After coding every sentence in every article in selected issues of The New York Times on the formulation, implementation and denouement of spectacular foreign policy failures-e.g., Bay of Pigs, Iranian hostages-the author concludes that the press does not have an independent impact on foreign policy. In the early stages of an event it reports what the administration says and is uncritical. When a policy fails, it describes the failure. Although the method of the study is verbal bean counting, the author has feisty opinions about "stupid" policies.