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A single phone call between the President and a foreign leader can reshape global events. It might prevent war, forge critical alliances, or accidentally trigger international crises.
Behind every presidential call lies a set of people and processes dedicated to one purpose: ensuring the President is the most prepared person in the conversation.
Preparation involves the National Security Council, America’s foreign policy nerve center, marshaling expertise from across government to brief the President. From initial intelligence gathering through final rehearsals to post-call implementation, it represents one of government’s more sophisticated decision-making processes.
The Engine Room: The National Security Council
At the heart of presidential call preparation sits the National Security Council. Rather than a single entity, the NSC is a complex system of people, committees, and processes designed to provide coherent, well-vetted advice on international relations.
Mission and Mandate
The NSC emerged from World War II’s lessons and the Cold War’s dawn. Before its creation, Presidents relied on informal, ad-hoc arrangements to coordinate foreign and military policy. The global scale of modern conflict and America’s superpower status revealed this approach’s dangerous inadequacy.
The National Security Act of 1947 established the NSC as a permanent body to address these challenges. Its core statutory function remains unchanged: advising the President on “integration of domestic, foreign, and military policies relating to the national security.”
This mandate is crucial. The NSC’s purpose isn’t merely managing foreign policy but coordinating all American power instruments—diplomatic, military, economic, and intelligence—so they work together rather than at cross-purposes. Over time, “national security” has expanded to include economic security, health security, and environmental security, reflecting modern global threats’ interconnected nature.
The Key Players
The NSC is a formal meeting chaired by the President. Its composition is legally defined to include the highest-ranking national security officials.
Statutory members are the President, Vice President, Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, Secretary of Treasury, and Secretary of Energy. These individuals represent core diplomatic, military, and economic pillars of U.S. power.
Two statutory advisors serve the council: the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the principal military advisor, and the Director of National Intelligence, the principal intelligence advisor. Their advisory role is distinct from membership—they provide impartial military and intelligence assessments rather than advocating particular policy outcomes.
The system is flexible. Each President tailors it to their priorities. Other senior officials are regularly invited when their expertise is relevant, including the Attorney General, White House Chief of Staff, Homeland Security Advisor, and officials like the Special Presidential Envoy for Climate. This demonstrates how administration policy priorities are reflected in who gets a seat at the table.
The National Security Advisor: Conductor of the Orchestra
The single most influential figure in day-to-day national security functioning is the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, commonly known as the National Security Advisor. Appointed directly by the President without Senate confirmation, the advisor serves as primary process manager, personal counselor to the President, and director of the National Security Staff—experts drawn from across government.
The entire NSC system’s structure and functioning directly reflect the incumbent President’s personal management style. History shows clear fluctuation patterns. President Eisenhower, a former general, created highly hierarchical, formal systems with elaborate committees. President Kennedy, preferring informal, dynamic processes, dismantled this machinery and relied on ad-hoc groups centered on his advisor, McGeorge Bundy.
President Nixon and his powerful advisor Henry Kissinger centralized foreign policy-making in the White House to unprecedented degrees, often bypassing State and Defense Departments. This demonstrates that the “NSC process” isn’t fixed but a tool each President customizes.
This flexibility creates central tension defining the advisor’s role: choosing between being an “honest broker” or “policy advocate.”
The “Honest Broker” Model: Exemplified by Brent Scowcroft, who served two presidents, this model casts the advisor as neutral process manager. The “honest broker” ensures Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, and other principals’ views are fairly, accurately presented to the President, allowing choice from a full range of well-vetted options.
The “Policy Advocate” Model: Embodied by figures like Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski, this model sees the advisor as primary policy source and powerful strategist who actively shapes and drives the President’s agenda.
This choice directly impacts presidential call preparation. An “honest broker” process produces briefing books reflecting option ranges and potential disagreements. An “advocate” process might produce books steering the President toward pre-determined conclusions.
A key source of the advisor’s power is physical proximity. With an office steps from the Oval Office, the advisor has constant presidential access—an advantage no Cabinet secretary can match, making them indispensable during crises.
The Interagency Process: A Symphony of Expertise
Before any policy option reaches the President, it must pass through rigorous, multi-layered committee systems known as the “interagency process.” This hierarchical structure is a deliberate filtering mechanism ensuring the President’s time is spent only on the most critical, well-vetted issues, and that advice represents consensus—or at least clearly defined disagreements—from across government.
