Introduction: The President’s “Personal Band of Warriors”
1. Peter Baker, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney In the White House (New York: Doubleday, 2013), 524.
2. George W. Bush, Decision Points (New York: Crown Publishers, 2010). Kindle Edition, locations: 6544, 6620.
3. Meghan O’Sullivan, interview with author, August 30, 2017.
4. “The Men Who Guard the Nation’s Security,” New York Times, August 29, 1948, SM10.
5. Ivo H. Daalder and I. M. Destler, In the Shadow of the Oval Office: Profiles of the National Security Advisers and the Presidents They Served: From JFK to George W. Bush (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2009), 4; Anna Kasten Nelson, “President Truman and the Evolution of the National Security Council,” Journal of American History 72, no. 2 (September 1985): 387; Director, Memorandum for the President, August 8, 1947, 1; Clark Clifford Papers, Box 11, Harry S. Truman Presidential Library (HSTL).
6. Director, Memorandum for the President, August 8, 1947, 2; Clark Clifford Papers, Box 11.
7. Richard E. Neustadt, Presidential Power and the Modern Presidents: The Politics of Leadership from Roosevelt to Reagan (New York: Free Press, 1990), 7.
8. Baker, Days of Fire, 525.
Chapter One: “The Bright, Young Men” on the NSC
1. Andrew Preston, “The Soft Hawks’ Dilemma in Vietnam: Michael V. Forrestal at the National Security Council, 1962–1964,” International History Review 25, no. 1 (March 2003), 63; Robert S. McNamara, In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam (New York: Vintage Books, 1996), 83.
2. Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1965), 997.
3. Robert Dallek, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy,1932–1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), 29.
4. Warren F. Kimball, The Juggler: Franklin Roosevelt as Wartime Statesman (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991), 7.
5. Alfred D. Sander, “Truman and the National Security Council: 1945–1947,” Journal of American History 59, issue 2 (September 1, 1972): 371.
6. Ferdinand Eberstadt, “Postwar Organization for National Security,” in Fateful Decisions: Inside the National Security Council, ed. Karl F. Inderfurth and Loch K. Johnson (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 18.
7. Ibid.
8. Anna Kasten Nelson, “President Truman and the Evolution of the National Security Council,” Journal of American History 72, no. 2 (September 1985): 363.
9. Ibid., 362–64.
10. Ibid.; Charles S. Murphy, Richard E. Neustadt, David H. Stowe, and James E. Webb interviewed by Hugh Heclo and Anna Nelson, “Oral History Interview with The Truman White House,” HSTL, February 20, 1980.
11. Sander, “Truman and the National Security Council: 1945–1947,” 380–81.
12. Ibid., 387.
13. Director, Memorandum for the President, August 8, 1947, Box 11, Clark Clifford Papers, HSTL, 1–2, 8–9.
14. “Minutes of the First Meeting of the National Security Council,” September 26, 1947, Document 225, Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) 1945–1950, Retrospective Volume, Emergence of the Intelligence.
15. Charles S. Murphy, Richard E. Neustadt, David H. Stowe, and James E. Webb, “Oral History Interview with The Truman White House,” interviewed by Hugh Heclo and Anna Nelson, HSTL, February 20, 1980.
16. “The Men Who Guard the Nation’s Security,” New York Times, August 29, 1948, SM10.
17. Daalder and Destler, In the Shadow, 4.
18. Anthony Levierow, “Coordinator of Security,” New York Times, April 24, 1949, SM60.
19. Sidney W. Souers, “Policy Formulation for National Security,” American Political Science Review 43, no. 3 (June 1949): 537.
20. Ibid.
21. Nelson, “President Truman and the Evolution of the National Security Council,” 370.
22. Souers, “Policy Formulation for National Security,” 537.
23. “Ambassador Max Waldo Bishop,” February 26, 1993, Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection, Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Arlington, VA, www.adst.org.
24. Ibid.
25. Ibid.
26. “Six Truman Plans Shuffle Agencies,” New York Times, August 21, 1949, 32; James Reston, “Hoover Group Asks Truman Unify Home-Foreign Plans,” New York Times, December 13, 1948, 1.
27. Robert A. Lovett, “Perspective on the Policy Process,” in The National Security Council: Jackson Subcommittee Papers on Policy-Making at the Presidential Level, ed. Henry M. Jackson (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1965), 78.
28. National Security Council Report 68 (NSC-68), 66, HSTL, http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/coldwar/documents/pdf/10-1.pdf.
29. Ibid; “Organization for Coordinating National Security Policies and Programs,” NSC-68/1.3 Annex 9, Records of the National Security Council, 11-13, HSTL; Nelson, “President Truman and the Evolution of the National Security Council,” 375–76.
30. Richard A. Best Jr., “The National Security Council: An Organizational Assessment,” Congressional Research Service, 7-5700, RL30840, December 28, 2011, 8.
31. Nelson, “President Truman and the Evolution of the National Security Council,” 373.
32. James Reston, “President Orders Harriman to Brace Security Policies,” New York Times, July 31, 1950, 1.
33. Dwight D. Eisenhower, “Text of Eisenhower Speech at Party Rally in Baltimore,” Washington Post, September 26, 1952, 14.
34. Fred I. Greenstein and Richard H. Immerman, “Effective National Security Advising: Recovering the Eisenhower Legacy,” Political Science Quarterly 115, no. 3 (Autumn 2000): 339.
35. “Memorandum for the President by the Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (Cutler),” subject: “Recommendations Regarding the National Security Council,” March 16, 1953, Document 49, FRUS, 1952–1954, vol. 2, part 1, National Security Affairs; Robert Cutler, “The Development of the National Security Council,” Foreign Affairs 34, no. 3 (April 1956); Robert Cutler, “Use of the NSC Mechanism,” Dillon Anderson-Robert Cutler (2), Box 1, series 1: General Correspondence, 1947–1976, Gordon Gray Papers, Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, Museum and Boyhood Home (EPL), 2.
36. Dwight D. Eisenhower: “White House Statement Concerning Steps Taken To Strengthen and Improve the Operations of the National Security Council,” March 23, 1953, online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=9800; “Memorandum for the President by the Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (Cutler).”
37. Dillon Anderson, “The President and National Security,” The Atlantic, January 1956, 44.
38. Robert D. McFadden, “Robert Bowie, 104, Adviser to Truman, Eisenhower, Johnson and Carter, Dies,” New York Times, November 20, 2013.
39. “State, Spa CD Directors to Attend Board Meeting,” Schenectady Gazette, July 6, 1963.
40. “Memorandum for the President by the Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (Cutler).”
41. See for example: “Report to the National Security Council by the Executive Secretary (Lay),” NSC 162/2, October 30, 1953, Document 101, FRUS, 1952–1954, National Security Affairs, vol. 2, part 1; and National Security Council Report, “U.S. Action in Event of Unprovoked Communist Attack against U.S. Aircraft,” April 23, 1956, Document 76, FRUS, 1955–1957, vol. 19, National Security Policy.
42. Greenstein and Immerman, “Effective National Security Advising: Recovering the Eisenhower Legacy,” 343.
43. Dale Smith, “What is O.C.B.?” Foreign Service Journal (November 1955): 48.
44. “Ambassador Max Waldo Bishop,” Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training.
45. Robert Bowie and Richard H. Immerman, Waging Peace: How Eisenhower Shaped an Enduring Cold War Strategy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 139.
46. “Report to the National Security Council by the Executive Secretary (Lay).”
47. Ibid.
48. Robert Cutler, “The Development of the National Security Council,” 444–48.
49. Ibid., 448–49.
50. See “Note by the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Cutler),” April 2, 1958, Document 15, FRUS, 1958–1960, vol. 3, Document 15; “Memorandum From the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Cutler) to President Eisenhower,” April 7, 1958, Document 17, FRUS, 1958–1960, vol. 3; and Robert Cutler, “The National Security Council under President Eisenhower,” The National Security Council: Jackson Subcommittee Papers on Policy-Making at the Presidential Level, ed. Henry M. Jackson (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1965), 111–39.
51. Senator Henry M. Jackson, “How Shall We Forge a Strategy of Survival?,” address before the National War College, Washington, DC, April 16, 1959, reprinted in Fateful Decisions, ed. Inderfurth and Johnson, 53.
52. Henry M. Jackson, ed., The National Security Council: Jackson Subcommittee Papers on Policy-Making at the Presidential Level (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1965), 25.
53. Dean Acheson, “Recorded Interview by Lucius D. Battle,” April 27, 1964, Oral Histories, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library (JFKPL), 6.
54. Richard Reeves, President Kennedy: Profile of Power (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993), 23; Jack Raymond, “U.S. Security Council Assailed; Senators Report Time-Wasting,” New York Times, December 20, 1960, 1.
55. Richard Neustadt, “Memo 2: Attachment A: Roosevelt’s Approach to Staffing the White House,” in Preparing to Be President: The Memos of Richard E. Neustadt, ed. Charles O. Jones (Washington, DC: AEI Press, 2000), 40 and 58.
56. Richard Neustadt, “Memo 6: The National Security Council: First Steps,” in Preparing to Be President, 77–78.
57. I. M. Destler, “National Security Management: What Presidents Have Wrought,” Political Science Quarterly 95, no. 4 (Winter 1980–1981): 579.
58. Office of the Historian, History of the National Security Council, 1947–1997, U.S. Department of State; August 1997; Bromley K. Smith, Organizational History of the National Security Council during the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations (Washington, DC: National Security Council, 1988); Michael V. Forrestal, recorded interview by Joseph Kraft, April 8, 1964, (1), JFKPL, 57.
59. Forrestal, (1), JFKPL, 41.
60. Ibid., 4–5.
61. Stanley Karnow, Vietnam: A History (New York: Viking Press, 1983), 249.
62. Andrew Preston, The War Council (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010), 78–81.
63. Charles Bartlett, “Executive Team Changes Coming,” Battle Creek Enquirer, February 20, 1961, 6.
64. Amy B. Zegart, Flawed by Design: The Evolution of the CIA, JCS, and NSC (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999), 97.
65. Paige E. Mulhollan, “Bromley Smith Oral History Interview I,” transcript, internet copy, Lyndon B. Johnson Library (LBJL), July 29, 1969.
66. James Reston, “How Cambridge Flunked the First Test,” New York Times, April 28, 1961, 30.
67. Daalder and Destler, In the Shadow, 24.
68. Andrew Preston, “The Little State Department: McGeorge Bundy and the National Security Council Staff, 1961–65,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 31, no. 4 (December 2001): 646.
69. Smith, Organizational History of the National Security Council, 12.
70. “Memorandum for President Kennedy, June 22, 1961,” Document 31, FRUS 1961–1963, vol. 8, National Security Policy, 1961–1963.
71. Forrestal, (1), JFKPL, 7.
72. David Halberstam. The Best and the Brightest (New York: Random House, 2001), 39.
73. Ibid., 93.
74. Gordon M. Goldstein, Lessons in Disaster: McGeorge Bundy and the Path to War in Vietnam (New York: Henry Holt, 2009), 77.
75. “Memorandum for the Record of the White House Daily Staff Meeting,” March 30, 1964, Document 99, FRUS, 1964–1968, vol. 1.
76. Paige E. Mulhollan, “Michael Forrestal Oral History Interview I,” transcript, internet copy, LBJL, November 3, 1969.
77. Forrestal, (1), JFKPL, 58–59.
78. Preston, “The Soft Hawks’ Dilemma in Vietnam,” 74.
79. Ibid., 71.
80. The Pentagon Papers: The Defense Department History of United States Decisionmaking on Vietnam. Senator Gravel edition (Boston: Beacon Press, 1971), 203.
81. “Telegram From the Department of State to the Embassy in Vietnam,” August 24, 1963, 9:36 p.m., Document 281, FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. 3, Vietnam, January–August 1963.
82. “Telegram From Michael V. Forrestal of the National Security Council Staff to the President, at Hyannis Port, Massachusetts,” August 24, 1963, 4:50 p.m., Document 280, FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. 3, Vietnam, January–August 1963.
83. “Telegram From the Department of State to the Embassy in Vietnam.”
84. David M. Barrett, Uncertain Warriors: Lyndon Johnson and His Vietnam Advisers (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1993), 15; Maxwell D. Taylor, Swords and Plowshares (New York: W. W. Norton, 1972), 292.
85. David E. Kaiser, American Tragedy: Kennedy, Johnson, and the Origins of the Vietnam War (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2000), 264.
86. Goldstein, Lessons in Disaster, 94.
87. Michael V. Forrestal, recorded interview by Joseph Kraft, August 14, 1964 (3), JFKPL; and Goldstein, Lessons in Disaster, 94.
88. Kahin, Intervention, 183.
89. “Memorandum for the Record of Discussion at the Daily White House Staff Meeting,” November 1, 1963, 8 a.m., Document 263, FRUS, 1961–1963, vol. 4, August–December 1963.
90. Kai Bird, The Color of Truth: McGeorge Bundy and William Bundy: Brothers In Arms: A Biography (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998), 263.
91. Mulhollan, “Michael Forrestal Oral History Interview I,” 25.
92. Forrestal, (3), JFKPL.
93. Goldstein, Lessons in Disaster, 101.
94. Paige E. Mulhollan, “McGeorge Bundy Oral History Interview I,” transcript, internet copy, LBJPL, January 30, 1969, 36.
95. Mulhollan, “Michael Forrestal Oral History Interview I,” 25.
96. “Memorandum From Michael V. Forrestal of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy),” March 30, 1964, Document 100, FRUS 1964–1968, vol. 1.
97. See note 1; also, “Memorandum From Michael V. Forrestal of the National Security Council Staff to the President,” subject: “South Vietnam,” May 29, 1964, Document 183, FRUS 1964–1968, vol. 1, Vietnam.
98. Mulhollan, “Michael Forrestal Oral History Interview I,” 25.
99. Ibid., 21.
100. Chester Cooper, The Lost Crusade (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1970), 249.
101. “Memorandum From the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy) to Secretary of State Rusk,” December 1, 1965, Document 158, FRUS, 1964–1968, vol. 33, Organization and Management of Foreign Policy; United Nations.
