The President and his inner circle leadership style and the advisory process in foreign affairs

Few would argue that presidential policies and performance would have been the same whether John F. Kennedy or Richard Nixon became president in 1960, or if Jimmy Carter instead of Ronald Reagan had won the White House in 1980. Indeed, in recent elections, the character, prior policy experience, or personalities of candidates have played an increasing role in our assessments of their "fit" for the Oval Office. Further, these same characteristics are often used to explain an administration's success or failure in policy making. Obviously, who the president is--and what he is like--matters.

This book, a new approach to the study of the personal presidency, links the characteristics of six modern American presidents--their personalities and their prior policy-making experience--to their leadership styles, advisory arrangements, and decision making in the White House. Thomas Preston uses M. G. Hermann's Personality Assessment-at-a-Distance (PAD) profiling technique, as well as exhaustive archival research and interviews with former advisors, to develop a leadership style typology. He then compares his model's expectations against the actual policy record of six past presidents, using foreign policy episodes: Korea (1950) for Truman, Dien Bien Phu (1954) for Eisenhower, Cuba (1962) for Kennedy, Vietnam (1967-68) for Johnson, the Gulf War (1990-91) for Bush, and North Korea/Haiti/Bosnia (1994-95) for Clinton.

Author Notes

Thomas Preston is assistant professor of international relations in the Department of Political Science at Washington State University.

Reviews (1)

Choice Review

In the conduct of American foreign policy, presidents clearly matter. In evaluating administrations or predicting their performance, people need to know a great deal about the president, about the people from whom he seeks counsel, and about how those within the inner circle interact. Preston (Washington State Univ.) provides an elaborate typology of presidential leadership styles and choices about the organization of policy advice. He categorizes selected presidents from Truman to Clinton as "magistrate-mavericks," or "director-negotiators," or "delegator-observers." His labels are carefully developed and defined, and the classification system as a whole is impressive in its complexity and integrative ambition. Unfortunately, Preston produces very few insights. This typology organizes conventional wisdom without adding much to it. The author's observations about similarities between Eisenhower and Kennedy in their approach to foreign policy are worthwhile, but his accounts of Truman getting into Korea and Johnson trying to get out of Vietnam break very little new ground. The chapters on Bush and Clinton necessarily lack the archival evidence essential to anyone investigating presidential inner circles. A useful exercise for upper-division undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty but unlikely to interest a wider audience. R. A. Strong Washington & Lee University

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Reviews (1)

Choice Review