Against the President: Dissent and Decision-Making in the White House

"Historians have often analyzed the relationship between presidents and their advisers - but rarely the influence of those counselors who have dissented from the view of the chief executive. Mark J. White's innovative study considers the question of alternative policies by examining the response of presidents, from Harry Truman to Lyndon Johnson, to dissent within their own administrations on key foreign policy issues." "With a historian's insight, Mr. White explores the arguments of Harry Hopkins and Joseph Davies to Truman on the knotty postwar problem of Poland; of Henry Wallace on relations with Russia during the same administration; of Charles Wilson on the origins of the Vietnam War under Eisenhower; of Adlai Stevenson on Cuba during the Kennedy years; and of George Ball on Vietnam under Lyndon Johnson." "Altogether Mr. White fashions a provocative interpretation of America's role in the cold war and a number of questions about the potential effectiveness of policies that might have been. The relevance of his findings to today's situation in Iraq, and to the absence of dissent on official policy within the Bush administration, need scarcely be more apparent."--Jacket.