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Richard E. Neustadt

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Richard Elliott Neustadt (June 26, 1919 – October 31, 2003) was an American political scientist specializing in the United States presidency. He also served as an adviser to several presidents. He was the author of the books Presidential Power and, with Harvey V. Fineberg, The Swine Flu Affair: Decision-Making on a Slippery Disease. Neustadt was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Elizabeth (Neufeld) and Richard Mitchells Neustadt, a progressive activist, and social worker. His family was Jews whose ancestors were from Central Europe. 

Neustadt received a BA in History from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1939 and an M.A. degree from Harvard University in 1941. After a short stint as an economist in the Office of Price Administration, he joined the US Navy in 1942. He was a supply officer in the Aleutian Islands; Oakland, California; and Washington. He then went into the Bureau of Budget (now known as the Office of Management and Budget) while working on his Harvard Ph.D., which he received in 1951.

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.

At Columbia, Neustadt wrote the book Presidential Power (1960; a revised edition titled Presidential Power and the Modern Presidents: The Politics of Leadership appeared in 1990), in which he examined the decision-making process at the highest levels of government. He argued that the President is rather weak in the US government; cannot effect significant change without the approval of Congress; and, in practice, must rely on a combination of personal persuasion, professional reputation "inside the Beltway," and public prestige to get things done.

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. During the 1960s, Neustadt continued to advise Kennedy and later Lyndon B. Johnson.

Neustadt was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1964 and the American Philosophical Society in 1967. 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. The book blamed the swine flu vaccine decision on CDC Director David Sencer, though Sencer's recommendations were appropriate, given the information available at the time.

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