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This file contains:
To: Richard M. Nixon, President-Elect. From Charles Malik, Harvard Club of New York City. Re: Congratulations, worries on the Middle East and Communism, a stronger America. 5 pages. [Letter], 12/2/1968
Covert Operations of the United States Governemnt: Summary of Recommendations for Action by the President. 3 pages [Report], 12/1/1968
Covert Operations of the United States Governemnt: Summary of Conclusions. 5 pages. [Report], 12/1/1968
President Johnson's Statement on the "Katzenbach Report". 2 pages. [Memo], 3/29/1967
Memorandum for the President-Elect. Subject: Covert Operations of the United States Government. 25 pages. [Memo], 12/1/1968
Excerpts from the "Katzenbach Report". 7 pages. [Report], n.d.
To: Richard Nixon, President-Elect. From: Franklin Lindsay, Itek Corporation. Re: Study of the conduct of covert operations by the United States Government. 2 pages. [Letter], 12/4/1968
Prepared for: James Rowley, Director of US Secret Service. Supervision of: Thomas Johns, Assistant Director- Protective Forces, US Secret Service. [Memo], 12/3/1968
For: Mr. Nixon. Re: National Security Organization. 27 pages. [Memo], 11/1/1968
To: Mr. C.C. Knudsen, Office of President-elect Richard M Nixon. From: Fred Rhodes, Jr, Secretary & Staff Director- Republican Policy Committee. RE: Bipartisan Boards and Commissions. 2 pages. [Letter], 12/5/1968
Bipartisann Boards and Commissions. Staff Report of the US Senate Republican Policy Committee. 28 pages [Report], 3/18/1968
To: Bob Haldeman. From: Buchanan. Re: Make-up of the Presidential Staff and its operation. 10 pages. [Memo], 12/19/1968
From: Hemry Loomis. Re: Task Force on Organization of the Executive Branch. [Memo], 12/19/1968
Reorganization of the Executive Office of the President. [Other Document], 9/16/1969
Personal Notes on the Reorganization of the Personal Staff. 2 pages. [Memo], n.d.
Proposed Actions to be Taken. 8 pages. [Memo], n.d.
Initially Proposed Actions and the Current Status of Each. 7 pages. [Memo], n.d.
Personnel Working in Various Offices of the White House Staff Who Are Not Officially Listed by Carson Howell's Personnel Office. 5 pages. [Memo], n.d.
To: Richard M Nixon, President-elect. From: Franklin Lindsay, Task Force on Organization of the Executive Branch. Re: Administration Preservation and Reorganization Flexibility. 41 pages. [Memo], 12/17/1968
To: HR Haldeman. From: Buchanan. Re: the "Diatribe" and the "Dissenter". [Memo], 12/22/1968
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26127134
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WHSF: Returned, 42-1
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doc
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pageCount
1
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id
26127134
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document
title
WHSF: Returned, 42-1
description
This file contains:
To: Richard M. Nixon, President-Elect. From Charles Malik, Harvard Club of New York City. Re: Congratulations, worries on the Middle East and Communism, a stronger America. 5 pages. [Letter], 12/2/1968
Covert Operations of the United States Governemnt: Summary of Recommendations for Action by the President. 3 pages [Report], 12/1/1968
Covert Operations of the United States Governemnt: Summary of Conclusions. 5 pages. [Report], 12/1/1968
President Johnson's Statement on the "Katzenbach Report". 2 pages. [Memo], 3/29/1967
Memorandum for the President-Elect. Subject: Covert Operations of the United States Government. 25 pages. [Memo], 12/1/1968
Excerpts from the "Katzenbach Report". 7 pages. [Report], n.d.
To: Richard Nixon, President-Elect. From: Franklin Lindsay, Itek Corporation. Re: Study of the conduct of covert operations by the United States Government. 2 pages. [Letter], 12/4/1968
Prepared for: James Rowley, Director of US Secret Service. Supervision of: Thomas Johns, Assistant Director- Protective Forces, US Secret Service. [Memo], 12/3/1968
For: Mr. Nixon. Re: National Security Organization. 27 pages. [Memo], 11/1/1968
To: Mr. C.C. Knudsen, Office of President-elect Richard M Nixon. From: Fred Rhodes, Jr, Secretary & Staff Director- Republican Policy Committee. RE: Bipartisan Boards and Commissions. 2 pages. [Letter], 12/5/1968
Bipartisann Boards and Commissions. Staff Report of the US Senate Republican Policy Committee. 28 pages [Report], 3/18/1968
To: Bob Haldeman. From: Buchanan. Re: Make-up of the Presidential Staff and its operation. 10 pages. [Memo], 12/19/1968
From: Hemry Loomis. Re: Task Force on Organization of the Executive Branch. [Memo], 12/19/1968
Reorganization of the Executive Office of the President. [Other Document], 9/16/1969
Personal Notes on the Reorganization of the Personal Staff. 2 pages. [Memo], n.d.
Proposed Actions to be Taken. 8 pages. [Memo], n.d.
Initially Proposed Actions and the Current Status of Each. 7 pages. [Memo], n.d.
Personnel Working in Various Offices of the White House Staff Who Are Not Officially Listed by Carson Howell's Personnel Office. 5 pages. [Memo], n.d.
To: Richard M Nixon, President-elect. From: Franklin Lindsay, Task Force on Organization of the Executive Branch. Re: Administration Preservation and Reorganization Flexibility. 41 pages. [Memo], 12/17/1968
To: HR Haldeman. From: Buchanan. Re: the "Diatribe" and the "Dissenter". [Memo], 12/22/1968
citationUrl
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Richard M. Nixon's Returned Materials Collection
Returned White House Special Files
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Richard Nixon Presidential Library
White House Special Files Collection
Folder List
Box Number
Folder Number
Document Date
Document Type
Document Description
42
1
12/2/1968
Letter
To: Richard M. Nixon, President-Elect. From
Charles Malik, Harvard Club of New York
City. Re: Congratulations, worries on the
Middle East and Communism, a stronger
America. 5 pages.
42
1
12/01/1968
Report
Covert Operations of the United States
Governemnt: Summary of Recommendations
for Action by the President. 3 pages
42
1
12/01/1968
Report
Covert Operations of the United States
Governemnt: Summary of Conclusions. 5
pages.
42
1
03/29/1967
Memo
President Johnson's Statement on the
"Katzenbach Report". 2 pages.
42
1
12/01/1968
Memo
Memorandum for the President-Elect.
Subject: Covert Operations of the United
States Government. 25 pages.
42
1
n.d.
Report
Excerpts from the "Katzenbach Report". 7
pages.
Friday, November 16, 2007
Page 1 of 3
Box Number Folder Number Document Date
Document Type
Document Description
42
1
12/04/1968
Letter
To: Richard Nixon, President-Elect. From:
Franklin Lindsay, Itek Corporation. Re:
Study of the conduct of covert operations by
the United States Government. 2 pages.
42
1
12/03/1968
Memo
Prepared for: James Rowley, Director of US
Secret Service. Supervision of: Thomas
Johns, Assistant Director- Protective Forces,
US Secret Service.
42
1
11/01/1968
Memo
For: Mr. Nixon. Re: National Security
Organization. 27 pages.
42
1
12/05/1968
Letter
To: Mr. C.C. Knudsen, Office of President-
elect Richard M Nixon. From: Fred Rhodes,
Jr, Secretary & Staff Director- Republican
Policy Committee. RE: Bipartisan Boards
and Commissions. 2 pages.
42
1
03/18/1968
Report
Bipartisann Boards and Commissions. Staff
Report of the US Senate Republican Policy
Committee. 28 pages
42
1
12/19/1968
Memo
To: Bob Haldeman. From: Buchanan. Re:
Make-up of the Presidential Staff and its
operation. 10 pages.
42
1
09/16/1969
Other Document
Reorganization of the Executive Office of the
President.
Friday, November 16, 2007
Page 2 of 3
Box Number Folder Number Document Date
Document Type
Document Description
42
1
n.d.
Memo
Personal Notes on the Reorganization of the
Personal Staff. 2 pages.
42
1
n.d.
Memo
Proposed Actions to be Taken. 8 pages.
42
1
n.d.
Memo
Initially Proposed Actions and the Current
Status of Each. 7 pages.
42
1
n.d.
Memo
Personnel Working in Various Offices of the
White House Staff Who Are Not Officially
Listed by Carson Howell's Personnel Office.
5 pages.
42
1
12/17/1968
Memo
To: Richard M Nixon, President-elect. From:
Franklin Lindsay, Task Force on
Organization of the Executive Branch. Re:
Administration Preservation and
Reorganization Flexibility. 41 pages.
42
1
12/22/1968
Memo
To: HR Haldeman. From: Buchanan. Re: the
"Diatribe" and the "Dissenter".
42
1
12/19/1968
Memo
From: Hemry Loomis. Re: Task Force on
Organization of the Executive Branch.
Friday, November 16, 2007
Page 3 of 3
Charles Mâlik
you
Harvard Club of New York City
ecemb
1968
which
read
this
The Honorable
Richard M. Nixon
President-Elect of the United States of America
New York City, New York
Dear Mr. President-Elect:
My cable was brief but I cannot tell you how
ardent my congratulations were. I have been praying
most sincerely for the success of your administration.
May God enlighten your path and grant you every power
in the momentous days ahead.
This is a great time in history and more depends
on American leadership today than at any time in the
past.
I am sure you have all the basic elements of the
situation in the Middle East clearly before you. What
is needed is a grounded vision of what constitutes real
peace and stability in the Eastern Mediterranean, not
just for tomorrow or next year, but for fifty and a
hundred years. Such a vision is now possible and
practicable, provided there is an adequate supply of
depth and firmness.
The reason for hope resides in the fact that the
situation is exceedingly fluid and formative; it admits
therefore of creative transformation. It is not wholly
unlike what faced the world in these parts fifty years
ago after the First World War. Just as the forces con-
cerned, both internal and external, came then to some
decision on the Middle East, the forces concerned today--
Mr. President-Elect Nixon
--2--
December 2, 1968
and America is even more concerned now than it was
in 1919--are called to decide on the fate of these peoples
for the next pull. May the decision take into account
the interests of man and freedom!
The overriding question in my opinion is whether
certain countries in these parts are lost permanently
so far as freedom and openness to the West are concerned.
The squeeze on freedom and fundamental Western ideas
is felt very keenly here.
It is not enough that the naval and air balance in
the Eastern Mediterranean be preponderantly favorable
for the West. Since nobody is thinking of an armed show-
down between the great powers in the Middle East or over
the Middle East, the important thing is how much decisive
military preponderance translates itself in terms of local
political and cultural realities. The translation so far
has been adverse to Western interests and Western
orientation, as well as to those who believe in the funda-
mental ideas of freedom.
The Communist presence has been making itself
more and more felt in the Eastern Mediterranean and
in certain parts of the Middle East, and the presence
of the West has correspondingly retreated. Teachers,
students, poets, intellectuals, governments, the press,
the elements forming and guiding opinion and attitude,
are for the most part now fundamentally oriented along
Communist and anti-Western lines. I can cite thirty or
forty slogans and clichés taken straight from Communist
thought and propaganda, all charged with anti-Western
intent, which have now gained popular currency among
youth. I am not exaggerating in saying that the vogue
now among educated youth is to read and imbibe Marx,
Lenin, Mao, Ho and Ghevara, and hardly to read anything
Western or liberal. Nothing, nothing is more serious.
And the elements who believe in man, freedom, truth,
reason and the fundamental values of the West are either
Mr. President-Elect Nixon
--3--
December 2, 1968
isolated or persecuted or squeezed out or in process
of being morally or physically liquidated.
If the balance of pressure as between East and
West continues on the whole to be in favor of the East--
I mean the gentle, steady, all-pervasive pressure--
then the fate of the Middle East is already sealed.
This is the magnitude of the problem and not
merely the balance of military forces in the Eastern
Mediterranean. Turkey, Iran, Greece and Saudi Arabia
may continue to hold firm--although even these are be-
coming infiltrated and softened up from within--and the
Sixth Fleet and its supporting Nato forces may continue
to hold a decisive military edge over any opposing forces;
and all this is necessary and good. But what if in the
meantime the mind and soul and fundamental orientation
of life and spirit here continue to rot and erode! The
military is not an end in itself; the problem is to have
it translate itself into political realities; unless it did
that it were in vain.
I beg you to view the situation here in these terms.
I have been saying these things for fifteen years, and
I hope I will meet with greater luck now by having them
at least considered by you.
To lay all this at the doorsteps of the Arab-Israeli
conf lict is a gross oversimplification. This conflict
is central here but it need not have led to these develop-
ments. Nor are these developments now irreversible
despite this conflict.
A wholly new vision for the Middle East is called
for. I have more confidence now that in you such a
vision can come to full articulation than I ever had with
respect to any other person.
I fear one cannot say more about these momentous
matters in a letter such as this.
I hope the burden of Viet Nam, both material and
Mr. President-Elect Nixon
--4--
December 2, 1968
moral, will be lifted or considerably reduced from off
the shoulders of America; but I also hope that the ob-
jectives proclaimed by three successive American
administrations and three successive American presi-
dents, as well as the requirements of the overall world
struggle, will not be forgotten in the process.
A strong and healthy America, an America that has
rediscovered and reaffirmed its authentic traditional
values, and reasserted its fundamental national unity,
is the world's greatest need today. Let that happen,
and let America then lead the great Western community,
in humility and wisdom, but also firmly and unwaveringly,
and every other problem will become manageable and
will take its proper place in the scheme of things.
Surely the best minds should be enlisted and
mobilized and the finest technicians brought together and
given the happiest conditions to create and suggest. But
ultimately the spirit matters most, and may the most
authentic spirit, embodying the deepest in the great
American heritage, now radiate clearly and steadily from
the White House.
It is a matter of life and style, of transparent aims
and reasons for existence; it is a matter of personal
suffering and indubitable sincerity; it is a matter of
homely phrases and pithy words --simple, deep, applauded
by the cloud of witnesses of the ages. May God grant
you all this, because you deserve it, because you are
ready for it, and because America and the world need it.
You have no idea, Mr. President-Elect, how much depends
on the whole spirit and presence that pulsate from the
White House today, not only for the hope and art of life
of America, but of the entire world.
An initiative must be made in the realm of spirit
and ideas. The world is parched for such an initiative.
To be effective it must come from America. A stop
must be put to the moral and intellectual and human
drift and decay we have been suffering from in the past
Mr. President-Elect Nixon
--5--
December 2, 1968
several years. This drift has become intolerable. Ah
how much I believe that America can save itself and
the world!
My prayer for you is that you devote only five days
week to the pressing and necessary, and ouring
remaining two days you give yourself, in utter relaxation,
to the consider ation or the deeper and larger issues-the
intangible things, the historical things, the inexpressible
things. the destiny-laden things freely, playfully,
tenderly, detachedly. Over the weeks and months the
fund of vision and strength and certainty that you will
accumulate in this way will redound to the greatest glory
of America and the deepest that America means and
stands for.
Faithfully yours,
H
excellent
wer mode day if a tweb w me full
1 December 1968
COVERT OPERATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT
Summary of Recommendations for Action by the President
1. We recommend that the President concern himself directly with certain critical
clandestine activities during the early days of his Administration. We believe, however,
that major organizational and program changes are not priority tasks to which attention
should be devoted during the first 90 days of the new Administration.
2. We recommend that the President not appoint a new Director of CIA during the
first year of the Administration. The present Director, Richard Helms, is an able pro-
fessional who has served continuously in the intelligence community since the early days
of World War II and should be asked to continue serving at the pleasure of the President.
He should not, however, give such a decision to continue Mr. Helms the kind of promi-
nence which President-Elect Kennedy did when he announced as his first personnel
decision the reappointment of Allen Dulles and J. Edgar Hoover.
3. The President should give one of his own senior assistants who has easy and
direct access to him responsibility for watching all covert operations and direct him to
1
ascertain that before any covert operation is approved, all potential overt alternatives
have been thoroughly canvassed and found unacceptable.
4. The President should ask to be briefed on the extent of covert capabilities and
the extent of the clandestine service and its operations. The President as one of his
early acts should ask the Director of CIA to advise him of any operations currently
underway which might conceivably create serious problems.
5. The President should ask the Director of CIA to draft a letter from the President
to the DCI which sets forth the scope of activities which the President can expect the
CIA to be capable of handling, and to coordinate this draft with the Secretaries of State
and Defense as well as the President's assistant for national security matters.
6. The President should make certain that his assistant concerned with intelligence
remains informed on the current operational rules limiting potentially provocative over-
flights, surface or submarine incursions at sea and electronic stimulation.
7. The President should make it very clear to the Director of CIA that he expects
him to say "No" when in the Director's judgment a proposed operation cannot be done
within an acceptable risk of disclosure. In the past, problems have arisen when the CIA
has accepted tasks beyond its capabilities.
8. The White House should maintain a standard form of "no comment" on clandestine
activities, and a directive should be issued to the various departments to do likewise.
Further, this policy should be made known publicly before there is a "flap."
2
9. Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty should be funded overtly, either through a
national foundation supported by government funds or through the USIA. We prefer that
RFE and Radio Liberty be made a component of USIA but not the VOA. As to the
lesser CIA "orphans" with a civilian base, such as the Asia Foundation, every effort
should be made to obtain overt public support for them through a government financed
national foundation.
3
1 December 1968
COVERT OPERATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT
Summary of Conclusions
I. Purposes and benefits of covert operations
1. The expertise of the clandestine service is secrecy. Covert operations should
be called upon only when something should be done in a secret manner-and only when
secrecy is possible. It is up to the President to determine what he wants done and
whether it should be done secretly or openly.
2. An important function of a clandestine service is to maintain private liaison
with important and potentially important people in other countries.