From the Ground Up: Policy Committees
The process begins at working levels in Interagency Policy Committees (IPCs) or Policy Coordination Committees (PCCs). These committees are policy formation bedrock.
Chaired by senior NSC staff directors, IPCs bring together relevant subject-matter experts from across government, typically at Assistant Secretary levels. For example, an IPC preparing for calls with Chinese leaders would include the Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs, Treasury Department officials from International Affairs, and CIA and DIA intelligence analysts.
This is where initial detailed work happens: gathering facts, conducting analysis, and drafting first versions of policy papers outlining situations, U.S. objectives, and option ranges.
The Deputies Committee: The Crucible of Policy
Once IPCs develop policy papers, they “bubble up” to the Deputies Committee (DC). Chaired by the Deputy National Security Advisor, the DC comprises second-ranking officials from key national security departments—Deputy Secretaries of State, Defense, Treasury, and others.
The DC is the main interagency process engine and primary crisis management forum. It meets frequently, sometimes daily during crises, to rigorously vet policy options from IPCs.
The DC’s crucial function is resolving as many interagency disputes as possible. While the goal is unified U.S. policy, the process is inherently competitive. The State Department, as lead foreign affairs agency, may favor diplomatic approaches, while Defense may advocate military ones. The DC is the formal arena where these institutional interests collide and are debated.
Its job is forging competing perspectives into coherent option sets, clarifying consensus points and disagreements before issues are elevated to Cabinet levels.
The Principals Committee: The Final Review
Issues that cannot be resolved at Deputies levels, or those of such high importance requiring Cabinet-level attention from the outset, are taken up by the Principals Committee (PC). Chaired by the National Security Advisor, the PC comprises cabinet secretaries themselves: Secretaries of State, Defense, Treasury, and others as needed.
The PC is the final deliberative body before issues are presented to the President. It reviews options papers refined by the DC, hears final arguments from key Cabinet members, and formulates final recommendation sets for the President.
For particularly urgent or sensitive matters, smaller “small group” meetings may be convened to limit participants and reduce leak risks.
This entire hierarchical structure ensures that by the time issues are ready for presidential decisions—and subsequent calls to foreign leaders—they have been through dozens of hours of debate and refinement, representing distilled, stress-tested judgment of the entire national security apparatus.
| Committee | Chair | Typical Attendees | Primary Function |
|---|---|---|---|
| Interagency Policy Committee (IPC) | Senior NSC Staffer | Assistant Secretary-level officials from relevant agencies | Day-to-day management of specific regional or functional issues; initial policy development |
| Deputies Committee (DC) | Deputy National Security Advisor | Deputy Secretaries of State, Defense, Treasury, etc. | Vets policy options, manages crises, resolves interagency disputes, prepares issues for Principals |
| Principals Committee (PC) | National Security Advisor | Secretaries of State, Defense, Treasury, Energy, etc. | Final Cabinet-level review of policy options and recommendations for the President |
| National Security Council (NSC) | The President | Statutory Members (President, VP, Secretaries) & Advisors | The President’s principal forum for final consideration and decision-making on national security matters |
For the President’s Eyes Only: Crafting the Briefing Book
The interagency process culminates in creating a briefing book specifically for the President’s call. This book is the physical embodiment of massive bureaucratic efforts designed to arm him for the conversation. It’s a synthesized, highly classified document providing all necessary information, intelligence, and strategy in one place.
The Foundation: Intelligence and the PDB
The baseline knowledge for any presidential engagement is the steady intelligence stream flowing to the White House daily. The pinnacle is the President’s Daily Brief (PDB), a top-secret document produced each morning by the Director of National Intelligence.
The PDB is an all-source summary of the most critical intelligence and analysis from across the entire Intelligence Community, including the CIA, NSA, and DIA. Presented to Presidents since 1946 in some form, it has evolved to meet each commander-in-chief’s preferences, transitioning from print to secure tablets at President Obama’s request.
The PDB ensures that when the President begins preparing for specific calls, he’s already deeply informed about global contexts, other countries’ recent activities, and any imminent threats or opportunities.
