Richard Neustadt

{{Infobox person

| name = Richard Neustadt

| image = Richard Neustadt.jpg

| caption = Neustadt in 2003

| birth_name = Richard Elliott Neustadt

| birth_date = {{birth date|1919|6|26}}

| birth_place = Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.

| death_date = {{death date and age|2003|10|31|1919|6|26}}

| death_place = London, United Kingdom

| other_names =

| education = {{ubl|University of California, Berkeley (BA)|Harvard University (MA, PhD)}}

| occupation = Political scientist, adviser, and professor

| spouse = {{ubl|{{marriage|Bertha Cummings||1984|reason=died}}|{{marriage|Shirley Williams|1987}}}}

| children = 2

}}

Richard Elliott Neustadt (June 26, 1919 – October 31, 2003) was an American political scientist specializing in the United States presidency. He served as adviser to several presidents. His book Presidential Power has been described as "one of the most influential books ever written about political leadership." Thinking In Time: The Uses Of History For Decision Makers won the Grawemeyer Award. His other books include Alliance Politics, Preparing to be President, and, with Harvey V. Fineberg, The Swine Flu Affair: Decision-Making on a Slippery Disease.

Early life

Neustadt was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Elizabeth (Neufeld) and Richard Mitchells Neustadt, who was a progressive activist and social worker.{{Cite web|url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/neustadt-richard-elliott-0|title=Neustadt, Richard Elliott | Encyclopedia.com|website=www.encyclopedia.com}} His family were Jews whose ancestors were from Central Europe.{{cite journal |last1=Edwards |first1=George C. |title=Richard E. Neustadt |journal=PS |date=January 2004 |volume=37 |issue=1 |pages=125–127 |doi=10.1017/S1049096504003889 |s2cid=154291153 |doi-access=free }}{{cite web|title=Richard Neustadt: US political scientist and expert on the power of the presidency|url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/2003/nov/03/guardianobituaries.obituaries|work=The Guardian|access-date=May 6, 2012|author-first=Godfrey |author-last=Hodgson|date=November 3, 2003}} Neustadt received a BA in History from the University of California, Berkeley in 1939, followed by an M.A. degree from Harvard University in 1941.{{cite news |title=Richard Elliott Neustadt |url=https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2005/10/richard-elliott-neustadt/ |access-date=23 March 2023 |work=Harvard Gazette |date=13 October 2005}} After a short stint as an economist in the Office of Price Administration, he joined the US Navy in 1942, where he was a supply officer in the Aleutian Islands; Oakland, California; and Washington. He then went into the Bureau of the Budget (now known as the Office of Management and Budget) while he was working on his Harvard Ph.D., which he received in 1951.{{cite web |title=Richard E. Neustadt Personal Papers |url=https://www.jfklibrary.org/asset-viewer/archives/RENPP |website=JFK Library |access-date=23 March 2023}}

Political career

File:Photograph of Charles Murphy, Special Counsel to the President, shaking hands with White House aide Richard Neustadt... - NARA - 200544.jpg

Neustadt was the special assistant of the White House Office from 1950 to 1953 under President Harry S. Truman. During the following year, he was a professor of public administration at Cornell and, from 1954 to 1964, taught government at Columbia University, where he received a Woodrow Wilson Foundation Award in 1961.{{cite journal |last1=Jones |first1=Charles O. |title=Richard E. Neustadt : Public Servant as Scholar |journal=Annual Review of Political Science |date=June 2003 |volume=6 |issue=1 |pages=1–22 |doi=10.1146/annurev.polisci.6.121901.085848 |language=en |issn=1094-2939|doi-access=free }}