3. Covert operations permit forms of conflict which avoid open hostilities. This
can be especially important in near-war situations.
4. Clandestine operations allow the Administration to support activities in one
country without having the next country demand "equal treatment." A foreign leader-
government, labor, political-may need help desperately but be unable to accept it
openly because of internal political repercussions.
1
5. Covert operations permit the Government to act quickly, bypassing domestic
US political, bureaucratic, and budgetary controls.
II. Inherent limitations of covert operations
1. Covert operations can rarely achieve an important objective alone. At best, a
successful covert operation can win time, forestall a coup, or otherwise create favor-
able conditions which will make it possible to use overt means to finally achieve an
important objective.
2. Covert operations are best suited to tactical situations where success will bring
an immediate short-term gain.
3. Large operations cannot be kept secret. Some things simply cannot be done
truly secretly because of their size, duration, and impact.
4. In a bi-polar world, all-out covert operations could often be justified on the
ground that they were like military measures designed to help our side at the expense
of their side. In the complicated political world of today it is far more difficult to
know who is on whose side, for there are no clear-cut or permanent sides.
III. Risks and costs of engaging in covert operations
1. In a war or near-war situation, much greater risks of exposure can be justified
not only because of greater need for the activity but also because the penalties for ex-
posure are far less than in a period of detente.
2
2. An individual, a political party, or a government in office may be seriously
injured or destroyed by exposure of covert assistance from CIA. The more democratic
the country or the more open its politics, the greater the possibility of damage.
3. On balance, exposure of clandestine operations costs the United States in terms
of world opinion. To some, exposure demonstrates the disregard of the United States
for national rights and human rights; to others it demonstrates only our impotence and
our ineptness in getting caught. To still others it can expose secret US support for
one of their political or national enemies.
4. The impression of many Americans, especially in the intellectual community
and among the youth, that the United States is engaging in "dirty tricks" tends to alienate
them from their government. Disclosures in this atmosphere have created opportunities
for the "New Left" to affect a much wider spectrum of political opinion than otherwise
would have been the case.
5. The United States has been in the forefront of those nations concerned with
expanding the role of law in international affairs. Our credibility and our effectiveness
in this role is necessarily damaged to the extent that it becomes known that we are
secretly intervening in what may be (or appear to be) the internal affairs of other
nations.
IV. Changes within CIA in the conduct of covert operations
1. The CIA does not need additional supervisory control but rather needs strict
standards to be applied internally.
3
2. CIA can make an important contribution to counterinsurgency operations both
before armed action begins and after. Its particular capabilities for developing local
police intelligence capabilities, for counterintelligence and for skilled interrogation
need to be used more effectively by the government.
3. Throughout the CIA's covert activities much greater attention must be paid to
clandestinity. The Agency has often tolerated risks of disclosure which were far too
high.
4. CIA internal control mechanisms should clearly distinguish between operations
which must remain truly secret and operations that provide only nominal disclaimability.
The latter are useful only when the objective is to avoid provoking an adversary by
confronting him with the public knowledge of our activities.
5. CIA should concentrate on doing the special clandestine things that it is ex-
pected to be especially competent in accomplishing. Where, for sufficient political
reasons, the government decides to support airlines, newspapers, publishing houses
or radio stations, the CIA role should be limited to the secure transmission of funds,
intelligence and possibly guidance or control.
6. It is our impression that CIA has become much too ingrown over the years.
Nearly all of the senior people have been in the organization on the order of 20 years.
Because of the special security restrictions surrounding CIA, and because it is con-
cerned exclusively with foreign activities, there is an unusually great pressure to
isolation and inwardness.
4
V. Organizational changes that have been proposed from time to time
1. Covert operations should be carried out by the same agency which handles
clandestine intelligence collection. It is often suggested that the clandestine intelligence
service should be separated from that service which engages in clandestine operations.
We are firmly convinced this would be a mistake.
2. The collection of technical intelligence, involving large radio monitoring activi-
ties and use of overhead reconnaissance, has become the most important source of
intelligence about unfriendly nations. This activity is today conducted both by the
Defense Department and CIA although it is coordinated within the DOD. The arguments
for consolidation of this activity center upon the tremendous cost and the possibilities
of wasteful duplication rather than on operational security. We believe that the
President should review the findings of the Eaton Committee and then consider whether
or not you wish to appoint a committee to review this activity during your first year.
3. A third organizational issue is whether to separate the clandestine service from
the intelligence analysis and estimating activity of CIA. Most of us believe that this
would be a mistake.
5
APPENDIX I: PRESIDENT JOHNSON'S STATEMENT ON THE "KATZENBACH
REPORT"
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MARCH 29, 1967
Office of the White House Press Secretary
THE WHITE HOUSE
STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT
I have received the report from the committee which I appointed on February 15 to re-
view relationships between the Central Intelligence Agency and private American vol-
untary organizations. This committee consisted of Under Secretary of State Nicholas
Katzenbach, as Chairman, Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare John Gardner,
and CIA Director Richard Helms.
I accept this committee's proposed statement of policy and am directing all agencies
of the government to implement it fully.
We will also give serious consideration to the committee's recommendation "that the
government should promptly develop and establish a public-private mechanism to pro-
vide public funds openly for overseas activities of organizations which are adjudged
deserving, in the national interest, of public support." To review concrete ways of
I-1
accomplishing this objective, I am requesting Secretary Rusk to serve as chairman of
a special committee which will include representatives from the Executive, the
Congress, and the private community.
I-2
1 December 1968
Memorandum for the President-Elect
SUBJECT: Covert Operations of the United States Government
During the past 8 years covert activity has come under increased public scrutiny
and criticism. In part this has been the result of ill-conceived or poorly executed
operations that "surfaced" dramatically, and in part the result of significant political
changes within the United States and abroad. The world of the fifties has changed.
Covert activities that were acceptable in the bi-polar, cold-war context now receive
more open and wide-spread public criticism.
At the same time the demand for secret intelligence by the intelligence-defense
community has been increasing, and the budgets for these activities have increased
dramatically, especially in the field of sophisticated technical collection systems.
A review of the whole scope of the intelligence community's activities is something
to which the President should devote himself not only because of its size but also
because of the political risks which it creates for the United States and for the Presi-
dent. We do not, however, believe that major organizational changes are a priority task
to which attention should be devoted during the first 90 days of your Administration.
1
Covert operations by which the United States secretly intervenes in the political,
informational, economic, or other affairs of a foreign state involve special risks beyond
those in normal intelligence or counterintelligence activities. The President should
quickly be informed of the critical aspects of on-going covert operations. Because
covert operations are not subject to normal bureaucratic and political controls, the
President himself, we believe, should familiarize himself with their special benefits
and costs and with the problems of locating and controlling these activities within the
government. To assist the President in this task, this report presents our conclusions
organized under the following headings:
I. Purposes and benefits of covert operations
II. Inherent limitations on covert operations
III. Risks and costs of engaging in covert operations
IV. Changes within CIA in the conduct of covert operations
V. Organizational changes affecting covert operations
VI. Action by the White House
The first three sections deal with benefits, risks, and costs of covert operations.
But any observations on these points are inherently qualitative and deal with variables
which cannot be weighed in the abstract. Indeed, each of us tends to give different
relative weight to each factor depending on his own background and experiences.
I. PURPOSES AND BENEFITS OF COVERT OPERATIONS
1. Covert operations are an instrument; their only legitimate objective is to serve
2
the foreign policy of the President.
They are not an independent aspect of US foreign policy, but simply one way of
furthering that policy. The expertise of the clandestine service is secrecy. Covert
operations should be called upon only when something should be done in a secret
manner-and only when secrecy is possible. It is up to the President to determine what
he wants done and whether it should be done secretly or openly.
A covert capability is like a military capability. Its use is a presidential preroga-
tive. As with the military service, the clandestine service should not be pursuing any
projects, much less self-generated ones, except by presidential decision.
2. A significant function of a clandestine service is to maintain, privately, effective
liaison with important and potentially important people in other countries.
A world in which issues are decided purely on their merits is unlikely ever to be
attained. In most parts of the world, whom we know is likely to be as important as
what we say and do. In some less developed countries, having the chief of police or
the next minister of the interior as a drinking companion of one of our professional
station chiefs will often be as valuable as the formal diplomatic contact of our ambassa-
dor. In contrast, official representatives are often severely limited in the people they
can see because of the repercussions of such contacts on their other relationships. It
is often important in less developed countries to have as close relations with the political
"outs" as with the "ins." Another important function of CIA is to identify potential
leaders and to establish close relations on the chance that some will rise to high posts.
3
Because of their personal dependence upon intelligence and counterintelligence to
maintain their personal positions, Prime Ministers and other important officials in new
or unstable governments have been particularly eager to have good and close relations
with CIA representatives. Such relationships have proved to be valuable points of
influence as well as sources of information to the United States. Such relationships
with important people in other parts of the world are a valuable asset and, like an
insurance policy, are worth a good deal of expense even if never used.
3. Covert operations permit forms of conflict which avoid open hostilities; this
can be especially important in near-war situations.
One of the great benefits of covert operations is that in a situation in which large
national interests are at stake, the United States can engage in what amounts to a form
of small-scale clandestine warfare without the commitment or costs of open conflict.
The covert arm can equally serve both constructive purposes and those which frustrate
activities opposed to United States interests.
4. At any time there are many legitimate reasons for doing things privately.
There is nothing inherently evil or wrong about privacy. Privacy often permits
greater candor and less deference to irrelevant or uninformed political considerations.
Yet the United States has very little sense of the "private" in public affairs. Hence,
we look to CIA with an excessive sense of promise and an excessive sense of need.
A foreign leader-government, labor, political-may need help desperately but be
unable to accept it openly because of internal political repercussions. We may wish to
4
support activities in one country without having the next country demand "equal treat-
ment." A foreign government may be unable to accept overt assistance because of the
danger of a reaction from another state. (In 1949, shortly after CIA was organized, it
successfully delivered two shiploads of arms to Yugoslavia secretly because Tito feared
provoking a Soviet invasion if the arms came overtly from the United States.) Important
and constructive international activities may also need help but cannot accept overt US
support without jeopardizing their position.
When our activities are injuring a party rather than helping him it may be equally
important that they be private from third parties. For a long period of time the U-2
flights over the USSR were known to the USSR, but each of us thought it was to our
interest to have the activity kept private from other countries and from domestic publics.
5. Covert operations permit the Government to act quickly, bypassing domestic
US political, bureaucratic, and budgetary controls.
While these results may be double edged, there are some circumstances where the
need for quick action may justify using secrecy for no purpose other than to bypass
overly slow bureaucratic channels.
II. INHERENT LIMITATIONS ON COVERT OPERATIONS
1. Covert operations can rarely achieve an important objective alone. They are
best suited to tactical situations where success will bring an immediate short-term
gain. They are not a substitute for diplomacy, for economic programs or for military
effort. At best, a successful covert operation can win time, forestall a coup, or otherwise
5
create favorable conditions which will make it possible to use overt means to finally
achieve an important objective. In the case of Guatemala, for example, we understand
that CIA explicitly stated that the overthrow of Arbenz could only buy time, and that
the creation of a successful, stable noncommunist government could only be accomplished
by overt programs which would follow.
There is no point in CIA initiating an operation if the AID budget, for example,
is inadequate to support successful follow-through.
2. Large operations cannot be kept secret.
Some things simply cannot be done truly secretly because of their size, duration,
and impact. The Bay of Pigs, even if it had succeeded, could not possibly have been
done in a way that would have hidden the American hand, simply because no other power
in the Western Hemisphere had the capability to support such an operation.
3. The further we are from a war-like or cold-war situation, the greater the
difficulty in knowing who should be helped and who opposed, secretly or otherwise.
In a bi-polar world, covert operations could often be justified on the ground that
they were like military measures designed to help our side at the expense of their side.
In the complicated political world of today it is far more difficult to know who is on
whose side, for there are no clear-cut or permanent sides, and we run a high risk of
doing harm rather than good. We live in a world where there are cross-cutting conflicts,
where on one issue we have one set of allies and friends and on other issues different
sets of friends, and where there is no all-out enemy on all issues. To the extent that
6
we act as though the world were divided into two camps-"friends" and "enemies"-
we may alienate potential friends and neutrals and embrace allies of doubtful long-term
value. Covert operations thus must be judged more carefully and their impact assessed
more rigorously than was the case in the early fifties.
4. The administration should recognize that because of the non-routine and non-
repetitive nature of its tasks, CIA more than most operating agencies will tend to
overestimate its capability to accomplish objectives and to overestimate its ability to
maintain security.
III. RISKS AND COSTS OF ENGAGING IN COVERT OPERATIONS
Covert operations carry with them two types of costs: most costs are associated
with the risk of exposure; some costs are associated with the activity even if there is
no exposure.
In a war or near-war situation, much greater risks of exposure can be justified
not only because of greater need for the activity but also because the penalties for
exposure are far less than in a period of detente. One of the principal reasons CIA
continued many operations, such as the support of the National Student Association,
until they were blown was that a part of CIA failed to recognize that the risks and
penalties of exposure had increased greatly since the operations were started. They
were started in a period of intense cold war which justified the risks of exposure and
which meant that the costs of exposure were not very great. In intervening years, the
7
world shifted in its attitudes toward detente which increased both the risk of exposure
and the damage should exposure take place.
There are several types of costs to be considered:
1. Costs in the country where the operation is conducted
Some adversaries may be provoked into stronger opposition to us by discovery
of covert operations run against them. However, against an already hostile opponent
many types of operations are expected, and we receive as good as we give. Here the
costs of exposure will often be only the loss of an important intelligence asset or the
exploitation of the exposure in, say, Soviet or Chinese propaganda.
In contrast, a government which we are trying to convert from an opponent into a
friend or at least a neutral, or a government with which we are operating on fairly
good terms may be quite upset to discover that we have been secretly tampering with
what goes on in its country.
An individual, a political party, or a government in office may be seriously injured
or destroyed by exposure of covert assistance from CIA. The more democratic the
country or the more open its politics, the greater the possibility of damage.
Even without exposure, financial support often weakens those we are trying to help.
Just as a rich uncle is likely to hurt a young man more than he helps him by putting him
on a large allowance, CIA support to a foreign political movement can make it fat and
lazy and less able to earn the local support it needs for long-term success.
8
2. Costs in third countries
Exposure of a clandestine US operation may convince some in the world that the
United States is powerful and tough. By and large, however, exposure costs the United
States in terms of world opinion. To some, exposure demonstrates the disregard of the
United States for national rights and human rights; to others it demonstrates only our
impotence and our ineptness in getting caught. To still others it can expose a secret
US support for one of their political or national enemies. In the eyes of many we will
have reduced our moral standards to those whom we condemn; we may convince the
world that we are really no different and no better than those we criticize.
3. Costs in the United States
These costs are of three kinds:
a. The impression of many Americans that the United States is engaging in "dirty
tricks" tends to alienate them from their government. This is especially true of the
intellectual community and the youth. Disclosures in this atmosphere have created
opportunities for the "New Left" to affect a much wider spectrum of political opinion
than otherwise would have been the case.
b. The above has a specific cost: enlisting the cooperation of the academic com-
munity has become much more difficult. Yet, over the long term, such cooperation is
essential if the quality of intelligence research and analysis is to remain first rate.
C. The very by-passing of some of the checks and balances of our political pro-
cedures which makes covert operations convenient tends, over the long term, to weaken
9
those procedures. There is a cost to letting Congressmen indulge in the luxurv of
approving some things in private which they are reluctant to approve in public.
4. Damage to the international system
To an ever greater extent, American security as well as the avoidance of inter-
national anarchy will depend upon increasing respect by governments for the legitimate
interests of other governments and for the developing rules of international behavior.
For more than 20 years the United States has been in the forefront of those nations
concerned with expanding the role of law in international affairs. Our credibility and
our effectiveness in this role are necessarily damaged to the extent that it becomes known
that we are secretly intervening in what may be (or appear to be) the internal affairs
of other nations. The character of such secret intervention makes it difficult for the
United States to justify it and reconcile it with the general principles of international
behavior for which we stand.
For the United States to respect international law and the reasonable laws of other
countries will not of itself be enough to produce comparable conduct by other govern-
ments. But so long as we violate the rules we would like to see respected we cannot
expect others to respect them. We have a very real interest in promoting the inter-
national acceptance of rule by law, hence we have a special incentive to reduce to a
minimum the occasions when we disrupt it with clandestine activities which violate the
rules which we think all governments ought to respect.
10
IV. CHANGES WITHIN CIA IN THE CONDUCT OF COVERT OPERATIONS
1. The CIA does not need additional supervisory control but rather needs strict
standards to be applied internally. Notwithstanding the emphasis upon negative controls,
CIA also requires stimulation, inspiration, and guidance as to its foreign policy
contributions.
Superimposing additional committees or more Congressional supervision on top of
the CIA is unlikely to do any good and might do some positive harm. On the other hand
internal institutional arrangements are needed to assure:
a. High standards of professional clandestinity
b. Adequate consideration of overt alternatives to proposed projects
c. Adequate restraints on self-generated and self-perpetuating projects
d. Full consideration at the outset of a project of means to terminate the activity
when objectives are realized, when the function can be handled by overt public or private
agencies, or when the risks begin to become unacceptably high
e. Realistic evaluation at the outset of the risks involved and of "disaster" plans
in the event of disclosure
The focus for a rigorous technical design review of all proposed operations should
be within CIA at the level of the Deputy Director for covert operations (DDP).