102. National Security File, Country File, Vietnam, “Volume 23,” Box 11, Document 161 and 161a, Thompson to Bundy, attachment, Forrestal to The Secretary, December 4, 1964, LBJ Library; National Security File, Country File, Vietnam, “Volume 23,” Box 11, Document 161a, attachment, Forrestal to The Secretary, December 2, 1964, LBJPL.
103. “Memorandum From Chester L. Cooper of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy),” subject: “Vietnam,” March 1, 1965, Document 173, FRUS 1964–1968, vol. 2, Vietnam, January–June 1965.
104. National Security File, Country File, Vietnam, “Volume 29,” Box 14, Document 147, Thomson to Bundy, 2/19/1965, LBJPL.
105. Kai Bird, The Color of Truth, 297.
106. Ibid.
107. The National Archives, “Vietnam War U.S. Military Fatal Casualty Statistics,” Electronic Records Reference Report, https://www.archives.gov/research/military/vietnam-war/casualty-statistics.
108. Richard M. Nixon, “October 25, The security gap. Radio broadcast. 101:38,” originally broadcast October 24, 1968, Richard Nixon Presidential Library & Museum (RNPL), speech file (PPS 208 (1946)), 7; James Yuenger, “LBJ Calls Nixon Charges ‘Ugly, Unfair,’ ” Chicago Tribune, October 28, 1968, 8.
109. Cooper, The Lost Crusade, 305.
110. Lyndon B. Johnson: “The President’s News Conference,” September 21, 1964, online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=26517.
111. Ted Gittinger, “Walt W. Rostow Oral History Interview II,” transcript, internet copy, LBJPL, January 9, 1981, 19.
112. Jack Valenti, “Memorandum From the President’s Special Assistant (Valenti) to President Johnson, March 1, 1966,” Document 163, FRUS, 1964–1968, vol. 33, Organization and Management of Foreign Policy.
Chapter Two: The “Center of the Foreign Policy Universe in America”
1. Robert B. Semple Jr., “Nixon Explains Cambodia Policy to 45 Governors,” New York Times, May 12, 1970, 1; Robert M. Smith, “ 4 More Leaving Kissinger’s Staff,” New York Times, May 23, 1970, 22.
2. R. W. Apple Jr., “Kissinger Named a Key Nixon Aide in Defense Policy,” New York Times, December 3, 1968, 1.
3. Henry A. Kissinger, White House Years (Boston: Little, Brown, 1979), 11.
4. Mort Halperin, interview with author, August 16, 2017.
5. Ibid.
6. Robert B. Semple Jr., “Nixon Vows to End War with a ‘New Leadership,’ ” New York Times, March 6, 1968, 1, 11; Jeffrey P. Kimball, Nixon’s Vietnam War (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998), 40.
7. Roger Morris, Uncertain Greatness: Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy (New York: Harper & Row, 1977), 4.
8. Robert Dallek, Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power (New York: HarperCollins, 2007), 80–83.
9. “Kissinger Conducts His Last Seminar in Government Before Joining It,” New York Times, December 17, 1968, 39.
10. Halperin, interview with author, August 16, 2017.
11. Ibid.
12. Ibid.
13. Walter Isaacson, Kissinger: A Biography (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), 155.
14. Seymour M. Hersh, The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House (New York: Summit Books, 1983), 30.
15. Morris, An Uncertain Greatness, 46.
16. Robert B. Semple Jr., “Nixon Meets His Top Aides and Orders Vietnam Study,” New York Times, December 29, 1968, 1.
17. Henry A. Kissinger, “Memorandum From the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs-Designate to President-Elect Nixon,” January 7, 1969, Document 3, FRUS, 1969–1976, vol. 2, Organization and Management of U.S. Foreign Policy, 1969–1972.
18. Henry A. Kissinger, “Memorandum From the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs-Designate to President-Elect Nixon,” December 27, 1968, Document 1, FRUS, 1969–1976, vol. 2, Organization and Management of U.S. Foreign Policy, 1969–1972.
19. Isaacson, Kissinger, 203.
20. Winston Lord, interview with author, April 15, 2013.
21. Isaacson, Kissinger, 184–85.
22. James Reston, “Mr. Nixon’s First Whiff of Trouble,” New York Times, February 9, 1969, E12.
23. Mark Gillespie, “Americans Look Back at Vietnam,” Gallup News, November 17, 2000, http://news.gallup.com/poll/2299/americans-look-back-vietnam-war.aspx.
24. Freedom House advertisement, “For Peace . . . with Freedom,” printed in New York Times, December 5, 1965, E6.
25. Larry Berman, No Peace, No Honor (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001), 47.
26. Daniel Ellsberg, Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers (New York: Viking, 2002), 234–35.
27. Henry A. Kissinger, “Bureaucracy and Policy Making: The Effect of Insiders and Outsiders on the Policy Process,” in “Bureaucracy, Politics and Strategy,” ed. Kissinger and Bernard Brodie, Security Studies Project, University of California, Los Angeles, paper number 17 (Los Angeles: UCLA, 1968), 8.
28. “Minutes of National Security Council Meeting,” January 25, 1969, Document 10, FRUS 1969–1976, vol. 6, January 1969–July 1970.
29. Kimball, Nixon’s Vietnam, 125; Kissinger, White House Years, 241.
30. Kimball, Nixon’s Vietnam, 94; Hersh, The Price of Power, 50.
31. Isaacson, Kissinger, 164; Hersh, The Price of Power, 50.
32. “National Security Study Memorandum 1,” subject: “The Situation in Vietnam,” January 21, 1969, Document 4, FRUS 1969–1976, vol. 6, January 1969–July 1970.
33. Isaacson, Kissinger, 164.
34. Paper, “Summary of Responses to NSSM 1: The Vietnam Situation,” attached to Memorandum, subject: “Revised Summary of Responses to NSSM 1: The Situation in Vietnam,” Jeanne W. Davis (NSC Secretariat) to Office of the Vice President, Office of the Secretary of State, Office of the Secretary of Defense, Office of the Director, Office of Emergency Preparedness, March 22, 1969, folder NSSM 1 Response (State) [2 of 2], Box H-122; NSC Institutional Files (H-Files), National Security Study Memoranda (NSSMs); RNPL; Kissinger, White House Years, 238–39.
35. Attachment, “Summary of Response to NSSM 1,” 29.
36. “Memorandum of Meeting Between the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger), Secretary of Defense Laird, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Wheeler),” January 30, 1969, 3 p.m., Document 12, FRUS 1969–1976, vol. 6, January 1969–July 1970.
37. See notes 2 and 4; “Telegram From the Department of State to the Embassy in the United Kingdom,” February 25, 1969, Document 26, FRUS 1969–1976, vol. 6, January 1969–July 1970; “Telegram From the Department of State to the Embassy in Vietnam,” Document 30, FRUS 1969–1976, vol. 6, January 1969–July 1970; “Message From Secretary of Defense Laird to President Nixon,” February 25, 1969, Document 25, FRUS 1969–1976, vol. 6, January 1969–July 1970.
38. H. R. Haldeman, The Haldeman Diaries: Inside the Nixon White House (New York: G. P. Putnam’s, 1994), 36.
39. Kissinger, White House Years, 141–42, 169.
40. Richard Nixon, “Asia After Viet Nam,” Foreign Affairs, October 1, 1967; Richard M. Nixon, RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1978), 369–70.
41. Lydia Saad, “Gallup Vault: Hawks vs. Doves on Vietnam,” Gallup News, May 25, 2016, http://news.gallup.com/vault/191828/gallup-vault-hawks-doves-vietnam.aspx.
42. Isaacson, Kissinger, 160.
43. Dale Van Atta, With Honor: Melvin Laird In War, Peace, and Politics (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2008), 173.
44. Halperin, interview with author, August 16, 2017.
45. Seymour M. Hersh, “Kissinger and Nixon in the White House,” The Atlantic, May 1982.
46. Hersh, The Price of Power, note on 87.
47. Military Times, “Alexander Meigs Haig, Jr.,” Hall of Valor, https://valor.militarytimes.com/recipient.php?recipientid=4574.
48. Alexander M. Haig, Inner Circles: How America Changed the World: A Memoir (New York: Warner Books, 1992), 188.
49. “Memorandum From the President’s Military Assistant (Haig) to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger),” February 7, 1969, Document 22, FRUS 1969–1976, vol. 2, 1969–1972.
50. “Memorandum From the President’s Military Assistant (Haig) to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger),” subject: “Organization of National Security Council Staff and White House Office of the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs,” February 11, 1969, Document 24, FRUS 1969–1976, vol. 2, 1969–1972.
51. Haig, Inner Circles, 200.
52. Ibid., 188.
53. Kimball, Nixon’s Vietnam, 145.
54. Taylor Owen and Ben Kiernan, “Bombs over Cambodia,” The Walrus, October 2006, 63, http://www.taylorowen.com/Articles/Walrus_CambodiaBombing_OCT06.pdf.
55. Hersh, Price of Power, 63.
56. Halperin, interview with author, August 16, 2017.
57. Isaacson, Kissinger, 189.
58. Haig, Inner Circles, 199.
59. Lord, interview with author, April 15, 2013.
60. Haig, Inner Circles, 199.
61. Hersh, The Price of Power, 100.
62. Ibid., 99–100.
63. “Memorandum From the Military Assistant (Haig) to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger),” subject: “Staff Meeting,” May 2, 1969, Document 37, FRUS, 1969–1976, vol. 2, 1969–1972.
64. Ibid.
65. Ibid.
66. Morris, An Uncertain Greatness, 156.
67. Ibid.
68. “Minutes of National Security Council Meeting,” March 28, 1969, Document 49, FRUS 1969–1976, vol. 6, January 1969–July 1970.
69. National Security Study Memorandum 36, subject: “Vietnamizing the War,” April 10, 1969, Document 58, FRUS 1969–1976, vol. 6, January 1969–July 1970.
70. Lord, Oral History: “The Nixon Administration National Security Council,” moderated by I. M. “Mac” Destler and Ivo Daalder, in The National Security Council Project, December 8, 1998.
71. Kissinger, White House Years, 33, 276.
72. William Beecher, “Raids in Cambodia by U.S. Unprotested,” New York Times, May 9, 1969.
73. Ibid.
74. Isaacson, Kissinger, 212–13.
75. Dallek, Nixon and Kissinger, 121.
76. Isaacson, Kissinger, 213.
77. Ibid., 214; Halperin, interview with author, August 16, 2017.
78. Haldeman, The Haldeman Diaries, 62.
79. Isaacson, Kissinger, 213.
80. Nixon, RN, 486.
81. Richard Nixon, “Letters of the President and President Ho Chi Minh of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam,” November 3, 1969, online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=2304; Nixon, RN, 394; Kissinger, White House Years, 278.
82. Richard Nixon, “Letters of the President and President Ho Chi Minh of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam”; Nixon, RN, 394.
83. H. R. Haldeman, with Joseph DiMona, The Ends of Power, 82–83, excerpted in Jeffrey Kimball, The Vietnam War Files (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004), 54–55; Kimball, Nixon’s Vietnam, 76.
84. Don Nicoll, “Lake, Anthony ‘Tony’ oral history interview” (2002), Edmund S. Muskie Oral History Collection, http://scarab.bates.edu/muskie_oh/202/.
85. Halperin, interview with author, August 16, 2017; Don Nicoll, “Lake, Anthony ‘Tony’ oral history interview/.”
86. Nixon, RN, 487.
87. “Memorandum From the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger) to President Nixon,” subject: “Meeting in Paris with North Vietnamese,” August 6, 1969, report and memorandum of conversation, Document 106, FRUS 1969–1976, vol. 6, January 1969–July 1970.
88. Kissinger, Ending the Vietnam War, 89.
89. Isaacson, Kissinger, 243.
90. Ibid.
91. “Memorandum From the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger) to President Nixon,” subject: “Response from Ho Chi Minh,” August 30, 1969, Document 111, FRUS 1969–1976, vol. 6, January 1969–July 1970; Kissinger, Ending the Vietnam War, 91; Nixon, RN, 397.
92. Haig, Inner Circles, 227; George C. Herring, America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950–1975, 4th edition (Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2002), 278.
93. Isaacson, Kissinger, 238.
94. Hersh, “Kissinger and Nixon in the White House.”
95. Paper, “The NSC and New Initiatives,” attached to Memorandum, Morton H. Halperin to Dr. Kissinger, August 5, 1969, folder [04]; Halperin, Morton H., Staff Memos [1969] [1 of 1], Box 817, NSC Name Files, RNPL.
96. Memo; Morton H. Halperin to Dr. Kissinger, September 10, 1969, folder Vietnamization, vol. 1, September 1967–December 1969 [2 of 2], Box 91, NSC Subject Files, RNPL.
97. Joseph Kraft, “Kissinger Staff Resignations Show Flaw in Nixon Method,” Washington Post, Times Herald, September 16, 1969.
98. Morris, An Uncertain Greatness, 101, 99–100.
99. Ibid.; NSC Staff member Michael Guhin, Oral History: “The Nixon Administration National Security Council,” December 8, 1998, moderated by I. M. “Mac” Destler and Ivo Daalder, The National Security Council Project.
100. Haldeman, The Haldeman Diaries, 103.
101. “Memorandum From the Staff Secretary, National Security Council (Watts) to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger),” subject: “Revised NSC Staff Arrangements,” September 14, 1969, Document 72, FRUS 1969–1976, vol. 2, 1969–1972; Memorandum, Robert E. Osgood to Dr. Kissinger, September 25, 1969, folder [01], National Security Council, vol. 3, 6/1/69–12/31/69 [2 of 2], Box H-300, National Security Council Institutional Files (H-Files), RNPL; and TelCon, Henry Kissinger with Stewart Loory, 6:50 p.m., September 11, 1969, folder [06] September 1–18, 1969 [2 of 2], Box 2; Henry A. Kissinger Telephone Conversation Transcripts (Telcons), RNPL .
102. “Memorandum From the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger) to President Nixon,” subject: “Our Present Course on Vietnam,” September 10, 1969, Document 117, FRUS 1969–1976, vol. 6, January 1969–July 1970.
103. Memo, Henry Kissinger and President Nixon, September 11, 1969, folder Vietnamization, vol. 1, September 1967–December 1969 [2 of 2], Box 91, NSC Subject Files, RNPL.
