Word: decisional
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
The old adage that men grow in office has not proved true in my experience. High office teaches decision making, not substance. It consumes intellectual capital; it does not create it. Most high officials leave office with the perceptions and insights with which they entered; they learn how to make...
The inclination of all Cabinet departments is to narrow the scope for presidential decision, not to expand it. They are organized to develop a preferred policy, not a range of choices. If forced to present options, the typical department will present two absurd alternatives as straw men bracketing its preferred...
A President cannot take away the curse of a controversial decision by hesitation in its execution. Use of military force must always be made with a prayerful concern for Bismarck's profound dictum: "Woe to the statesman whose reasons for entering a war do not appear so plausible at...
During fast-moving events, those at the center of decisions are overwhelmed by floods of reports compounded of conjecture, knowledge, hope and worry. Only rarely does a coherent picture emerge; in a sense coherence must be imposed on events by the decision maker, who seizes the challenge and turns it...
At 5:35 a.m., I phoned and awakened the President to tell him of Rabin's preliminary response. I urged him to defer a decision and to call a meeting of his senior advisers for 7:30 in the morning. But Nixon soon called back and said: "I have...