to them in the second edition of Essence of Decision, in connection with the "bureaucratic politics" perspective. One political theorist, James Blight, has analyzed the behavior of EXCOMM's members in the midst of the impending crisis with the Soviet Union. He suggests that the thought of war with the Soviet Union instilled a sense of fear in the committee members so that their deliberations became more productive as they reacted to this emotion. Blight argues that EXCOMM's focus of attention shifted: as the possibility of war with the Soviet Union became more probable, the committee members became less concerned with removing the missiles from Cuba and instead focused their energy on avoiding a nuclear war. Sociologist David Gibson has explored the EXCOMM's deliberations from a discourse-analytic, or conversation-analytic, perspective. He argues that inasmuch as Kennedy's decisions were shaped by the ExComm's deliberations, they hinged on the group not talking about the dangers that awaited around every corner—such as the danger that the U.S. would have to bomb operational nuclear missiles were the blockade to fail to force Khrushchev to remove the missiles. Membership National Security Council John F. Kennedy, President Lyndon B. Johnson, Vice President Dean Rusk, Secretary of State C. Douglas Dillon, Secretary of the Treasury Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense Robert F. Kennedy, Attorney General McGeorge Bundy, National Security Advisor John McCone, Director of Central Intelligence General Maxwell D. Taylor, U.S. Army, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Other members George Ball, Under Secretary of State Llewellyn Thompson, Ambassador to the Soviet Union Roswell Gilpatric, Deputy Secretary of Defense Dean Acheson, Former United States Secretary of State. Sent by President Kennedy to France to garner support from Charles de Gaulle for the U.S. during the Cuban Missile Crisis Advisers Central Intelligence Agency Ray S. Cline, head of the CIA's Directorate of Intelligence Arthur Lundahl, Director of the National Photographic Interpretation Center Department of Defense Paul Nitze, Assistant Secretary for International Security Affairs Office of Emergency Planning Edward A. McDermott, Director Department of State U. Alexis Johnson, Deputy Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Adlai Stevenson, Ambassador to the United Nations Edwin M. Martin, Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs Information Agency Donald Wilson White House Kenneth O'Donnell, Special Assistant to the President David Powers, Special Assistant to the President Theodore Sorensen, Special Counsel to the President Morgan Ferguson, Assistant Special Counsel to the President Bromley