104. Memo, Tony Lake to Henry Kissinger, September 7, 1969, 9, folder [03] Tony Lake CHRON, September 1969–January 1970, Box 1047, National Security Council Lake Chron Files, RNPL.
105. See cover memorandum, Morton H. Halperin to Dr. Kissinger, August 5, 1969, folder [04] Halperin, Morton H., Staff Memos [1969] [1 of 1], Box 817, NSC Name Files, RNPL.
106. “Minutes of National Security Council Meeting,” subject: “Vietnam,” September 12, 1969, Document 120, FRUS 1969–1976, vol. 6, January 1969–July 1970.
107. Ibid.
108. Ibid.
109. Report, subject: “The Effects of the Imposition of a Quarantine on North Vietnam,” CIA, July 16, 1969, folder Top Secret/Sensitive Vietnam Contingency Planning Henry A. Kissinger, October 2, 1969 [1 of 2], Box 89, National Security Council Subject Files, RNPL.
110. “Memorandum From the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger) to President Nixon,” subject: “Analysis for Vietnam,” September 5, 1969, Document 115, FRUS 1969–1976, vol. 6, January 1969–July 1970.
111. Memo, Tony Lake to Henry Kissinger, September 7, 1969, 8–9; Haldeman, The Haldeman Diaries, 90.
112. TelCon, Henry Kissinger with The President, 7:50 p.m., September 15, 1969, folder [06] September 1–18, 1969 [2 of 2], Box 2, Henry A. Kissinger Telephone Conversation Transcripts (Telcons), RNPL.
113. Hersh, The Price of Power, 123.
114. Isaacson, Kissinger, 247.
115. Hersh, The Price of Power, 126.
116. Morris, An Uncertain Greatness, 164.
117. Hersh, The Price of Power, 127.
118. “Cable, PRUNING KNIFE Status Report No. 1,” September 15, 1969, attached to Cable, subject: “PRUNING KNIFE,” MACV to CINCPAC, September 23, 1969, excerpted in The Vietnam War Files, ed. Kimball, 101; Kissinger, White House Years, 284.
119. Memorandum, subject: “Contingency Military Operations Against North Vietnam,” Henry A. Kissinger to The President, October 2, 1969, folder Top Secret/Sensitive Vietnam Contingency Planning Henry A. Kissinger, October 2, 1969 [2 of 2], Box 89, National Security Council Vietnam Subject Files, RNPL; and Memorandum, Tony Lake to Kissinger, September 17, 1969, subject: “Initial comments on concept of operations, with attachment, ‘Vietnam Contingency Planning,’ ” September 16, 1969, excerpted in The Vietnam War Files, ed. Kimball, 102–4.
120. Robert Dallek, Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power (New York: HarperCollins, 2007), 155; Isaacson, Kissinger, 246.
121. Haldeman, The Haldeman Diaries, 95.
122. Isaacson, Kissinger, 247.
123. “Notes of a Telephone Conversation Between President Nixon and his Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger),” October 10, 1969, 7:30 p.m., Document 135, Document 136, FRUS 1969–1976, vol. 6, January 1969–July 1970.
124. “Memorandum for the Record,” subject: “JCS Meeting with the President, Saturday, October 1969 (U),” October 11, 1969, 9:45 a.m.–12:45 p.m., Document 136, FRUS 1969–1976, vol. 6, January 1969–July 1970.
125. Ibid.
126. William Safire, Before the Fall: An Inside View of the Pre-Watergate White House (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1975), note 368; David Johnston, “Nixon’s Big Regret: Bombing Delay,” New York Times, April 11, 1988.
127. Memo, Roger Morris and Tony Lake to Henry Kissinger, 5 October 21, 1969, 1, folder [03] Tony Lake CHRON, September 1969–January 1970, Box 1047, National Security Council Lake Chron Files, RNPL; Isaacson, Kissinger, 247.
128. TelCon, Henry Kissinger with The President; 6:30 p.m., October 8, 1969, folder [08], October 1–13, 1969, Box 2; Henry A. Kissinger Telephone Conversation Transcripts (Telcons); RNPL.
129. The National Archives, “Vietnam War U.S. Military Fatal Casualty Statistics.”
130. Isaacson, Kissinger, 263.
131. Don Nicoll, “Lake, Anthony ‘Tony’ oral history interview.”
132. Haig, Inner Circles, 237.
133. Isaacson, Kissinger, 263.
134. Isaacson, Kissinger, 264; Kissinger, White House Years, note 285.
135. M. David Landau, “Kissinger Aide Resigns in Protest To Recent ‘Invasion’ of Cambodia,” Harvard Crimson, May 14, 1970, http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1970/5/14/kissinger-aide-resigns-in-protest-to/.
136. See also note 1: “Draft Letter From W. Anthony Lake and Roger Morris of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger),” undated, Document 106, FRUS 1969–1976, vol. 2, 1969–1972.
137. “Kissinger and Tho Win Nobel Prize for Vietnam Pact,” New York Times, October 17, 1973.
138. Henry Kissinger, Years of Upheaval (Boston: Little, Brown, 1982), 1243–44.
139. Martin Tolchin, “Kissinger Issues Wiretap Apology,” New York Times, November 13, 1992.
140. Haig, Inner Circles, 217, 220.
141. See note 3: “Draft Letter From W. Anthony Lake and Roger Morris of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger),” undated, Document 106, FRUS 1969–1976, vol. 2, 1969–1972.
142. Winston Lord, interview with author, April 15, 2013.
143. Isaacson, Kissinger, 204.
144. James T. Wooten, “Carter Pledges an Open Foreign Policy,” New York Times, June 24, 1976, 1; C. L. Sulzberger, “Plains Language from Truthful James,” August 22, 1976, New York Times, 147.
145. Hedrick Smith, “Carter Reported Studying Plan for Reorganizing White House Staff,” New York Times, December 9, 1976, 16; “Carter Names 4 Transition Aides on Foreign Policy,” New York Times, November 12, 1976, 10.
146. “Transcript of a News Conference Held by President-Elect Carter,” New York Times, November 16, 1976, 32.
147. Zbigniew Brzezinski, interview with author, April 12, 2013.
148. Bernard Gwertzman, “Brzezinski Revamps Security Unit Staff,” New York Times, January 16, 1977, 1; Smith, “Carter Reported Studying Plan for Reorganizing White House Staff,” 16; Charles Mohr, “Brzezinski Helping Carter Change the Way Foreign Policy Is Made,” New York Times, May 23, 1977, 12.
149. Mohr, “Brzezinski Helping Carter Change the Way Foreign Policy Is Made,” 12.
150. Gwertzman, “Brzezinski Revamps Security Unit Staff,” 1.
151. Gary Sick, All Fall Down: America’s Tragic Encounter with Iran (New York: Penguin Books, 1986), 290.
152. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Memorandum, “Getting the Hostages Free,” April 10, 1980, Zbigniew Brzezinski Collection, NSC Accomplishments Iran: 4/80–10/80, Container 34, Jimmy Carter Presidential Library.
153. Brzezinski, interview with author, April 12, 2013.
Chapter Three: “Reckless Cowboys, off on Their Own on a Wild Ride”
1. Cable, subject: “NSDD on Lebanon,” from White House (John Poindexter) to Ambassador Robert McFarlane, September 11, 1983, at 0325Z, File: NSC 00088, September 10, 1983 (2) [START/Lebanon], Executive Secretariat, NSC: MEETING FILES, Box 91285, Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Library (RRL).
2. Howard Teicher, interview with author, April 15, 2013.
3. Philip Dur, interview with author, August 11, 2017.
4. Ibid.
5. Lou Cannon, President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991), 36.
6. Teicher, interview with author, April 15, 2013.
7. Howard Teicher, interview with author, July 21, 2017.
8. Dur, interview with author, August 11, 2017; Teicher, interview with author, July 21, 2017.
9. Steven Spiegel, The Other Arab-Israeli Conflict: Making America’s Middle East Policy, from Truman to Reagan (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), 400.
10. Teicher, interview with author, July 21, 2017.
11. Alexander Haig, Caveat: Realism, Reagan, and Foreign Policy (New York: Macmillan, 1984), 74; and Leslie Gelb, “Foreign Policy System Criticized by U.S. Aides,” New York Times, October 19, 1981, A1.
12. David Rothkopf, Running the World: The Inside Story of the National Security Council and the Architects of American Power (New York: PublicAffairs, 2005), 222; Hedrick Smith, “A Scaled-Down Version of Security Advisor’s Task,” New York Times, March 4, 1981, A2.
13. Richard Burt, “Reagan’s Foreign Policy from Someone Who Knows,” New York Times, June 29, 1980; and Miller Center, “Interview with Richard Allen,” University of Virginia, May 28, 2002, http://millercenter.org/president/reagan/oralhistory/richard-allen.
14. Geoffrey Kemp, “My NSC Elephants Were Baby Ones, Not Rogues,” Washington Post, December 7, 1986.
15. John Poindexter, interview with author, April 8, 2013.
16. Ibid.
17. Adam Clymer, “Reagan Evoking Rising Concern, New Poll Shows,” New York Times, March 19, 1982, A1.
18. Judith Miller, “Senators Give Clark Angry Advice, But Still Consent,” New York Times, February 8, 1981.
19. Kemp, “My NSC Elephants Were Baby Ones, Not Rogues.”
20. Robert C. McFarlane with Zofia Smardz. Special Trust (New York: Cadell & Davies, 1994), 189.
21. Paul Kengor and Patricia Clark Doerner, The Judge: William Clark, Ronald Reagan’s Top Hand (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2007), 105; Ronald Reagan, “National Security Decision Directive 2: National Security Council Structure,” January 12, 1982, http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nsdd; and Office of the Historian, “History of the National Security Council, 1947–1997.”
22. Kemp, “My NSC Elephants Were Baby Ones, Not Rogues.”
23. Leslie H. Gelb, “The Bureaucracy; Status Move,” New York Times, June 22, 1983, A22.
24. Kengor and Doerner, The Judge, 231.
25. Constantine Christopher Menges, Inside the National Security Council: The True Story of the Making and Unmaking of Reagan’s Foreign Policy (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988), 55; Miller Center, “Interview with William Clark,” August 17, 2003; and Dur, interview with author, May 1, 2013.
26. Kemp, “Lessons in Lebanon,” 58.
27. Jack Redden, “The 800 U.S. Marines who came to Lebanon,” UPI, September 10, 1982.
28. Kemp, interview with author, July 18, 2017.
29. Dur, interview with author, August 11, 2017.
30. Ronald Reagan, “President’s Press Conference,” The American Presidency Project, September 28, 1982, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=43062&st=lebanon&st1=#axzz1klzb59mE.
31. Ronald Reagan, “Address to the Nation on United States Policy for Peace in the Middle East,” September 1, 1982, The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=42911&st=seize&st1=Lebanon#ixzz1lqkRxGgD.
32. Ronald Reagan, “Text of Reagan’s Letter to Congress on Marines in Lebanon,” New York Times, September 29, 1982; The Long Commission, “The Report of the DoD Commission on Beirut International Airport Terrorist Act: October 23, 1983,” December 20, 1983, 39; and Memorandum, subject: “U.S. Responsibilities Concerning the Protection of Civilians in the Beirut Area,” from Davis R. Robinson to the Deputy Secretary, October 22, 1982, The John Boykin Collection, the National Security Archives (George Washington University), Box 4, accessed August 2012.
33. Dur, interview with author, August 11, 2017; Armitage, interview with author, September 26, 2017.
34. The Long Commission, 49–50.
35. Ronald Reagan, “Address to the Veterans of Foreign Wars Convention in Chicago,” August 18, 1980, online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=85202.
36. Gallup, “Military and National Defense,” In-depth Topics, A-Z, http://news.gallup.com/poll/1666/military-national-defense.aspx.
37. Reagan, “Address to the Veterans of Foreign Wars Convention in Chicago.”
38. Kemp, “Lessons in Lebanon,” 60.
39. Teicher, interview with author, July 21, 2017.
40. Ibid.
41. Ibid.
42. Kemp, interview with author, July 18, 2017.
43. Dur, interview with author, April 23, 2014.
44. Reagan, “Address to the Veterans of Foreign Wars Convention in Chicago.”
45. Colin Powell, My American Journey: An Autobiography (New York: Random House, 1995), 291.
46. James Fallows, “The Spend-Up,” The Atlantic, July 1986, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1986/07/the-spend-up/308325/.
47. Armitage, interview with author, September 26, 2017.
48. Dur, interview with author, August 11, 2017.
49. David Crist, The Twilight War: The Secret History of America’s Thirty-Year Conflict with Iran (Penguin Publishing Group, Kindle Edition), 142.
50. Caspar Weinberger, Fighting for Peace: Seven Critical Years at the Pentagon (London: Michael Joseph, 1990), 159.
51. Howard Teicher and Gayle Radley Teicher, Twin Pillars to Desert Storm: America’s Flawed Vision in the Middle East from Nixon to Bush (New York: William Morrow, 1993), 218.
52. Thomas Friedman, From Beirut to Jerusalem: One Man’s Middle Eastern Odyssey (London: Fontana, 1990), 198.
53. Memorandum, subject: “US Vulnerability in Lebanon,” from Graham E. Fuller to the Director of Central Intelligence, May 6, 1984, 1–2, CIA Records Research Tool (CREST), downloaded December 2012.
54. Graham E. Fuller, Memorandum for Acting Director of Central Intelligence, subject: “Downward Spiral in Lebanon,” August 16, 1983, 1. CREST, downloaded December 2012.
55. Cable, Subject: “Habib/Draper Mission: Where We Stand After Initial Rounds in Lebanon and Israel.” (Phil) Habib to SECSTATE, February 15, 1983, 18:17Z, Section One of Three; 3 of 3; Folder “Lebanon,” Clark, William Patrick: Files, 1982–1983; Box 4. RRL.
56. Michael Getler, “For NSC Staff, It’s Heady to Be the Hub of Activity,” Washington Post, May 16, 1983, A9; and John M. Goshko and Michael Getler, “Shultz no longer perceived as driving force in foreign policy,” Washington Post, August 15, 1983, A1.
57. Dur, interview with author, May 1, 2013; Howard Teicher, interview with author, April 15, 2013.
58. Dur, interview with author, May 1, 2013.
59. Memorandum, subject: “Comments on Lebanon Draft NSDD,” from Charles Hill to William Clark, September 8, 1983, folder: NSDD 103 (Strategy for Lebanon) (2), Executive Secretariat, NSC: NSDDs, Box RAC, Box 6, RRL.