“Lines to Take”: Scripting the Conversation
The briefing book’s core is the set of talking points, often called “lines to take.” These aren’t merely suggestions—they’re meticulously crafted scripts developed by NSC staff in close coordination with State Department and other relevant agencies.
Every word and phrase is chosen with strategic intent. The goal is eliminating surprises and controlling narratives as much as possible. High-stakes diplomacy is rarely spontaneous. As one account notes, “Nothing either side says in these types of calls is candid or spontaneous… There are no surprises, ever.”
The talking points achieve several objectives simultaneously:
Reinforce Common Ground: Reaffirming shared interests and cooperation areas to build rapport.
State Positions Clearly: Articulating U.S. policy on contentious issues with precision to avoid misinterpretation.
Make Specific “Asks”: Clearly requesting specific actions or commitments from foreign leaders.
Provide “If/Then” Formulations: Offering the President pre-approved responses to likely questions or statements from counterparts.
Declassified talking points from past administrations show this structure clearly, with sections dedicated to reassuring allies on NATO commitments or stressing U.S.-Japan security relationship importance.
Knowing the Counterpart: Psychological Profiles
One of the most valuable briefing book components is the foreign leader’s psychological profile. Often prepared by the CIA’s Center for Analysis of Personality and Political Behavior, these documents, sometimes called “visit pieces,” go beyond policy analysis to give the President strategic edges in diplomacy’s human dimension.
These profiles are succinct but deeply revealing studies of leaders’ personalities, decision-making styles, ambitions, fears, and vulnerabilities. They can identify leaders’ “Achilles’ heel,” such as Fidel Castro’s “egoism,” or core self-perceptions, like Anwar Sadat’s view of himself as a “grand strategist” willing to make bold moves.
History shows these profiles’ impact. President Kennedy reportedly became “hooked” on them after reading the CIA’s assessment of Nikita Khrushchev before their tense 1961 Vienna summit. President Carter considered profiles of Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat vital to his success brokering the Camp David Accords, stating he wouldn’t change a word after spending 13 days with them.
By understanding the person on the other end of the line, the President can better tailor arguments, anticipate reactions, and build personal rapport necessary for successful diplomacy.
War-Gaming the Dialogue
The final written preparation element involves NSC staff mapping out potential conversation pathways. This is strategic foresight exercise, creating decision trees and contingency plans for the President.
Staffers anticipate likely questions, potential demands, and unexpected topics foreign leaders might raise. They then work with the interagency to develop and vet appropriate responses for each scenario.
This “war-gaming” ensures the President isn’t caught off guard and has pre-approved “off-ramps” or responses for almost any conversation turn, further reducing chances of unscripted and potentially damaging exchanges.
The Final Rehearsal: From Briefing to “Murder Board”
With briefing books complete, preparation enters its final, intensive phase. This stage focuses on moving strategy from page to the President’s mind, ensuring he has not just read material but fully internalized it and is psychologically ready for the encounter.
The Verbal Briefing: Internalizing Strategy
In hours leading up to calls, the National Security Advisor and other key aides conduct final verbal briefings with the President. This is dynamic, interactive sessions where the President asks probing questions, challenges briefing material assumptions, and tests proposed talking points logic.
Firsthand accounts from senior officials provide windows into this process. Condoleezza Rice’s oral history reveals that President George W. Bush was an “audio learner” who preferred conversational briefings to dense memos. He would test not only recommendations’ logic but also briefers’ “visceral connectedness” to their conclusions.
Similarly, Susan Rice noted that President Obama expected “unvarnished” advice during daily briefings, even when news was unpleasant.
This final briefing is where the President makes strategy his own, deciding which arguments resonate and how he’ll deliver them in his voice.
Stress-Testing the President: The “Murder Board”
For the most critical, high-stakes engagements, preparation can include a “murder board.” The term, originating in the U.S. military, describes intense, adversarial review sessions designed to find every possible weakness in plans or presentations before they go live.
In political contexts, it’s used for everything from preparing presidential candidates for debates to readying nominees for grueling Senate confirmation hearings.
In preparation for calls with foreign leaders, murder boards involve senior aides role-playing conversations. One or more officials, often those with deepest expertise on foreign leaders and their countries, play counterpart parts. Their job is being as difficult and challenging as possible—poking holes in the President’s arguments, making unexpected demands, and asking the toughest, most uncomfortable questions imaginable.