11
Such an examination should include:
(1) Technical cost of the project in money, manpower, and critical resources
(2) The chance of success, of failure, and of an indecisive outcome
(3) The chance of disclosure
(a) In the short run
(b) In the long run
(c) How these chances can be reduced and the consequential effects on
operational efficiency
(4) Costs to the covert apparatus if there is disclosure and means of reducing
these costs
2. CIA can make an important contribution to counterinsurgency operations both
before armed action begins and after. Its particular capabilities need to be emphasized
and used more effectively by the government.
a. In counterinsurgency situations, it is important to concentrate upon the
development of police intelligence capabilities. This effort was commenced very
late in the Vietnamese War, perhaps too late. However, since police intelligence
and security services can be abused, it may be desirable to develop decentralized
police intelligence resources (e.g., training chiefs of towns and prominent pro-
vincial police forces as well as national police officers). It is also important to
12
establish effective influence over national police forces to minimize their potential
for exploitation by extremist political elements.
b. Closely related to police work is counterintelligence activity, replete with
dossiers and painstaking penetrations of all levels of revolutionary and subversive
organizations. Our own counterintelligence resources should be used to augment
local activities as well as to train their personnel.
c. The skills of interrogation are invaluable; in general, these skills are
slowly created in wartime and dissipated in the post-war demobilization. It is
essential to provide the incentives to maintain a group of skilled interrogators,
linguistically capable and well-paid. One can get more data from their efforts
at a lower price than in most other ways.
These special intelligence skills were inadequately used in Vietnam, especially at
the outset. As a consequence the military uprising of the Viet Cong has been more
effective and harder to put down than might otherwise have been the case.
3. Throughout the CIA's covert activities much greater attention must be paid to
clandestinity.
The CIA has in the past often engaged in projects which it could not expect to
remain secret. In some cases, like the Berlin Tunnel, this has been justified, but the
Agency has often tolerated risks of disclosure which were far too high. In some cases
just plain sloppy work has greatly increased those risks. The passing of CIA funds to
the National Student Association and to the many other organizations was SO badly set
13
up that when one disclosure was made an entire string of cover foundations came apart
like a run in a stocking.
The major costs of covert activities occur only when those activities are disclosed.
Further, one disclosure often contaminates many innocent activities by creating sus-
picions about them. The President has a right to expect that the CIA will generally
recommend against projects which have any appreciable risk of disclosure and will do
a far better job keeping secret those activities in which it is instructed to engage.
However, since these disastrous disclosures, there is every reason to expect that
CIA has paid very serious attention to improving its operations and to correcting weak-
nesses that could lead to further disclosures.
4. CIA internal control mechanisms should clearly distinguish between operations
which must remain truly secret and operations that provide only nominal disclaima-
bility. The latter should be employed only when the objective is to avoid provoking an
adversary by confronting him with the public knowledge of our activities. Often a
government can live with the secret knowledge of our activities but cannot accept public
disclosure (the Russians knew for 5 years of the U-2 overflights, but until they could
shoot one down, they preferred to say nothing and to raise no political issue).
In the past this distinction between these two activities has tended to be blurred.
Truly secret operations require a very, very high probability that there will be no
disclosure. In calculating that probability it should be borne in mind that errors will
14
occur. Since even a very high probability leaves a significant risk of disclosure, back-
up plans are essential.
5. CIA should concentrate on doing the special clandestine things that it is expected
to be especially competent in accomplishing. It should not engage in operating airlines
or running newspapers, publishing houses or radio stations. Where, for sufficient
political reasons, the government decides to support such activities, the CIA role should
be limited to the secure transmission of funds, intelligence and possibly guidance or
control. Furthermore, CIA should not supply the major portion of funds for large
scale activities. This recommendation also applies to activities which, though technically
not within CIA's budget, are funded through transfer payments to the Agency. The
criterion is not one of dollar amounts, but the probable consequences for security in
large-scale extended operations.
6. It is our impression that CIA has become much too ingrown over the years.
Nearly all of the senior people have been in the organization on the order of 20 years.
Because of the special security restrictions surrounding CIA, and because it is con-
cerned exclusively with foreign activities, there also is a strong tendency toward isola-
tion and inwardness which is not as great in overt organizations. There is a consequent
tendency toward excessive conformity and a lack of innovativeness and perspective
which could be stimulated by greater contact with outside groups.
A clandestine service needs people with a variety of backgrounds. There should be
continuing middle-level recruiting from both the private and government sectors and
15
from among the group of "in and outers," with more lateral movement both "in" and
"out." We believe that only a small percent of people should stay with the Agency more
than 20 years and that perhaps half should be there less than 10 years.
At the same time there should be longer tours of foreign duty for key case officers
than is the case in the Foreign Service, since continuity and expertise are especially
valuable for case officers overseas. Close personal knowledge of people and organiza-
tions require high language proficiency and years of residence. This valuable invest-
ment should not be wasted by rotating a key man just when he is beginning to develop a
real depth of understanding.
7. The application of rigid standards of secrecy for covert operations will tend
to reduce substantially the number and scope of covert operations run by CIA. This
in turn will reduce the risks of exposure and lessen the political problems of the Presi-
dent in his relations with segments of the public and the Congress as well as with
foreign governments.
V. ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGES AFFECTING COVERT OPERATIONS
1. Covert operations should be carried out by the same agency which handles
clandestine intelligence collection. It is often suggested that the clandestine intelligence
service should be separated from that service which engages in clandestine operations.
We are firmly convinced this would be a mistake. The argument made for separation
of the two activities is that an operational organization that collects intelligence as
well will tend to bias its intelligence to support and justify the operational programs
16
to which it is committed (e.g., Bay of Pigs). This is a real danger. But safeguards
can be established within a single organization. The arguments against separation
are more fundamental and overweigh the arguments for separation. First, most covert
operations also yield substantial intelligence, especially in political matters. Second,
the support to foreign individuals and groups given as a part of covert operations also
increases the capability of the recipients to produce intelligence and the motivation to
provide it to us. Finally, the disadvantages of having two national clandestine services
separately existing and functioning in the same country have been demonstrated time
and again to be overwhelming. It appears, for example, that the dangers of enemy
penetration of a clandestine service are greatly increased if there is more than one
service.
2. The collection of technical intelligence, involving large radio monitoring activ-
ities and use of overhead reconnaissance has become the most important source of
intelligence about unfriendly nations. This activity is today conducted both by the
Defense Department and CIA although it is coordinated within the DOD. The arguments
for consolidation of this activity center upon the tremendous cost and the possibilities
of wasteful duplication rather than on operational security. We believe that you should
give consideration to the recent Eaton committee review of this activity. One possible
solution that should be considered is to combine all major technical collection programs
under a single operating agency similar to the National Security Agency which does
cryptographic analysis and which coordinates related collection efforts.
17
3. A third organizational issue is whether to separate the clandestine service from
the intelligence analysis and estimating activity of CIA. Here the arguments for and
against are more nearly balanced. A principal argument for separation is that analysts
and estimators can derive much of their information from open sources and much of the
background for interpretation of events from close-working associations with other
institutions such as the universities. These vital associations, which were SO strong
in the early days of CIA, have now tended to atrophy. In part this has been the result
of the increasing (but false) belief in academic communities that anyone connected with
CIA must automatically be engaged in covert operations and that this is inconsistent
with academic freedom. In part it is also because CIA has increasingly turned inward
and has tended to shut itself off from this vital outside connection. Separating covert
activities from CIA might help to restore a much closer working relationship between
the Agency and the universities and to broaden the base from which highly qualified
professionals can be recruited into government service. Furthermore, it is argued
that the separation of research, analysis, and estimating from collection would assure
a high measure of objectivity in analysis. Yet within CIA, analysis is now under one
organization and collection under another so that the potential "conflict of interest" is
in large part protected against.
An argument for retaining covert activities within CIA is that an important part
of the raw intelligence used is derived from special sources, the security of which must
be protected most carefully in isolated areas. Another argument is that the quality
18
of CIA analytical personnel is high and the turnover has been low, notwithstanding the
association of the clandestine activities with the estimating and analysis functions.
An additional argument that has been made against the separation of the clandestine
service from CIA is that without the glamour of the clandestine service in the eyes of
a key part of the Congress, it would be increasingly difficult to obtain the level of funds
needed for the analysis and estimating activities. Further, association with clandestine
activities may tend to increase the credibility of CIA within the government and to
increase its survivability as an independent agency in the face of encroachments from
State and Defense. Perhaps the most important reason is that a source of both intelli-
gence collection and analysis independent from State and Defense is an invaluable source
of Presidential information. It helps to preserve Presidential policy options by providing
a check on intelligence estimates prepared by major departments to defend their budget
requests.
Although the conclusion was not unanimous, the majority of this group favored
retention of the clandestine service (DDP) and intelligence directorate (DDI) within the
same agency.
VI. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR ACTION BY THE WHITE HOUSE
1. Even though covert operations do not involve large sums of money and are not
normally in the public view unless they go wrong, covert activities are Presidential
business. The costs which will be incurred if a given covert activity is exposed are
largely political; it is a political judgment as to whether the potential benefit is worth
19
the political risk. That judgment cannot be left to the professional experts in clandestine
activity. On the other hand the exact means for putting some person in the possession
of funds or for placing some person in deep cover are the kinds of matters which can
properly be left to professionals.
2. The President should give one of his own senior assistants for national security
affairs, who has easy and direct access to him, responsibility for watching all covert
operations and direct him to ascertain that before any covert operation is approved,
all potential overt alternatives have been thoroughly canvassed and found unacceptable.
3. The President should be informed on the order of magnitude and nature of
existing operations.
We believe the President should ask to be briefed on the extent of covert capabili-
ties and the extent of the clandestine service. He should also ask the Bureau of Budget
to review and present to him in summary form dollar figures indicating the current
costs of different aspects of existing intelligence activities, including information gath-
ering, analysis, and counterintelligence operations. These figures will show that
electronic and photographic reconnaissance and cryptography are major and very expen-
sive operations and that perhaps four-fifths of the total intelligence budget goes to the
Department of Defense. This report does not consider whether these large technical
operations should be reduced or increased in scale. In the section of this report deal-
ing with organization we have proposed that the President initiate a study of the
20
organization of large scale technical intelligence activities. Such a study might also
examine the value of intelligence collected by such means in relation to the costs
incurred.
The President and his staff should recognize that, with the exception of large tech-
nical intelligence programs, normal budgetary controls or controls on the number of
personnel are quite inadequate to control covert operations. A covert operation costing
only a few tens of thousands, if exposed, could cause an international crisis of major
importance.
4. The President-elect should ask the Director of CIA to draft a letter from the
President to the DCI which sets forth the scope of activities which the President can
expect the CIA to be capable of handling, and to coordinate this draft with the Secretaries
of State and Defense as well as the President's assistant for national security matters.
If on reviewing the draft, the President wishes to further expand the scope of CIA's
activities, he should be sure his revised instructions do not ask CIA to do more than
it can handle securely.
5. The President should make certain that his assistant concerned with intelligence
remains informed on the current operational rules limiting potentially provocative over-
flights, surface or submarine incursions at sea and electronic stimulation.
The President should be informed at an early date of the guidelines which are
currently being employed to limit U-2, SR-71, and other overflights. He should also
be aware of present practices involving naval, electronic surveillance, and overhead
21
reconnaissance. In seeking information about defensive radars, or potential defensive
responses, US ships such as the Pueblo, for example, can acquire more information if
they surprise another country into turning on its secret radars or otherwise reacting to
an unexpected situation. There is obviously a delicate line somewhere between creating
a crisis on the one hand and passively waiting until information falls into our hands on
the other. To limit the risk of Pueblo-like crises, current practices should be reviewed
to make sure that the information they are producing justifies the risk the President is
running, and that these risks are consistent with foreign policy objectives.
6. Continuous White House attention needs to be given to the development and
maintenance of overt alternatives and options to proposed or existing covert operations.
Because a covert activity involves both political costs and the undercutting of normal
political controls there is a strong presumption that if an objective can be accomplished
overtly, rather than covertly, it should be. Bureaucratic pressures (easy access to
money, availability of personnel, avoidance of delays and clearances, etc.) often press
toward a covert project. It will take constant White House interest and the development
of competing options in other departments and agencies to make sure that the overt
course of action in fact gets priority.
Because of continuing budget restrictions for foreign aid, cultural exchanges, and
information activities, it is likely that the pressures for use of covert funds will increase
rather than decrease, since in the past it has proved easier to get covert funds for
these purposes from Congress rather than overt. We believe that this pressure of
22
expediency should be strongly resisted because it is likely to lead to more future trou-
ble than it is worth. The levels of covert and overt foreign activity should be "in
balance" in the sense that there is no purpose in launching covert activities if funding
is insufficient to support overt activities needed to consolidate the success.
7. The President should make it very clear to the Director of CIA that he expects
him to say "No" when in the Director's judgment a proposed operation cannot be done
within an acceptable risk of disclosure. Too often in the past covert operations have
been pressed on CIA by other parts of the government in order to avoid bureaucratic
problems in accomplishing the same objective overtly. And too often CIA has uncrit-
ically accepted the task in an effort to be helpful.
8. The President as one of his early acts should ask the Director of CIA to advise
him of any operations currently under way which might conceivably create serious
problems. The Bay of Pigs preparations, for example, continued into the Kennedy
administration apparently without any clear understanding that it should either be
stopped immediately or given full support.
9. The White House should maintain a standard form of "no comment" on clandes-
tine activities, and a directive should be issued to the various departments to do like-
wise.* Further, this "no comment" policy should be made known publicly before there
is a "flap."
*A NSAM or its equivalent should identify those persons responsible for coordina-
tion in the event of an embarrassing "leak" and the specific telephone numbers to be
called at such times.
23
The natural tendency to deny charges that are wholly unfounded, and to say "no
comment" only to charges which have some truth results in an unfortunate association
between the President and clandestine activities. The White House should develop a
standard "no comment" paragraph which it issues in response to any question on clan-
destine activities, no matter how ridiculous the charge.
The indecision, denials and subsequent admissions that surrounded the U-2 incident
demonstrate the desirability of a standard noncommittal response from the White House.
10. The new administration will face a specific problem early in the year which has
been carried over from the old administration, namely, what to do about the "CIA
orphans." As a consequence of the National Student Association and other disclosures,
a government committee headed by Nicholas Katzenbach proposed that the government
under no circumstances provide future clandestine support to private educational,
philanthropic and cultural organizations. Subsequently this was approved by the Presi-
dent who directed that henceforth no such support be provided by CIA. In order to
comply technically, Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, and similar organizations were
given large single payments sufficient to carry them through fiscal year 1969. The
incoming administration will immediately be faced with one of four courses of action:
-terminate government support of RFE, which will mean the loss of an important
and effective channel into Eastern Europe
-propose to Congress that overt funding be provided through some form of national
foundation and try to find interim funds until this is accomplished
24
-modify the policy publicly enunciated by the outgoing administration to permit
continued covert support to RFE and similar activities
-consolidate RFE into the VOA and support it to the extent possible through
USIA appropriations.
We believe that it will be impossible to resume covert funding without public
knowledge, and we recommend that RFE and Radio Liberty be funded overtly either
through a national foundation supported by government funds or through the USIA. We
prefer that RFE and Radio Liberty be made a component of USIA but not the VOA. If
covert funding is resumed we consider it unwise to permit RFE to continue to solicit
private contributions as a "cover." In the past the American public was mislead into
believing that RFE is supported by their contributions. As to the lesser "orphans" with
a civilian base, such as the Asia Foundation, every effort should be made to obtain
public support for them through a government financed national foundation.
11. Although many of the previous recommendations suggest a reduction in the
scale of covert activities, it is important that the CIA be maintained at a viable level,
with the capability to expand its scale of activities should circumstances so dictate.
The present covert organization is an invaluable asset that has taken years to create
and should be kept in being even though it is used at less than "capacity" in the period
immediately ahead.
25
APPENDIX II: EXCERPTS FROM THE "KATZENBACH REPORT"
In summary, the committee offers two basic recommendations:
1. It should be the policy of the United States Government that no federal agency shall
provide any covert financial assistance or support, direct or indirect, to any of the
nation's educational or private voluntary organizations.
2. The Government should promptly develop and establish a public-private mechanism
to provide public funds openly for overseas activities of organizations which are
adjudged deserving, in the national interest, of public support.
STATEMENT OF POLICY
No federal agency shall provide any covert financial assistance
or support, direct or indirect, to any of the nation's educational
or private voluntary organizations. This policy specifically
applies to all foreign activities of such organizations and it
reaffirms present policy with respect to their domestic
activities.
II-1
Where such support has been given, it will be terminated as
quickly as possible without destroying valuable private
organizations before they can seek new means of support. *
We belive that, particularly in the light of recent publicity, establishment of a clear
policy of this kind is the only way for the government to carry out two important respon-
sibilities. One is to avoid any implication that governmental assistance, because it is
given covertly, is used to affect the policies of private voluntary groups. The second
responsibility is to make it plain in all foreign countries that the activities of private
American groups abroad are, in fact, private.
The committee has sought carefully to assess the impact of this Statement of Policy
on CIA. We have reviewed each relevant program of assistance carried out by the
Agency in case-by-case detail. As a result of this scrutiny, the committee is satisfied
that application of the Statement of Policy will not unduly handicap the Agency in the
exercise of its national security responsibilities. Indeed, it should be noted that,
starting well before the appearance of recent publicity, CIA had initiated and pursued
efforts to disengage from certain of these activities.
*On the basis of our case-by-case review, we expect that the process of termina-
tion can be largely-perhaps entirely-completed by December 31, 1967.
II-2
The committee also recommends that the implementation of this policy be supervised
by the senior interdepartmental review committee which already passes on proposed
CIA activities and which would review and assist in the process of disengagement. **
* If the Statement of Policy is to be effective, it must be rigorously enforced. In
the judgment of this committee, no programs currently would justify any exception to
this policy. At the same time, where the security of the nation may be at stake, it is
impossible for this committee to state categorically now that there will never be a con-
tingency in which overriding national security interests may require an exception- -
nor would it be credible to enunciate a policy which purported to do SO.
