direction and according to the specifications of the United States government.  The government raised the discretionary function exception as a defense, and the decision that followed was the first detailed examination of the meaning of that exception by the Supreme Court.  The Court defined the discretion immunized by the exception as "the discretion of the executive or the administrator to act according to one's judgment of the best course."    346 U.S. at 34, 73 S.Ct. 967.  The Court held that the discretionary function exception protected not only the initiation of discretionary activities but also the decisions made about how to implement those activities, and that it "necessarily follows that acts of subordinates in carrying out the operations of government in accordance withsimilar approach.  The case was a tort suit by the victims of an airplane accident who alleged that the Federal Aviation Administration had been negligent in certifying the aircraft in which they flew.  The government argued that the act of certifying was discretionary within the meaning of the Federal Tort Claims Act, and the Court agreed.


53
The Court explained that one of the underlying rationales for the exception was to prevent "judicial intervention in policymaking" in the guise of adjudication of tort disputes, 467 U.S. at 820, 104 S.Ct. at 2768, and therefore, the Court concluded, analyses of the exception which focused upon the level of government decisionmaking involved were misguided.  Rather, it is "the nature of the conduct, rather than the status of the actor,