Advising the President: I

The President's Men.
by Patrick Anderson.
Doubleday. 420 pp. $6.95.

The President, as Richard Neustadt says in Presidential Power, faces “the classic problem of the man on top: how to be on top in fact as well as in name”—in a word, how to secure power for himself. For this he must have the help of some people who are absolutely his, whose only question is, “What does the boss want?”

The President, it is true, has at his disposal the vast executive establishment of the federal government, an unequaled repository of information and talent, headed by Presidentially-appointed leaders who in many instances are men of rare ability and undoubted loyalty. Yet these men also have obligations to their agencies, and if the President is not to become a prisoner of the bureaus, he must recognize that their counsel may be tainted with interest. The same may be true of gifted friends outside the government, whose association with him, moreover, the public tends to regard as somehow sinister. Besides, there are nitty-gritty jobs the President cannot assign to outsiders and upon which his effective control of events may depend, jobs which must be given to people who are willing to put their private lives on a contingent basis and do almost literally anything they are asked to do. Modern Presidents, beginning with FDR, have come to rely ever more heavily on the White House staff. Patrick Anderson describes this development by telling the individual stories of the “President's men” (two of whom were women) in the last five administrations. Although he does not provide any analysis of how the staffs functioned, Anderson's vignettes make perfectly clear that each President has chosen and used his men in his own distinctive way.

Franklin Roosevelt surrounded himself with aggressive, often brilliant, men whom he gave a loose rein and much authority (Harry Hopkins actually ran the emergency relief program and lend-lease). He encouraged competition among them, supported those who succeeded, and eased out the man who became a liability. Roosevelt understood and acted on the harsh principle that loyalty at the top is one way.

Not so Harry Truman, who carried personal loyalty to the point of self-destruction. Most of his men were small and vulgar rather than bad, but no amount of affection for their chief could compensate for their limitations. Truman had the virtues appropriate respectively to the political leader and to the private man, but he did not always know when to apply which. The man who could decide to bomb Hiroshima and sleep soundly that night could not bring himself to kick out the cronies who discredited his administration.

General Eisenhower was a chief-of-staff. He wanted tight organization and one-page briefs of problems with recommended solutions. Because he wanted help he got it, especially from Sherman Adams and Jim Hagerty, each an exceptional man with extraordinary freedom to act. Adams improved the Presidential performance and Hagerty made it appear better than it was.

_____________

All this is recent, but history just the same, and Anderson has provided a recapitulation, apparently taken from secondary sources. The last two administrations, on the other hand, are another and harder matter. Anderson is required to assess living, active men, some of whom may have more ahead of than behind them. The chapters on the Kennedy and Johnson terms, therefore, seem in many ways to be the least satisfactory, though perhaps the most interesting.

Anderson treats John F. Kennedy with respect but not adulation, and his insights are shrewd and provocative. Kennedy's staff, he makes clear, was not the “band of brothers” they were represented to be—indeed they were often suspicious and competitive to the point of hostility—but they shared a fierce loyalty to their chief. Among them they played a remarkable variety of complementary roles: Sorsensen, the alter ego; O'Brien, the virtuoso of political organization; O'Donnell, the sleepless guardian; Schlesinger, the authorized interpreter of the record.

My own judgment, admittedly not disinterested, is that the author would have done well to stop there, perhaps adding his glowing account of Bill Moyers (the longest in the book) as a postscript. He acknowledges the capacity of the other Johnson men, but is uneven in his assessment and treatment of them. Joe Califano, for example, is presented chiefly through a rather wooden case-history of the establishment of the Department of Transportation. And, of course, the stereotype of Lyndon Johnson is faithfully reproduced, bull-whip and all. But, in fairness to Anderson, it must be pointed out that this book was written while Johnson was still in the White House.

Thus, depending on how he conceives of his office and depending too on the requirements on his own personality, the President chooses his men: one staffer may be a distinguished person in his own right, another kept around because the Chief needs someone who truly loves him or can make him laugh. Those who win in the struggle to be close to the President inevitably reflect him; they have learned to think and work his way. They are part of the personal, not the institutional, President and so their power, which may be substantial, is derivative and transitory.

What do they do, these satellites who share on a provisional basis the excitement and power of the Presidency?

Among them, they ride herd on the agencies, trying to put the Presidential stamp on what is done. They screen legislative proposals from many sources, producing finally a Presidential program, then coach the “Presidential lobbyists” in the agencies who try to get the bills passed. They write speeches, live with the press, draft background papers, and do chores, some delicate and important, which the President does not want or have time to do. Their jobs may be neatly delegated by the President or assigned apparently by whim. One may advise the President on bombing Russian missile sites in Cuba; another may guard reserved chairs at a White House bill-signing. They are extensions of the President; they do his work.

_____________

In retrospect, the proliferation of a personal staff for the President in a vastly expanded government would seem to be an inevitable development; indeed, the same thing on a smaller scale has been going on in Congress since 1946. Needless to say, this development, like any other redistribution of power, has created problems. Many cabinet members—and lesser officers as well—have seen the special assistants as rivals with an inside track. They feel demeaned when they must deal with staff rather than the President. Because the President's men tend to be young, with little previous experience in large adventures, their policy-making competence also comes into question. (Bill Moyers quotes President Johnson as saying, “I'll get my advice from the older men and my action from the younger men.” But advice flows from action, and besides, the younger men screen much of the advice that gets to the President.) Beyond that, the White House provides a heady climate, shut off from the bruises of the world, for men who, unlike the President, have no constituents to please. Their opportunity to correct Presidential misapprehensions is perforce limited. Be that as it may, the President needs them and their tribe will increase.