ABSTRACT
The research framework attempts to discern the flexibility that decision-makers will exhibit after they have experienced a crisis failure. In order to test how well referents can predict for policy themes, we will use the differences in weighted policy behavior between pre-crisis and post-crisis periods. In the post-crisis period, they narrowed their focus to peace and security issues. In the post-crisis period, "world peace" remained, but "European recovery" was replaced by "resistance to tyrants," a theme that is quite similar to Truman's theme of "strengthening democracies against communist attacks." In the pre-crisis period, Dulles's principal goal was "stopping communism," and in the post-crisis period, the same goal also appeared most frequently. Henry Kissinger exhibited goal changes not unlike those exhibited by President Nixon. The disadvantages of the approach to the collection of data for the discovery of mental sets and change in mental sets and behavior are also rather clear.
