The Structures of National Security Decision Making in the Carter Years
Decision making for national security is not a static process. Presidents adjust their decision making
structures from time to time when they perceive that the standard interagency procedures no longer serve
their political purposes. The Carter administration began with a standard National Security Council-based
interagency process. Decision making then evolved in the following manner: participation in the decision
unit was narrowed, ad-hoc and informal procedures played a greater and greater role in the process, and the
standard interagency process was bypassed or streamlined. Ultimately, Carter used three structures to make
decisions: a formal structure (the standard interagency process); an informal structure, in which the senior
advisers meet with and without the president on a regular basis outside the interagency process; and a
confidence structure, in which the president relies on one or two select advisers. Carter’s ultimate reliance on
his confidence structure, to the detriment of a fully functioning formal and informal structure, accounts for
much of the problems with his policy process.
Carter had a moderately centralized formal structure. Carter clearly wanted to place himself at the
apex of decision making. However, Carter’s natural inclination was toward micromanagement.1 His deep
involvement in the decision process often left him acting as if his title were Assistant Secretary of State for
the World. Two committees supported the National Security Council (NSC): a Policy Review Committee
(PRC), chaired by the cabinet secretary whose department had the most direct implementation
responsibility; and the Standing Coordination Committee (SCC), chaired by the NSC Staff Director
National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski and dealing with crisis management and most issues that
were judged to be interdepartmental. Below the PRC were a number of Interagency Groups (IGs) and
subordinate to the SCC were a number of Working Groups (WGs) on specific issues. 2 Brzezinski’s role
as manager of the process expanded into policy making as his value as a personal adviser to Carter
became more important. Rivalry between Brzezinski and the NSC staff and Secretary of State Cyrus
Vance and the state department developed into a key element of the administration.3
2
The Carter administration’s informal processes developed by March of 1977.4 The
Vance/Brown/Brzezinski (VBB) group consisted of lunchtime meetings during which Vance, Secretary of
Defense Harold Brown, and Brzezinski could discuss pending issues outside of the NSC, PRC, or SCC,
allowing the principal policy makers to speak their minds more freely and to present unified positions
within the formal committees.5 The Friday Foreign Policy Breakfast (FFPB) allowed for the same type of
dialogue among a slightly larger group that would, importantly, add the president. Initially, the FFPB
meetings included Carter, Vice President Walter Mondale, Vance, and Brzezinski. They eventually
expanded to include Brown, special assistant to the president Hamilton Jordan, and other White House
political assistants.6
Carter ultimately came to favor his confidence structure by the fall of 1978. Bureaucratic and
philosophical disagreements between Vance and Brzezinski became a feud in 1978 and 1979.7 Continued
aggression by the Soviet Union in the Horn of Africa and Afghanistan led to Carter’s growing reliance on
Brzezinski.8 Vance saw his relevance decrease to a low point in April of 1980.9 The administration made
the decision to rescue the U.S. hostages in Iran while Vance was out of Washington, bypassing the formal
and informal structures. Vance resigned soon after and was replaced by Senator Edmund Muskie, of
Maine.10
Once Carter had given Brzezinski his full confidence, the formal and informal structures were
weakened to the point where they no longer functioned properly. Muskie and Brzezinski were soon
feuding.11 Brzezinski would no accept any rivals and Carter’s reliance on Brzezinski made foreign policy
decision making heavily weighted toward the White House and the National Security Council staff.