We therefore recommend that, in the event of such unusual contingencies, the
interdepartmental review committee be permitted to make exceptions to the Statement
of Policy, but only where overriding national security interests so require; only on a
case-by-case basis; only where open sources of support are shown to be unavailable;
and only when such exceptions receive the specific approval of the Secretaries of State
and Defense. In no event should any future exception be approved which involves any
educational, philanthropic, or cultural organization.
II-3
2: NEW METHODS OF SUPPORT
While our first recommendation seeks to insure the independence of private voluntary
organizations, it does not deal with an underlying problem-how to support the national
need for, and the intrinsic worth of, their efforts abroad.
Anyone who has the slightest familiarity with intellectual or youth groups abroad knows
that free institutions continue to be under bitter, continuous attack, some of it carefully
organized and well-financed, all of it potentially dangerous to this nation.
It is of the greatest importance to our future and to the future of free institutions every-
where that other nations, especially their young people, know and understand American
viewpoints. There is no better way to meet this need than through the activity of
private American organizations.
The time has surely come for the government to help support such activity in a mature,
open manner.
Some progress toward that aim already has been made. In recent years, a number of
federal agencies have developed contracts, grants, and other forms of open assistance
to private organizations for overseas activities. This assistance, however, does not
deal with a major aspect of the problem. A number of organizations cannot, without
hampering their effectiveness as independent bodies, accept funds directly from
government agencies.
II-4
The committee therefore recommends that the Government should promptly develop
and establish a public-private mechanism to provide public funds openly for overseas
activities of organizations which are adjudged deserving, in the national interest, of
public support.
Such a mechanism could take various forms. One promising proposal, advanced by
Mr. Eugene Black, calls for a publicly funded but privately administered body patterned
on the British Council.
The British Council established in 1934, operates in 80 countries, administering approx-
imately $30,000,000 annually for reference libraries, exhibitions, scholarships, inter-
national conferences, and cultural exchanges. Because 21 of its 30 members are drawn
from private life, the Council has maintained a reputation for independence, even though
90 percent of its funds are governmental.
According to the UNESCO Directory of Cultural Relations Services, other nations have
developed somewhat similar institutions. The Indian Council for Cultural Relations,
for example, is entirely government-financed but operates autonomously. The govern-
ing body of the Swedish Institute for Cultural Relations consists of both government
and private members. This institute receives 75 percent of its funds from the govern-
ment and the remainder from private contributions.
The experience of these and other countries helps to demonstrate the desirability of a
similar body in the United States, wholly or largely funded by the federal government.
II-5
Another approach might be the establishment of a governmental foundation, perhaps
with links to the existing Federal Inter-Agency Council on International Education and
Cultural Affairs.
Such a public-private body would not be new to the United States. Congress established
the Smithsonian Institution, for example, more than a century ago as a private corpora-
tion, under the guardianship of Congress, but governed by a mixed public-private
Board of Regents.
The committee began a preliminary study of what might be the best method of meeting
the present need. It is evident, however, that, because of the great range both of ex-
isting government and private philanthropic programs, the refinement of alternatives
and selection among them is a task of considerable complexity. Accordingly, we do not
believe that this exclusively governmental committee is an appropriate forum for the
task and we recommend, instead, the appointment of a larger group, including in-
dividuals in private life with extensive experience in this field.
The basic principle, in any event, is clear. Such a new institution would involve govern-
ment funds. It might well involve government officials. But a premium must be placed
on the involvement of private citizens and the exercise of private judgments, for to be
effective, it would have to have-and be recognized to have-a high degree of
independence.
II-6
The prompt creation of such an institution, based on this principle, would fill an
important-and never more apparent-national need.
Respectfully,
/s/ John W. Gardner
Secretary of
Health, Education and Welfare
/s/ Richard Helms
Director of
Central Intelligence
/s/ Nicholas deB. Katzenbach
Under Secretary of State,
Chairman
II-7
ITEK CORPORATION
10 MAGUIRE ROAD LEXINGTON MASSACHUSETTS 02173 617,276-2000
FRANKLIN A LINDSAY PRESIDENT
December 4, 1968
The Honorable Richard M. Nixon
Hotel Pierre
New York, New York
Dear Mr. President-Elect:
During the last 15 months a study group composed of people
with backgrounds in intelligence matters and foreign
affairs has met under the sponsorship of the Institute of
Politics of Harvard University to study the conduct of
covert operations by the United States government.
This has been an entirely private group, and no publicity
on its existence or findings has been given or is planned.
The memorandum attached is the product of the group's work
and is intended for the private use of the new administra-
tion.
The report covers only the clandestine operations of the
government. It does not cover the research, analysis and
estimating functions, nor the technical intelligence
activities, except in respect to certain broad organiza-
tional matters.
In our report we recommend that you should concern yourself
with certain critical clandestine activities during the
early days of your Administration. We believe, however,
that major organizational and program changes are not
priority tasks to which attention should be devoted during
the first 90 days of your Administration. In particular,
we recommend that you not appoint a new Director of CIA
during the first year of your Administration. The present
The Honorable Richard M. Nixon
December 4, 1968
-2-
director is an able professional who has served contin-
uously in the intelligence community since the early
days of World War II. CIA has not been a political
organization. Its people have served successive admin-
istrations with equal loyalty. We believe it will help
CIA to become less conspicuous and more professional if
you ask Mr. Helms to continue to serve as Director at
your pleasure. (There is no reason, however, to give
such a decision the kind of prominence which President-
Elect Kennedy did when he announced as his first personnel
decision the resppointment of Allen Dulles and J. Edgar
Hoover.) By the end of the first year, you will be in a
better position to make changes which you believe are
called for in the organization of the intelligence
agencies and in the guidelines for their activities.
A next-to-final draft of this memorandum was reviewed
with Mr. John A. Bross, one of the senior officials of
CIA, and the findings have been discussed with him. CIA
views, however, were not sought during the study, and
the conclusions represent only the private views of the
participants.
Sincerely,
Franklin A. Lindsay
TREASURY DEPARTMENT
UNITED STATES SECRET SERVICE
OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20226
DECEMBER 3, 1968
PREPARED FOR : James J. Rowley
Director
United States Secret Service
SUPERVISION OF: Thomas L. Johns
Assistant Director-Protective Forces
United States Secret Service
BY:
Olsson,
Special Agent in Charge
Protective Support Division
United States Secret Service
November 1, 1968
MEMORANDUM FOR MR. NIXON
NATIONAL SECURITY ORGANIZATION
Summary
On January 20 you will take charge of the immense apparatus guarding American
security. You will have to start making decisions on subjects ranging from the missile-
mix for the mid-seventies to tomorrow's instructions for a tariff negotiation. This
memorandum concerns ways in which you might most quickly gain control of the laby-
rinthine bureaucracies that handle diplomatic, intelligence, military and foreign eco-
nomic affairs.
What you will want from these bureaucracies is obvious-full and timely advice
on problems you must face and ought to face; recommendations reflecting your own
policies and preferences and sense of priorities; and action carrying out your deci-
sions. You cannot, however, count on the government's automatically supplying your
needs. Every agency and subagency will have its own self-interested view of what is
best for the nation. Each will have its own priorities, and each will differ in the degree
of efficiency with which it operates. You will need arrangements for policy-making
that take account of these facts.
You need not, of course, build from the ground up. There exists a valuable body
of experience concerning White House policy coordination. A recently established
Senior Interdepartmental Group, with its subsidiary Interdepartmental Regional Groups,
(the SIG-IRG network) should be of continuing utility. The Defense Department is now
so organized that it can be much more helpful to you than it was to President Eisenhower,
and the intelligence community is somewhat better managed and disciplined. Facing you
during the transition will be, principally, the problem of how to make the rest of the
foreign affairs establishment more responsive to your needs and wishes.
1
After elaborating some of the points just mentioned, the body of this memorandum
puts forward five broad recommendations:
(1) Strengthen the Secretary of State. We assume that you will be your own Sec-
retary of State in the sense of retaining control over policy. We believe, however, that
you will be handicapped in doing so unless you have someone at State who can mobilize
and manage the diplomatic corps and related groups with effectiveness comparable to
that of the Secretaries of Defense and the Treasury. To this end, we suggest specif-
ically that you
(a) appoint a Secretary and Under Secretary who can work interchangeably;
(b) ensure that the Deputy Under Secretary for Administration and the head of the
Secretariat are chosen by and work for this team;
(c) allow the Secretary and Under Secretary a large voice in choosing Assistant
Secretaries and a few key ambassadors;
(d) urge the Secretary and Under Secretary to equip themselves with staff assis-
tance comparable to that of the Secretary of Defense; and
(e) seek from the foreign affairs community alternative proposals rather than
yes-or-no issues.
(2) Preserve centralized control of the military establishment but take pains to
display confidence in military professionals. You will face the difficult problem of
reassuring military professionals that their services and advice are valued without
at the same time committing yourself to accept their policy recommendations or ap-
prove their budget proposals. We suggest that, to meet this problem, you
(a) maintain without major changes the management power of the Office of the
Secretary of Defense;
(b) urge the Secretary of Defense to seek cordial relationships with the service
chiefs and other military professionals;
(c) acquaint yourself with the military chiefs; and
2
(d) ensure that your staff has some competence in the defense policy area.
(3) Give the SIC-IRG system a trial before instituting or reinstituting other formal
consultative machinery.
(4) Equip your staff with better resources. Specifically, we urge that you
(a) organize your staff so that it can cope expertly with the full range of national
security issues confronting you;
(b) ensure that your national security affairs staff has some sense of your domes-
tic concerns;
(c) create a small research staff in the Executive Office, working under the Cab-
inet Secretary, so that your staff can have access to background information and de-
partmental staff work not currently available to the White House;
(d) establish also in the Executive Office or perhaps in the Budget Bureau a pro-
gram evaluation facility, so that on occasion you can cross-check agency estimates of
the effectiveness of programs in their charge; and
(e) adjust the size and strength of your staff to take account of weaknesses in the
departments.
(5) Take pains to give your staff and principal agency heads understanding of your
wishes. Specifically, we would urge you to bear in mind the costs of always keeping as
many options as possible open until the last possible moment, to hold meetings with your
staff and otherwise keep them abreast of your thinking, and, within limits, to explain to
agency heads your reasons for accepting or rejecting their recommendations.
NATIONAL SECURITY ORGANIZATION
1. Introduction
1. Little that is not self-evident can be said about your needs. Only four points
deserve emphasis. First, you can be relatively sure of the departments' putting
tomorrow's issues before you but not of their letting you know about problems that
3
may become critical six months or a year hence. You will need arrangements enabling
both agency heads and your staff to identify issues on which you ought to be informed.
Second, you want arrangements that protect your calendar, so that the minutes of
your day can go to matters really deserving presidential thought.
Third, you want further protection against having to make the same basic decisions
over and over. After you have adopted a policy, you want the bureaucracy to take that
policy into account when making recommendations on related matters. This point is
worth mentioning only because of the frustration of your predecessors. President
Eisenhower, for example, never persuaded the military to remember his concern about
the domestic effects of spending. While you will not want departments full of yes-men,
you will want some sensitivity to your preferences.
Fourth, you will want your decisions carried out. This obvious point, like the pre-
ceding, is worth mentioning only because so many past Presidents have discovered that
their express wishes were not translated into action. President Kennedy was embar-
rassed during the Cuban missile crisis by the presence of American JUPITER missiles
in Turkey though he had, in fact, ordered their removal some months earlier, and his
order had not been executed.
2. Whatever arrangements are adopted should take account of the fact that no part
of the national security apparatus-not even the White House staff or the Budget Bureau-
has quite the same interests and perspectives as the President. The Department of
Defense, in its nature, regards present and contingent military problems as more im-
portant than others, while the Department of State sees diplomatic problems in the
same light; and units within each department differ on the kinds of problems and re-
gions of the world that deserve most urgent attention. Recommendations from each
are apt to involve its doing what it can do best. Thus, in the Laotian crisis of 1961,
the Joint Chiefs advised large-scale use of U.S. ground and air power; the CIA saw a
solution in largely clandestine support of one political faction; and groups in the State
Department urged negotiation of one kind or another. When representatives of different
agencies sit down together, they rarely trade in exchangeable currencies. In the end,
4
only the President can decide in an important case which military or diplomatic or
economic interests outweigh others. Yet the President must expect to receive his
advice from, and have his decisions executed by, men who may often believe whole-
heartedly that they know better than he what the national interest really is.
The presidential role is further complicated by pressures of time. A sudden event
abroad or at home will require a statement or an instruction. Sifting of facts and al-
ternatives has to take place quickly, and some individuals and agencies will respond
more efficiently than others. It is for this reason that President Johnson and his staff
have come to rely more on Defense than on State for urgently needed information and
recommendations.
II. The Apparatus You Will Inherit
3. At present, coordination of national security policy is centralized under a White
House Special Assistant. Under President Eisenhower, General Carroll and then Gen-
eral Goodpaster sorted relevant cables and memoranda, selecting those the President
needed to see and, to some extent, briefing him on upcoming issues. Goodpaster made
arrangements for all interested parties to be represented whenever a Secretary or
agency head was to present a recommendation, applying the principle, "each in the
presence of all." Cutler, Anderson, and then Gordon Gray shared this work and, in
addition, supervised NSC activity. The NSC then had, in addition to departmental
representatives, a comparatively large staff of its own. Kennedy transferred all these
functions to a Special Assistant. Bundy and then Rostow, with deputies who were prac-
tically Special Assistants in their own right (Kaysen, Komer, Bator, etc.), have han-
dled the Goodpaster and Gray tasks and also those of the NSC Planning Board and the
Operations Coordinating Board. Aided by a small staff divided among regional desks
counterpart to the regional bureaus in State, they have sorted incoming information
and advice, reached into departments to obtain additional information and recommenda-
tions, and kept check to ensure that real issues were not overlooked and that presiden-
tial decisions were being carried out.
4. Since 1966, White House coordination has been complemented by formal inter-
departmental consultation through a Senior Interdepartmental Group (SIG) and
5
Interdepartmental Regional Groups (IRG). The SIG consists of the Deputy Secretary
of Defense, the Chairman of the JCS, the President's Special Assistant for National
Security Affairs, the heads of CIA, AID, and USIA, and, when appropriate, number-two
men from other departments and the Budget Director. The Under Secretary of State is
chairman, possessing "full powers of decision
unless a member who does not
concur requests the referral of a matter to the decision of the next higher authority."
The IRG, headed by regional Assistant Secretaries of State, consist of their counter-
parts from Defense, the Joint Staff, CIA, AID, and the White House staff. Under them
are still lower-level groups led to Country Directors from State.
During its first year or so, the SIG-IRG system seemed a total failure. Quite
recently, the picture has changed. Members of a small SIG staff, recruited by Under
Secretary Katzenbach, attribute this to an alteration in procedure. The SIG now asks
the IRG and lesser groups to define points of disagreement rather than try to work out
compromises. This speeds matters along. Not making concessions, departmental
representatives below the SIG do not have to seek clearances from other units in their
own agencies. Also, the SIG is presented with issues. As a result, the SIG can at
least do somewhat more to make clear to the Secretaries and the President what it is
that has to be decided.
5. Among executive agencies concerned with national security policy, the most
powerful and most effective is the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD). McNamara
developed to the full the potential power latent in that Office. Some of what he did un-
doubtedly deserve criticism. In addition to making mistakes in some decisions, he
aroused in the services and in Congress hostility which proved costly not only to him
but to the Presidents whom he served. Nevertheless, consciousness of faults in
McNamara's performance should not blind one to his accomplishments, for a Secretary
of Defense can now do what he could never do before. He can advise the President as
to what the defense budget will buy and, to a large extent, ensure that the services carry
out the President's wishes.
Several innovations contributed to this result. The most important was acquisition
by the Secretary of some degree of budgetary control. None of McNamara's predecessors
6
had been able to do more than set ceilings for each service. Now, a Secretary has the
wherewithal to go over service requests item by item and decide rationally which to
disapprove and which to recommend to the President. Tools such as systems analysis
and program budgeting have helped him to do this. They were especially useful to
McNamara in his early days, before the services learned how to adapt the same tools
to their own purposes. In the long run, the Secretary achieved and preserved a mea-
sure of budgetary control not by gimmickry but by matching and excelling the services
in their own area of greatest strength-coordinated, detailed, and deep staff work.
The Office of the Secretary of Defense constituted in McNamara's time a manage-
ment team. Every Assistant Secretary and other major non-career appointee was
someone whom the Secretary trusted. By and large, none carried routine line responsi-
bilities. Each worked directly for the Secretary, answered to him alone, and, when
authorized to do so, acted for him. And each understood that his function was to enable
the Secretary to understand, evaluate, and pass judgment on defense policy. Whether
McNamara used his capabilities wisely or not is, of course, open to dispute. What-
ever the case, teamwork, with all members of the team sharing common objectives,
made him the most effective manager of bureaucracy that our government has ever
seen.
The part of the team equipping the Secretary of Defense to deal with broad issues
of national security policy has been the Office of International Security Affairs (ISA),
under an Assistan' Secretary of Defense. It makes use of relevant organizations within
the services and also recruits for its own staff one hundred or so of their best and most
experienced officers. In addition, it contains another one hundred or so civilians in
career or appointive posts, representing regional and functional expertise easily equal
to that in the upper reaches of State or CIA. When even these resources are insuffi-
cient, it calls on RAND, the Institute of Defense Analyses, and other outside bodies.
The mixed military-civilian group in ISA has so far retained consistent high quality.
