IS ACCESS INFLUENCE - MEASURING ADVISER-PRESIDENTIAL INTERACTIONS IN LIGHT OF THE IRANIAN HOSTAGE CRISIS

Access is not a well-defined, empirical concept in scholarly treatment s of relations between presidents and their closest advisers. This is unfortunate, because the advisory process is central to the exercise o f influence over decision making. Presidential access provides a means of controlling the flow of information to the chief executive, thereb y enhancing an adviser's ability to define problems, identify options, and persuade the president to accept specific courses of action. Asse ssing the concept of access in scientific terms, three aggregate measu res of access, based upon the occurrence, duration, and intimacy of ad viser-presidential interactions, are applied for heuristic purposes in a case study of the Iranian hostage crisis, in order to illuminate th e ways in which valid indicators of adviser-presidential relationships might be developed. Based on an original data base, the analysis demo nstrates the need for a more rigorous theoretical understanding of acc ess, the necessity of employing multiple indicators and proper control s in the study of interactions, and the advantages of employing time s eries approaches to examining the relationship between access and infl uence in drawing inferences about the sources of advisers' power over decisions in the realm of U.S. foreign policy.