Clemons and McBeth - MavDISK

46 PARTI . THEORY AND PRACTICE
conversation! had two weeks before with Averell Harriman. . . sadly, neither of us forced a de-
bate within the administration on that fundamental issue, and no such proposal was presented
to Hanoi. (p. 300)
Johnson was asking the right questions. But in his poker-playing fashion, he had held
back crucial knowledge the Wise Men needed to give fully informed answerS. . . they had.re-
ceived no Written materials. . . they did not receive Rear Admiral LaRocque's devastating re-
port that a military victory in Vietnam was highly unlikely. Nor did they see Dick Helms's
analysis that the risks of U.S. engagement were limited and controllable. And. to my
disappointment, the president did not disclose to them a memorandum lhad given him the day
before. (p. 306)
A major cause of the debacle there lay in our failure to establish an organization of top
civilian and military officials capable of directing the task. Over and over again, as my story
of the decision.making process makes shockingly clear, we failed to address fundamental is-
sues; our failure to identify them was not recognized; and deep-seated disagreements among
the president's advisers about how to proceed were neither surfaced nor resolved.
As I have suggested, this resulted in part from our failure to organize properly. No senior
person in Washington dealt solely with Vietnam. With the president, the secretaries of state and
defense, the national security adviser, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and their associates di-
viding their attention over a host of complex and demanding issnes,. some. of our shortcomings--
in particular, our failure to debate systematically the most fundamental issues-could have been
predicted. (p. 332)
Source: Robert S. McNamara, In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam. Copyright @}995
by Robert S. McNamara. Used by pennission of Times Books, a Division of Random House, Inc.
Rationality or Something Else?
We repeat our questions. Was the U.S. pursuit of the Vietnam War hurt by, or would it perhaps
have been helped by, the use of the rational model? Is it accurate to characterize decision making
at the highest levels of government during the Vietnam War as following the rational
model, or is it more accurate to claim that it was not used?
The story of decision making told by Robert McNamara reminds us not of the rational
model. but of the model of decision making best described in Richard Neustadt and Ernest
May's 1986 book, Thinking in Time. Neustadt and May argue that policymaking is predominantly
marked by the following characteristics, which are antithetical to the rational model:
I. Actors plunging toward action.
2. Decision making heavily based upon "fuzzy analogies."
3. The issue's past given inadequate attention.
4. Key presumptions not reexamined, or (sometimes) even examined.
S. People and organizations seen through the lenses of "stereotyped suppositions."
6. "Little or no effort" made to consider choices in the light of an "historical sequence."
(pp.31-33)
This sort of decision making-what one might call the all-too-human model, not the ra-
tional model-is what was exemplified by McNamara's history lesson. The common critique
is t1awed. There is plenty to fault with the decision-making process during the Vietnam era,
but upon examination we do not believe it can credibly be used to discredit the results derived
from using the rational model. Interestingly, the decisions sUITounding the Iraq war have been at-
tacked as flawed due to a perceived lack of rationality. The President, or his "neocon" advisors,
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CHAPTER 2 . THE
RATIONAL PUBUC POUCY METHOD 47
are attacked for abandoning realism in favor of a Wilsonian foreign policy; for ignoring intelligence
that did not fit their world view; for being unreasoning, unbending, and iITational.
Could rational decision making have prevented, or improved the results from, the war in Iraq?
Obviously even the question, let alone the answers, are subjective and value driven. In 2007
we learned that analyses predicted an insurgency and a long and bloody occupation that could
fuel teITorism. Yet, the Bush administration (publicly at least) argued in 2003 that American
involvement would be only a matter of months.
As the examples of Vietnam and Iraq suggest, policy advice should not be tainted by
political ideology. One of the major elements of the rational model is neutrality. While we
do not necessarily believe that somebody can be totally neutral, we do believe that it is important
that as an analyst you try to distance yourself from issues, and realize you own biases.
Do not look at data and cherry-pick facts that meet your policy preferences.
Oftentimes, your job will actually require you to try to keep your opinions and preferences
out of your reports.
But the core questions raised by the critics remain. Can rational decision making occur, and
if it can, would it help? Does the rational model offer any help in deciding public problems? The
mini-case that follows illustrates the potential usefulness of the rational model in practice.
The community of Portersville (a fictional name) is located in a rural area in an under-
.populated state and has a population of 500. The nearest cornmunity (population 3.500)
is located 60 miles away. Portersville had a.small health care clinic that was located in a decaying
old drug store on the community's only paved street. In the fall of 1993, the city's
buildil1ginspector closed the clinic after several bricks fell off the building's facade and onto
theside-walk.In addition, the building's roof was in disrepair and near collapse.
The health care.clinic provided primary care to the citizens of Portersville, and withollt
it citizens would have to travel 60 miles for basic immunizations, ankle sprains, flu
sYmptoms, and so forth. The city decided to pursue the building of a new health care
clinic. The decision-making process illustrated the usefulness of the rational model.
The community had received a grant for $10,000 to hire an urban architect to design
a bll;ilding for the clinic. The architect, unaware of rural realities, designed a spacious
4,100"square.foot building complete with the latest medical technology and a helicopter
pad. The design stilTed interest among the community's health care specialists and among
some citizens. The problem was that the architectural design was made without any analysis.
Word of the multi-million-dollar design quickly spread throughout the community.
The word around town was that the city leaders were trying to get the community to support
a multi-million-donar
could support.
clinic that neither the community's tax base nor patient base
City leaders feared the project was doomed. An outside university planner then entered
the picture and took the community through a rational planning process. First. a mail
sllrvey was sent to all residents, asking if they would support a new clinic, and, if so, under
what circumstances. Second, focus groups were conducted at a town meeting one
month after the survey mailing. From these two events, a problem was neatly defined,
(continued)