Organizing the Presidency. Stephen Hess

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СКАЧАТЬ staff was more in the traditional mold. It did have more members from the corporate world than would have been found in a Democratic administration, but the business executives on Eisenhower’s staff seemed to have a more contemplative cast of mind than those in the Eisenhower cabinet.21

      Whereas the talents of the staffs under Roosevelt and Truman were to be found largely in their possession of highly sensitive political antennae, their overarching loyalty, or their creativity, the top echelon of Eisenhower’s staff was noted for its functional professionalism. James Hagerty was a professional press secretary; that had been his occupation since 1942. He had also been a reporter, which may have given him certain insights, but that was not his chief qualification: Truman chose his press secretaries directly from the ranks of working journalists, without notable success. Former general Wilton (Jerry) Persons, who headed Eisenhower’s congressional relations office, was a professional congressional lobbyist. That had been his role for the army during World War II. Special counsel Bernard Shanley was hired as a lawyer, not as a ghostwriter in mufti. The writing was to be done by Emmet Hughes of Time and Life magazines, in a sharp break with the past, when the distinction between policymaking and word production was left deliberately fuzzy. Besides relying on the statutory Council of Economic Advisers, Eisenhower added a personal economist, Gabriel Hauge, to the staff. Robert Montgomery, the actor-producer, was on call to advise the president on the use of television. The chairman of the Civil Service Commission was given the additional duty of advising the president on personnel management. And experts were eventually added in science, foreign economic policy, aviation policy, public works planning, agricultural surplus disposal, disarmament, and psychological warfare.

      A review of the organization of the White House under Eisenhower must begin with the assistant to the president, Sherman Adams. Eisenhower’s recollection of his chief aide differs in no respect from the way Adams appeared to those who served under him:

      From our first meeting in 1952 Sherman Adams seemed to me best described as laconic, businesslike, and puritanically honest. Never did he attempt to introduce humor into an official meeting. On the many occasions during our White House years when I called him on the telephone to ask a question, he never added a word to his “yes” or “no” if such an answer sufficed. It never occurred to him to say “Hello” when advised by his secretary that I wanted him on the phone or to add a “Good-bye” at the end of the call. For Sherman Adams this was neither bad manners nor pretense; he was busy. Absorbed in his work, he had no time to waste.22

      Eisenhower saw the function of his assistant, called the White House chief of staff in subsequent administrations, as that of being his personal “son of a bitch,” a role ably played for him by General Walter Bedell Smith during World War II, and he deliberately sought a person with the same talents to head his White House operation. After Adams was forced out in late 1958, having been accused of accepting favors from a Boston industrialist, his place was taken by Jerry Persons. A gentle, humorous southerner, Persons had chosen a career as conciliator, and he was not overly concerned with running a tight ship. He allowed more staff members direct access to the president and was less interested in scrutinizing the matters that were to be put before his boss. This change did not, however, notably affect the operations of the government. By this time staff members were proficient in their assignments, comfortable in their relations with each other, and part of a waning administration. It was the Adams style that set the tone of the Eisenhower White House.

      All activities except those relating to foreign relations came under Adams’s eye. These included appointments and scheduling, patronage and personnel, press, speechwriting, cabinet liaison, congressional relations, and special projects. A newly created staff secretariat (proposed in the Hoover Commission report, a well-thumbed document during the 1952–1953 transition) kept track of all pending presidential business and ensured the proper clearances on all papers that reached the Oval Office. A two-man operation within the secretariat prepared daily staff notes for the president, giving him advance notice of actions to be taken by the departments and agencies. Adams coordinated White House work through early morning staff meetings, generally three times a week. These sessions also were used for briefings by the CIA and preparation of suggested answers to questions that might be asked at presidential press conferences.

      Although there had been some formalized responsibility for lobbying Congress in the Truman White House, it had been essentially a closet operation. Lobbying without acknowledging that it was being done presumably was least offensive to the legislature’s sensibilities as a coequal branch of government. From Eisenhower’s point of view, however, the best reason to end this fiction was that he wanted staff positioned between himself and all those nattering members of Congress. Like many professional military men, he had a high regard for Congress, but not for its members.23 The six aides who served at some point in the White House congressional relations office had had considerable experience on Capitol Hill; one had been a member of the House of Representatives, and three had more substantial ties to the Democratic party than to the GOP. Given that the Democrats controlled Congress for three-fourths of the time Eisenhower was in office, these relationships were not without significance. The Republican congressional leadership was wooed through weekly meetings with the president for which the staff prepared detailed agendas. Eisenhower confessed that “these Legislative meetings were sometimes tiresome.”24 But in general the program fared well because of the president’s great popularity, his personal friendships with Democratic leaders Sam Rayburn and Lyndon Johnson, the skill of his staff, and mostly because he did not ask for a great deal. The White House conducted a major assault on Congress for a legislative objective only once or twice a year; the rest of the time the departments were on their own.

      Eisenhower regarded meetings with the White House press corps, like those with members of Congress, as a necessary though less than pleasant aspect of being president. He could not and would not manipulate them in the manner of Roosevelt, but they did not irritate him to the degree that they had Truman. If he could not point to his meetings with the reporters as a positive accomplishment, he did take some pride in having survived: “I was able to avoid causing the nation a serious setback through anything I said in many hours, over eight years, of intensive questioning.… It is far better to stumble or speak guardedly than to move ahead smoothly and risk imperiling the country.”25

      His press conferences averaged one every other week, down from once a week during the Truman presidency, although illness accounted for some of the decline.26 Hagerty’s press briefings doubled, however, with sessions each morning and afternoon. The press secretary also managed to coax greater mileage out of fewer presidential press conferences by releasing full transcripts within hours and by allowing them to be taped for radio and filmed for later use on television. Since Eisenhower did not grant personal interviews and since staff members generally referred reporters’ inquiries to Hagerty, the press secretary emerged for the first time as the principal spokesman for the government.

      The reputation for efficiency that the White House staff had under Adams’s direction was well earned, but the reputation for organizational rigidity was overstated by contemporary observers. There was a box on the chart for speechwriter, but other staff members, notably Gabriel Hauge and Bryce Harlow, were pressed into service from time to time. Maxwell Rabb, the cabinet secretary, also handled relations with Jewish and other minority groups. Frederic Morrow was the administrative officer for special projects as well as being deeply involved in civil rights (he was the first Black professional on a White House staff). Paul Carroll and Andrew Goodpaster, both military officers, successively headed the staff secretariat while also being responsible for the day-to-day liaison on national security affairs. Although such mixed assignments were exceptions, there was some flexibility in the system to take advantage of special talents.

      There was more organizational rigidity in the redesign of the White House foreign policy machinery. By 1956 the National Security Council staff consisted of twenty-eight members, of whom eleven were considered “think people.” Eisenhower was the first president to appoint a special assistant for national security affairs with responsibility for long-range planning. Day-to-day liaison with State and Defense, as has been noted, was СКАЧАТЬ