60. Weinberger, Fighting for Peace, 157–58.
61. Draft Paper, subject: “Near-Term Lebanon Strategy,” September 6, 1983, 1, attached to Memorandum, from Jack N. Merritt to John Poindexter, September 8, 1983, file: NSDD 103 (Strategy for Lebanon) [1], Executive Secretariat, NSC: NSDDs, Box 91285, RRL.
62. Ronald Reagan’s marked-up copy. Cable, subject: “McFarlane/Fairbanks Mission: Worst Case Strategy for Lebanon,” from Ambassador (Robert C.) McFarlane to SECSTATE, September 9, 1983, Section 1 at 0104Z and Section 2 at 0109Z. File: Lebanon, CLARK, WILLIAM PATRICK: Files, Box 4, RRL.
63. Dur, interview with author, August 11, 2017.
64. Ibid.
65. Ronald Reagan, The Reagan Diaries, ed. Douglas Brinkley (New York: Harper-Collins, 2007), 178; handwritten notes, “NSC mtg 10Sept83, Lebanon,” September 10, 1983, file: Lebanon III [3/5] FORTIER, DONALD R.: files, Box RAC Box 7, RRL.
66. Reagan, The Reagan Diaries, 178.
67. Ronald Reagan, National Security Decision Directive 103, “Strategy for Lebanon,” September 10, 1983, http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/reference/Scanned%20NSDDS/NSDD103.pdf.
68. Cable, subject: “NSDD on Lebanon,” from White House (John Poindexter) to Ambassador Robert McFarlane, September 11, 1983, at 0325Z, File: NSC 00088, September 10, 1983 (2) [START/Lebanon], Executive Secretariat, NSC: MEETING FILES, Box 91285, RRL.
69. Eric Hammel, The Root: The Marines in Beirut August 1982–February 1984 (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1999), 216; Friedman, From Beirut to Jerusalem, 200.
70. McFarlane, Special Trust, 250.
71. Kemp, interview with author, July 18, 2017.
72. Kemp, interview with author, July 18, 2017.
73. Charles R. Babcock and Don Oberdorfer, “The NSC Cabal How Arrogance and Secrecy Brought on Scandal,” Washington Post, June 21, 1987.
74. Cannon, Role of a Lifetime, 368–69; Dur, interview with author, August 11, 2017.
75. Reagan, The Reagan Diaries, 178.
76. Ronald Reagan, National Security Decision Directive 103, “Addendum to NSDD 103 on Lebanon of September 19, 1983,” September 11, 1983, http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/reference/Scanned%20NSDDS/NSDD103.pdf.
77. Ibid.
78. Dur, interview with author, August 11, 2017.
79. Reagan, The Reagan Diaries, 178.
80. White House News Summary, “Tuesday, September 13, 1983,” file: Lebanon, Clark, William Patrick: files, Box 4, RRL; Lou Cannon and George C. Wilson, “Reagan Authorizes Marines to Call in Beirut Air Strikes,” Washington Post, September 13, 1983; editorial: “The Stakes in Beirut,” New York Times, September 15, 1983, 26.
81. Long Commission, 32.
82. Ibid., 46.
83. Ibid., 32, 40, and 42.
84. Memorandum, subject: “Movement of the USS NEW JERSEY (BB-62) to Lebanon,” from Cap (Caspar Weinberger) to the President (Ronald Reagan), undated (attached to September 20, 1983, cover memorandum), file: NSDD 103 (Strategy for Lebanon) [1], Executive Secretariat, NSC: NSDDs, Box 91285, RRL; Memorandum, William Clark to Caspar W. Weinberger, September 20, 1982 [sic] (attached to September 20, 1983, cover memorandum), file: NSDD 103 (Strategy for Lebanon) [1], Executive Secretariat, NSC: NSDDs, Box 91289, RRL.
85. Robert “Bud” McFarlane, interview with author, September 5, 2013.
86. Teicher, interview with author, July 21, 2017.
87. Don Oberdorfer, “The Beirut Massacre,” Washington Post, October 24, 1983.
88. Jane Mayer, “Ronald Reagan’s Benghazi,” The New Yorker, May 5, 2014.
89. Teicher and Teicher, Twin Pillars, 258.
90. Robert Timberg, The Nightingale’s Song (New York: Simon and Shuster, 1995), 337.
91. Ronald Reagan, “Address to the Nation on Events in Lebanon and Grenada,” The American Presidency Project, October 27, 1983, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=40696&st=beirut&st1=october#ixzz1ljh7skX4.
92. Memorandum, Subject: “US Policy in Lebanon and the Middle East,” From Cap (Caspar Weinberger) to Bud (Robert C. McFarlane), October 21, 1983, 1. File: Lebanon III [3/5] Fortier, Donald R.: Files, Box RAC Box 7, RRL; Paper, Subject: “Our Strategy in Lebanon and the Middle East: Operational Issues,” October 17, 1983, 1. Folder: NSDD 111 [Next Steps Toward Progress in Lebanon and the Middle East] (2), Executive Secretariat, NSC: NSDDs, Box 91291 (006R-NSDDs), RRL.
93. Memorandum, subject: “National Security Decision Directive on Lebanon and the Middle East,” from Robert C. McFarlane to George Shultz, Caspar W. Weinberger, William J. Casey, and John W. Vessey, October 29, 1983, folder: NSDD 111 [Next Steps Toward Progress in Lebanon and the Middle East] (1), Executive Secretariat, NSC: NSDDs, Box 91291 (006R-NSDDs), RRL.
94. Handwritten notes on Memorandum, “NSDD: Lebanon and the Middle East,” from Geoffrey Kemp to Robert C. McFarlane, October 25, 1983, folder: NSDD 111 [Next Steps Toward Progress in Lebanon and the Middle East] (1), Executive Secretariat, NSC: NSDDs, Box 91291, RRL; and Memorandum, subject: “Lebanon and the Middle East,” from Robert C. McFarlane to the President (Ronald Reagan), October 28, 1983, 1, folder: NSDD 111 [Next Steps Toward Progress in Lebanon and the Middle East] (2), Executive Secretariat, NSC: NSDDs, Box 91289 (006R-NSDDs), RRL.
95. Memorandum, subject: “National Security Decision Directive on Lebanon and the Middle East,” from Robert C. McFarlane to George Shultz, Caspar W. Weinberger, William J. Casey, and John W. Vessey, October 29, 1983, folder: NSDD 111 [Next Steps Toward Progress in Lebanon and the Middle East] (1), Executive Secretariat, NSC: NSDDs, Box 91289 (006R-NSDDs), RRL.
96. Armitage, interview with author, September 26, 2017.
97. Memorandum, subject: “NSDD-111 on Lebanon and the Middle East,” from John A. Wickham Jr. to the Secretary of Defense (Caspar Weinberger), November 4, 1983, folder: NSDD 111 [Next Steps Toward Progress in Lebanon and the Middle East] (1), Executive Secretariat, NSC: NSDDs, Box 91289 (006R-NSDDs), RRL; and Memorandum, subject: “NSDD-111 on Lebanon and the Middle East,” from Cap (Caspar Weinberger) to the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (Robert McFarlane), November 7, 1983, folder: NSDD 111 [Next Steps Toward Progress in Lebanon and the Middle East] (1), Executive Secretariat, NSC: NSDDs, Box 91289 (006R-NSDDs), RRL.
98. Memorandum, subject: “Security in Lebanon,” from Philip A. Dur to Robert C. McFarlane, November 25, 1983, 1, folder: NSDD 111 [Next Steps Toward Progress in Lebanon and the Middle East] (3), Executive Secretariat, NSC: NSDDs, Box 91291 (006R-NSDDs), RRL.
99. McFarlane, Special Trust, 268.
100. McFarlane, interview with author, September 5, 2013; David Crist, The Twilight War, 147.
101. Reagan, The Reagan Diaries, 205.
102. Dur, interview with author, August 11, 2017.
103. Armitage, interview with author, September 26, 2017.
104. Ronald Reagan, “Statement on the Situation in Lebanon,” February 7, 1984, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=39433.
105. Kemp, “Lessons in Lebanon,” 65.
106. Dur, interview with author, August 11, 2017.
107. Kemp, “Lessons in Lebanon,” 64.
108. Dur, interview with author, August 11, 2017.
109. Teicher, interview with author, July 21, 2017.
110. Ibid.
111. Powell, My American Journey, 291.
112. Ibid., location 4970–4971.
113. Dur, interview with author, August 11, 2017.
114. Brock Brower, “Bud McFarlane: Semper Fi,” New York Times Magazine, January 22, 1989.
115. Charles R. Babcock and Don Oberdorfer, “The NSC Cabal: How Arrogance and Secrecy Brought on Scandal,” Washington Post, June 21, 1987.
116. John Tower, Edmund Muskie, and Brent Scowcroft, The Tower Commission Report (New York: Bantam Books, 1987), 70 and 66.
117. See graph. The National Security Council Project, the Brookings Institution and the University of Maryland Center for International and Security Studies (CISSM), http://www.brookings.edu.
118. Kemp, “My NSC Elephants Were Baby Ones, Not Rogues.”
119. Rothkopf, Running the World, 244.
120. United Press International, “Blame the Cake on Ollie North, McFarlane Says,” Los Angeles Times, January 22, 1987.
121. Teicher and Teicher, Twin Pillars, 358.
122. Ronald Reagan, “Address to the Nation on the Iran Arms and Contra Aid Controversy,” March 4, 1987, online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=33938.
123. Maureen Dowd, “The White House Crisis: McFarlane Suicide Attempt,” New York Times, March 2, 1987.
124. McFarlane, Special Trust, 189.
125. R. W. Apple, “Introduction,” in Tower, Muskie, and Scowcroft, “The Tower Commission Report,” xv.
126. Powell, My American Journey, 332.
127. Bartholomew H. Sparrow, The Strategist: Brent Scowcroft and the Call of National Security (New York: PublicAffairs, 2015), 255.
128. Hadley, interview with author, March 28, 2018.
129. Tower, Muskie, and Scowcroft, The Tower Commission Report, 4.
130. Powell, My American Journey, 331.
131. Ibid.
132. Fred Hiatt, “Role of National Security Council Again Uncertain,” Washington Post, January 6, 1986.
133. See discussion in Michael R. Gordon, “At Foreign Policy Helm: Shultz vs. White House,” New York Times, August 26, 1987.
134. Dur, interview with author, August 11, 2017.
Chapter Four: “What No Other Part of the Government Did”
1. George H. W. Bush, “Remarks and an Exchange with Reporters on the Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait,” The American Presidency Project, August 5, 1990, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=18741.
2. Powell, My American Journey, 466; Colin Powell, “The Gulf War,” Frontline: Oral History, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/gulf/oral/powell/1.html.
3. Richard Haass, “Commencement Address,” Oberlin College, May 25, 2009, https://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-n-haass/dissent-is-as-american-as_b_207430.html">https://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-n-haass/dissent-is-as-american-as_b_207430.html
4. Richard Haass Interview, May 27, 2004, George H. W. Bush Oral History Project, Miller Center, University of Virginia, https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-oral-histories/richard-haass-oral-history-special-assistant-president.
5. Daalder and Destler, In the Shadow, 165.
6. Brent Scowcroft, interview with author, January 31, 2013.
7. Richard Haass, “Reassessing the NSC,” Harvard Crimson, December 3, 1986.
8. Richard Haass, interview with author, August 14, 2017.
9. Ibid.
10. R. N. Haass, “Filling the Vacuum: U.S. Foreign Policy towards Southwest Asia, 1969–1976,” diss., University of Oxford, 1982.
11. Richard Haass, “Reassessing the NSC.”
12. Ibid.
13. Richard Haass Interview, Miller Center.
14. Alfonso Chardy, “Bush Aides Drafting New Contra Policy,” Miami Herald, November 16, 1988, 1A.
15. Richard Haass Interview, Miller Center.
16. George Bush, “Transcript of Bush News Conference on Choice of Scowcroft,” November 24, 1999, B12.
17. Scowcroft, interview with author, January 31, 2013.
18. Richard Haass Interview, Miller Center.
19. Ibid.
20. Scowcroft, interview with author, January 31, 2013.
21. Richard Haass Interview, Miller Center.
22. Richard Haass, War of Necessity, War of Choice (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2009), 33, 36.
23. David Welch, interview with author, September 9, 2013.
24. Bernard Weinraub, “Bush Backs Plan to Enhance Role of Security Staff,” New York Times, February 2, 1989, A1.
25. Haass, interview with author, January 10, 2013.
26. Scowcroft, interview with author, January 31, 2013.
27. Daalder and Destler, “The Role of the National Security Advisor,” 2.
28. Ibid.
29. Colin Powell, My American Journey, 408.
30. Richard Haass Interview, Miller Center.
31. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, “The Peace Dividend,” New York Review of Books 37, no. 11 (June 28, 1990).
32. George Bush, National Security Directive 3, “U.S. Policy Toward Afghanistan,” February 13, 1989, https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/nsd/nsd3.pdf.
33. Richard Haass Interview, Miller Center; George Bush, National Security Directive 3.
34. Michael R. Gordon and Bernard Trainor, The Generals’ War: The Inside Story of the Conflict in the Gulf (Boston: Little, Brown, 1995), 7–8.
35. Gordon and Trainor, The Generals’ War, 9.
36. Defense Department, “Conduct of the Persian Gulf War: Final Report to Congress,” April 1992, xxi.
37. George Bush, National Security Directive 26, “U.S. Policy Toward the Persian Gulf,” October 2, 1989, https://bush41library.tamu.edu/archives/nsd.
38. Brent Scowcroft, “The Gulf War,” Frontline, Oral History, PBS, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/gulf/oral/scowcroft/1.html.
