Every four years, John Burke, professor of political science, is a hot commodity as conferences and members of the media seek the opinion of the national expert on presidential transitions. In between these cycles, he's managed to crank out eight books, including his latest offering, Honest Broker: The National Security Advisor and Presidential Decision Making, that takes an in-depth look at the role of National Security Council (N.S.C.) adviser and its influence on the decision-making process of the president.

UVM TODAY: Given your previous research, I'm curious what it was that got you thinking about this topic.

JOHN BURKE: I've had a longtime interest in how people define their roles as public officials. My first book, Bureaucratic Responsibility, was more of a study of how officials should respond to ethical challenges. Another piece of it is that people who think about decision-making think a lot not just about presidents processing information, but about the environment they're in with their advisers. I've always been concerned with how advisers see their roles within a decision-making process. When I look at various parts of the presidency I like to use what I call "lenses of analysis." I don't think there's one best way to try to understand a presidency. I think you can understand one in many ways. It's like shining a flashlight on something. Sometimes the flashlight that I've used is the president themselves. Sometimes it's how the president relates to managing the larger White House staff. The flashlight I wanted to use here was to focus in on the national security adviser and ask, how does the way that person defines the job have an impact on the presidency?

When did the role of national security adviser change from providing the president with unbiased foreign policy advice as an "honest broker" to its various incarnations in recent years?

The National Security Council adviser is the president's chief, in-house source of coordination and substantive counsel on foreign policy and national security matters. But they are supposed to be more than just the source of policy advice. The person in that position needs to be concerned with the fair and balanced presentation of information to the president and those advising him. That hasn't always been the case. When Eisenhower created the position in 1953 it was pretty much a coordinator's position, not a source of policy advice. When McGeorge Bundy takes over under Kennedy you see a big change and the N.S.C. adviser is not only the person who heads up the staff of the N.S.C., but becomes a substantive policy adviser to the president, and then in some cases like with Kissinger, becomes the most important source of advice to the president. It really varies from then on in terms of how important this person is and what particular jobs the person takes on. The Reagan case is especially interesting because you've got one president and six N.S.C. advisers throughout his eight years who define their roles quite differently. You get people like Admiral Poindexter, who gave us the whole Iran-contra scandal, so it's sort of what the president wants and what the national security adviser thinks the role should be. Most are either academics like Kissinger and Brzezinski and those who came from a military background like Colin Powell, Brent Scowcroft and the current General Jones. There's a third clump who don't fit into either of those categories neatly, but are sort of foreign policy wise men. All of them have some involvement in terms of Washington policy making.

What do you think about Obama's N.S.C. adviser, General James Jones?

He's very low key. It was months before he went on any Sunday talk shows. There had been a couple of pieces in major media asking whether he's strong enough to be N.S.C. adviser. What I don't know at this point is whether he's really being an honest broker. He doesn't appear to be putting his thumb on the policy scale the way a Kissinger or Brzezinski did, and that's not a bad thing; that's the argument of the book. You can give your policy advice, but be very careful in doing so because you're part of a broader system, and that broader system of advising is also as important to a president. So I'm sort of unsure if he's being a good neutral broker or if he's maybe a little weaker than he should be.

You've studied documents and tapes that most people never see. Are you ever shocked by what you find and how decisions were made at the presidential level for some of this country's most significant events?

Yes. I was struck with the Kennedy case in going through the Bay of Pigs decision and then especially with the Cuban missile crisis. One is always held up as the disaster and the other is, "Thank god these were sane men and it all worked out." The quality of the Kennedy tapes vary, but we've got a particularly rich reconstruction of what these guys were discussing; and it's very interesting because it would strike you as "they lucked out," because they were all over the place. I mean this was not a sort of neat process, but was really a group of people kind of winging it. Eventually they, thank god, came to a good decision. But it's not what you would think of a group deliberative process.

What are some of the key events in U.S. history that the N.S.C. adviser has directly affected?

Well, had McGeorge Bundy been more of an honest broker, Kennedy might have avoided the Bay of Pigs. Another example is that if Admiral Poindexter had not been N.S.C. adviser it's very unlikely that Iran-contra would have developed. That almost brought down Reagan's presidency. Had Reagan's fingerprints been more on that, Reagan would have been impeached. I think the other question is had Condoleezza Rice been more assertive in challenging the case for war against Iraq, would Colin Powell have found an ally that might have made president Bush be a little more cautious? Had she been more of an honest broker would she perhaps have raised more questions about what the post-war reconstruction was going to look like? I actually think that was the more serious error, because they just didn't look at it in terms of time, money, resources and strategy.

I see that you're using Honest Broker in your "National Security Policy Making" course. Do students know much about the position of National Security Council adviser?

I'll give you one simple test that I give to my students. I ask them how many of them know who Henry Kissinger is; and of course every student raises their hand. My next question is, "Tell me the name of Richard Nixon's Secretary of State." I think I've had one person ever raise their hand. Do you know? (I answer no). There are two answers. One is Kissinger himself, but that occurs later. The other is a guy named William Rodgers, who had been Eisenhower's attorney general. The reason for that is that Kissinger dominated foreign policy like no one else.

In chapter six ("Costs of Failed Brokerage: Rice as NSC Advisor?") you talk about how Condoleezza Rice and President Bush initially embraced the honest broker role, but that it turned into something else. What happened?

It was clear that Condoleezza Rice was an important source of council to President Bush, but more of a private council. The problem with Condoleezza Rice was that there was a lot of dysfunction within the organization's national decision making; mainly that you had people like Cheney and Rumsfeld kind of running the formal system. While Rice was a good source of council, she was not effective at her level in handling Cheney or Rumsfeld the way a national security adviser should. Nor was she effective in making lower down work effective, whereas in the argument in the book, when Scowcroft was N.S.C. adviser for George Bush, Sr. he too provided council for the president, but he was also very effective in dealing with the other principles (advisers). And they were a tough group. I mean you had Jim Baker as secretary of state and Cheney as secretary of defense, yet he (Scowcroft) handled it well. That's why the honest broker has to be concerned with how that broader system is working effectively.

Hear John Burke deliver his University Scholar seminar, "Reflections on the Obama Transition," on Wednesday, Sept. 23 at 4 p.m. in Memorial Lounge, Waterman Building.