Owing to its smallness and flexibility, internal fighting has remained minimal. Above
all, it has been close enough to the Secretary so that its representatives have
7
characteristically spoken with more authority than their counterparts on interdepart-
mental committees. *
6. CIA remains comparatively efficient. Since several other groups are pre-
paring detailed studies of its organization and operations, we note here merely that it
possesses some of the ablest and most thoughtful foreign area experts within the govern-
ment and that your various advisers, when preparing recommendations for you, need to
be able to take into account its special operating capabilities.
7. The State Department has remained ineffectual as compared with Defense, CIA,
or, in its sphere of interest, the Treasury. Dulles never tried to master the depart-
ment. If Rusk has tried, his effort has failed. As a result, the weaknesses of State in
both advisory and operating roles will constitute an immediate problem for your ad-
ministration. Some visible weaknesses are the following:
(a) The flow of written matter within the department is stupefying. Daily cable
traffic alone exceeds in wordage all that carried by all newspaper wire services. Most
officers stationed in the department occupy their time drafting responses to cables or
reading responses drafted by others in order to make sure that outgoing communications
are as nearly consistent with one another as possible. Important drafts are submitted to
Assistant Secretaries. The most important drafts go then to the Secretary or one or
more of his aides. The major departmental function falling to the Secretary therefore
is to approve, amend, or disapprove these drafts.
*Signs have begun to appear recently of a slight decliné in the power of ISA and
the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Indications are that ISA representatives now
do not dominate interdepartmental committees so often as in the mid-1960's. One
reason undoubtedly is the hostility of the services toward the Secretary. Another is
recognition in other parts of the government of the estrangement between Defense and
the White House which was a factor in McNamara's departure. Probably, however,
another factor is a basic change in the terms of interdepartmental trade. Concern
over the danger of new Vietnams, expressed in Congress not only by "doves" but also,
recently, by Russell, Symington, and Stennis, has reduced the potential political appeal
of the kinds of arguments that Pentagon representatives are best equipped to advance.
The relative success of the SIG-IRG system probably bears witness to this change.
8
(b) The volume of traffic and pressures of time are such that the top officials
seldom receive explanations of the background or significance of what they are asked
to endorse. They do not have leisure to make independent inquiries. Since interbureau
clearance tends to produce compromises, the Secretary and his aides often will not
learn of disagreements at lower levels. They act, to be sure, as final monitors, and
bring to their reading of draft cables a broader view than that possessed by others,
but what they can do, important though it may be, is limited.
(c) The Secretary and his aides have relatively little power of initiative. They
can issue general directives-e.g., the United States should avoid the appearance of
supporting Argentina's military regime against its domestic opponents. They are not
equipped and could not be equipped to compose day to day instructions effectuating this
purpose. They can merely try to note whether communications from and to the country
team depart from this general principle. Past attempts to supply the top level of the
department with resources for exercising initiative have produced little result. The
Policy Planning Council and bodies such as the Deputy Under Secretary's Politico-
Military Affairs staff are helpful chiefly if individuals within them share the job of
scrutinizing cables.
(d) The Secretary of State has relatively little leverage within his department.
Unlike the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of State has not found a means of com-
pelling career officials to explain and justify their recommendations. Members of his
department are less concerned than the armed services with budget shares. The total
budget is small. Vhile the Secretary can increase or reduce requests presented to
Congress, he has almost no power to decide that funds should go to AID or USIA
instead of the diplomatic service. He has only minimal influence over matters of per-
sonal concern to members of the Foreign Service-promotions, assignments, and per-
quisites. Even that influence is less than it might be, because custom has given mem-
bers of the House Appropriations Committee a voice in choosing the Deputy Under
Secretary for Administration. Thus the presidential appointee who sits over the Direc-
tor General of the Foreign Service and the Foreign Service Inspection Corps is only
partially answerable to the Secretary.
9
To be sure, the apparent chain of command in the department runs from the Sec-
retary through Assistant Secretaries or other Bureau chiefs. With only the rarest
exceptions, however, the latter cannot function unless they identify themselves with
the regional or functional units over which they preside. They make it their mission
to secure the Secretary's OK on cables prepared or cleared by their subordinates. The
Secretary's single powerful source of leverage remains therefore his ability to amend
or disapprove cable drafts daily shovelled at him.
III. Recommendations
8. Strengthen the Secretary of State. For a President to be his own Secretary of
State no longer means, as in the days of Roosevelt and Hull, that he needs a weak or
submissive man heading the State Department. On the contrary, with the Pentagon,
CIA, and the Treasury as strong as they now are, the President will acquire more op-
portunity to exercise policy choices if he has a man heading State who can take a force-
ful part in debate. The President can also devote more time to policy-making if sure
that someone outside the White House can make the diplomatic, aid, and information
bureaucracies execute presidential decisions. We believe that it will be advantageous
to you to make the Secretary of State much stronger, especially as a departmental
manager. Accordingly, we would urge you to take the following steps:
(a) Appoint a Secretary and Under Secretary who can work interchangeably. In
State more than any other agency, the two top men must be interchangeable. Because
of international conferences as well as obligations to Congress, the Secretary is often
absent. It would seem imperative that the man acting for him be someone whom he is
willing to trust as his alter ego. Yet, strangely, this condition has obtained only once
in the past quarter century-when Marshall was Secretary and Lovett Under Secretary.
No other measure will strengthen the Secretary vis-a-vis the department unless he and
the Under Secretary have complete confidence in one another's judgments, possess vir-
tually identical understanding of what the President's policies require, and, perhaps
most important of all, agree as to what the Secretary's functions ought to be.
10
(b) Ensure that the Deputy Under Secretary for Administration and the head of the
Secretariat are chosen by and work for the Secretary and Under Secretary. Even if they
can work closely together, your Secretary and Under Secretary of State will need manage-
ment aides. One, crucial to their control of the department, is the Deputy Under Sec-
retary for Administration. At present, this official is in part the choice of members
of the House Appropriations Committee. Foreign Service officers oppose this custom
and advocate that, as was once the case, he be a career man. To us it seems of great
importance that he be neither a congressional nor`a Foreign Service nominee but in-
stead that he be chosen by, and be exclusively responsible to, the Secretary and Under
Secretary. One consequence, to be sure, would be increased strain on the Secretary,
for he would have to spend more time on Capitol Hill, defending the department's bud-
get. Probably, he would be unable to obtain from the House some funds for missions
abroad which are now granted simply on the certification of a Deputy Under Secretary
trusted by key Congressmen. But we believe that these costs would be relatively minor
compared with the potential gains. The Secretary would gain much more freedom to
effect organizational changes. He would also acquire greater control over assignments,
promotions, perquisites, and other sources of influence over the career service.
The Secretariat, which is at present a servant of the Secretary, should remain so.
(c) Give the Secretary and Under Secretary a voice in choosing Assistant Sec-
retaries and a few key Ambassadors. Obviously you will not want to relinquish all
responsibility for choosing Assistant Secretaries and Ambassadors. On the other hand,
you will not want to reproduce the situation that existed in 1961, when many holders of
such posts regarded the President as their immediate supervisor.
At present, the department's roster includes a second Under Secretary, a Deputy
Under Secretary for Political Affairs, and, in addition to the head of the Secretariat,
thirteen other Assistant Secretaries or equivalents. Given the way the department
works, the key figures are the five Assistant Secretaries in charge of regional bureaus
(Europe, the Far East, the Near East and South Asia, Inter-American Affairs, and
Africa-in that order), plus the head of Economic Affairs. The second Under Secretary
and the Deputy Under Secretary for Political Affairs (the latter customarily a Foreign
11
Service officer) have not, as a rule, had clearly defined function. The remaining
Assistant Secretaries or equivalents (the Counselor, the Legal Adviser, and the men
heading up Congressional Relations, Intelligence and Research, Public Affairs, Scien-
tific Affairs, Cultural Affairs, and International Organization Affairs) have usually not
played key roles.
If your Secretary and Under Secretary are to gain management control of the de-
partment, they will need to have men responsible to them heading the regional bureaus
and Economic Affairs. This will be particularly necessary if the SIG-IRG system is
preserved. In addition, they should control the second Under Secretaryship and Deputy
Under Secretaryship so that they may redefine both and use them as posts for key staff
assistants. Perhaps they will also need the Legal Adviser in order to make freer
use of the noncareer talent that flows from law firms into that office. The remaining
Assistant Secretaries or equivalents would not need to be equally close to the Secretary
and Under Secretary if the organization of the department remains unchanged. In fact,
however, the other bureaus do not have to be headed by men of such high rank. The
relevant legislation empowers the Secretary to "prescribe duties for the Assistant
Secretaries
and
make changes and transfers
when, in his judgment, it
becomes necessary." We would recommend that some lesser bureaus be placed at
least temporarily under men below the rank of Assistant Secretary while your ap-
pointees take time to consider the organizational arrangements that will work best
for them.
Proposals for the key Assistant Secretaryships could, of course, come from your
staff or any other source. Ultimately, you have to make the decisions and send recom-
mendations to Congress. We would urge, however, that the selection process not consist
of nominations from the White House subject to veto by the Secretary and Under Sec-
retary, for, whatever the actual process, those chosen should not be simply men with
whom the Secretary and Under Secretary feel satisfied but men in whom they repose
a high degree of confidence.
As for ambassadorships, only a few will be really important to your State Depart-
ment team. We feel that you should give the Secretary and Under Secretary a large
12
voice in choosing those who will represent you in Moscow, Paris, Bonn, London, Tokyo,
New Delhi, and Warsaw, if it continues to be the point of contact with Red China. They
should also have some say with regard to the major international organization posts,
the UN, NATO, and the OAS, and potential trouble points. Saigon is a clear case.
Others are Seoul, Taipei, Bangkok, Karachi, Teheran, Baghdad, Tel Aviv, Cairo, Athens,
Belgrade, Bucharest, Prague, Madrid, Johannesburg, Rio, and Buenos Aires. There are
doubtless a few others about which your Secretary and Under Secretary ought to be con-
sulted. Most remaining ninety-odd embassies, however, could be used by you to reward
political supporters or to gratify the Foreign Service, without harm to the ability of
your Secretary and Under Secretary to manage their department effectively for you.
We recognize, of course, the immediate costs to you of following our recommenda-
tion. Second-level posts in State and major embassies are among the most coveted
prizes in the gift of a new President. You will disappoint some friends and supporters
if you turn aside their claims in favor of appointees more agreeable to your Secretary
and Under Secretary. You will give up a certain amount of your potential ability to
satisfy or conciliate congressional and other blocs particularly interested in certain
areas or policies. And you may well feel that, in doing so, you are ceding some of
your potential leverage within the Department of State.
We would not argue that you should pay these costs were we not convinced that the
benefits to you would outweigh them. We believe that you can score more net gain in
public and congressional support, even in the short term, by establishing mastery over
the State Department than by gratifying immediate wishes of office seekers and pres-
sure groups. We believe equally that you can achieve such mastery only if you install
a powerful managerial team in the Department. And we would add that, if past experi-
ence is a guide, you could not attain the same end by putting your own men into key
posts in the department hierarchy, for, like Roosevelt and Kennedy, you would soon
find most of them to be neither your agents nor the Secretary of State's but rather
spokesmen for the bureaucratic interests they had taken in charge.
To offset loss of patronage at the top level, you might well make a larger number
of political appointments at secondary embassies. This, too, would have its costs, for
13
Foreign Service morale would be hurt, and you would encounter criticism from friends
of the Foreign Service, especially in the Eastern Establishment. We are persuaded,
however, that Foreign Service professionals do not necessarily make the best am-
bassadors. There are obvious exceptions, such as Martin in Buenos Aires and Thomp-
son in Moscow. But, since embassy staffs are dominated by Foreign Service officers,
the points of view of the professionals will be influential in any case. Well-qualified
non-professionals can ensure that other perspectives are represented.
(d) Urge your Secretary and Under Secretary of State to equip themselves with
adequate staff. As the State Department is now organized, most second-level men are
relatively independent of the Secretary. Each Assistant Secretary and Bureau Director
manages a cluster of country desks. Undoubtedly, this grouping of desks is necessary.
Some filter must exist between the country director or division chief and the Secretary.
Undoubtedly, too, the men so placed must be politically responsible. The regional
Assistant Secretary of State, it has been said, is the first man who can commit the
United States. But, as line rather than staff officers, Assistant Secretaries carry to
the Secretary recommendations formulated within their bureaus. They argue for
adoption of these recommendations. They do not give detached advice about pros and
cons. And this is likely to remain true, even if the Secretary and Under Secretary have
a large hand in choosing the regional Assistant Secretaries.
The Secretary and Under Secretary must therefore acquire assistance in under-
standing and evalu ting recommendations from the bureaus. How they should arrange
for such assistance presents complex questions probably requiring some trial-and-
error experimentation. By redefining the second Under Secretaryship and the Deputy
Under Secretaryship for Political Affairs, they could provide themselves with two
high-level aides. They could also redefine some existing Assistant Secretaryships or
equivalents SO that these posts did not involve heading up bureaus. Men so situated
might work as high-level staff for the Secretary. Not handling any category of business
as a matter of routine, they could deal with problems which the Secretary assigned
them. The Office of Politico-Military Affairs, currently under the Deptuy Under Secre-
tary for Political Affairs, provides a nucleus for a staff that could serve the Secretary
as ISA serves the Secretary of Defense. The Secretary and Under Secretary would
14
have to make a systematic effort to add to it a small number of the very best career
men to be found in the bureaus and in AID, ACDA, CIA, and the military services.
9. Preserve centralized civilian control of the military establishment but take
pains to display confidence in military professionals. Relations with the military
establishment present delicate and difficult problems. Senior officers in all the ser-
vices feel that during recent years their professional judgment has been ignored or
overridden. They are resentful of the extent to which the civilian Secretary of Defense
has acquired control over budgetary decisions and has become, in fact as well as by
statute, the President's principal adviser on military matters. They command much
sympathy in Congress and elsewhere.
As President, you will, on the one hand, want the assistance and cooperation of
the professional military and the benefit of their wisdom on matters within their com-
petence. On the other hand, you will not want to be bound by their judgment of military
requirements, for you must keep spending within some bounds. Neither will you want
to give the military a determining voice in policy. During the transition and afterward,
you will need means of accomplishing three objectives which are hard to reconcile:
to meet the legitimate desire of the military to be consulted about matters involving
the national security; to maintain at the same time firm budgetary and policy control;
and, insofar as possible, to prevent the military from appealing against you to their
powerful friends on the Hill. As possible means of achieving these ends, we suggest
the following.
(a) Maintain without major changes the management power of the Office of the
Secretary of Defense. Without a Secretary of Defense possessing a full panoply of
management tools, you will be unable to discover the objectives of defense expenditures
and to appraise the relative merits of service proposals. You could well find yourself
doing the work now done by the Defense Secretary. Like President Eisenhower, you
might have to adjudicate even petty disputes among the services, ferret out their log-
rolling, and stand as the principal target for public and congressional criticism of
defense policy decisions. Only a Secretary of Defense equipped for intensive analysis
of research, development, procurement, planning, and deployment issues will be able
to identify for you the problems deserving your attention and the alternatives open to you.
15
We would recommend that in Defense, as in State, second-level appointments be
made with a view to giving the Secretary a team he can trust. Because the travel
schedule of the Secretary of Defense is less demanding, he need not have a Deputy
Secretary who can act as alter ego. He does, however, need a Deputy to whom he can
confidently delegate large responsibilities. He also needs men who he can regard as
staff aides in at least seven of the department's nine Assistant Secretaryships or
equivalents.
Though we believe that your Secretary-designate should probably reduce the rela-
tively swollen civilian staff now attached to his Office, we would advise against arbi-
trary personnel ceilings. We would also advise against dismantling the two largest
organizations now under the Secretary, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Defense
Supply Agency. The former is of great value in enabling the Secretary and his aides
to match the services in staff work on policy issues. The latter effects savings in
money.
The service Secretaries and other civilians in the service departments perform
important administrative duties. Rarely, however, do they have much to do with either
policy issues or budgets.
(b) Urge the Secretary of Defense to seek cordial relationships with the service
chiefs and other military professionals. Some resentments among the uniformed ser-
vices are simply products of tactless and insensitive behavior on the part of civilians.
We believe that much ill-feeling would dissolve if your Secretary and his aides take
pains simply to indicate respect for the uniformed services and the dedicated and ex-
perienced men who lead them. Among other things, they could meet more frequently,
informally as well as formally, with the Joint Chiefs and senior staff officers. They
could spend more time both listening to military recommendations and explaining their
decisions or yours. They could avoid forcing unwanted decisions on the services when
the policy or budgetary consequences are minimal (as was the case in the early
McNamara effort to unify military education). Equally, they could exercise some judg-
ment such as was not displayed in the TFX case, as to whether marginal savings are
not better achieved by enlisting enthusiastic cooperation from the services than by
imposing civilian judgment.
16
(c) Acquaint yourself with the military chiefs. It is widely believed that in recent
years the chiefs of staff have been denied access to the President. The facts probably
are exactly the reverse. Members of Johnson's staff tell us that the Chairman and
service chiefs obtain appointments relatively easily and sometimes without the fact
being known to the Secretary of Defense or even to the President's Special Assistant
for National Security Affairs. It was President Eisenhower who had it made law that a
civilian Secretary should be his principal military adviser and who made it a private
rule not to see members of the JCS except in the presence of the Secretary and, where
appropriate, all other interested parties.
We believe that President Eisenhower's practice had great merit, and would have
had even more if his Defense Secretaries had been better equipped to perform the role
he desired them to perform. Though you will, of course, want to give the Chairman
and individual service chiefs a hearing when they request it, you will not want them to
consider you a court of appeal against your Secretary of Defense. Neither will you
want to give the professional military-any more than the professional foreign service-
an impression that they are entitled to a voice in policy equal to that of your high-level
appointees. At the same time, you will want to do something to counteract any impres-
sion that the professional military are denied adequate hearing.