The goal is subjecting the President to high-stress simulations, conditioning him for actual event pressure. It’s psychological preparation as much as policy rehearsal. By “killing” proposals in private settings, teams ensure they’ll survive real encounters.
These sessions expose any weak points in U.S. positions and allow teams to refine the President’s responses, building confidence and ensuring emotional and intellectual readiness for calls.
Making the Call: Inside the Oval Office and Situation Room
When scheduled call times arrive, carefully choreographed procedures unfold. Physical settings, personnel involved, and conversation recording methods are all part of standardized processes designed for security, accuracy, and efficiency.
The Setting: Who’s in the Room
Most presidential calls with foreign leaders take place in the Oval Office or White House Situation Room. The President isn’t alone. Small, select groups of closest advisors typically include the National Security Advisor and may also include the White House Chief of Staff, Deputy NSA, or specific NSC senior directors responsible for relevant countries or regions.
Their purpose isn’t speaking but listening intently, passing notes to the President if necessary, and observing conversation nuances to aid post-call analysis and follow-up.
The Listeners: The Unseen Audience
Simultaneously, deep in the West Wing basement, another team works in the White House Situation Room. This secure complex is the nerve center for monitoring global events and managing crises.
During presidential calls, two or three Situation Room duty officers and NSC staffers are patched into secure lines. Their sole function is creating detailed conversation records.
According to former Situation Room senior director Larry Pfeiffer, these staffers are “typing furiously on their computers, trying to capture every single word and nuance of the conversation.” This task is challenging because presidential calls typically aren’t audio-recorded—written transcripts produced by note-takers become the sole official event records.
Creating the Record: The Memorandum of Telephone Conversation
Immediately after calls conclude, official record creation begins. Multiple note-takers from the Situation Room convene to compare individual transcripts. They work together to reconcile differences and produce single, unified drafts.
Drafts are then sent to relevant NSC senior directors—the same officials who led briefing book preparation. These directors review transcripts, using deep subject-matter expertise to correct potential errors in terminology, names, or policy nuances.
Directors also make final decisions on document formats, which can be either verbatim transcripts or more concise conversation summaries. Finalized documents are known as Memorandums of Telephone Conversation, or “telcons.”
This multi-step process means final “transcripts” aren’t simple, objective recordings but carefully constructed documents shaped by involved officials’ interpretations and expertise, with significant implications for how calls are understood by the rest of government.
The Aftermath: From Words to Action
Presidential calls aren’t process ends but beginnings of new policy implementation phases. Agreements reached, messages sent, and commitments made during conversations must be translated into concrete action by vast government bureaucracies.
Dissemination and Follow-Up
Once telcons are finalized, they’re securely distributed to limited numbers of senior officials on need-to-know bases. This typically includes principals involved in preparation and agency heads responsible for follow-up actions.
Document security and distribution are taken very seriously. After leaks of some President Trump calls with foreign leaders, the White House severely restricted telcon access, moving them to highly classified computer systems to “lock down” information. This highlights that telcons aren’t just policy records but politically sensitive documents whose unauthorized disclosure can have significant consequences.
NSC staff then take leads in monitoring implementation of any decisions made during calls. They create “action items” and formally task relevant departments and agencies to carry them out, ensuring the President’s words are translated into government policy.
Driving Policy and Shaping Diplomacy
Calls serve as catalysts for entire foreign policy apparatus. If the President promised new aid packages, State Department and USAID are tasked with developing them. If he agreed to new military-to-military talks, Defense Department is directed to organize them. If trade issues were discussed, U.S. Trade Representative and Commerce and Treasury Departments are instructed to act.
Conversations at the highest levels set agendas and provide political impetus for bureaucracy to move.
Telcons themselves become vital historical documents. They provide authoritative records of U.S. commitments and inform strategies for all future interactions with those countries.
This entire cycle—from initial interagency meetings to post-call implementation—powerfully demonstrates presidential leadership. By centralizing preparation and follow-up for high-stakes diplomacy within White House-led NSC processes, the President ensures that the full weight and capacity of U.S. government are aligned with and responsive to his personal direction on the world stage.
The process is the ultimate instrument for wielding presidential power in foreign affairs, transforming individual conversations into coordinated government action that can reshape international relationships and global events.
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