39. George Bush, National Security Directive 26.
40. Gordon and Trainor, The Generals’ War, 13; Richard Haass, War of Necessity, War of Choice, 50.
41. U.S. News & World Report, June 1990.
42. Haass, War of Necessity, War of Choice, 53.
43. Richard Haass Interview, Miller Center.
44. Ibid.
45. Yousseff M. Ibrahim, “Iraq Threatens Emirates and Kuwait on Oil Glut,” New York Times, July 18, 1990, D1; April Glaspie, Cable: “Iraqi Threats to Kuwait and UAE,” 181454z, July 1990, Haass, Richard N., Files, Working Files, GHWB-Haass-BoxCF01937-003, Folder: “Iraq—Pre 8/2/90 [3],” George Bush Presidential Library and Museum (GBPLM), 2, 4.
46. Richard Haass Interview, Miller Center.
47. April Glaspie, Cable: “Ambassador’s Meeting with Saddam Husayn,” 251104z, July 1990, Haass, Richard N., Files, Working Files, GHWB-Haass-BoxCF01937-003, Folder: “Iraq—Pre 8/2/90 [3],” GBPLM, 1–2; Richard Haass, War of Necessity, War of Choice, 57; Richard Haass, “The Gulf War,” Frontline, Oral History, PBS, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/gulf/oral/haass/1.html.
48. April Glaspie, Cable: “Iraq Blinks—Provisionally,” 261230z, July 1990, Haass, Richard N., Files, Working File, GHWB-Haass-BoxCF01585-f001, Folder: “Iraq Pre 8/2/90 [1],” GBPLM.
49. Gordon and Trainor, The Generals’ War, 5, 25–26.
50. Richard Haass Interview, Miller Center.
51. Ibid.
52. George Bush and Brent Scowcroft, A World Transformed (New York: Knopf; Vintage, 1998), 302.
53. Richard Haass Interview, Miller Center; Haass, Frontline.
54. Richard Haass Interview, Miller Center.
55. George Bush, “Remarks and an Exchange with Reporters on the Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait,” August 2, 1990, The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=18726; “Minutes of NSC/Deputy Committee Meeting,” August 2, 1990, Haass, Richard N., Files, Presidential Meeting Files, BoxCF01618-019, Folder: “NSC Meeting—August 2, 1990 Re: Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait,” GBPLM.
56. Gordon and Trainor, The Generals’ War, 7–8.
57. Defense Department, “Conduct of the Persian Gulf War: Final Report to Congress,” xxi; Gordon and Trainor, The Generals’ War, 46.
58. Haass, Frontline.
59. Ibid.
60. Dick Cheney, interview with author, August 9, 2013.
61. “Minutes of NSC Meeting on Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait,” August 3, 1990, Haass, Richard N., Files, Working Files, GHWB-Haass-BoxCF01478-030, Folder: “Iraq—August 2, 1990–December 1990 [8],” GBPLM.
62. Powell, My American Journey, 451.
63. Sparrow, The Strategist, 385.
64. Haass, War of Necessity, War of Choice, 62.
65. Bush and Scowcroft, A World Transformed, 322.
66. Lawrence Freedman and Efraim Karsh, The Gulf Conflict, 1990–1991: Diplomacy and War in the New World Order (London: Faber and Faber, 1993), 180, 85; Jaoa Resende-Santos, “The Persian Gulf Crisis: A Chronology of Events,” in After the Storm: Lessons from the Gulf War, ed. Joseph S. Nye Jr. and Roger K. Smith (Lanham, MD: Madison Books, 1992), 301–6, 317; CIA, Report, subject: “Oil Market Situation,” August 8, 1990, Melby, Eric, Files, Subject File, Box CF01434, Folder: 003, “Energy—Gulf Crisis [3],” GBPLM.
67. “Minutes of NSC Meeting on Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait,” August 4, 1990, Haass, Richard N., Files, Working Files, GHWB-Haass-BoxCF01478-030, Folder: “Iraq—August 2, 1990–December 1990 [8],” GBPLM, 2.
68. David Halberstam, War in a Time of Peace (New York: Scribner, 2001), 70; Powell, Frontline.
69. Richard Haass Interview, Miller Center.
70. Ibid.
71. Ibid.
72. Sparrow, The Strategist, 276–77.
73. Richard Haass Interview, Miller Center.
74. Haass, Frontline.
75. Jon Meacham, Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush (New York: Random House, 2015), 744, note 432.
76. George Bush, “Remarks and an Exchange With Reporters on the Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait,” August 5, 1990, online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=18741.
77. Meacham. Destiny and Power, 434.
78. Thomas L. Friedman, “Bush Hinting Force, Declares Assault ‘Will Not Stand,’ ” New York Times, August 6, 1990.
79. Dick Cheney, “The Gulf War,” Frontline, Oral History, PBS, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/gulf/oral/cheney/1.html. Cheney, interview with author, August 9, 2013; Powell, Frontline.
80. Richard Haass Interview, Miller Center.
81. Gordon and Trainor, 72; Richard Haass Interview, Miller Center.
82. David Jeremiah, George H. W. Bush Oral History Project, Miller Center, University of Virginia, November 15, 2010.
83. Richard Haass Interview, Miller Center.
84. “Presidential Calls During Iraq-Kuwait Crisis,” n.d., Poadiuk, Roman, Files, Subject Files, GHWB-BoxCF00703-003, Folder: “Kuwait-Iraq, Middle East [3],” GBPLM.
85. Haass, interview with author, January 10, 2013; “ 8/24 to do,” August 24, 1990, Haass, Richard N., Files, Working Files, GHWB-Haass-BoxCF01478-026, Folder: “Iraq—August 2, 1990–December 1990 [4],” GBPLM.
86. Richard Haass Interview, Miller Center.
87. Ibid.
88. Sparrow, The Strategist, 392; Rothkopf, Running the World, 297–98.
89. Miller Center, “Interview with Brent Scowcroft,” University of Virginia, November 12–13, 1999, http://millercenter.org/president/bush/oralhistory/brent-scowcroft.
90. Scowcroft, Frontline.
91. Powell, My American Journey, 457; Bob Woodward, The Commanders (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991), 248–49; Powell, Frontline.
92. “Minutes of NSC Meeting on Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait,” August 4, 1990, Haass, Richard N., Files, Working Files, GHWB-Haass-BoxCF01478-030, Folder: “Iraq—August 2, 1990–December 1990 [8],” GBPLM, 7; and Freedman and Karsh, The Gulf Conflict, 140–41.
93. Miller Center, “Interview with Robert M. Gates,” University of Virginia, July 23–24, 2000, http://millercenter.org/president/bush/oralhistory/robert-gates; James Baker, “The Gulf War,” Frontline, Oral History, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/gulf/oral/baker/1.html; Baker, interview with author, April 8, 2013.
94. Richard N. Haass, Memorandum for Brent Scowcroft, “What next in the Gulf?,” August 27, 1990, Haass, Richard N., Files, Working Files, GHWB-Haass-BoxCF01478-030, Folder: “Iraq—August 2, 1990–December 1990 [8],” GBPLM.
95. Richard Haass, “Draft: The Gulf Crisis: Thoughts, Scenarios & Options,” August 19, 1990, Haass, Richard N., Files, Working Files, GHWB-Haass-BoxCF01478-024, Folder: “Iraq—August 2, 1990–December 1990 [2],” GBPLM, 1.
96. “Minutes of NSC Meeting on Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait,” August 3, 1990, Haass, Richard N., Files, Working Files, GHWB-Haass-BoxCF01478-030, Folder: “Iraq—August 2, 1990–December 1990 [8],” GBPLM.
97. Haass, Memorandum for Brent Scowcroft, “What next in the Gulf?,” 3.
98. David W. Moore, “Americans Believe U.S. Participation in Gulf War a Decade Ago Worthwhile,” Gallup News Service, February 26, 2001, http://news.gallup.com/poll/1963/americans-believe-us-participation-gulf-war-decade-ago-worthwhile.aspx.
99. Michael R. Gordon and Special to the New York Times, “Mideast Tensions; Nunn, Citing ‘Rush’ to War, Assails Decision to Drop Troop Rotation Plan,” New York Times, November 12, 1990, A15.
100. Powell, My American Journey, 457; Woodward, The Commanders, 248–49; Powell, Frontline.
101. “Iraq And The World’s Biggest Armies,” Los Angeles Times, March 6, 1991, http://articles.latimes.com/1991-03-06/news/mn-359_1_north-korea.
102. Powell, Frontline.
103. Baker, Frontline.
104. Cheney, interview with author, August 9, 2013.
105. Powell, My American Journey, 427.
106. Cheney, interview with author, August 9, 2013.
107. Richard Haass Interview, Miller Center.
108. Haass, “What next in the Gulf?”
109. Haass, interview with author, August 14, 2017; see also handwritten notes on Richard Haass, “Themes for call to PM Thatcher,” October 18, 1990, 11 a.m., Haass, Richard N., Files, Working File, GHWB-Haass-BoxCF01584-031, Folder: “Iraq—October 1990 [1],” GBPLM, 3.
110. Richard Haass Interview, Miller Center; Haass, War of Necessity, War of Choice, 92.
111. Richard Haass, “Draft: The Gulf Crisis: Thoughts, Scenarios & Options,” August 19, 1990, and “The Gulf Crisis: Possible Futures,” October 30, 1990, Haass, Richard N., Files, Presidential Meeting File, GHWB-Haass-BoxCF01584-033; Folder: “Iraq—October 1990 [3],” GBPLM, 1.
112. Richard Haass, “Oct 4, 90—Bob: Some issues/questions for today’s 6pm small group session,” Gates, Robert M., Files, GHWB-Gates-BoxCF00946-NotesAug90, Folder: “Notes—August 90—Saudi Arabia/Iraq/Kuwait [1],” GBPLM.
113. Woodward, The Commanders, 305; Gordon and Trainor, The Generals’ War, 129.
114. Powell, My American Journey, 485.
115. Bush and Scowcroft, A World Transformed, 381.
116. Haass, Frontline.
117. Scowcroft, Frontline.
118. Haass, interview with author, August 14, 2017.
119. Cheney, interview with author, August 9, 2013.
120. Gordon and Trainor, The Generals’ War, 144–45, 149.
121. Richard Haass Interview, Miller Center.
122. “Minutes of DC Meeting on Gulf Crisis,” October 18, 1990, Haass, Richard N., Files, Working File, GHWB-Haass-BoxCF01585-001, Folder: “Minutes for DC Meetings on [1],” GBPLM, 1–2.
123. Ibid., 1–2.
124. James A. Baker III with Thomas M. DeFrank, The Politics of Diplomacy: Revolution, War, and Peace, 1989–1992 (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1995), 303; Dick Cheney with Liz Cheney, In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir (New York: Threshold Editions, 2011), 203; Woodward, The Commanders, 311.
125. Bush and Scowcroft, A World Transformed, 381; Gordon and Trainor, The Generals’ War, 138–39.
126. Powell, My American Journey, 467; Bush and Scowcroft, A World Transformed, 382; Cheney, interview with author, August 9, 2013; Gordon and Trainor, The Generals’ War, 130–31.
127. David Jeremiah, Memorandum for Richard Haass, “subject: The Gulf Crisis: 4 Futures,” October 24, 1990, Haass, Richard N., Files, Presidential Meeting File, GHWB-Haass-BoxCF01584-033, Folder: “Iraq—October 1990 [3],” GBPLM, 1.
128. Ibid., 1.
129. David Jeremiah, interview with author, April 12, 2013; Haass, interview with author, January 10, 2013.
130. Memorandum: “subject: The Gulf Crisis: 4 Futures,” from David Jeremiah for Richard Haass, October 24, 1990, 2–3.
131. Gates, interview with author, July 31, 2013.
132. Haass, interview with author, August 14, 2017.
133. Powell, Frontline, 457, 467; Woodward, The Commanders, 42, 301.
134. Gates, interview with author, July 31, 2013.
135. Ibid.; Gordon and Trainor, The Generals’ War, 139.
136. Richard Haass, “Memorandum for Brent Scowcroft,” subject “October 30, 3:30 p, Mini-NSC on the Gulf,” October 29, 1990, Gates, Robert M., Files, GHWB-Gates-BoxCF00946-006, Folder: “Persian Gulf Conflict—Pre-1991,” GBPLM.
137. Bush and Scowcroft, A World Transformed, 393.
138. Ibid., 395.
139. Powell, My American Journey, 488.
140. Resende-Santos, “The Persian Gulf Crisis,” 323, 325.
141. Bob Gates Interview, Miller Center.
142. Bush and Scowcroft, A World Transformed, 449.
143. George Bush, National Security Directive 54, “Responding to Iraqi Aggression in the Gulf,” January 15, 1991, https://bush41library.tamu.edu/archives/nsd.
144. Woodward, The Commanders, 371.
145. “Working Paper/Dec 31, 1990, Pre-January 15/Use of Force Checklist, Gates, Robert M., Files, GHWB-Gates-BoxCF00946-006, Folder: “Persian Gulf Conflict—Pre-1991],” Bush PLM.
146. Brent Scowcroft, Memorandum for the President, “subject: Ending the Gulf War,” February 25, 1991, Haass, Richard N., Files, Working Files, GHWB-Haass-BoxCF01584-005, Folder: “Iraq—February 1991 [3],” Bush PLM.
147. Ibid.
148. Haass, interview with author, August 14, 2017; Brent Scowcroft, “Ending the Gulf War.”
149. Haass, interview with author, August 14, 2017.
150. Scowcroft, “Ending the Gulf War.”
151. Taylor and Blackwell, “The Ground War in the Gulf,” 16; Gordon and Trainor, The Generals’ War, xii.
152. Scowcroft, “Ending the Gulf War”; Haass, Frontline.
153. George Bush, “Remarks to the American Legislative Exchange Council,” March 1, 1991, online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=19351.
154. Frank Newport, David W. Moore, and Jeffrey M. Jones, “Special Release: American Opinion on the War,” Gallup News, March 21, 2003, http://news.gallup.com/poll/8068/special-release-american-opinion-war.aspx; David W. Moore, “Americans Believe U.S. Participation in Gulf War a Decade Ago Worthwhile,” Gallup News, February 26, 2001, http://news.gallup.com/poll/1963/americans-believe-us-participation-gulf-war-decade-ago-worthwhile.aspx.
155. Powell, My American Journey, 480.
156. Richard Haass interview, Miller Center; Bush, Remarks to the American Legislative Exchange Council.
157. Richard Haass Interview, Miller Center.
158. Haass, “Reassessing the NSC.”
159. Richard Haass Interview, Miller Center.
160. Paul Wolfowitz, interview with author, September 5, 2013.
161. Haass, interview with author, August 14, 2017.
Chapter Five: A “Policy Person First and Foremost”
1. Derek Chollet, The Road to the Dayton Accords: A Study of American Statecraft (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 1.