We would suggest the following moves. First, we would urge that you find several
early occasions to see all the Joint Chiefs, in company with the Defense Secretary.
Such sessions would not only demonstrate your interest in their views but would also
enable you to get to know better the three chiefs (Army, Navy, and Marine Corps) whose
terms run beyond the transition period. Second, you could take an active part, along
with your Secretary of Defense, in considering replacements for the two members of
the JCS whose terms expire during 1969, the Chairman and the Air Force Chief of
Staff. Third, you could make a point of occasionally joining your Defense Secretary for
a briefing given in the Pentagon by the Joint Staff. Fourth, you could indicate your own
interest in and respect for the military profession by visiting the National War College
and, if possible, some of the service War Colleges and academies. If appropriately
handled by your press secretary, these relatively simple steps could affect not only
opinion within the services but public and congressional opinion as well.
17
(d) Ensure that your staff has some competence in the defense policy area.
Though we recommend that you have a strong Secretary of Defense, we feel that your
staff should have some ability to cross-check his recommendations, for, in seeking
harmony within the Pentagon, he may well accept budgetary or other compromises
which you would be reluctant to endorse. We would not urge that, for this purpose,
you place a senior military man on your staff. The precedent of Maxwell Taylor sug-
gests how difficult it may be for even a retired senior officer to see issues from the
President's rather than the Pentagon's point of view. Nor would we urge that you equip
yourself for elaborate staff review of defense policy. You would lose thereby many
of the advantages of having a strong Secretary of Defense. But at least one man on
your White House staff should know the ins and outs of the Pentagon, or at least be able
to exploit defense policy expertise in the Budget Bureau, well enough to explore for
you opinions within the service staffs and the Joint Staff about issues on which you must
pass final judgment. One advantage to you of taking careful interest in the appointment
of a new Chairman is that a good man in that post could be an excellent point of contact
for your staff.
10. Give the SIG-IRG system a trial before reinstituting NSC or other formal
consultative machinery; rely on ad hoc groups to deal with issues not suitable for
SIG-IRG processing. Aware of the Bay of Pigs and the faulty handling of Vietnam and
recognizing also the weaknesses of the State Department, you may feel a strong temp-
tation to restore the more comprehensive and seemingly more orderly NSC-Planning
Board-OCB structure that Kennedy dismantled. We recommend that you not do so at
least during the early months of your administration. One reason is that it would be
easier for you to take such action later than to do away with a formal structure, if
you set it up soon after taking office and then decided that it did not work satisfactorily.
A more important reason is that we believe you will find it, in practice, more satis-
factory to let the SIG-IRG network serve as your basic instrument for interdepart-
mental coordination.
At the country desk level, the SIG-IRG system standardizes a kind of exchange
which is going to take place anyway. The Pakistan specialists, for example, in State,
Defense, CIA, AID, and USIA would maintain contact in any case. More efficiently
18
than the NSC Planning Board, and without an extra layer of staff, the SIG-IRG format
makes it difficult for any clique among specialists to disregard an important minority
view. It also lays on one State Department man the responsibility for reporting dif-
ferences of view to those at the next higher level. To an extent, the same is true for
the IRG's and the SIG itself.
Obviously, interdepartmental consultation must occur outside this system. Some
issues do not lend themselves to country-by-country or even region-by-region handling.
Balance of payments is an example. Other issues may be distorted if so handled,
especially if the core problem is not what to do in a given place but whether doing any-
thing at all may lead to diversion of resources more needed elsewhere. And really hot
issues will inevitably be handled by principals rather than deputies.
We believe, however, that your interests would be best served by dealing with such
matters not through an additional formal apparatus but through temporary ad hoc
committees. The advantages we see are the following. First, ad hoc committees will
be your creations. They will exist only because you want some work done. They will
not, like NSC committees of the 1950's, be making work for you. Second, they can be
small, and composed only of people essential to business in hand. There need not be
present, as on NSC committees, representatives with irrelevant interests to espouse.
Third, they can sometimes accomplish their mission without the press getting word
even of their existence. Fixed committees, on the other hand, always have reporters
near at hand. Finally, they will come into being whether you authorize them or not,
for in fixed committees, certain members will always caucus. You and your staff will
get more feed-in and have more control over policy-making; we believe, if your primary
reliance is on the SIG-IRG system and, outside it, on informal consultation and small
ad hoc committees with specific mandates.
11. Equip your staff with better resources for appraising agency recommendations.
We deal with a number of related issues in a separate memorandum, "Staffing the
White House." Here we wish to suggest specifically that you:
(a) Organize your staff so that it can cope expertly with the full range of national
security issues confronting you. The design of your White House will depend on your
19
interests and work habits and individual qualities of your staffers. It is difficult there-
fore for us to suggest anything more than very broad guidelines.
Having already urged that you not reinstitute elaborate formal machinery, we
should caution here against the other extreme-concentration of the coordinating
function under a single Special Assistant. In fact, neither Bundy nor Rostow ever
monopolized this function. Not only was each under some obligation to cross-check
with other Special Assistants, such as Sorenson, Moyers, and Califano, but each had
to delegate large responsibilities to deputies. In October, 1962, Bundy dealt with no-
thing except the Cuban missile crisis. All other national security business was
handled directly for the President by Kaysen. Later, Bator dealt with European and
international economic affairs, simply keeping Bundy and Rostow informed of what
he was doing.
If you follow the Kennedy-Johnson precedent, you will have one Special Assistant
as, in effect, chief of staff for national security affairs, with others holding the title of
Deputy Special Assistant. This has both the advantages and the drawbacks, elaborated
in our other memorandum, of any-chief-of-staff system. Alternatively, you could divide
the national security portfolio among two or more Special Assistants.
In either case but especially in the latter, you should take two precautions. First,
you should ensure that no Special Assistant is handling primarily the business of one
department, for he could too easily turn into a departmental spokesman. Despite need
for military expertise somewhere on your staff, we believe it would be a mistake to
have a man dealing only with military affairs. Equally, it would be undesirable to have
a man only for economic affairs. Second, you should ensure that each man's assign-
ment is relatively well-defined. Otherwise, they could get in each other's way. Worse
still, departmental officials could turn to one rather than another, depending on their
judgment of which would be more helpful to them.
Within your White House national security team, however organized, certain
competencies will have to be represented. Not only will someone have to know the
inner workings of the military establishment; someone will also have to possess mas-
tery of international economic issues; someone should further have intimate under-
20
standing of the intelligence community. Though no member of your staff needs to be
a regional expert, all those dealing with national security affairs should have in their
backgrounds experience or education enabling them quickly to become skeptical judges
of assessments offered by diplomats and regional experts from State, CIA, and ISA.
How many specialties will have to be represented in the national security team
depends on the total composition of the White House Staff. You and your Special As-
sistants can draw on the Council of Economic Advisers and the Science Advisory
Council. You might find it advisable to appoint an intelligence aide who would not serve
as a Special Assistant but who would be able to speak on the relative capabilities of
elements within the intelligence community.
Your national security aides will, and must, have staff assistance of their own. A
small group, consisting mostly of regional experts, now works under Rostow. We believe
that your Special Assistant(s) should have a similar group, supplemented by the small
research staff proposed below. The reasons are three. First, your Special Assistant(s)
will need to sit astride an immense volume of cable traffic. The White House Situation
Room receives information copies of all important State, Defense, and CIA communica-
tions. It is desirable that this flow continue. Otherwise, your staff might not receive
advance warning of crises or complicated issues, and you would have many fewer
opportunities for timely presidential intervention. But men working directly for you
will not be able to sift this mass of paper. Others will have to select what they must
read so that they can select what you must read. Second, your Special Assistant(s)
must not have to depend on departmental representatives to explain contexts and tech-
nicalities of issues. On any important matter, they should be able to acquire almost
as much knowledge as the operating specialist. Third, your Special Assistant(s) can
use aides taken from the departments to inform them about internal politics within
their former agencies and to provide contacts with informants at middle and lower
levels of the bureaucracy.
(b) Ensure that your national security affairs staff has some sense of your
domestic concerns. One weakness in the present system, as in President Eisenhower's
NSC organization, is that domestic aspects of national security issues are apt to be
21
overlooked. The President himself has to bring them into the picture in the final stage
of decision. Under pressure of time, especially if all national security agencies and
the Special Assistant are in concurrence, even the President may not do SO. Such was
the case with President Johnson's decision to initiate bombing in North Vietnam.
Almost all the civilians around him recommended the measure as a temporary ex-
pedient, the purpose being to elicit from Hanoi signals of willingness to move toward
tacitly agreed mutual de-escalation. No one lingered long enough on the domestic
problems that would be involved in cutting back the bombing if such signals actually
came, or if they did not.
In Kennedy's time, after several early mistakes, cooperation among Bundy,
Sorenson, and the Budget Bureau Director helped to bridge this gap. If you have in
the White House someone who completely understands your mind and your congres-
sional and other political concerns, you could partially protect yourself by having him
keep in close touch with your national security Assistant or Assistants. There is
danger, however, of his becoming a bottleneck, as Sorenson sometimes did.
(c) Establish in the executive office a small research staff. In the past, new
Presidents and presidential staffs have always been at a temporary disadvantage in
the national security area because of their relative lack of information as compared
with departments and executive agencies. Department and agency heads inherit per-
manent staffs and, in most cases, well-organized files, including the results of past
in-house and contract research. New men entering the White House by contrast can call
at most on the few civil servants remaining with the NSC and on the few records and
studies which the Budget Bureau possesses. They have, in regard to national security
problems nothing comparable to the files regarding legislation preserved by the Budget
Bureau's Legislative Reference Service. On many current issues, they cannot even
look up back papers for most have been crated for the outgoing President's archives.
Remedying this deficiency would be sufficiently demanding to require, at least at
the outset, a staff assistant not only with energy and imagination but also with under-
standing of your interests and needs. To provide him with requisite status, we would
suggest that he have the title, Secretary to the Cabinet, and perform in addition the not
very onerous duties of that post.
22
Though an Executive Office research staff need not itself be large or costly, it
must be able to use for your purposes and those of your White House staff the vast
resources of the departments. Its head should have free access to those resources.
He should define what he wants to include in a central register of records and studies.
He will then have to identify all subagencies that must be tapped for information. (Units
within Defense, for example, make a practice of keeping from other units knowledge
of staff reports or contract studies prepared for them; your research chief would
therefore have to demand direct responses at least from each service chief, the Direc-
tor of the Joint Staff, and the Office of the Secretary of Defense.) Third, your research
chief should spot-audit reports submitted. Though costs in money and manpower to the
departments would run high and the pain to departments of yielding up their secrets
to a presidential representative would run even higher, the results for you should
justify the expense and the ordeal. You could effect significant savings by becoming
able to warn departments of overlapping or repetitive research activity. More
important still, your assistants should be enabled to enter meetings with departmental
spokesmen measurably better equipped to ask the right questions and to appraise the
answers given.
Obviously, the time of your Special Assistants is too valuable for much of it to be
spent poring over long papers or studies extracted from departments by means of a
central register. Most often, quick briefings would have to suffice. Given the urgency
for action usually present, these briefings would, moreover, have to be prepared on
short notice. This means that an Executive Office s'aff would have to include men who
maintained familiarity with the materials on which the briefings would be based.
We suggest that the research staff be made up of twelve to fifteen permanent
people and outside consultants. The total number in the national security area should
be roughly equal to the staff handling current national security affairs for your Special
Assistant(s) and Deputy Special Assistants. The more the two staffs are counterpart,
the more efficiently the research staff could be used. Had it been in existence in the
mid-1960's, for example, it could have included a Southeast Asian specialist. Whether
a career man, an academic commuting on some regular basis, or a man based at
RAND or some similar place, he would have been familiar with past Defense, State,
23
CIA, and other files and studies relating to the area. He could have worked in tandem
with Michael Forrestal, Bundy's. man for current Southeast Asian affairs. Neither
Bundy nor the President would have suffered any loss of time, and briefings that orig-
inated with Forrestal could have taken account of at least some of the by-then-forgotten
thinking which had taken place during the Truman and Eisenhower administrations.
(d) Establish in the Executive Office a program evaluation group. The basic
problem is easily stated. At present, the President gets most of his information about
the effectiveness of programs from the agencies carrying them out. The military
provide the only appraisals of how effectively military operations have been conducted
in Vietnam. To be sure, the Budget Bureau performs some evaluation. Normally,
however, it is in terms of effective use of funds. You need, in addition, some group to
audit for you programs in which you take special interest. Whether such a group
should be part of the Budget Bureau or separate from it, you could best judge after
assessing the Bureau's current capabilities and appointing a new Director. Presum-
ably, such a group would limit its reviews to a relatively few vital programs. Its size
and composition would depend on the missions you decided to assign it.
(e) Adjust the size and strength of your White House staff to take account of
weaknesses in departments. The more you find it possible to reinforce the Secretary
of State and preserve the power of the Secretary of Defense, the more your staff can
confine itself to your business. If your Secretary of State cannot achieve effective con-
trol over his department, men working for you will have to keep a much closer eye
on cable traffic. As at present, they will often have to alert the Secretary of State
as well as the President to matters requiring high-level attention, and they will neces-
sarily take a larger hand in cable-drafting. They will also have to keep closer watch
over the SIG-IRG network, perhaps even posting observers at the country desk level.
And they will take on more operational assignments, including some outside the country,
like Bundy's in Santo Domingo or Komer's in Vietnam.
Similarly, weakness in the Defense Department would call for strength in the White
House. You would need on your staff or accessible in the Executive Office specialists
able to analyze in detail the long-term budgetary implications of weapons system
24
choices, the relative merits of competing weapons, and the adequacy of actual and
planned deployments to meet foreseeable contingencies.
We do not dwell on such requirements, for it is our view that your interests would
be better served by strong departments. Realizing that your judgment may run in the
other direction regarding one department or another, we merely urge here that, if so,
you take into account the probable need to compensate by reinforcing the White House.
12. Take pains to give your staff and principal agency heads understanding of your
wishes, preferences, and inclinations. The stress in most recommendations concerning
national security organization falls on means by which decision-makers can obtain in-
formation and advice. We have been equally concerned in this memorandum with the
problem of how you get your government to execute the decisions you make. As we
read the history of the Presidency in the last quarter-century, it contains many fewer
examples of decisions unsoundly based than of decisions misinterpreted, misunder-
stood, or accidentally or deliberately not carried out.
The organizational arrangements recommended earlier should enable you to have
diplomatic and military establishments potentially more responsive to your wishes
and a staff better equipped to see that this potential is realized. No arrangements
will work effectively, however, unless you see to it that they do. At the risk of seem-
ing presumptuous, we conclude this memorandum with some suggestions as to how you
may provide leadership within your administration.
First of all, we feel that you would be well advi ed not to adhere too closely to the
often-stated rule that a President should keep as many options as possible open for
as long a time as he can. Your immediate predecessors had this rule urged upon them,
with the example of FDR cited in support. They applied it, we believe, to excess.
By maintaining till the last moment an impression that they might choose any one
of a number of courses, they encouraged the build-up of bureaucratic lobbies. Some
lobbies that might have withered away, if discouraged early, acquired such strength
and determination and such support in Congress and the press as to remain active
despite the decisions finally made. The "bombing pause" lobby is one recent ex-
ample. The lobby advocating a multilateral nuclear force is another from a slightly
25
earlier period. We recognize, of course, that a President will usually refrain from
committing himself until he has to. All we counsel is that you bear in mind the possible
costs of committing yourself too late.
As you are in process of making up your mind, you would be well advised to com-
municate as clearly as possible to your staff exactly what direction your thought is
taking. The staff exists to help you and to represent you. If its members do not know
your mind, they could easily waste time analyzing the pros and cons of a course of
action which you already know you will not adopt. Equally easily, they could fail to
analyse adequately courses of action toward which you were inclined, with the result
possibly of failing to call to your attention unsuspected perils. And they could lose
opportunities to steer the departmental bureaucracies toward recommendations in line
with your fundamental purposes. We believe that you should, insofar as possible, take
your staff into your confidence.
Though recognizing the truth of Vice-President Dawes' observation, "The members
of the Cabinet are a President's natural enemies," we also believe that you would gain
by being more candid than were Kennedy and Johnson in your dealings with agency
heads. Excessive reticence can weaken rather than strengthen the President's position.
Some interdepartmental and intradepartmental bickering over Vietnam could have
been curbed had Johnson disclosed to his Secretaries of State and Defense his own rea-
sons for such moves as the Johns Hopkins speech, the 37-day bombing pause, the
Honolulu meeting with Ky, and the partial bombing suspension of last March 31.
In recommending that you be more open with your department heads, we are not
urging a new departure but rather a return to past practice. The custom of a President's
writing out for cabinet officers the reasons for his decisions was followed by most
Presidents prior to Andrew Jackson and, more recently, by Theodore Roosevelt and
Woodrow Wilson.
It would be unrealistic to urge you to imitate Theodore Roosevelt and Wilson.
Your schedule will be too crowded to permit such letter-writing. Moreover, with
cabinet officers' staffs as large as they are and copying machines everywhere, written
communications cannot be kept secure. We do urge, however, that you try to give
26
your principal agency heads oral explanations of your more important decisions. You
are much more likely thus to obtain their cooperation even when your decisions and
the reasons for them are not to their liking. When Wilson was President and William
Jennings Bryan Secretary of State, the two did not see eye to eye about issues rising
out of World War I, and Wilson overruled Bryan time after time. By candidly ex-
plaining his decisions, the President succeeded in postponing Bryan's resignation until
a time when it was less politically harmful. He also succeeded throughout in having
the actions of the Secretary conform to his wishes:
Also, it will be useful to you to articulate some of the reasons for decisions you
reach. The great statesmen of nineteenth century Europe-Metternich, Castlereagh,
Palmerston, Bismarck, Salisbury-all had to write out explanations of their actions
because they were responsible to monarchs. You face a similar necessity, of course,
in having to respond to press conference questions and deliver messages to Congress
and the public, but, in statements which all the world can hear, you can seldom be as
explicit and as candid as you might be in camera. And for the next four years you have
as great a stake in winning understanding among the managers of your bureaucracy as
among the electorate.
