Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland
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Item China Policy and the National Security Council(1999-11-04) Daalder, Ivo; Destler, I.M.; CISSMOver the past three decades, no area of U.S. foreign policy has been more dramatic than the opening and development of relations with the People"s Republic of China. And on no policy subject has the National Security Council played a more central role. From Henry Kissinger"s secret journey to Beijing in July 1971 to Anthony Lake"s trip a quarter century later in the wake of military confrontation in the Taiwan Straits, the assistant to the president for national security affairs has personally played a leading role. All governments take it particularly seriously when the American president sends his personal aide to them on a negotiating mission. The Chinese government has particularly invited, and welcomed, such White House engagement in diplomacy. This pattern has created particular problems, however, for the secretary of state, the State Department, and the overall coordination of U.S. policy both toward China and toward relations with other countries that have strong stakes in how Washington and Beijing interact. With these policy and organizational concerns in mind, the Brookings Institution and the Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland convened this Oral History Roundtable bringing together officials from the National Security Council, the Department of State, and other government agencies to discuss how China policy was actually made over the past decades. We were delighted with the quality and range of policy players who were able to join in the discussion. When we learned that Ambassador Winston Lord a key policy participant over twenty-five years could not be present, we invited him to provide comments at appropriate points in the discussion. He did so, and these have been inserted and highlighted in the text. (We would refer readers also to Lord"s discussion of the China opening in our Oral History Roundtable on the Nixon administration.1) This is the fifth in a series of Oral History Roundtables carried out as part of the National Security Council Project, co-sponsored by the Brookings Institution and the Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland (CISSM). We are grateful to the participants who gave freely of their time and insights. We also wish to express our appreciation to Shakira Edwards, who served as the primary editor of the manuscript, to Josh Pollack, who helped organize the meeting and worked with the original transcript, and to Karla Nieting, who brought the project to completion. I.M. "Mac" Destler is a Senior Fellow at the Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland. Ivo Daalder is a Fellow at the Brookings Institution.Item The Bush Administration(1999-04-19) Daalder, Ivo; Destler, I.M.; CISSMThe Bush administration was home to a particularly collegial team of senior nationalsecurity policymakers. They had worked together in the Ford and Reagan administrations and held compatible views on both the substance of policy and how it should be made. And during the Bush administration they faced "a world transformed" (the apt title of the unique memoir co-authored by the president and his national security adviser). This roundtable examines the National Security Council process during the Bush administration, as seen through the eyes of officials a level or two below the principals. They were responding to substantial changes throughout the world: Tiananmen Square, the fall of the Berlin wall, the unification of Germany, the Gulf War, the breakup of the Soviet Union, and the disintegration of Yugoslavia. As they address specific questions about the policy process (reprinted as Appendix A), the participants in the roundtable recorded in this transcript tell the story of a National Security Council whose collegiality and substantive effectiveness extended to a number of key NSC and State Department officials (although not to some at the assistant secretary level). This is the third in a series of roundtables held by the National Security Council Project, co-sponsored by the Center for International and Security Studies at the Maryland School of Public Affairs and the Foreign Policy Studies program of the Brookings Institution. Transcripts of two previous roundtables on the Nixon NSC and the role of the NSC in international economic policymaking have been published. Three additional transcripts on the role of the national security adviser, the NSC and U.S. policy toward China, and on the NSC and arms control policy will be published in the near future. Other roundtables are planned for the fall of 2000. These have been conducted for their own independent value. They also will provide useful input to a report on the NSC we plan to publish in the fall of 2000 and a book to be published in 2001. We are grateful to the participants for coming and talking with candor and insight. We would also particularly like to thank Karla Nieting for help in organizing the roundtable and her work with the participants in bringing this edited version of the proceedings to publication. Responsibility for any remaining errors rests with us. I.M. "Mac" Destler is a Senior Fellow at the Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland. Ivo Daalder is a Fellow at the Brookings Institution.