ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with a brief summary of previous scholarship on Dwight D. Eisenhower's National Security Council system, focusing on some of the alleged weaknesses cited by critics with regard to Council operations. On the basis of previous analyses by scholars, one might conclude that national security policy-making processes during Eisenhower's Presidency were static, inflexible, and incapable of producing broad consideration of policy alternatives. Richard Neustadt, in his classic work Presidential Power, noted that "Eisenhower, seemingly, preferred to let subordinates proceed upon the lowest common denominators of agreement than to have their quarrels pushed up to him." Richard Tanner Johnson, in his widely cited study on presidential management styles, suggested that Eisenhower undermined his own authority by using his elaborate administrative machinery as a protective shield. The more Eisenhower delegated authority, Richard Neustadt cautioned, "the less he knew, and the less he knew, the less confidence he felt in his own judgment."
