Book Reviews : The Power Structure: Political Process in American Society. By ARNOLD M. RosE. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967. Pp. xxiv, 506. $8.50 cloth, $2.95 paper. )

• Author: Frank T. Colon
• DOI: 10.1177/106591296702000426
• Published date: 01 December 1967
• Date: 01 December 1967
• Subject Matter: Articles

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open communications than in the past. He would not go so far as Gerald Pomper
or even Theodore H. White in viewing the convention as largely a reflection of popu-
lar pressures as expressed in polls and surveys, a view downgrading traditional or-
ganizational factors.
Specific points discussed include the Budget Bureau’s role in improving mod-
ern administration, presidential-congressional constituency differences, and the Pres-
ident’s relations with the Vice President, his cabinet and aides. The author ap-
parently deprecates President Kennedy’s view of the cabinet which the late chief
executive usually consulted individually rather than as a group. A description of
presidential policy in the 1962 steel crisis as a failure of leadership is at odds with
other interpretations, for example that of Neustadt who felt the late President made
skillful use of public relations and informal influence where he really lacked formal
powers, hardly a leadership failure.
Public relations factors, White House decision-making and the President’s need
of a sense for power to be successful are mentioned....