Oral History Roundtable, The NSC Project, April 29, 1999

Moderated by Ivo H. Daalder, Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy Studies, and I. M. Destler, Director, Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland, and Visiting Fellow, Institute for International Economics

Read the introduction to this transcript below, see more information on the participants, or download the entire transcript (PDF: 315 kb).

Ivo H. Daalder Introduction
The Bush administration was home to a particularly collegial team of senior national security 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).

I. M. Destler 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.

Ivo H. Daalder
Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution
CISSM Research Director (1991-99)		 I. M. Destler
Professor, Maryland School of Public Affairs
CISSM Director (1992-99)





© Copyright 1999, The Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland (CISSM)

Note: The views expressed in this piece are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the staff, officers or trustees of the Brookings Institution.