Cases

The SEC and EDGAR

Publication Date: January 01, 1988

When the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission decided to try to improve the speed and spread of the new information about firms contained in SEC filings, he turned to a computer system. On one level, the Electronic Data Gathering,...

The Indian Ocean Negotiations

Publication Date: January 01, 1988

In June 1977, US and Soviet negotiators met in Moscow for the first round of talks on arms control in the Indian Ocean. Over the preceding decade, the growing political importance of that area had led both nations to establish a limited naval...

The Reykjavik Summit: Watershed or Washout?

Publication Date: January 01, 1988

On October 11 and 12, 1986, at Reykjavik, Iceland, Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev and US President Ronald Reagan met for the second time. The issues they intended to address--nuclear arms reductions, the future relationship of...

Lyndon Johnson and Czechoslovakia, 1968: Non-Intervention by Default?

Publication Date: January 01, 1988

The Soviet Union's 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia posed particularly awkward problems for the United States. The US had, since the Truman administration in 1949, been on record in support of governments resisting communist domination. The long...

Finding Black Parents: One Church, One Child (Epilogue)

Publication Date: January 01, 1988

In 1980, the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services faced a crisis. Over 700 black children in Cook County, including 69 infants, waited for adoption while the agency was unable to find black parents. Director Gregory L. Color, with...

Presidents as Sovereigns

Publication Date: January 01, 1988

This excerpt from Richard Neustadt's lecture "Presidents, Politics and Analysis" is written in the style of the Neustadt and May's "Thinking in Time" cases, with their emphasis on the use of historical analogy in considering policymaking. This...

Jean Ekins and the Family Learning Center (Epilogue)

Publication Date: January 01, 1988

During the 1978-79 school year, the state of Michigan turned down Jean Ekins' application for model-site designation of her Leslie, Michigan Family Learning Center. Ekins had started the program four years earlier within the Leslie public school...

Jean Ekins and the Family Learning Center (B)

Publication Date: January 01, 1988

During the 1978-79 school year, the state of Michigan turned down Jean Ekins' application for model-site designation of her Leslie, Michigan Family Learning Center. Ekins had started the program four years earlier within the Leslie public school...

Breaking the Bad News: Divad

Publication Date: January 01, 1988

Between 1977 and 1985, the US Army invested almost $2 billion in the Divisional Air Defense, better known as Divad. The Army believed this modified tank, jammed with expensive computers, radar, and other high-tech gear, would protect frontline...

US and South Africa: The Sanctions Debate of 1985

Publication Date: January 01, 1988

When a celebrated series of demonstrations and arrests outside the South African embassy puts US policy toward that nation on the front pages, Congress faces growing pressure to limit the US economic relationship with South Africa by imposing...

Senator McGrail and the Death Penalty

Publication Date: January 01, 1988

This very short case, less than a page, is the story of a young Massachusetts state senator who is faced with a dilemma about how to vote on then-Governor Frank Sargent's veto of a bill restoring capital punishment. Senator McGrail is against...

Rhodesia Becomes Zimbabwe (B): The Lancaster House Conference

Publication Date: January 01, 1988

This is Part B of a two-case sequence. HKS Case 816.0 is Part A: In September of 1977, the US and Britain announced a joint proposal for bringing majority rule and independence to Rhodesia, whose white minority government had for years been...