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This title examines the ways in which presidents make national security decisions, and explores how those processes evolve over time. William Newmann's case studies - augmented with interviews with Zbigniew Brzezinski, David Aaron, James Baker and Brent Scowcroft - reveal that, as their terms progress, presidents tend to rely on fewer advisors, use informal decision-making procedures and circumvent interagency channels. This evolution comes about because all presidents feel institutional and political pressures to centralize decision-making into the White House in an effort to gain more direct control over the setting of foreign policy, especially on crucial issues of national security. But the key to how well an administration actually makes and implements those decisions is a direct result of leadership style and the president's relationships with his senior advisors. Newmann thus merges both the governmental politics and presidential management models - often viewed as mutually exclusive - in order to demonstrate how both shape the fundamentally dynamic nature of presidential decision-making. His conclusions offer insights into how first-term administrations - especially post-Cold War, post-September 11 world - might more quickly develop smooth, orderly and deliberately flexible procedures for national security decision-making.