ABSTRACT
For almost two years after the November 1980 elections most of the efforts to analyze American foreign and security policies under the leadership of the Reagan administration appeared speculative and tentative. The transitory phase often coincides with the customary “honeymoon” —a brief period of grace during which Congress and other relevant extra-administration actors on the American political scene refrain from fully exercising their powers to challenge the new administration and to force it to spell out the details of its agenda. The Reagan administration represented the first experiment in the implementation of new post-Watergate procedures and regulations governing appointments at the Cabinet level as well as at the sub-Cabinet and “working” levels. The Reagan National Security Council that emerged entailed a further weakening of the power and position of the president’s assistant for national security affairs and a corresponding strengthening of the Cabinet’s control over US foreign policy.
