White House foreign policy decision-making during the Kennedy-Johnson-Nixon era took a decided turn toward centralization.  There had always been occasional tensions between presidents and their diplomats, but George Herring’s survey From Colony to Superpower demonstrates clearly that something intensified during that latter stages of the Cold War.  Students in History 282 who are interested in the executive decision-making process should read chapters 16-17 carefully and try listening to the audio recordings of the various administrations to discern for themselves what was occurring in the 1960s and 1970s.

 

Cuban Missile Crisis (ExComm)  (October 1962)

LBJ and Robert McNamara on Vietnam (March 1964)

LBJ and Sen. Richard Russell (May 1964)

Nixon and Kissinger