It was at Columbia that Neustadt wrote the book Presidential Power: The Politics of Leadership{{cite news|title=Richard Neustadt, adviser to presidents, died on October 31st, aged 84|url=https://www.economist.com/node/2208298|newspaper=The Economist|access-date=May 6, 2012|agency=Associated Press|date=November 13, 2003}} (1960) in which he examined the decision-making process at the highest levels of government. He argued that the President is actually rather weak in the US government; is unable to effect significant change without the approval of the Congress; and in practice must rely on a combination of personal persuasion, professional reputation "inside the Beltway," and public prestige to get things done.{{cite journal |last1=Bailey |first1=Harry A. |title=Neustadt's Thesis Revisited: Toward the Two Faces of Presidential Power |journal=Presidential Studies Quarterly |date=1981 |volume=11 |issue=3 |pages=351–357 |jstor=27547714 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/27547714 |access-date=23 March 2023 |issn=0360-4918}}{{cite journal |last1=Hargrove |first1=Erwin C. |title=Presidential Power and Political Science |journal=Presidential Studies Quarterly |date=2001 |volume=31 |issue=2 |pages=245–261 |doi=10.1111/j.0360-4918.2001.00169.x |jstor=27552187 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/27552187 |issn=0360-4918|url-access=subscription }} A revised edition titled Presidential Power and the Modern Presidents: The Politics of Leadership from Roosevelt to Reagan appeared in 1990.{{cite web|title=Richard Neustadt US political scientist and expert on the power of the presidency|url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/2003/nov/03/guardianobituaries.obituaries|work=The Guardian|access-date=May 6, 2012|author-first=Godfrey |author-last=Hodgson|date=November 3, 2003}}

With his book appearing just before the election of John F. Kennedy, Neustadt soon found himself in demand by the president-elect, and began his advisory role with a 20-page memo suggesting things the President should and should not try to do at the beginning of his term. Neustadt was an official advisor to Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, and an unofficial advisor to Bill Clinton.{{cite web|title=Richard E. Neustadt, Historian, Dies at 84; Studied Power and Advised Three Presidents|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/03/us/richard-e-neustadt-historian-dies-84-studied-power-advised-three-presidents.html|work=The New York Times|access-date=May 6, 2012|author-first=Thomas J. |author-last=Lueck |date=November 3, 2003}}

A class that Neustadt taught on the presidency influenced Al Gore to change his major from English to politics and study with Neustadt.{{cite news |last1=Sullivan |first1=Patricia |title=Presidential Scholar, White House Adviser Richard Neustadt Dies |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/2003/11/03/presidential-scholar-white-house-adviser-richard-neustadt-dies/7f1502bd-7052-4fa7-8bb3-b9068c796b4e/ |access-date=23 March 2023 |newspaper=Washington Post |date=3 November 2003}}

Neustadt was a professor at Harvard Kennedy School at Harvard, where he taught as a popular professor for more than two decades and officially retired in 1989 but continued to teach there for years thereafter. Neustadt also served as the first director of the Harvard Institute of Politics (IOP),{{cite news |title=Richard Neustadt remembered as guiding force at KSG |url=https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2003/11/richard-neustadt-remembered-as-guiding-force-at-ksg/ |access-date=23 March 2023 |work=Harvard Gazette |date=November 6, 2003}} which was founded as "a living memorial to President John F. Kennedy that engages young people in politics and public service".{{cite book |title=Guardian of the presidency : the legacy of Richard E. Neustadt |date=2007 |publisher=Brookings Institution Press |location=Washington, D.C. |isbn=978-0815718420 |first=Ernest R. |last=May |chapter=Placing Richard E. Neustadt |editor-first1= Matthew J. |editor-last1= Dickinson |editor-first2= Elizabeth A. |editor-last2= Neustadt |pages = 1–13}} After his retirement, he served as chairman of the Presidential Debates Commission.{{cite web |title=CPD: Overview |url=https://www.debates.org/about-cpd/overview/ |website=www.debates.org |access-date=23 March 2023}}

Neustadt was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1964 and the American Philosophical Society in 1967.{{Cite web |title=Richard Elliott Neustadt |url=https://www.amacad.org/person/richard-elliott-neustadt |access-date=2022-09-23 |website=American Academy of Arts & Sciences |language=en}}{{Cite web |title=APS Member History |url=https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=Richard+Neustadt&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced |access-date=2022-09-23 |website=search.amphilsoc.org}}