2. Bob Woodward, The Choice: How Clinton Won (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996), 261.
3. William J. Clinton, “Address Accepting the Presidential Nomination at the Democratic National Convention in New York,” July 16, 1992, The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=25958.
4. Jason DeParle, “The Man Inside Bill Clinton’s Foreign Policy,” New York Times Magazine, August 20, 1995.
5. S. Nelson Drew, “NATO from Berlin to Bosnia: Trans-Atlantic Security in Transition,” Institute for National Security Studies, McNair Paper 35 (Washington: National Defense University, January 1995), 8.
6. Anthony Lake, interview with author, August 30, 2013.
7. Alexander Vershbow, interview with author, August 16, 2017.
8. S. Nelson Drew, “NATO from Berlin to Bosnia.”
9. Intelligence Memorandum, subject: “Yugoslavia Military Dynamics of A Potential Civil War,” March 1991, 7, Document Number: 5235e80d993294098d517528, CIA Bosnia Documents.
10. National Intelligence Estimate, 15-90, subject: “Yugoslavia Transformed,” October 1990, iii, Document Number: 5235e80c993294098d5174dd, CIA Bosnia Documents.
11. Laura Silber and Alan Little. Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation (New York: Penguin Books, 1997), 30.
12. Vershbow, interview with author, August 16, 2017.
13. Ibid.
14. Interview with Sandra Drew, September 10, 2017.
15. Major Christopher L. Christon, Fitness Report for Samuel Nelson Drew, January 2, 1979 to September 17, 1979, signed October 1, 1979, courtesy of Sandra Drew, photographed September 2017.
16. Stephen Engelberg, “Brutal Impasse: The Yugoslav War A Special Report; Yugoslav Ethnic Hatreds Raise Fears of a War Without an End,” New York Times, December 23, 1991, A1.
17. “Clinton Campaign Promises,” Files: Speechwriting-Boorstin, Box OA/ID Number 415, Folder: “NSC—1995 Accomplishments,” William J. Clinton Presidential Library and Museum (WJCL).
18. I. M. Destler and Ivo Daalder (moderators), “The Role of the National Security Advisor,” October 25, 1990, The National Security Council Project, The Brookings Institution, and the University of Maryland Center for International and Security Studies (CISSM), 11, https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/19991025.pdf.
19. Daalder and Destler, In the Shadow, 212.
20. Steven Mufson, “Clinton to Send Message with Economic Choices,” Washington Post, November 8, 1992; Daalder and Destler, “The Role of the National Security Advisor,” 11.
21. DeParle, “The Man Inside Bill Clinton’s Foreign Policy.”
22. Samuel Berger, interview with author, May 1, 2013.
23. Ibid.; Rothkopf, Running the World, 323; Thomas Friedman, “Clinton Trimming Lower-Level Aides,” New York Times, February 10, 1993, A1.
24. Anthony Lake, Somoza Falling (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1989), 280, 282.
25. Berger, interview with author, May 1, 2013.
26. Ibid.
27. Foreign Affairs Oral History Project, “Ambassador Jenonne Walker,” interviewed by Raymond Ewing, May 26, 2004, The Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training; Barbara Crossette, “Failure of the New Order; Yugoslav Carnage Poses Painful Questions For Western Alliance and United Nations,” New York Times, May 15, 1992.
28. Jenonne Walker, interview with author, April 22, 2014.
29. Notes or draft minutes, subject: “Principals Committee Meeting on The Former Yugoslavia, February, 5, 1993,” 1, 2, Document number: 523c39e5993294098d51762e, CIA Bosnia Documents.
30. Lake, Somoza Falling, 276.
31. CIA, “Reponses To Clinton Transition Team Questions on The Balkans,” December 28, 1992, 14, Document Number: 5235e80d993294098d51752d, CIA Bosnia Documents; Bill Clinton, “The President’s News Conference With Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa of Japan,” April 16, 1993, The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=46438.
32. Chollet, The Road to the Dayton Accords, 5.
33. Ivo Daalder, Getting to Dayton: The Making of America’s Bosnia Policy (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2000), 14–15.
34. Ibid.; Drew, On the Edge, 154; Memorandum for the National Security Advisor, subject: “Options for Bosnia,” April 14, 1993, p.1, Document Number: 523c39e5993294098d51763f, CIA Bosnia Documents.
35. Woodward, The Choice, 257.
36. Anthony Lake, May 21, 2002, William J. Clinton Presidential History Project, Miller Center, University of Virginia; Daalder and Destler, “The Role of the National Security Advisor,” 80.
37. Anthony Lake, Miller Center (2002).
38. Drew, On the Edge, 156; Kaplan, Balkan Ghosts: A Journey Through History (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993).
39. Drew, On the Edge, 155.
40. Walker, interview with author, April 22, 2014.
41. Vershbow, interview with author, August 16, 2017.
42. Mark Matthews, “State Dept. resignations reflect dissent on Bosnia U.S. policy called weak, ‘dangerous,’ ” Baltimore Sun, August 24, 1993.
43. Vershbow, interview with author, August 16, 2017.
44. Daniel Williams, “A Third State Dept. Official Resigns over Balkan Policy,” Washington Post, August 24, 1993; Vershbow, interview with author, August 16, 2017.
45. Drew, On the Edge, 275.
46. Donald Kerrick, interview with author, April 8, 2013.
47. Powell, My American Journey, Kindle Locations 4970–4971.
48. Vershbow, interview with author, August 16, 2017.
49. Walter Slocombe, interview with author, February 13, 2013.
50. Drew, On the Edge, 45.
51. Halberstam, War in a Time of Peace, 168.
52. Andrew Kohut, “American International Engagement on the Rocks,” Pew Research Center, July 11, 2013, http://www.pewglobal.org/2013/07/11/american-international-engagement-on-the-rocks/.
53. Drew, On the Edge, 359.
54. Elaine Sciolino, “Washington Talk; A Shake-Up Of Advisers: Who’s Next?,” New York Times, June 16, 1994, A7.
55. Ibid.
56. Walker, interview with author, April 22, 2014; Sciolino, “Washington Talk.”
57. Vershbow, interview with author, August 2017.
58. Berger, interview with author, May 1, 2013.
59. Vershbow, interview with author, March 21, 2013.
60. Vershbow, interview with author, August 16, 2017.
61. Daalder, Getting to Dayton, 84.
62. Vershbow, interview with author, August 16, 2017.
63. Ibid.
64. Intelligence Report, subject: “Grave Humanitarian Conditions Loom in Bihac region,” November 3, 1994, Document Number: 5235e80d993294098d51759e, CIA Bosnia Documents.
65. David Halberstam, War in a Time of Peace (New York: Scribner, 2001), 285.
66. Alexander Vershbow, interview with author, March 21, 2013; Memorandum for the President, subject: “Bosnia Policy After the Fall of Bihac,” November 27, 1994, 1, Document Number: 523c39e5993294098d517664, CIA Bosnia Documents.
67. Memorandum for the President, subject: “Bosnia Policy After the Fall of Bihac.”
68. Michael Kelly, “Surrender and Blame,” The New Yorker, December 19, 1994, 51.
69. Anthony Lake, Miller Center (2002).
70. Woodward, The Choice, 17.
71. Anthony Lake, Miller Center (2002).
72. Ibid.
73. Chollet, The Road to the Dayton Accords, 6.
74. National Intelligence Council Special Estimate, SE 94-5, subject: “Prospects for UNPROFOR Withdrawal from Bosnia,” December 1994, Document Number: 5235e80d993294098d517592, CIA Bosnia Documents.
75. “Proposed US Policy Principles During NATO-led UNPROFOR Withdrawal,” handwritten: “OSD/JCS Paper,” May 12, 1995, Document Number: 5235e80c993294098d5174be; Daalder, Getting to Dayton, 50.
76. Coaster, courtesy of Sandra Drew, photographed September 2017.
77. Vershbow, interview with author, August 16, 2017; interview with Sandra Drew, September 10, 2017.
78. Drew, interview with author, September 2017.
79. Fitness Report for Samuel Nelson Drew, October 26, 1987 to October 25, 1988, courtesy of Sandra Drew, photographed September 2017.
80. Lake, interview with author, August 30, 2013.
81. Berger, interview with author, May 1, 2013.
82. “Former Yugoslavia Policy Review,” February 27, 1995; unsigned but in-meeting minutes confirm Vershbow wrote it, Document Number: 5235e80d993294098d517584, CIA Bosnia Documents.
83. Chollet, The Road to the Dayton, 1.
84. Memorandum (and attachments) for Anthony Lake from Rob Malley, subject: “Washington Post Article on Serb atrocities in Srebrenica,” November 6, 1995, Box OA/ID Number 613, Document ID 9508100, WJCL.
85. Woodward, The Choice, 255.
86. Derek Chollet and Bennet Freeman. The Secret History of Dayton: U.S. Diplomacy and the Bosnia Peace Process 1995, National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 171, National Security Archive, Washington, 1995, 11–12.
87. Ibid., 11.
88. Anthony Lake, Miller Center (2002).
89. See note 1, “Draft Letter From W. Anthony Lake and Roger Morris of the National Security Council Staff to the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger),” undated, Document 106, FRUS 1969–1976, vol. 2, 1969–1972.
90. Lake, Somoza Falling, 276.
91. Vershbow, interview with author, March 21, 2013; Woodward, The Choice, 258.
92. Vershbow, interview with author, August 2017.
93. Woodward, The Choice, 258.
94. Nancy Soderberg, interview with author, April 17, 2013; Chollet and Freeman, The Secret History of Dayton, 13–15.
95. Woodward, The Choice, 258.
96. Vershbow, interview with author, August 2017; Daalder, Getting to Dayton, 93–95.
97. Elaine Sciolino, “Clinton Rules Out a Quick Response to Bosnia Attack,” New York Times, February 7, 1994; Berger, interview with author, May 1, 2013.
98. Silber and Little, Yugoslavia, 345.
99. Woodward, The Choice, 260; Soderberg, interview with author, April 17, 2013.
100. Vershbow, interview with author, August 16, 2017.
101. Memorandum for Madeleine Albright, Strobe Talbott, et al., subject: “Bosnia Strategy,” from Sandy Berger, July 20, 1995, Document Number: 5235e80d993294098d51754c, CIA Bosnia Documents.
102. NSC Discussion Paper, “Schematic of Endgame Strategy,” July 25, 1995, 1, Document Number: 5235e80d993294098d517533, CIA Bosnia Documents.
103. Chollet and Freeman, The Secret History of Dayton, 19.
104. Memorandum for Madeleine Albright, Strobe Talbott, et al., subject: “Bosnia Strategy,” from Sandy Berger, July 20, 1995, Document Number: 5235e80d993294098d51754c, CIA Bosnia Documents.
105. Vershbow, interview with author, August 16, 2017.
106. Chollet and Freeman, The Secret History of Dayton, 37–38.
107. Memorandum for the National Security Advisor from Ambassador Albright, subject: “Why America Must Lead,” August 3, 1995, 2, Document Number: 5235e80c993294098d5174b3, CIA Bosnia Documents.
108. Chollet and Freeman, The Secret History of Dayton, 39; Daalder, Getting to Dayton, see note 51, 104–6.
109. Daalder, Getting to Dayton, 110.
110. Chollet and Freeman, The Secret History of Dayton, 41; Daalder, Getting to Dayton, see note 64, 110.
111. Tim Weiner, “Clinton’s Balkan Envoy Finds Himself Shut Out,” New York Times, August 12, 1995.
112. Halberstam, War in a Time of Peace, 340.
113. Chollet and Freeman, The Secret History of Dayton, 47.
114. Vershbow, interview with author, August 16, 2017.
115. Mike O’Connor, “ 3 U.S. Diplomats Killed in Bosnia,” New York Times, August 20, 1995.
116. Drew, interview with author, September 10, 2017; Vershbow, interview with author, August 16, 2017.
117. William J. Clinton, “Remarks at a Memorial Service in Arlington, Virginia, for the American Diplomats Who Died in Bosnia-Herzegovina,” August 23, 1995, The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=51761.
118. Richard C. Holbrooke, To End A War (New York: Modern Library, 1999), 87.
119. Kerrick, interview with author, April 8, 2013.
120. Woodward, The Choice, 270.
121. William J. Clinton, “Address to the Nation on Implementation of the Peace Agreement in Bosnia-Herzegovina,” November 27, 1995, The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=50808.
122. David W. Moore, “Americans Divided on U.S. Troops in Bosnia,” Gallup News, December 24, 1997.
123. Gallup News, “Presidential Approval Ratings—Bill Clinton,” http://news.gallup.com/poll/116584/presidential-approval-ratings-bill-clinton.aspx.
124. Vershbow, interview with author, March 21, 2013.
125. Anthony Lake, Miller Center (2002).
126. Karen DeYoung, “Rice Favors ‘Mean but Lean’ National Security Council,” Washington Post, January 17, 2017.
127. Rothkopf, Running the World, 323.
128. “Presidential Decision Directive/statutory NSC-56: Managing Complex Contingency Operations,” May 1997. http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/pdd56.htm; Office of the Press Secretary, “Fact Sheet: Combatting Terrorism: Presidential Decision Directive 62,” The White House, May 22, 1998, http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/pdd-62.htm.
129. Vershbow, interview with author, August 2017.
Chapter Six: A “Wartime” Staff
1. Peter Baker, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House (New York: Doubleday, 2013), 527–28.
2. James Traub, “W.’s World,” New York Times Magazine, January 14, 2001, 28.
3. “Exchanges Between the Candidates in the Third Presidential Debate,” New York Times, October 18, 2000, A26.
4. Bob Woodward, Bush At War (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002), 168.
5. Meghan O’Sullivan, interview with author, January 23, 2014.
6. Condoleezza Rice, interview with author, June 24, 2014.
7. Meghan O’Sullivan, interview with author, August 30, 2017.
8. George W. Bush, “Organization of the National Security Council System,” National Security Presidential Directive-1, February 13, 2001.
