The Psychological Assessment of Political Leadersto intelligence consumers throughout the government. This transi-
tion led to the establishment of the Center for the Analysis of Per-
sonality and Political Behavior (CAPPB), an interdisciplinary behav-
ioral science unit with lead analysts at the doctoral level trained in
cultural anthropology, political sociology, political science with a
specialty in leadership studies, history, organizational, social, and
clinical psychology, and psychiatry.^2 A senior advisory panel of
nationally prominent political psychologists representing diverse
disciplines was recruited.
To ensure that studies of personality and political behavior were
designed in a manner that would be optimally useful to senior con-
sumers, the lead analysts worked closely with the senior panel to
develop an intellectual framework for the studies. For senior con-
sumers—in particular the president, secretary of state, secretary of
defense—there was an intense interest in understanding "what made
this leader tick?" These senior consumers well understood that poli-
tics is people. They wanted to learn about the life experiences that
had shaped the leader's attitudes, the issues of particular concern. For
this purpose, the psychobiographic analysis that was a major compo-
nent of the clinical case study to mental illness was adapted to focus
not on the early life experience that led to vulnerability to mental ill-
ness but rather on the key events that shaped a future leader. More-
over, one of the purposes of assessing the individual in the context of
his or her past history is that the individual's past responses under
similar circumstances are, other things being equal, the best basis for
predictions of future behavior.
But the qualitative data necessary to develop a detailed psychobi-
ography often were not initially available, particularly with what
came to be known as "pop-up" leaders, that is, leaders who suddenly
emerged as the consequence of a coup d'etat or other dramatic event
whose actions required an immediate response. Sometimes for such
leaders the only data available were speeches or a press conference.
Here the sophisticated content-analytic methodologies of members
of the senior panel proved of inestimable value in providing the first
approximation of leader personality and mental maps. At times these
techniques were employed prospectively to avoid a predictable sur-
prise. An interesting example was provided by a comparative analy-
sis conducted by Margaret Hermann (198ob) of possible successors