Neustadt was a recipient of the 1988 University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award for Thinking In Time : The Uses Of History For Decision Makers and its ideas for improving world order, co-authored with Ernest R. May.{{cite news |title=2 Harvard Professors Get World Order Prize |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1988/06/29/us/2-harvard-professors-get-world-order-prize.html |access-date=23 March 2023 |work=The New York Times |date=29 June 1988}}

Neustadt was hired by the then-secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare Joseph A. Califano Jr. to write a book analyzing the decision making that led to the swine flu vaccine debacle in the mid-1970s. Neustadt's co-author, his graduate assistant Harvey V. Fineberg, said later that the book was written as a private document for Califano, who later insisted on publishing it as The Swine Flu Affair: Decision-Making on a Slippery Disease.{{cite book |last1=Neustadt |first1=Richard E. |last2=Fineberg |first2=Harvey V. |title=The Swine Flu Affair: Decision-Making on a Slippery Disease |date=1978 |publisher=National Academies Press |url=https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK219606/ |pmid=25032342 }} The book placed blame for the swine flu vaccine decision on the CDC Director David Sencer, though Sencer's recommendations were appropriate, given the information available at the time.{{cite book |last1=Lewis |first1=Michael |title=The Premonition: A Pandemic Story |date=2021 |publisher=W.W. Norton |isbn=978-0-393-88155-4 }}{{page needed|date=November 2021}}

Personal life

His first wife, Bertha Cummings "Bert" Neustadt, died in 1984. In 1987, he married the British politician Shirley Williams, who also served on the faculty at the Kennedy School of Government as Professor of Electoral Politics.

Neustadt died in London after complications from a fall. In addition to Shirley Williams, Neustadt left a daughter, Elizabeth, and a granddaughter. His son, Richard, predeceased him in 1995.{{cite news|last=Hodgson|first=Godfrey|title=Obituary: Richard Neustadt|url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/2003/nov/03/guardianobituaries.obituaries|work=The Guardian|location=London|date=November 3, 2003}}

Books

1960: Presidential Power: The Politics of Leadership
1990: [https://archive.org/details/presidentialpowe00neus Presidential Power and the Modern Presidents: The Politics of Leadership from Roosevelt to Reagan] ({{ISBN|0-02-922796-8}})
1970: Alliance Politics ({{ISBN|0-231-03066-5}})
1986: Thinking In Time : The Uses Of History For Decision Makers, co-authored with Ernest R. May ({{ISBN|0-02-922791-7}})
1999: Report to JFK: The Skybolt Crisis in Perspective ({{ISBN|0-8014-3622-2}})
2000: Preparing to be President: The Memos of Richard E. Neustadt, co-authored with Charles O. Jones, ({{ISBN|0-8447-4139-6}})

Media

Appearances as moderator

Cuban Missile Crisis Revisited. Produced for The Idea Channel by the Free to Choose Network, 1983.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2WIoHNl8eI Phase I (U1015)] (January 22, 1983)
Featuring McGeorge Bundy, Edwin Martin, Dean Rusk & Donald Wilson in Atlanta, Georgia.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eujqg4GDlog Phase II, Part I (U1016)] (June 27, 1983)
Featuring McGeorge Bundy, Robert S. McNamara, George W. Ball & U. Alexis Johnson in Washington D.C.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVHe2GQIu7c Phase II, Part II (U1017)] (June 27, 1983)
Featuring McGeorge Bundy, Robert S. McNamara, George W. Ball & U. Alexis Johnson in Washington D.C.
"The American President"
Provided commentary for the 2000 PBS film series: "The American President" produced by Kunhardt Productions. Written, produced and directed by Philip B. Kunhardt, Jr., Philip B. Kunhardt III, Peter W. Kunhardt in association with Thirteen/WNET-TV New York. Based on the book: "The American President" published by Riverhead Books. The ten program series explores the presidencies from George Washington to Bill Clinton.