U.S. presidents can only make decisions based on the information they are receiving from people and from other sources that are available to them. Several presidents get the flow of data in different ways. This is particularly important because the events involved are far more important than the other presidents to do with. Iraq, North Korea, high gasoline prices, the competitive position against China, long-term deficits are all huge problems that must be solved in one way or another.
President Kennedy had an open door policy. It worked as his own chief of staff, a strategy center of the spokes, if you want. It 'been a great success. Unlike this President, Kennedy incisive questions, and followed with more incisive questions. JFK's decision-making skills developed very quickly. Not so on day one, but he was certainly at the top of his game from two years of his administration. Within a year, Kennedy learned not to trust the CIA or the military. Both organizations had failed Bay of Pigs in Cuba
When JFK took office, was presented with a plan of the CIA created during the Eisenhower administration to the ground 1,500 expatriate Cubans in Cuba to overthrow Fidel Castro. The CIA pushed hard floor, and the army stood out when it came time to talk. The disastrous invasion that took place in April 1961, four months after the inauguration of JFK was an awakening. To his dying day, JFK said: "I asked the wrong questions."
He said if he had to do in, he told the Joint Chiefs, "I will make this an operation American, forget 1500, the Cubans, let's do with our military. How many Marines we send to do this right?" The answer of the Joint Chiefs would have given was 250,000 Marines. JFK had known this would have immediately canceled the invasion. He told himself as the 1500 Cuban poorly trained can do the work that we would need 250 thousand Marines to do? The President has collected ten years of experience in those early months.
The next important tool that we can learn from JFK is the use of an executive committee (ExComm) in times of national crisis. When the Cuban Missile Crisis took place, JFK did not round up the usual suspects to respond to the crisis. He brought together the best minds he knew, put them in a room and let them deal with the crisis alone. Would periodically enter the room, find out what was going on, and leave again. He knew that people react differently when the president is in the room. Its presence completely tired of the conversation and advice that would come out of this meeting.
This brings us to President Bush. I do not know if you ever get the Oval Office or in a meeting with a session of the U.S. president. Let me tell you what it means. Everyone speaks in a voice sweet in his presence. It 'just whispers. Adult men who control corporations with hundreds of thousands of employees turn to mush in his presence. No matter who the president is, the reaction is always the same. And 'culture, we are taught to respect the office and the sanctity of the office. After all, this is the office that George Washington said, and Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, both the Roosevelt, Teddy and Franklin. Those thoughts and assets never leave your mind when you are in the room with the man, regardless of who he is.
Now let's look at President Bush. Contrary to the thoughts of some people this is not a dumb man. He has degrees from both Yale and Harvard Business. Much has been delivered to him in life, but he also knew how to play a hand good enough. He has to his detriment, in my opinion surrounded himself with arrogant, ideological, minds and one-dimensional, with limited growth potential.
Dick Cheney is brilliant. He is also arrogant, secretive, and ideological. Cheney wounded by this president does not grow its thinking over the past six years. The way they thought in the early 1990, is thinking the same way today. Privacy VP unlike opening it cost dear to the President of our need to safeguard the constitutional rights of citizens to privacy.
Donald Rumsfeld is the worst Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. Both McNamara and Rumsfeld seem to be almost identical in their arrogance. It 'sad to see Rumsfeld repeated the same pattern of arrogance that led McNamara to lead this country down the path of suicide during the Vietnam debacle. Rumsfeld's inability to entertain new ideas in Iraq is costing us dear. His arrogance of the generals who are charged with the responsibility of conducting the war is inexcusable, and the story does not deal with this kind man.
Now, what do you think happens when the president has people like Cheney and Rumsfeld around him? The problem is that all the others to speak with one voice low, afraid to say what they perceive is the truth to the President. It would be okay, except the President did not understand the game yet. He does not understand how to get the information they need to make good, sound decisions that work.
In his press conference today, the President said "I confident when General Casey (4-Star General Deputy Chief of Staff, U.S. Army, and Commander of the Multi-National Force-Iraq) tells me that on his mind . General Casey could never tell the President what's on his mind, and this is the problem with this whole administration. The President is not getting the information needed to tackle the problem whatever it is.
In the spoon to be fed the equivalent of ideological dogma, the President was in a position that JFK would say is unacceptable. Even Richard Nixon a very strong conservative thinker Daniel Patrick Moynihan had very liberal Harvard professor, right next to give the president the other side of the story. If Mr. Bush is to succeed in two more years of this presidency, has to start hearing the other side of the story. I do not have much hope that this will happen, and our biggest problem is that the quagmire in Iraq will continue until a new leader is elected with a mandate for change. Of course the ideologues say, we should have stayed the course. History will show them wrong.
Goodbye and Good Luck
Richard Stoyeck
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