Advising the President in a Crisis: Historical Lessons for Policy Planning

Abstract

The purpose behind this paper is to outline some tentative principles of effective advice-giving in a crisis. It will restrict itself to one general attribute of an advisor's behavior: his own definition of his role, and his relationships with his peers among the Cabinet and with the President. The principles will be illustrated in terms of the behavior of a senior advisor to the President responsible for foreign affairs; in effect an acting Secretary of State. The intent is to suggest some guidelines for the selection, training and behavior of such individuals who might be chosen to serve in crisis management systems. Since the definition of effective advisory behavior is in the eye of the beholder, the cases used in this paper will draw from the public life of a man who was probably the most widely regarded Secretary of State since World War II, Dean Acheson.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Aug 01, 1984
Accession Number
ADA152748

Entities

People

  • Philip J. Romero

Organizations

  • RAND Corporation

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Counter WMD
  • Human Systems
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Agreements
  • Air Force
  • Crisis Management
  • Department Of State
  • Foreign Policy
  • Government (Foreign)
  • Governments
  • Intergovernmental Organizations
  • International Organizations
  • Korea
  • Management Personnel
  • Personnel Management
  • Second World War
  • Training
  • Treaties
  • United States
  • War

Readers

  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Military History of the United States in the 20th Century.
  • Strategic Security Studies