3
1
James Fallows, “The Passionless Presidency,” The Atlantic Monthly 243, no. 5 (May 1979): 33-48; Alexander
Moens, Foreign Policy Under Carter (Boulder: Westview Press, 1990); and CyrusVance, Interview with Cyrus
Vance, "Carter's Foreign Policy: The Source of the Problem," in Kenneth Thompson, ed., The Carter Presidency,
(Lanham: University Press of America, 1990), 139-43
2
This structure was outlined in Carter Administration, Presidential Directive/NSC-2 (PD-2) The National Security
Council System, 20 January 1977, Federation of American Scientists, www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/pd/pd02.pdf . Details
on the operation of this structure can be found in Bonafede, Dom. "Brzezinzki: Stepping Out of His Backstage
Role," National Journal 9, no. 24 (October 15, 1977), 1596-1601
3
Bonafede, Dom. "Brzezinzki: Stepping Out of His Backstage Role," 1596- 1601; Lawrence Korb, “National
Security Organization and Process in the Carter Administration,” in Sam Sarkesian, ed., Defense Policy and the
Presidency: Carter's First Years (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1979), 115-119; Jerel Rosati, The Carter
Administration's Quest for Global Community (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1987), 182;
Cyrus Vance, Hard Choices (New York: Simon and Shuster, 1983), 36; and Zbigniew Brzezinski, Power and
Principle (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1983), 59-60.
4
Carter states that he initiated the FFPB, while Brzezinski created the VBB lunches. Jimmy Carter, Keeping Faith
(New York: Bantam, 1982), 54; and Brzezinksi, Power and Principle, 70).
5
Vance, Hard Choices, 39, Brzezinski, Power and Principle, 1983, 70; and Gerry Argyris Andrianopolous,
Kissinger and Brzezinski (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991), 143.
6
7
Brzezinski, Power and Principle, 1983, 68.
A good general treatment of the Vance-Brzezinski clash is Jean A. Garrison, Games Advisers Play: Foreign policy
in the Nixon and Carter Administrations (College Station: Texas A&M Press, 1999). See also Gaddis Smith,
Morality, Reason, and Power (New York: Hill and Wang, 1986), 34-49; and John Dumbrell, The Carter Presidency
(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1993), 110-14. The press had a major role in exacerbating this
competition by focusing on the rivalry in their reporting. See Marilyn Berger, "Vance and Brzezinski: Peaceful
Coexistence or Guerilla Warfare," New York Times Magazine, February 13, 1977, 19-41; Robert Kaiser,
"Brzezinski, Vance Are Watched for Hint of Policy Struggle," The Washington Post, March 28, 1977, A2; Anthony
4
Lake, "Carter's Foreign Policy: Success Abroad; Failure at Home: Interview with Anthony Lake," in Thompson, ed.,
The Carter Presidency, 149-50.
8
Brzezinski’s rise is detailed in Vance, Hard Choices, 35; Smith, Morality, Reason, and Power; Moens, Foreign
Policy Under Carter, 21-24 and 51-54; Bonafede, "Brzezinski--Stepping Out of His Backstage Role", 1596; Richard
Burt, "Zbig Makes It Big," New York Times Magazine, July 30, 1978, 8-28; and Carter, Keeping Faith, 56.
9
On Vance’s efforts to maintain his status within the administration see Dick Kirschten, "Beyond the Vance-
Brzezinski Clash Lurks an NSC Under Fire," National Journal 12, no. 20 (May 17, 1980), 814; Hodding Carter,
"How Jimmy Carter's Foreign Policy Bit the Dust," Washington Post, January 5, 1981, A17; Vance, Hard Choices,
38-39; and Interview with Cyrus Vance, “The Carter Years: The Source of the Problem,” in Thompson, ed., The
Carter Presidency, 141.
10
Following Vance’s resignation Brzezinski sent Carter a memo suggesting that Vance and the state department
were the sources of the administration’s problems. He also stated that although he and Muskie would not have any
of those problems, the State Department was still filled with Vance’s appointees who did not have sufficient loyalty
to the White House. See Zbigniew Brzezinski, “Memorandum for the President, Subject: Unity and the New Foreign
Policy Team,” Box 23, Subject Files Four-Year Goals (4/77) through Meetings – Muskie/Brown/Brzezinski: 7/80 –
9/80, Folder: meetings – Muskie/Brown/Brzezinski: 5/80-6/80.
11
Reportedly, Muskie and Brzezinski moved from friendship to rivalry. Leslie Gelb, “Muskie and Brzezinski: The
Struggle over Foreign Policy,” The New York Times Magazine, July 20, 1980, 26-27, 32, 34-5, and 38-40.