9. Jane Perlez, “Bush Team’s Counsel Is Divided on Foreign Policy,” New York Times, March 27, 2001.
10. Rice, interview with author, June 24, 2014.
11. Condoleezza Rice, No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years In Washington (New York: Crown Publishers, 2011), 14; Derek Chollet, “The National Security Council: Is It Effective, or Is It Broken?,” in Derek S. Reveron, Nikolas K. Gvosdev, and John A. Cloud, The Oxford Handbook of U.S. National Security (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018), 114.
12. Stephen Hadley, interview with author, September 6, 2013.
13. Rothkopf, Running the World, 421; Rice, No Higher Honor, 17.
14. Donald Rumsfeld, interview with author, April 9, 2014; and Donald Rumsfeld, Known and Unknown: A Memoir (New York: Sentinel, 2011), Kindle Edition, location 5647.
15. Cheney, interview with author, August 9, 2013.
16. Rice, interview with author, June 24, 2014.
17. Donald Rumsfeld to Condoleezza Rice, “Snowflake,” subject: “Chain of Command,” December 2, 2002, in The Rumsfeld Papers, http://papers.rumsfeld.com/library/.
18. O’Sullivan, interview with author, August 30, 2017.
19. Fred M. Kaplan, The Insurgents: David Petraeus and the Plot to Change the American Way of War (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2013), 76–77.
20. O’Sullivan interview with author, August 30, 2017; Meghan L. O’Sullivan, “Iraq: Time for a Modified Approach,” Brookings Institution Report, February 21, 2001, https://www.brookings.edu/research/iraq-time-for-a-modified-approach/.
21. Ibid.
22. Ibid.
23. Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor, The Endgame: The Inside Story of the Struggle for Iraq, From George W. Bush to Barack Obama (New York: Pantheon Books, 2012), 14–15; Baker, Days of Fire, 298; Kaplan, The Insurgents, 82.
24. O’Sullivan, interview with author, August 30, 2017.
25. Baker, Days of Fire, 251.
26. Elisabeth Bumiller, “Adviser Has President’s Ear as She Keeps Eyes on Iraq,” New York Times, June 12, 2006.
27. Rice, No Higher Honor, 242.
28. Ibid., 15.
29. David Sanger, “White House to Overhaul Iraq and Afghan Missions,” New York Times, October 6, 2003, A7; Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 28.
30. Baker, Days of Fire, 292; Bob Woodward, State of Denial (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006), 266.
31. In-Depth Topics, “Iraq,” Gallup, http://news.gallup.com/poll/1633/iraq.aspx.
32. Kaplan, The Insurgents, 3.
33. Bumiller, “Adviser Has President’s Ear as She Keeps Eyes on Iraq.”
34. Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 28.
35. The White House, “The Road to Freedom,” June 28, 2004. https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/infocus/elections/freedomessay/index.html#.
36. Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 28–29; Rumsfeld, interview with author, April 9, 2014.
37. O’Sullivan, second interview with author, February 10, 2014.
38. Glenn Kessler and Al Kamen, “Ex-Adviser Reportedly Hurt Embassy Aide; Kuwait Airport Incident Disputed,” Washington Post, November 12, 2004, A6.
39. Bumiller, “Adviser Has President’s Ear as She Keeps Eyes on Iraq.”
40. Ibid.; Bob Woodward, The War Within: A Secret White House History, 2006–2008 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008), 101.
41. Meghan O’Sullivan, interview with author, January 23, 2014.
42. Ibid.
43. MNF-I: “Campaign Plan: Operation Iraqi Freedom, from Occupation to Constitutional Elections,” August 5, 2004, 7–8, General George Casey Papers (GGCP), National Defense University Archives, declassified September 29, 2009; MNF-I Red Team: “Building Legitimacy and Confronting Insurgency in Iraq,” July 15, 2004, 1, 3, GGCP, declassified September 29, 2009.
44. MNF-I: “Campaign Plan: Operation Iraqi Freedom, From Occupation to Constitutional Elections,” August 5, 2004, 16, GGCP, declassified September 29, 2009.
45. Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 129.
46. Hadley, interview with author, September 6, 2013.
47. Hadley, interview with author, September 6, 2013; Feaver, interview with author, December 3, 2013.
48. Peter Feaver, interview with author, December 3, 2013.
49. Peter Feaver, interview with author, October 10, 2017.
50. Woodward, War Within, 12.
51. Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 182; MNF-I Campaign Action Plan for 2005—Transition to Self Reliance,” April 22, 2005, 2, GGCP, declassified September 29, 2009.
52. Francis J. West, The Strongest Tribe: War, Politics, and the Endgame In Iraq (New York: Random House, 2008), 108–9.
53. Woodward, War Within, 79.
54. Ibid.
55. George W. Bush, “Address to the Nation on the War on Terror from Fort Bragg, North Carolina,” June 28, 2005, The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=64989; Brett McGurk, interview with author, June 2, 2014; Philip Zelikow, interview with author, May 6, 2014.
56. Condoleezza Rice, “Opening Remarks before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,” State Department, October 19, 2005, http://2001-2009.state.gov/secretary/rm/2005/55303.htm; “News Briefing with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Gen. Peter Pace,” Defense Department, November 29, 2005, 1:20 p.m. EDT, http://archive.defense.gov/Transcripts/Transcript.aspx?TranscriptID=1492; Kaplan, The Insurgents, 195.
57. Kaplan, The Insurgents, 195.
58. Hadley, interview with author, September 6, 2013.
59. Ibid.
60. MNF-I: “Campaign Progress Review,” December 20, 2005, 1, GGCP, declassified September 29, 2009.
61. Edward Wong, “Turnout in the Iraqi Election Is Reported at 70 Percent,” New York Times, December 22, 2005.
62. Bush, Decision Points, Kindle Edition, Locations 6374–6375.
63. Casey, interview with author, April 21, 2014.
64. Baker, Days of Fire, 448.
65. Hadley, interview with author, September 6, 2013.
66. George W. Bush, “The President’s Radio Address,” March 18, 2006, online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=65416.
67. U.S. Mission Iraq and MNF-I: “Joint Campaign Plan, Operation Iraqi Freedom: Transition to Iraqi Self-Reliance,” April 28, 2006, 17, GGCP, declassified September 29, 2009; Woodward, The War Within, 5.
68. Feaver, interview with author, December 3, 2013.
69. O’Sullivan, interview with author, January 23, 2014.
70. George Packer, “The Lesson of Tal Afar,” The New Yorker, April 10, 2006.
71. CQ Transcripts, “President Bush Discusses the War in Iraq,” Washington Post, March 20, 2006, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/20/AR2006032000762.html.
72. Feaver, interview with author, December 3, 2013.
73. Peter D. Feaver, “The Right to be Right,” International Security, vol. 35, no. 4, Spring 2011, 101.
74. Baker, Days Of Fire, 466.
75. Ibid., 466–67.
76. Feaver, interview with author, December 3, 2013.
77. Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 287–88.
78. Ibid., 288; Woodward, The War Within, 61.
79. Hadley, interview with author, September 6, 2013.
80. Baker, Days of Fire, 474; Woodward, The War Within, 72–73.
81. Woodward, The War Within, 68–70.
82. Ibid., 72.
83. Ibid., 73.
84. Casey, interview with author, April 21, 2014.
85. Woodward, The War Within, 78.
86. Ibid., 94.
87. In-Depth Topics, “Iraq,” Gallup, http://news.gallup.com/poll/1633/iraq.aspx; “Presidential Approval Ratings—George W. Bush,” Gallup, http://news.gallup.com/poll/116500/presidential-approval-ratings-george-bush.aspx.
88. Crouch, interview with author, April 23, 2014; Rice, interview with author, June 24, 2014; Zelikow, interview with author, May 6, 2014.
89. Zelikow, interview with author, May 6, 2014; Woodward, The War Within, 235.
90. Feaver, “The Right to Be Right,” 102.
91. Baker, Days of Fire, 495.
92. Feaver, “The Right to Be Right,” 103.
93. Thomas E. Ricks. The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure In Iraq, 2006–2008 (New York: Penguin Press, 2009), 103.
94. Woodward, The War Within, 190–92.
95. Baker, Days of Fire, 487.
96. See chart, “Enemy-Initiated Attacks by Month, May 2003 to May 2008,” Figure 1, Government Accountability Office (GAO), “Securing, Stabilizing and Rebuilding Iraq,” GAO-08-837, June 2008, 12; Politics, “Bush transcript, part 3: Election loss a ‘thumping,’ ” CNN.com, November 8, 2006.
97. Baker, Days of Fire, 510–11.
98. Ibid., 510–11.
99. Feaver, “The Right to be Right,” 103.
100. Hadley, interview with author, September 6, 2013.
101. Woodward, The War Within, 240.
102. Kaplan, The Insurgents, 237.
103. Casey, interview with author, April 21, 2014; Woodward, The War Within, 232, 242; George W. Casey, Strategic Reflections: Operation Iraqi Freedom, July 2004–February 2007 (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 2012), 124.
104. Ricks, The Gamble, 93.
105. Woodward, The War Within, 249.
106. David E. Sanger, Confront and Conceal: Obama’s Secret Wars and Surprising Use of American Power (New York: Crown Publishers, 2012), 17; Associated Press, “A timeline of U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan since 2001,” Military Times, July 6, 2016, https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2016/07/06/a-timeline-of-u-s-troop-levels-in-afghanistan-since-2001/.
107. Woodward, The War Within, 266–67.
108. Baker, Days of Fire, 511.
109. Peter Baker, Michael A. Fletcher, and Michael Abramowitz, “ 25 Minutes in the Oval Office: President Bush on Iraq, Elections and Immigration,” Washington Post, December 20, 2006, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/19/AR2006121900886.html.
110. In-Depth Topics, “Iraq,” Gallup, http://news.gallup.com/poll/1633/iraq.aspx; Fred Barnes, “How Bush Decided on the Surge,” Weekly Standard, February 4, 2008.
111. Rice, No Higher Honor, 544–45; Baker, Days of Fire, 515; Gates, Duty, 37; Gordon and Trainor, The Endgame, 306–7.
112. Ricks, The Gamble, 105.
113. George W. Bush, “Background Briefing by Senior Administration Officials,” January 10, 2007, The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=60328.
114. Baker, Days of Fire, 524.
115. See chart, “Enemy-Initiated Attacks by Month, May 2003 to May 2008,” Figure 1, Government Accountability Office (GAO), “Securing, Stabilizing and Rebuilding Iraq,” GAO-08-837, June 2008, 12.
116. Background conversation; Jeff Zeleny, “Leading Democrat in Senate Tells Reporters, ‘This War Is Lost,’ ” New York Times, April 20, 2017.
117. Joint Hearing of U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs and Armed Services Committees, “Transcript of Iraq hearing statements,” CNN.com, September 10, 2007.
118. Doug Lute, interview with author, September 30, 2017.
119. Baker, Days of Fire, 520.
120. Hadley, interview with author, March 28, 2018.
121. Thomas E. Ricks, “Meghan O’Sullivan enthroned at Harvard,” Foreign Policy, September 2, 2009; Jack Kelly, “Managerial Incompetence and the ‘War Czar,’ ” Real Clear Politics, April 17, 2007; Bumiller, “Adviser Has President’s Ear as She Keeps Eyes on Iraq.”
122. CQ Press, 2005 Federal Staff Directory (Washington, DC: CQ Press, Fall 2005), 18–23.
123. Baker, Days of Fire, 541.
124. Martha Raddatz, “Bush Taps New ‘War Czar,’ ” ABC News, May 15, 2017.
125. Peter Baker and Thomas E. Ricks, “ 3 Generals Spurn the Position of War ‘Czar,’ ” Washington Post, April 11, 2007.
126. Robert Gates, Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2014), 67.
127. DeYoung, “Rice Favors ‘mean but lean’ National Security Council.”
128. Transcript, Hearing, U.S. Committee on Armed Services, June 7, 2007.
129. Gates, Duty, 67.
130. David Petraeus, interview with author, March 11, 2018.
131. O’Sullivan, interview with author, January 23, 2014.
Chapter Seven: “When You Work for the President, You Work for the President”
1. Bob Woodward, Obama’s Wars (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010), 322.
2. Doug Lute, interview with author, September 30, 2017.
3. Transcript, Hearing, U.S. Committee on Armed Services, June 7, 2007.
4. GovTrack, “On the Nomination PN599: Lt. Gen. Douglas E. Lute, in the Army, to be Lieutenant General,” 110th Congress, June 28, 2007.
5. Lute, interview with author, September 30, 2017.
6. Woodward, Obama’s War, 41.
7. Transcript, Hearing, U.S. Committee on Armed Services, June 7, 2007.
8. Woodward, War Within, 398.
9. Gates, Duty, 67.
10. Ibid.; Mullen, interview with author, December 20, 2017.
11. Sanger, Confront and Conceal, 17.
12. Tom Bowman, “U.S. Military Falls Short of Afghan Training Goal,” NPR, January 25, 2008.
13. Alan McLean and Archie Tse, “American Forces in Afghanistan and Iraq,” New York Times, June 22, 2011.
14. Cartwright, interview with author, October 23, 2017.
15. Frank Newport, “More Americans Now View Afghanistan War as a Mistake,” Gallup, February 19, 2014.
16. Ian S. Livingston and Michael O’Hanlon, “Afghanistan Index,” The Brookings Institution, March 31, 2016, 6.
17. Doug Lute, interview with author, September 30, 2017.
18. Woodward, Obama’s Wars, 43.
19. Ibid., 44.
20. Richard Skinner, “ 9/11 Improved Presidential Transitions,” October 10, 2016.
21. Jim Mann, The Obamians: The Struggle Inside the White House to Redefine American Power (New York: Viking, 2012), 79.
22. Barack Obama, “Transcript: Obama’s Speech Against The Iraq War,” NPR, January 20, 2009.
23. Barack Obama, Remarks: “A New Beginning,” DePaul University, Chicago, Illinois, October 2, 2007.
24. Rosie Gray, “Iraq War Hangs Over a Top White House Appointment,” Buzzfeed, January 25, 2013.
25. Barack Obama, “Press Release: Key Members of Obama-Biden National Security Team Announced,” December 1, 2008, online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=84936.
26. Todd Purdum, “Team of Mascots,” Vanity Fair, July 2012, https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2012/07/obama-cabinet-team-rivals-lincoln.
