and apprairal, at a cen-
tral point, of world intelli-
gence relating to national se-
curit,y.
3. Set up the National Security
Resources Board (now the
Office of Defense Mobiliza-
tion).
4. Established the National Se-
curity Council.
The purpose of the N. S. C.
was to advise the President on
the integration of domestic, for-
eign and military policies relat-
ing to national security; to
"assess and appraise the objec-
tives, commitments, and risks of
the United States in relation to
our actual and potential mili-
tary power;" to consider policies
on matters of comon interest to
the departments and agencies of
the Government, ':and to make
recommendations .to the Presi-
dent in connection therewith."
Anti-Free-Wheeling 'Device
This was intended to keep
the separate departments deal-
ing with security matters from
running off in all directions?
sort of an anti-free-wheeling de-1
vice. And while nobody can ever
hope to coordinate as many peo-
ple as now work in the security
field, it has done extremely sell.
The statutory members of the
N. S. C. are the President, who
normally chairs the weekly
meeting on Thursday mornings:
Vice President :'icon, the Secre-
taries of State (Mr. Dulles) and
Defense( Charles E. Wilson),
and the dire or of the Office
of Defense . hilization, Arthur
S. Fie]] mini,
Otheis who attend are the di-
rector uf h Central. Intelli-
gence Agency, Allen W. Dulles,
WI,,, opens each meeting with
a world intellig.,rre report: the
,?hhil man of the Joint Ctiefs of
Admiral Arthnir W. Rad-
io-I; the Secretary of the Tress
1.1%, George M. litintrottey, th.?
..ss.stants to the President for
disarmament (Harold E. Ste?-
seni and foreign affairs
ham H. Jackson):
of the Bureau of
ival 1? 13:tinda
meetings, they had to go to the ment. 'Indrt the Vet eIttnt,
late Henry L. Stimson's personal the ril( at In' poi tant if t.1 of
diaries. For no official record Pregide'n'Y
This came into being wider
was kept, no agenda was pre-
pared, no catalogueof decisions'r2"1,,drrt 11"'" ()^
errience of
was preserved. And the only u119 u8" f t ? .v
the wt.- 1. tas result of
consolation for the historians
was that it. probably didn't mat- many Y'atie r cigt tell over the
ter, for the Cabinet was not the """1"1 t! tr",!"'. and,
place where ttApprolipectsnituRee40:120.0Mit
was conducted.
me -anierence natitesn
N.S.C. and the Cabinet, other
titan that one deals with home
attains and the other with se-
curity affairs, Is that the N. S.C.
is far more formal. It does
everything on the basis of care-
fully pseparad staff work, and
llama atwsys deals with ques-
1.102s that require t aped&
recommendation to the Peen-
des* for policy action.
If the President has some-
thilig he wants studied, he re-
fers It to his special assistant
titt -affairs, Dillon An-
Mr. Anderson is a con-
eerrative lawyer front Texas
who has a gift for wry verse,
which he does not use on N. S.C.
P'Anderson may then refer-
the question to the department
concerned, or to several depart-
ments for their observations.
And when the papers are then
taken by the N.8. C. permanent
staff (most of whose top mem-
bers have been there from the
start of the agency). The staff
prepared them for the consider-
ation of the National Security
Council'. planning board.
, Power of Planning Board
Hue& has been written. though'
little is known, abou the N.S.C.
What is more important is that
even lase is known about the
council's planning hoard, which
does most of the pick-and-shovell
work for the N.S.C. and a great
4eal of its thinking.
It is, therefore, the principal
!planning and coordinating inter
'department obrnmittee in the is-,
Isues of war and pesos and, one:
of immense power. This, of
' course, is flatly denied by all its
Imembers, who are not only
'anonymous" but practically in-
visible.
The planning board' met ,this
afternoon in Room 382 of the Old
gtsta Department Building?j,
wee men 'Mose names are at-'
mist unknown beyond the top.
level of official Washington.
. 11.2. Anderson, the aforemen-
don*1 writer who normally is
chalnnen of the planning board.,
was rot present this afternoon.
He wits away ort Kwajalein Atoll'
with Lewis L. Strauss, the,
atom': energy chief, presumablyi
tisk vi 1; to bangs His place was'
cal et h.' the man who has ben'
1./..1i' secretary of the N. S. 'n
f...ost the beginning, James -S
Le% .1..
il... ..(mi.r members on 4 nd
the director, '... da) weir! Robert R. Bowe, the.
the Budget i H ?.--v t-it te.i cher who la Assist--
Aand riche ,, '? "'a'. ,,I State and head.'
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