A Brief Overview of the Foreign Policy Decision Making Team in the Reagan Administration

Abstract

This article describes the Reagan Administration and its key figures dealing with foreign policy, their personalities, interaction with each other, and impact on the overall foreignpolicy decision making. The Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, National Security Advisor, and Director of the Central Intelligence Agency played key roles in formulatingand implementing the foreign policy in the Reagan years. President Reagan entered the White House without a clear foreign policy strategy, but determined to move foreign policyadvising out of the White House and back to the State Department while at the same time keeping overall control of foreign policy decision making in the NSC.Keywords: Administration, foreign policy decision-making, Reagan, Shultz, Weinberger