27. Mann, The Obamians, 9; Woodward, Obama’s Wars, 37.
28. Woodward, Obama’s Wars, 37.
29. Denis McDonough, interview with author, October 18, 2017.
30. James Jones, interview with author, October 18, 2017.
31. Ibid.
32. Ibid.; James Jones, “The 21st Century Interagency Process,” March 18, 2009; Ed Luce and Daniel Dombey, “US foreign policy: Waiting on a sun king,” Financial Times, March 30, 2010, http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/df53a396-3c2a-11df-b40c-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2NRt2UbkB.
33. Spencer S. Hsu, “Obama Integrates Security Councils, Adds New Offices,” Washington Post, May 27, 2009, http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2009-05-27/news/36814987_1_homeland-security-frank-j-cilluffo-national-security.
34. Jones, interview with author, October 18, 2017.
35. Jason Horowitz, “Politics and policy: Tom Donilon’s rise to national security adviser,” Washington Post, December 7, 2010, https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/politics-and-policy-tom-donilons-rise-to-national-security-adviser/2010/12/07/ABVBIjD_story_3.html.
36. McDonough, interview with author, October 18, 2017; Michael Crowley, “The Decider,” The New Republic, August 12, 2009.
37. Woodward, Obama’s Wars, 79.
38. Sanger, Confront and Conceal, 15.
39. Woodward, Obama’s Wars, 88.
40. Barack Obama, Speech: “The War We Need to Win,” August 1, 2007, The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
41. Woodward, Obama’s Wars, 90; Lute, interview with author, September 30, 2017.
42. Woodward, Obama’s Wars, 90, 99–100.
43. Barack Obama, “The War We Need to Win.”
44. Woodward, Obama’s Wars, 105.
45. Lute, interview with author, September 30, 2017; Woodward, Obama’s Wars, 95.
46. Woodward, Obama’s Wars, 95.
47. The White House Press Office, “Statement by the President on Afghanistan,” February 17, 2009.
48. Woodward, Obama’s Wars, 96.
49. Barack Obama, “Remarks by the President on a New Strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan,” The White House, March 27, 2009.
50. Lute, interview with author, September 30, 2017.
51. John Tien, interview with author, October 30, 2017.
52. Woodward, Obama’s Wars, 145.
53. Ibid., 146.
54. Lute, interview with author, March 9, 2018.
55. Woodward, Obama’s Wars, 118.
56. Ben Rhodes, The World As It Is: A Memoir of the Obama White House (New York: Random House, 2018), 77.
57. Jon Meacham, “Q&A: Obama on Dick Cheney, War and Star Trek,” Newsweek, May 15, 2009.
58. Tien, interview with author, October 30, 2017.
59. Press Conference: “Secretary Gates and Adm. Mullen on Leadership Changes in Afghanistan From the Pentagon,” US Defense Department, May 11, 2009.
60. “Hearing of The Senate Armed Services Committee,” June 2, 2009, https://votesmart.org/public-statement/429055/hearing-of-the-senate-armed-services-committee-nomination-of-admiral-james-stavridis-usn-for-reappointment-to-the-grade-of-admiral-and-to-be-commander-us-european-command-and-supreme-allied-commander-europe.
61. Bob Woodward, “Key in Afghanistan: Economy, Not Military,” Washington Post, July 1, 2009.
62. Woodward, Obama’s Wars, 183.
63. Gates, Duty, 350; multiple background interviews.
64. Gates, Duty, 368.
65. Ann Scott Tyson, “U.S. Commander in Afghanistan Calls Situation ‘Serious,’ ” Washington Post, September 1, 2009, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/31/AR2009083101100.html.
66. Commander, NATO International Security Assistance Force, Afghanistan, “Commander’s Initial Assessment,” August 30, 2009, 1–2.
67. Woodward, Obama’s Wars, 184.
68. Ibid., 160.
69. Ibid., 251.
70. Jon Meacham, “Q&A: Obama on Dick Cheney, War and Star Trek,” Newsweek, May 15, 2009.
71. Background interview.
72. Richard Holbrooke, “Gordon Goldstein’s ‘Lessons in Disaster,’ ” New York Times, November 27, 2008; and Woodward, Obama’s Wars, 97.
73. Gates, Duty, 385; Mullen, interview with author, December 20, 2017.
74. Woodward, Obama’s Wars, 244.
75. Mark Landler, Alter Egos: Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and the Twilight Struggle Over American Power (New York: Random House, 2016), 70.
76. Woodward, Obama’s Wars, 264.
77. Rajiv Chandrasekaran, “ ‘Little America’: Infighting on Obama team squandered chance for peace in Afghanistan,” Washington Post, June 24, 2012.
78. Background interview.
79. Woodward, Obama’s Wars, 281.
80. Landler, “The Afghan War and the Evolution of Obama.”
81. Woodward, Obama’s Wars, 277.
82. Ibid., 231.
83. Ibid., 331 and 335; Barack Obama, “Remarks by the President in Address to the Nation on the Way Forward in Afghanistan and Pakistan,” The White House, December 1, 2009, https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-address-nation-way-forward-afghanistan-and-pakistan.
84. Peter Baker, “How Obama Came to Plan for ‘Surge’ in Afghanistan,” New York Times, December 5, 2009.
85. Woodward, Obama’s Wars, 302.
86. Woodward, Obama’s Wars, 313.
87. Leaked copy of “Terms Sheet,” in Woodward, Obama’s Wars, 385.
88. Tien, interview with author, October 30, 2017.
89. Woodward, Obama’s Wars, 320–21.
90. Ibid., 311.
91. Gates, Duty, 383.
92. Ibid..
93. Mann, The Obamians, 68.
94. David Samuels, “The Aspiring Novelist Who Became Obama’s Foreign-Policy Guru,” New York Times Magazine, May 5, 2016.
95. Barack Obama, “Nobel Lecture,” Oslo, Norway, December 10, 2009, https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2009/obama-lecture_en.html.
96. Sheryl Gay Stolberg, “Obama Defends Strategy in Afghanistan,” New York Times, August 17, 2009.
97. Woodward, Obama’s Wars, 375.
98. Lute, interview with author, March 9, 2018.
99. Mullen, interview with author, December 20, 2017.
100. Gates, Duty, 385.
101. McDonough, interview with author, October 18, 2017; Gates, Duty, 500.
102. Gates, Duty, 482; Carrie Dann, “Hagel’s Predecessors Decried White House ‘Micromanaging,’ ” NBC News, November 24, 2014, https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/first-read/hagels-predecessors-decried-white-house-micromanaging-n255231.
103. Sanger, Confront and Conceal, 49.
104. Helene Cooper and Thom Shanker, “U.S. Redefines Afghan Success Before Conference,” New York Times, May 17, 2012.
105. Sanger, Confront and Conceal, 55.
106. Brian McKeon, interview with author, October 13, 2017.
107. US Representative Jackie Walorski, “House Approves Walorski Amendment to Restore Transparency to National Security Council,” press release, May 17, 2016, http://walorski.house.gov/house-approves-walorski-amendment-to-restore-transparency-to-national-security-council/; Karen DeYoung, “How the Obama White House Runs Foreign Policy,” Washington Post, August 4, 2015, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/how-the-obama-white-house-runs-foreign-policy/2015/08/04/2befb960-2fd7-11e5-8353-1215475949f4_story.html.
108. Vali Nasr, “The Inside Story of How the White House Let Diplomacy Fail in Afghanistan,” Foreign Policy, March 4, 2013.
109. McDonough, interview with author, October 18, 2017.
110. Landler, Alter Egos, xii.
111. Rice, interview with author, January 17, 2018.
112. Ibid.
113. Ibid.
114. Barack Obama, “Changing the Name of the National Security Staff to the National Security Council Staff,” Executive Order 13657, White House Press Office, February 10, 2014, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=104736.
115. Michael D. Shear, “Security Staff Getting Its Old Name Back,” New York Times, February 10, 2014, https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/11/us/politics/security-staff-getting-its-old-name-back.html.
116. Suzy George, “Fine-Tuning NSC Staff Processes and Procedures,” White House Blog, June 22, 2015, https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2015/06/22/fine-tuning-nsc-staff-processes-and-procedures.
117. Kathleen J. McInnis, “Fact Sheet: FY2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) DOD Reform Proposals,” Congressional Research Service, R44508, May 18, 2017, https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R44508.pdf.
118. David E. Sanger, Eric Schmitt, and Peter Baker, “Turmoil at the National Security Council, From the Top Down,” New York Times, February 12, 2017.
119. Comedian Sarah Silverman wrote, “Call 202-224-4751 My name is _______ I am from _____ I am an American citizen & I oppose Steve Bannon being confirmed 2 sit on our NSC,” and film director Judd Apatow tweeted, “Former Obama adviser calls Trump decision on Nat Sec panel ‘stone cold crazy.’ ” Sarah Silverman, @sarahksilverman, Twitter, February 10, 2017, https://twittercom/SarahKSilverman/status/830170694814011392; Judd Apatow, @juddapatow, Twitter, January 30, 2017, https://twitter.com/JuddApatow/status/826093268614180865.
120. Stephen Braun and Robert Burns, “Flynn, fired once by a president, now removed by another,” Associated Press, February 14, 2017.
121. Michael Shear, “Obama Warned Trump About Hiring Flynn, Officials Say,” New York Times, May 8, 2017.
122. NBC News, “Meet the Flynn Stones: Holdovers From Mike Flynn’s Brief Term as National Security Adviser,” March 10, 2017, https://www.nbcnews.com/card/meet-flynn-stones-holdovers-mike-flynn-s-reign-nsa-n731746.
123. Rosie Gray, “An NSC Staffer Is Forced Out Over a Controversial Memo,” The Atlantic, August 2, 2017.
124. H. R. McMaster, interview with author, June 25, 2018.
125. Ibid.; background interview.
126. McMaster, interview with author, June 25, 2018.
127. Spencer Ackerman, “White House Aide’s Plan to Stop Leaks: Spy on His Co-Workers,” The Daily Beast, May 13, 2018; Rosie Gray, “An NSC Staffer Is Forced Out Over a Controversial Memo,” The Atlantic, August 2, 2017.
128. McMaster, interview with author, June 25, 2018.
129. Donald Trump, @RealDonaldTrump, Twitter, March 1, 2013, https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/307568422789709824.
130. McMaster, interview with author, June 25, 2018.
131. Donald Trump, “Remarks by President Trump on the Strategy in Afghanistan and South Asia,” The White House, August 21, 2017, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-strategy-afghanistan-south-asia/.
132. McMaster, interview with author, June 25, 2018.
133. Eliana Johnson, Nahal Toosi, and Kenneth P. Vogel, “McMaster rolls back Flynn’s changes at NSC,” Politico, March 1, 2017; Karen DeYoung and Greg Jaffe, “McMaster ousts senior official on National Security Council,” Washington Post, July 27, 2017.
134. McMaster, interview with author, June 25, 2018.
135. National Security Strategy Archive, The Taylor Group, http://nssarchive.us/.
136. Eliana Johnson, “Trump dumped Abrams over his criticisms during the campaign, sources say.” Politico, February 10, 2017; Elliot Abrams, “The Trump National Security Strategy,” Blog Post, Council on Foreign Relations, December 26, 2017, https://www.cfr.org/blog/trump-national-security-strategy.
137. Greg Jaffe and Josh Dawsey, “Trump and McMaster have seemed anxious to part but so far remain together,” Washington Post, March 1, 2018.
138. Lena H. Sun, “Top White House official in charge of pandemic response exits abruptly,” Washington Post, May 10, 2018; and Eric Geller, “White House eliminates top cyber adviser post,” Politico, May 15, 2018.
139. Nahal Toosi, Bryan Bender, and Eliana Johnson, “Cabinet chiefs feel shut out of Bolton’s ‘efficient policy process,’ ” Politico, July 25, 2018; and Josh Rogin, “John Bolton’s new deputy is a hawk with sharp elbows, just like him,” Washington Post, April 23, 2018.
140. Mark Landler and Helene Cooper, “White House Wants Pentagon to Offer More Options on North Korea,” New York Times, February 1, 2018.
141. Donald Trump, @RealDonaldTrump, Twitter, September 26, 2017, https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/912836917296877569.
Epilogue: What the NSC’s Warriors Have Won
1. Michael Nelson, ed., Guide to the Presidency and Executive Branch (5th edition), vol. 1 (Thousand Oaks, CA: CQ Press, 2013), 1345.
2. Matthew Dickinson, “Is The Loneliest Job In the World Getting Lonelier?” Presidential Power Blog, August 16, 2014.
3. Rice, No Higher Honor, 14.
4. The Vows Column, “Richard Haass, Assistant to President, Weds Ms. Mercandetti, TV Producer,” New York Times, November 18, 1990, http://www.nytimes.com/1990/11/18/style/richard-haass-assistant-to-president-weds-ms-mercandetti-tv-producer.html.
5. Richard Haass Interview, Miller Center.
6. Ibid.
7. Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince, trans. Luigi Ricci (London: Grant Richards, 1903), 95.
8. Rhodes, The World As It Is, 200.
9. Eliot A. Cohen, “Civil-military relations,” Orbis 41, no. 2 (Spring 1997): 177.
10. Gates, Duty, 482.
11. David J. Rothkop, National Insecurity: American Leadership in an Age of Fear (New York: PublicAffairs, 2016); Walorski, “House Approves Walorski Amendment”; and DeYoung, “How the Obama White House Runs Foreign Policy.”
12. Donald Trump, @RealDonaldTrump, Twitter, July 14, 2018, https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1018072081676865536.
13. Anonymous, “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration,” New York Times, September 5, 2018.
14. Monmouth University Polling Institute, “Public Troubled by ‘Deep State’,” March 19, 2018, https://www.monmouth.edu/polling-institute/reports/monmouthpoll_us_031918/.
15. Allan Bloom, The Republic of Plato (New York: Basic Books, 1968), Book 2, 375a–d, 52–53.
Debts
1. Bruce Springsteen, Atlantic City, Nebraska, © September 30, 1982 by Columbia Records.
Notes on Sources
1. Kai Bird, The Good Spy: The Life and Death of Robert Ames (New York: Crown Publishers, 2014), Kindle Edition, location 640–45.