27
BOURKE B. HICKENLOOPER, CHAIRMAN
MARGARET CHASE SMITH
THRUSTON a. MORTON
GEORGE D. AIKEN
dile
XopΓe to:
MILTON R. YOUNG
EVERETT MC KINLEY DIRKSEN
WALLACE F. BENNETT
THOMAS N. KUCHEL
PETER H. DOMINICK
GEORGE MURPHY
JACOB K. JAVITS
Mom Fuich
FRANK CARLSON
KARL E. MUNDT
NORRIS COTTON
JOHN J. WILLIAMS
United States Senate
FRED B. RHODES, JR.
REPUBLICAN POLICY COMMITTEE
Mr taball
SECRETARY AND STAFF DIRECTOR
December 5, 1968
Haldema
Office of President-elect Richard M. Nixon
450 Park Avenue
New York, New York 10022
Attention:
Mr. C. C. Knudsen
Dear Mr. Knudsen:
Regarding your conversation with Mr. LaPlante as to
presidential authority relative to appointment or designation of Chairmen
and Vice Chairmen of the selected Bipartisan Boards and Commissions
of the U. S. Government, the Legislative Reference Service, Library
of Congress, reviewed all statutory requirements concerning each
Board and Commission, and passed along the following information
which I understand Mr. LaPlante relayed verbally to your associate,
Darrell Trent.
The gist of the information is as follows:
Of the 23 selected Boards and Commissions listed there
is no statutory authority granting the President the right to replace
or name the present Chairmen for the following 6 Boards:
1.
Commodity Credit Corporation Advisory Board No tenure
2.
Export-Import Bank of Washington
Vacant
3.
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
4.
Interstate Commerce Commission Membirs 3/9/70 name Chan
5.
National Mediation Board Members name
6.
St. Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation No tenare
Advisory Board
In the case of the remaining 17 Boards and Commissions a
review of the Code indicates that the President shall designate the
Chairman in each instance. Of this 17 the President designates the
Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Civil Aeronautics Board and the
U. S. Tariff Commission annually.
Mr. C. C. Knudsen
December 5, 1968
Page 2
The remaining 15 Boards and Commissions Chairmen are
subject to presidential designation of Chairmen and Vice Chairmen
without stipulation as to when or how often. In all cases the incoming
President may select the Chairman and Vice Chairman whether or not
they follow the usual practice of submitting their resignation of
chairmanship. This change in chairmanship may be done without regard
to the individual's tenure of appointment. In other words, if there is
a Chairman whose term does not expire until 1971, he still may be
replaced as Chairman but would remain on the Board or Commission
as a member until the expiration of his term.
Ih ope that this information will prove useful to you. If we
can be of further assistance please call upon us.
Sincerely yours,
Fred Just B. Rhodes, Jr.
Secretary and Staff Director
Republican Policy Committee
X
BIPARTISAN BOARDS AND COMMISSIONS
Membership And Home State
Political Party Affiliation
Salaries And Appointment Dates
Lengths Of Term Of Office
When Appointment Expires
Existing Vacancies
Staff Report of the
U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee
Senator Bourke B. Hickenlooper, Chairman
Fred B. Rhodes, Jr., Staff Director
March 18, 1968
Updated to November 26, 1968,
by telephone conf. Bryon Luplante CCK
This study represents an updating
by the Legislative Reference Service,
Library of Congress, of earlier com-
pilations of information on bipartisan
boards and commissions which had
been prepared and issued from time
to time by the staff of the Senate
Republican Policy Committee.
SELECTED BIPARTISAN BOARDS AND COMMISSIONS OF THE
UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT
TABLE OF CONTENTS
AEC Grang Hosmen aremo indicate Page Seator
CIVIL AERONAUTICS BOARD.
1 would
CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION
2 quit
COMMODITY CREDIT CORPORATION ADVISORY BOARD
4
EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION
5
EXPORT-IMPORT BANK OF WASHINGTON
6
FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION
7
FEDERAL DEPOSIT INSURANCE CORPORATION BOARD OF
DIRECTORS
8
FEDERAL HOME LOAN BANK BOARD
9
FEDERAL MARITIME COMMISSION
10
FEDERAL POWER COMMISSION
11
FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION
12
FOREIGN CLAIMS SETTLEMENT COMMISSION
13
INDIAN CLAIMS COMMISSION
14
INTERSTATE COMMERCE COMMISSION
15
NATIONAL MEDIATION BOARD
16
i
Table of Contents (cont.)
Page
NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD
17
SAINT LAWRENCE SEAWAY DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION
ADVISORY BOARD
18
SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
19
SUBVERSIVE ACTIVITIES CONTROL BOARD
20
U.S. ADVISORY COMMISSION ON INFORMATION
21
U.S. COURT OF MILITARY APPEALS
22
U.S. CUSTOMS COURT
23
U.S. TARIFF COMMISSION
24
ii
- 1 -
CIVIL AERONAUTICS BOARD
Date of
Length of
Name of Person
Party and
Annual
Taking
Term of
Date Tenure
Holding Office
State
Salary
Office
Office
Expires
Crooker, John H. Jr. D., Texas
$29,500
3/11/68
6
years*
12/31/68:
(Chairman) Chmshi exques 11-31-68
Murphy, Robert T.
D., R. I.
$28,750
3/15/61
6 years
12/31/72
(Vice Chairman) 12-31-68 Experes. Vice Chmn
Minetti, G. Joseph
D., N.Y.
$28,750
6/11/56
6 years
12/31/73
Gillilland, Whitney
R., Iowa
$28,750
11/16/59 6 years
12/31/71
Adams, John G.
R.,S.Dak. $28,750 4/30/65 6 years 12/31/70
*Filling out unexpired term of Charles S. Murphy, resigned.
The Civil Aeronautics Board is an independent agency composed
of five members, appointed by the President with the consent of the
Senate. The President annually designates one member as chairman,
and another as vice chairman. The Board was established June 30,
1940, pursuant to Reorganization Plans III and IV.
In general, the Board performs three chief functions: (1) regu-
lation of the economic aspects of U.S. air carrier operations, both
domestic and international; (2) investigation and analysis of aircraft
accidents; (3) cooperation and assistance in the establishment and
development of international air transportation.
Not more than three members of the Board may belong to the
same political party.
- 2 -
CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION
Date of
Length of
Name of Person
Party and
Annual
Taking
Term of
Date Tenure
Holding Office
State
Salary
Office
Office**
Expires
Macy, John W. , Jr.
D., Conn.
$29,500
3/6/61*
6 years
3/1/71
(Chairman)
Resegning
Andolsek, L. J.
D., Minn.
$28,750
4/30/63
6 years
3/1/69
(Vice Chairman)
Hampton, Robert E.
R., Md.
$28,750
7/25/61
6 years
3/1/67 73
* Appointed to serve unexpired term of commissioner ending
March 1, 1965, and designated Chai rman; reappointed for 6-year
term ending March 1, 1971, and designated Chairman.
Terms for definite tenure were established under title II,
Public Law 854 (84th Congress, second session). Previously,
appointments were for indefinite tenure at the pleasure of the
President.
The Commission was established in 1883 to administer the
Federal Service.
Principal activities of the Commission are to:
1. Provide for examinations on fitness of applicants for
positions in the competitive service and to establish qualifications
for such positions.
2. Provide, in response to requests, registers of avail-
able personnel to the various Government agencies.
3. Administer the Veterans' Preference Act of 1944.
4. Conduct investigations of persons relative to enforce-
ment of civil service laws, and for security purposes.
- 3 -
5. Administer, through the International Organizations
Employees Loyalty Board, statutory provisions relating to loyalty
of United States employees at the United Nations.
6. Administer the Classification Act of 1949.
7. Administer statutory provisions relating to political
activity by Federal employees.
8. Administer the Civil Service Retirement Act, and the
Federal Employees' Group Life Insurance Act of 1954.
9. Provide general legal services relative to the Voting
Rights Act of 1965.
Not more than two members of the Commission may be
members of the same political party. The President designates
both the Chairman and the Vice Chairman. All three Commis-
sioners are appointed by the President with the consent of the
Senate.
In connection with its duties, the bipartisan Commission
is required by Executive Order to appoint members of another
board which acts within the Civil Service Commission the
International Organizations Employees Loyalty Board.
Members of the International Organizations Employees
Loyalty Board serve under indefinite appointments and receive a
per diem allowance for each day actually employed, plus any
travel allowances.
The Chairman of the International Organization Employees
Loyalty Board is Howard c, Bolton.
- 4 -
COMMODITY CREDIT CORPORATION ADVISORY BOARD
Date of
Length of
Name of Person
Party and
Annual
Taking
Term of
Date Tenure
Holding Office
State
Salary
Office
Office
Expires
Smith, Leroy K.
D., Colo.
$50 per
11/20/61
At pleas-
Indefinite
(Chairman)
diem
ure of
President
Lewis, Charles D.
D., Va.
$50 per
11/20/61
At pleas-
Indefinite
diem
ure of
President
Milton, Lorimer D.
R., Ga.
$50 per
11/20/61
At pleas-
Indefinite
diem
ure of
President
Reed, Frank W.
D., Nebr.
$50 per
2/1/64
At pleas-
Indefinite
diem
ure of
President
White, J.P., Jr.
R.,N.M.
$50 per
11/20/61
At pleas-
Indefinite
diem
ure of
President
This Board was constituted pursuant to section 9 (b) of the
Commodity Credit Corporation Charter Act, as amended (P. L. 806,
80th Congress, P. L. 85, 81st Congress). The Board meets at
least once every ninety days to survey and advise the Secretary on
the general policies of the Commodity Credity Corporation. Not
more than three members may belong to the same political party.
All are appointed by the President alone.
Members are paid $50 per diem plus traveling expenses
when actually employed.
- 5 -
EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION
Date of
Length of
Name of Person
Party and
Annual
Taking
Term of
Date Tenure
Holding Office
State
Salary
Office
Office
Expires
Alexander, Clifford L. D., N.Y.
$28,750
8/4/67
5 years
7/1/72
(Chairman)
Holcomb, Luther
D., Texas
$28,000
6/1/65
4 years*
7/1/69
(Vice Chairman)
Jackson Samuel C.
R. Kans.
$28,000
6/1/65
3-years
7/1/68
Brown William H. III R.B.
28 000
10/29/68
3 years
1/1/73
Ximenes, Vincent T.
D.,N.M.
$28,000
6/9/67
5 years
7/1/71
Kuck, Elizabeth J.
R., Ill.
$28,000
5 years*
7/1/70
Established by act of July 2, 1964 (Public Law 88-352), the
Commission is charged with the enforcement of the fair employment
practices section of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It investigates
complaints of discrimination by employers, labor unions, and employ-
ment agencies because of race, creed, color, or sex in violation of
the Act.
The Members are appointed by the President with the consent
of the Senate. Not more than three of them may be of the same party.
*Successors shall be appointed for terms of 5 years each,
except that any individual chosen to fill a vacancy shall be appointed
only for the unexpired term of the member whom he shall succeed.
- 6 -
EXPORT-IMPORT BANK OF WASHINGTON
Board of Directors
Date of
Length of
Name of Person
Party and
Annual
Taking
Term of
Date Tenure
Holding Office
State
Salary
Office
Office
Expires
Linder, Harold F.
D. Resigned N.Y.
$29,500
3/21/61
Indefinite
At pleasure
(Chairman)
of President
Sauer, Walter C.
D.C.,no
$28,750
9/28/62
Indefinite
At pleasure
(Vice Chairman)
political
of President
affiliation
May, Elizabeth S.
R., Mass.
$28,750
6/17/64
Indefinite
At pleasure
of President
Lilley, Tom
R.,W.Va.
$28,750
10/26/65
Indefinite
At pleasure
of President
11-26-68
IVE
One vacancy exists as of 3/6/68.
The purpose of the Export-Import Bank is to aid in financing,
and to facilitate exports and imports and the exchange of commodities
between the United States and foreign countries. Its policy is to
supplement and not compete with private capital, with loans to be for
specific purposes and offering reasonable assurance of repayment.
The Bank is authorized to have a capital stock of $1 billion and may
borrow from the Treasury on its own obligations up to not more than
$6 billion outstanding at any one time.
The Bank was authorized in 1934 as a banking corporation
under the laws of the District of Columbia. It was made a bipartisan
independent agency in 1945, and reincorporated in 1947 under Federal
charter. The Board ceased to be bipartisan in 1953 under Reorganiza-
tion Plan 5; however, in 1954 under Public Law 570 its bipartisan
status was reestablished in a five-man Board of Directors. Not more
than three members of the Board may be of the same political party.
All of them are appointed by the President with the consent of the
Senate.
- 7 5.
FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION
Date of
Length of
Name of Person
Party and
Annual
Taking
Term of
Date Tenure
Holding Office
State
Salary
Office
Office
Expires
Hyde, Rosel H.
R., Idaho
$29,500
4/17/46
7 years
6/30/69
(Chairman)
Lee, Robert E.
R.,D.C.
$28,750
10/6/53
7 years
6/30/74
Johnson, Nicholas
D., Texas
$28,750
7/1/66
7 years
6/30/73
Loevinger, Lee
D., Minn.
$28,750
6/11/63
7 years 7
6/30/68
Cox, Kenneth A.
D., Wash.
$28,750
3/26/63
7 years
6/30/70
Bartley, Robert T.
D., Texas
$28,750
3/6/52
7 years
6/30/72
Wadsworth, James J.
R.,N.Y.
$28,750
5/5/65
7 years
6/30/71
Lee, H. Rex
D Idaho
28,750
6/30?
7 years
6/30/75
Created by the Communications Act of 1934 to regulate
interstate and foreign commerce in communication by wire and
radio so as to make available to the people of the United States
a rapid, efficient, nationwide and worldwide wire and radio
communication service, the Commission polices the industry as a
part of its duties. A primary purpose is the more effective use
of radio, television, and wire communications in the public
interest.
Members are appointed by the President, subject to
confirmation by the Senate. Not more than four Commissioners
may be members of the same political party. The President
designates the Chairman.
- 8 -
FEDERAL DEPOSIT INSURANCE CORPORATION
Board of Directors
Date of
Length of
Name of Person
Party and
Annual
Taking
Term of
Date Tenure
Holding Office
State
Salary
Office
Office
Expires
Randall, Kenneth A.
R., Utah
$28,750
3/10/64
6 years
3/9/70
(Chairman)
Camp, William B.
D., Texas
$29,500
2/1/67
5 years
1/31/72
(Comptroller of the
Currency)
spragui, (ex officio) Irvine H. D. Colo 29,500 Sept 68 Gyrs Sept/74
There is one NO vacancy, with respect to a 6-year term
ending 3/3/72.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation was organized
under authority of Section 12B of the Federal Reserve Act as
amended and reorganized in September 1950 under a separate
Federal Deposit Insurance Act.
The Corporation insures the deposits of all banks entitled
to benefits of such insurance under the law. In this capacity, the
Corporation pays off depositors of insured banks which close down;
acts as a receiver for national banks placed in receiverships and
for State banks when appointed for such tasks by the States. The
Corporation also can make loans or purchase assets in order to
prevent closing of an insured bank or to reopen a closed insured
bank.
Two of the board of three members are appointed by the
President for terms of six years, by and with the consent of the
I
Senate. The third member, under the law, is the Comptroller
of the Currency. Not more than two members of the board may
belong to the same political party. A chairman is elected from
the two members appointed by the President.
- 9 -
FEDERAL HOME LOAN BANK BOARD
Date of Length of
Name of Person
Party and
Annual
Taking
Term of
Date Tenure
Holding Office
State
Salary
Office
Office
Expires
Horne, John E.
D.,Ala.
$29,500
8/8/63*
4
years
6/30/71
(Chairman)
Renigning
Greenebaum, Michael
D., Ill.
$28,750
4/1/65
4 years
6/30/69
29,500
Rand, Robert L.
R., Calif.
$28,750
10/10/66 4 years
6/30/70
Acting Chmn
Renominated, confirmed (6/5/67), and continues in
office for a second 4-year term.
One vacancy exists as of 11-26-68,
The Federal Home Loan Bank Board was created as a
constituent agency of the Housing and Home Finance Agency by the
President's Reorganization Plan 3 of 1947. It assumed the functions
of the previous Federal Home Loan Bank Board, the Board of
Directors of the Home Owners' Loan Corporation, and the Board of
Trustees of the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation.
As a result of the housing amendments of 1955 (P. L. 345, August 11,
1955), the Board was changed from a constituent agency to an inde-
pendent agency (including the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance
Corporation).
The three members of the Board are appointed by the
President with the consent of the Senate. The President designates
a Chairman. Not more than two of its members may belong to the
same political party.
The basic functions of the Board are (1) to provide, through
the medium of twelve regional Federal Home Loan Banks, reserve
credit for member savings and home-financing institutions; (2) to
direct the operations of the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance
Corporation, which insures the accounts of each saver or investor
in its member institutions; and (3) to charter and regulate Federal
savings and loan associations.
FEDERAL MARITIME COMMISSION
Date of
Length of
Name of Person
Party and
Annual
Taking
Term of
Date Tenure
Holding Office
State
Salary
Office
Office
Expires
Harllee, John, Rear
D., D.C.
