Summary:
This case study covers the implementation of a national security policy during the administration of US President Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953-1961). Faced with, among other challenges, the prospect of open nuclear warfare with the Soviet Union, Eisenhower succeeded in advancing his strategy by ‘structuring circumstances’, fostering coalitions and treating the budget as a powerful lever of control. To implement the administration’s chosen strategy, senior officials relied upon a bespoke bureaucratic structure, one in which the President himself exercised outsized influence. This organisation allowed Eisenhower to maintain strict oversight of the way in which the administration’s national security policy was deliberated and implemented across the government—but especially within the Department of Defense.
