In This Review

National Interests and Presidential Leadership: The Setting of Priorities
National Interests and Presidential Leadership: The Setting of Priorities
By Donald E. Nuechterlein
Westview Press, 1978, 246 pp

Without going so far as to claim that "national interests" are whatever leaders say they are, Nuechterlein realizes that definitions must be sought more in action than in theory. By analyzing specific cases from Wilson to Carter he develops a matrix of intensity (survival, vital, major, and peripheral) and type (defense, economic, world order, and ideological). A clarifying exercise.

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