International Economic Policymaking and the National Security Council

From its inception, the National Security Council has addressed economic issues: two of its first four meetings, held in 1947, focused on exports to the USSR. But while trade and finance have been key components of U.S. foreign policy, they also have had substantial impact on citizen welfare at home. This impact has increased with the growing internationalization of the U.S. economy. Hence, from the early 1970s, NSC jurisdiction over international economic matters has been challenged by individuals and institutions concerned with domestic economic policy. In the Clinton administration, this was manifested by the creation of the National Economic Council paralleling the NSC, and by the coordination of international economic policy through a combined staff reporting to the national security adviser and the national economic adviser.

This roundtable traces the evolving pattern through the testimony of sixteen senior participants, including the specific individuals who played the leading White House international economic policy coordination roles in every administration from Kennedy to Clinton. The story they tell reflects the peculiarities of particular Presidencies, but also the broader trend: of the NSC being pressed to share jurisdiction with, or yield it to, institutions responsible for managing domestic economic policy. It also highlights the expansion of policy staffs in both spheres, and how this seems to have complicated, rather than facilitated, the policy coordination task.

Never, we believe, has such an experienced group been gathered in one room to discuss, on the record, the way the United States government has managed foreign economic policymaking over the past four decades. They were asked to address a series of questions about the policy process, reprinted here in Appendix A. And they were invited to do so in rough historical sequence, so the discussion begins with the highly informal Kennedy staff and moves forward through the years to the much more structured processes that followed from Nixon onward. We believe that it will be of substantial interest to policy practitioners and scholars, whether their interest is foreign policy, economic policy, or presidential governance generally.

This is the second 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. The first, already published, is on the Nixon NSC: others already convened and now being edited cover the Bush administration, the role of the National Security Adviser, and US policy toward China. These have been conducted for their own independent value, and as input to the book on the NSC we plan to publish in the fall of 2000.

We are grateful to the participants for coming and talking with candor and insight. We would also like to thank Karla Nieting for help in organizing the roundtable, and above all Holly Plank for her work with the participants in bringing this edited version of the proceedings to publication. Responsibility for any remaining errors rests with us.

Just as this transcript was going to press, we learned of the death of Julius Katz, outspoken participant in our discussion and a constructive force in U.S. international economic policy over almost half a century. From his work in the postwar State Department to his service as Deputy U.S. Trade Representative under George Bush and his active voice in the policy debates of the nineties, "Jules" combined substantive expertise with stubborn outspokenness and a deep commitment to the public good. He cannot be replaced. He will be missed.