The President and his inner circle: leadership style and the advisory process in foreign affairs

Few would argue that presidential policies and performance would have been the same regardless of whether John F.

Kennedy or Richard Nixon became president in 1960, or if Jimmy Carter instead of Ronald Reagan had won the White House in 1980.

Clearly, who the president is and what he is like matters, and in recent elections, "character" has become an increasingly decisive factor.;This book, a new approach to the study of the personal presidency, links the characteristics of six modern American presidents - their personalities and prior policy experience - to their leadership styles, advisory arrangements, and decision making in the White House.

Using M.G. Hermann's Personality Assessment-at-a-Distance (PAD) profiling technique as well as exhaustive archival research and interviews with former advisers, the author develops a leadership style typology.

He then compares his model's expectations against the actual policy record, using six foreign policy episodes: Korea in 1950 for Truman, Dien Bien Phu in 1954 for Eisenhower, Cuba in 1962 for Kennedy, Vietnam in 1967-68 for Johnson, The Gulf War in 1990-91 for Bush, and North Korea/Haiti/Bosnia in 1994-95 for Clinton.