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"The NSC, part star chamber, part gladiator arena, and part Game of Thrones drama is expertly revealed to us in the pages of Gans' primer on Washington power." -- Kurt Campbell, Chairman of the Asia Group, LLCSince its founding more than seventy years ago, the National Security Council has exerted more influence on the president's foreign policy decisions -- and on the nation's conflicts abroad -- than any other institution or individual. And yet, until the explosive Trump presidency, few Americans could even name a member."A must-read for anyone interested in how Washington really works" (Ivo H. Daalder) , White House Warriors finally reveals how the NSC evolved from a handful of administrative clerks to, as one recent commander-in-chief called them, the president's "personal band of warriors."When Congress originally created the National Security Council in 1947, it was intended to better coordinate foreign policy after World War II. Nearly an afterthought, a small administrative staff was established to help keep its papers moving. President Kennedy was, as John Gans documents, the first to make what became known as the NSC staff his own, selectively hiring bright young aides to do his bidding during the disastrous Bay of Pigs operation, the fraught Cuban Missile Crisis, and the deepening Vietnam War.Despite Kennedy's death and the tragic outcome of some of his decision, the NSC staff endured. President Richard Nixon handed the staff's reigns solely to Henry Kissinger, who, given his controlling instincts, micromanaged its work on Vietnam. In the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan's NSC was cast into turmoil by overreaching staff members who, led by Oliver North, nearly brought down a presidency in the Iran-Contra scandal. Later, when President George W. Bush's administration was bitterly divided by the Iraq War, his NSC staff stepped forward to write a plan for the Surge in Iraq.Juxtaposing extensive archival research with new interviews, Gans demonstrates that knowing the NSC staff's history and its war stories is the only way to truly understand American foreign policy. As this essential account builds to the swift removals of advisors General Michael Flynn and Steve Bannon in 2017, we see the staff's influence in President Donald Trump's still chaotic administration and come to understand the role it might play in its aftermath.A revelatory history written with riveting DC insider detail, White House Warriors traces the path that has led us to an era of American aggression abroad, debilitating fights within the government, and whispers about a deep state conspiring against the public. 8 pages of black and white photographs



About the Author

John Gans

John Gans is the Director of Communications and Research at Perry World House, the University of Pennsylvania's new global policy center. In addition to helping build Perry World House, Gans teaches graduate and undergraduate students on the international order, the politics and process of American foreign policy, and national security. He is a fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. Leveraging nearly 80 policymakers and more than 10,000 original documents from nine presidential libraries and archives, Gans wrote White House Warriors: How the National Security Council Transformed the American Way of War, out May 14, 2019 from Liveright a division of W.W. Norton. White House Warriors is a revelatory history written with riveting DC insider detail. Called "a must-read for anyone interested in how Washington really works," the book shows how the NSC Staff has evolved from a collection of administrative clerks to, as one recent commander-in-chief called them, the president's "personal band of warriors." Until 2017, Gans was the chief speechwriter to Secretary of Defense Ash Carter at the Pentagon. He served as the principal advisor to the secretary on planning, positioning, and preparation of remarks, managed a team of writers, and drafted dozens of speeches delivered around the world on defense policy, the Asia-Pacific, Europe, Russia, the Middle East, and more. In addition to leading the writing team at the Defense Department, Gans served in the Obama Administration as senior speechwriter for Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew.In the wake of the September 11th attacks, Gans served as a press liaison at Ground Zero in lower Manhattan where he helped brief the press on behalf of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) . The experience drove his interest in public service and national security. In the years since, Gans worked with Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, U.S. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, and more. He also joined the U.S. Navy reserve in 2010, and currently serves a lieutenant assigned to the Pentagon. Gans has a long affiliation with the Johns Hopkins University. He earned his MA (2009) and PhD (2014) from the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) , defended his dissertation on White House strategic decision-making during war with honors, and has taught in several of its graduate programs. Gans received his undergraduate degree from Northwestern University. He lives in Haddonfield, New Jersey with his wife, Anjuli Srivastava Gans, who is a pediatrician, and their two sons.



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