$29,500
7/20/65
5 years*
6/30/70
Adm., USN, Ret.
from
(Chairman)
7/1/65
Barrett, Ashton C.
D., Miss.
$28,750
9/6/63
4 years
6/30/72
from
7/1/63
scit/68
Hearn, George Henry
D., N.Y.
$28,750
7/22/64
4 years
6/30/68c 73
(Vice Chairman)
from
7/1/64
Day, James V.
R., Maine $28,750 7/20/65 4 years*
6/30/69
from
7/1/65
Fanseen, James F.
R., Md.
$28,750
4/19/67
5 years*
6/30/71
Vice Chmn.
from
7/1/66
*As provided by Public Law 89-56 (June 30, 1965).
The Commission, successor in part to the Federal Maritime
Board, was established by Reorganization Plan No. 7 of 1961 to ad-
minister the functions and discharge the regulatory authorities under
the Shipping Act of 1916, the Merchant Marine Act of 1920, the Inter-
coastal Shipping Act of 1933, and the Merchant Marine Act of 1936.
Its general functions include: (1) regulation of services,
practices, and agreements of common carriers by water and other
persons engaged in foreign commerce of the United States, (2)
consideration of tariff filings of common carriers engaged in foreign
commerce; (3) regulation of rates, fares, and practices of common
water carriers in off-shore trade of the United States; (4) investiga-
tion of discriminatory rates and practices in waterborne off-shore
commerce; and (5) rendering decisions, issuing orders, and making
rules and regulations governing common carriers by water, terminal
operators, freight forwarders, and other persons subject to the ship
ping statutes.
The five Commissioners are appointed by the President with
the consent of the Senate. From "time to time" the President is
empowered to designate one of the Commissioners to be Chairman,
11 -
FEDERAL POWER COMMISSION
Date of
Length of
Name of Person
Party and
Annual
Taking
Term of
Date Tenure
Holding Office
State
Salary
Office
Office
Expires
White, Lee C.
D., Nebr
$29,500
3/2/66
5 years
6/22/70
(Chairman)
O'Connor,
D., Texas
$28,750
8/14/61
5 years
6/22/71
Lawrence J., Jr.
Ross, Charles R.
R., Vt.
$28,750
9/29/61
5-years
6/22/69
Bagge, Carl E.
R., Ill.
$28,750
6/27/65
5 years
6/22/72
Carver, John A., Jr. D., Idaho
$28,750
9/13/66
5 years
6/22/68
Brooke, A. B. Jr. R. Ky 28750 10/16/68 Recess 6/22/69
The Commission was organized as an independent agency in
its present form by the act approved June 23, 1930. The Commis-
sion originally was created in 1920 under the Federal Water Power
Act.
The Commission licenses hydroelectric projects on Govern-
ment lands or on navigable waters; maintains jurisdiction over the
transmission and sale at wholesale of electric energy in interstate
commerce and public utilities engaged therein; administers the
Natural Gas Act of 1938; and has certain functions relating to the
transmission of electric energy between the United States and
foreign countries.
The President names the five-member Commission, subject
to confirmation by the Senate, and designates the Chairman. A Vice
Chairman is chosen by the members of the Commission. Not more
than three members of the Commission may be members of the
same political party.
- 12 -
FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION
Date of
Length of
Name of Person
Party and
Annual
Taking
Term of
Date Tenure
Holding Office
State
Salary
Office
Office
Expires
Dixon, Paul Rand
D., Tenn.
$29,500
3/21/61
7 years
9/25/72
(Chairman)
Elman, Philip
Ind., Md.
$28,750
4/21/61
7 years
9/25/70
Sept/68
MacIntyre, A.
D., N.C.
$28,750
9/26/61
7 years
9/25/5875
Everette
Nicholson, James M. D., Ind.
$28,750
1/5/68
7 years
9/25/69
Jones, Mary Gardiner R., N.Y.
$28,750
10/17/64
7 years
9/25/73
The Commission was created originally under the Federal
Trade Commission Act of 1914 to prevent price-fixing agreements,
boycotts, and other unfair methods of competition. Since that date
its functions have been broadened to cover false advertising, and
other unfair and deceptive business practices.
The five-member board is appointed by the President by
and with the consent of the Senate. Under a 1950 change in the
law, the President also names the Chairman. Not more than three
of the Commission's five members may be of the same political
party.
The primary purposes of the Commission are (1) to promote
free and fair competition in interstate trade through prevention of
price restraints, unlawful price discrimination, etc.; (2) to safe-
guard life and health of consuming public by prevention of false
advertisements of drugs, cosmetics, devices, etc.; and (3) to
make available to the Congress, the President, and the public,
factual data concerning economic and business conditions.
- 13 -
FOREIGN CLAIMS SETTLEMENT COMMISSION
Date of
Length of
Name of Person
Party and
Annual
Taking
Term of
Date Tenure
Holding Office
State
Salary
Office
Office
Expires
Jaffe, Theodore
D.,R.I.
$28,000
3/29/61
3 years
10/22/68
Fried bero, Sydney D.NY
28000
6/24/68
3 yrs
10/22/71
Sutton, Leanard
D Colo
28000
4/1/68
lyr
+
10/22/69
.Two vacancies exist as of 3/6/68.
The Commission was created by Reorganization Plan No. 1
of 1954. Its three members are appointed by the President with the
advice and consent of the Senate, and serve 3-year terms.
The basic function of the Commission is to determine claims
of United States nationals against foreign governments sustained under
the International Claims Settlement Act of the War Claims Act of 1948.
- 14 -
INDIAN CLAIMS COMMISSION
Date of
Length of
Name of Person
Party and
Annual
Taking
Term of
Date Tenure
Holding Office
State
Salary
Office
Office
Expires
Holt, William M.
R., Nebr
$28,000
4/10/47
Indefinite
McKeldin, Theodore
R. Md.
20 000
11/21/68
Recess
Indef
Scott, T. Harold
D., Golo.
$28,000
7/1/60
Indefinite
Pierce, Margare N. R.W.,DC 28000 10/16/68 Indet
Vance, John T.
D., Mont.
$28,000
12/19/67
Indefinite
*
Chun
Yarborough
D., Texas
$28,000
12/28/67
Indefinite
Richard Y.
Kuykendall, Jerome K. R., Va.
$28,000 12/19/67 Indefinite
*
*
See explanation below
No chairman has as yet been named,
The Commission was created by act of August 31, 1946, to
hear and determine claims against the United States by any Indian
tribe, band, or other identifiable group of American Indians resident
in the United States.
Public Law 90-9, signed by President Johnson on April 10,
1967, stipulated that there shall be five Commissioners, appointed
by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate.
At least three Commissioners should be members of the bar of the
Supreme Court of the United States. No more than three Commis-
sioners are to be of the same political party.
The new law provides that the Commission shall make its
final report to Congress and shall terminate before April 10, 1972.
- 15 -
INTERSTATE COMMERCE COMMISSION
Date of
Length of
Name of Person
Party and
Annual
Taking
Term of
Date Tenure
Holding Office
State
Salary
Office
Office
Expires
Tierney, Paul J.
R., Md.
$29,500
3/29/63
7 years
12/31/69
(Chairman)
Brown, Virginia Mae D., W. Va.
$28,750
5/25/64
7 years
12/31/70
(Vice Chairman) will be Chmn in 1969.
Tuggle, Kenneth H.
R., Ky.
$28,750
2/20/62
7 years
12/31/68
Murphy, Robert L.
D., Ga.
$28,750
4/14/65
7 years
12/31/71
;
Walrath, Laurence K.
D., Fla.
$28,750
4/6/64
7 years
12/31/70
Bush, John W.
D., Ohio
$28,750
4/14/65
7 years
12/31/71
Deason, Willard
D., Texas
$28,750
1/1/66
7 years
12/31/72
Hardin, Dale
R., III.
$28,750
7/31/67
7 years
12/31/72
Stafford, George M.
R., Kans.
$28,750
4/26/67
7 years
12/31/73
Burke, Wallace R. D. Comn
28750
7/21/68
7yrs
12/31/74
Two-vacancies existsas of 3/6/68.
one
The eleven members of the Commission are appointed by the
President, subject to Senate confirmation. The Commission names
its own Chairman and Vice Chairman. Not more than six members
of the Commission may belong to the same political party.
The Commission was created as an independent agency under
an act of February 4, 1887. Subsequent legislation has strengthened
and broadened its authority.
The Commission regulates motor carriers; water carriers
and freight forwarders; prescribes rates, charges, regulations,
and practices to be observed by carriers, etc. may require common
carriers to establish joint rates, etc. ; authorizes carriers to issue
securities; prescribes safety regulations, etc.
- 16 -
NATIONAL MEDIATION BOARD
Date of
Length of
Name of Person
Party and
Annual
Taking
Term of
Date Tenure
Holding Office
State
Salary
Office
Office
Expires
27000
Gamser, Howard G.
D., N.Y.
$28,500
3/11/63
3 years
7/1/69
(Chairman)-
1968
O'Neill, Francis A.,
R., N.Y.
$27,000
4/1/47
3 years
7/1/68 71
Jr.
28,500
Edwards, Leverett
D., Okla.
$27,000
4/21/50
3 years
7/1/70
Chairman
The Board was created by an act to amend the Railway Labor
Act approved June 21, 1934. The members are appointed by the
President with the consent of the Senate. The Board annually
designates its own Chairman. Not more than two members may
belong to the same political party.
Principal duties of the Board are to mediate differences
between the railroads, the express and Pullman companies, and the
airlines on one hand and the employees on the other, in such fields
as working agreements, rates of pay, rules, etc. Also, the Board
is charged with determining representation disputes among employees.
- 17 -
NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD
Date of
Length of
Name of Person
Party and
Annual
Taking
Term of
Date Tenure
Holding Office
State
Salary
Office
Office
Expires
O, Connell, Joseph J.,
D., Md.
$29,500
4/1/67
3 years*
12/31/69
Jr. (Chairman)
Laurel, Oscar M.
D., Texas
$28,750
4/1/67
5 years*
12/31/71
Reed, John H.
R., Maine
$28,750
4/1/67
4 years*
12/31/70
1468
in
Thayer, Louis M.,
Ind., Fla.
$28,750
4/1/67
12 years*
12/31/68 73
Rear Adm., USCG
(Ret.)
McAdams, Francis H. D., D.C.
$28,750
4/1/67
5 years*
12/31/72
*
Original members were appointed for terms of 1, 2, 3,
4, and 5 years. Francis H. McAdams served the 1-year term, and
was reappointed to a 5-year term. All subsequent appointments will
be for 5-year terms.
The National Transportation Safety Board was established by
Public Law 89-670 (October 15, 1966). It is composed of five members,
appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the
Senate, who serve for terms of 5 years each, No more than three mem-
bers are to be of the same political party.
The Board is an independent, autonomous body which reports
annually and directly to Congress. It is charged with reviewing safety
measures in all fields of transportation. It may investigate and make
determinations of cause in transportation accidents, and it may review
on appeal the suspension, amendment, modification, revocation, or
denial of any certificate or license issued by the Secretary of Transpor-
tation or by any Administrator of any agency under him. Its primary
concern is accident prevention and encouragement of safety measures
in all forms of transportation.
- 18 -
SAINT LAWRENCE SEAWAY DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION --
ADVISORY BOARD
Date of
Length of
Name of Person
Party and
Annual
Taking
Term of
Date Tenure
Holding Office
State
Salary*
Office
Office
Expires
Brockel, H. C.
R., Wis.
$50 per
8/19/54
Indefinite
At pleasure
diem
of President
Lloyd, Kenneth M.
D., Ohio
$50 per
8/19/54
Indefinite
At pleasure
diem
of President
McMahon, Thomas P. D., N.Y.
$50 per
9/7/61
Indefinite
At pleasure
diem
of President
Oettershagen,
D., Ill.
$50 per
5/24/62
Indefinite
At pleasure
Martin W.
diem
of President
McKee, Miles F.
Ind., Mich.
$50 per
9/21/66
Indefinite
At pleasure
diem
of President
*Members are paid $50 per diem when actually employed.
Established under the act creating the Saint Lawrence Seaway
Development Corporation, the Advisory Board is required to meet
not less than once each ninety days, for the purpose of reviewing the
general policies of the Corporation, including its policies in connec-
tion with the design and construction of facilities and the establish-
ment of rules of measurement for vessels and cargo and rates of
charges or tolls.
The Board is composed of five members appointed by the
President, with the consent of the Senate. Not more than three
members shall belong to the same political party.
- 19 -
SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Date of
Length of
Name of Person
Party and
Annual
Taking
Term of
Date Tenure
Holding Office
State
Salary
Office
Office
Expires
1968
Cohen, Manuel F.
D., Md.
$29,500
10/11/61
5 years
6/5/6273
(Chairman)
Owens, Hugh F.
D., Okla.
$28,750
3/23/64
5 years
6/5/70
Budge, Hamer H.
R., Idaho
$28,750
7/8/64
5 years
6/5/69
Wheat, Francis M.
D., Calif.
$28,750
10/2/64
5 years
6/5/71
Smith, Richard B.
R., N.Y.
$28,750
5/1/67
5 years
7/5/72
The Securities and Exchange Commission was created under
the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The members are appointed
by the President with the consent of the Senate. The President also
designates the Chairman. Not more than three members may belong
to the same political party.
The Commission is a quasi-judicial agency. Principal
purpose of the Commission is to protect the public and investors
against malpractices in the securities and financial markets. The
Commission regulates trading in securities; enforces sanctions
against companies and persons guilty of securities frauds and/or
manipulations; oversees mergers, consolidations, etc., of public
utilities holding companies; supervises activities of investment
companies, etc.
- 20 -
SUBVERSIVE ACTIVITIES CONTROL BOARD
Date of
Length of
Name of Person
Party and
Annual
Taking
Term of
Date Tenure
Holding Office
State
Salary
Office
Office
Expires
Mahan, John W.
D., Mont.
$28,000
10/11/65
5 years
3/4/70
(Chairman)
McHugh, Simon F.
D., D.C.
$28,000
7/17/67
5 years
7/16/72
Sells, Leonard L.
D., Va.
$28,000
7/7/64
5 years
8/9/69
Patterson, John S.
R., Ill.
$28,000
9/22/66
5 years
8/9/71
There is one vacancy, with respect to a 5-year term
ending 8/9/70.
The Board was established by the Subversive Activities
Control Act of 1950. The five members of the Board are appointed
by the President with the consent of the Senate. The Chairman is
designated by the President. Not more than three may be members
of the same political party. Under Public Law 254, approved
August 5, 1955, the tenure of office of members of the Board was
extended from 3 to 5 years.
The Board, upon application by the Attorney General or any
organization or individual covered by the act, determines whether
such organization is a "Communist-action," or a "Communist-
front, " organization within the meaning of the act. Public Law 90-
237 provides that, after appropriate hearing, the Board shall pub-
lish in the Federal Register its determination that an organization
is a "Communist-front" or "Communist-action."
- 21 -
UNITED STATES ADVISORY COMMISSION ON INFORMATION
Date of
Length of
Name of Person
Party and
Annual
Taking
Term of
Date Tenure
Holding Office
State
Salary
Office
Office
Expires
Stanton, Frank, Dr.
Ind., N.Y.
*
1/28/64
3 years
1/27/71
(Chairman)
Novik, M. S.
D., N.Y.
*
1/28/65
3 years
1/27/71
Hoyt, Palmer
R., Colo.
*
1/28/65
3 years
1/27/71
Larmon, Sigurd S.
R., N. Y.
*
1/28/63
3 years
1/27/69
Vail, Thomas
D., Ohio
*
3/--/67
3 years
1/27/70
*No compensation; travel and per diem of $16.00 for atten-
dance at meetings.
This Commission was established under Public Law 402 of
the 80th Congress. Its primary function was to advise the Secretary
of State in quarterly reports and the Congress in semiannual reports
on the effectiveness and policy effects of the Voice of America, and
the press and motion picture foreign educational programs; in recent
years, however, its first duty has been to recommend to the Director
of the U. S. Information Agency policies and programs relative to
international information activities.
Members are appointed by the President with the consent of
the Senate. The President designates the Chairman. Not more than
three members may belong to the same political party.
- 22 -
UNITED STATES COURT OF MILITARY APPEALS
Date of
Length of
Name of Person
Party and
Annual
Taking
Term of
Date Tenure
Holding Office
State
Salary
Office
Office
Expires
Quinn, Robert E.
D., R. I.
$33,000
5/22/51
15 years
5/1/81
(Chief Judge)
Ferguson, Homer
R., Mich.
$33,000
4/9/56
15 years
5/1/71
Dec
Kilday, Paul-J.
D., Texas
$33,000
9/25/61
15-years
5/1/76
Ant. Apps. to Setden owron in 11/12/68
Danden, him H. D. Ga. 33,000 11/13/62 Recess 5/1/76
The Court was established pursuant to an act approved
May 5, 1950,for the purpose of reviewing courts-martial. The act
provides that the Court be located for administrative purposes in
the Department of Defense.
The Court reviews the record in all cases in which the
sentence, as affirmed by a board of review, affects a general or
flag officer, or extends to death, and all cases forwarded for
review by the Judge Advocates General of the Armed Services and
by the General Counsel of the Treasury Department acting for the
Coast Guard, or cases in which a review is granted upon petition.
The three judges are appointed from civilian life by the
President, with the consent of the Senate., for 15-year terms, with
each Judge eligible for reappointment. Not more than two of the
Judges may be members of the same political party. The Presi-
dent from time to time designates the Chief Judge.
- 23 -
UNITED STATES CUSTOMS COURT
Date of
Length of
Name of Person
Party and
Annual
Taking
Term of
Date Tenure
Holding Office
State
Salary
Office
Office
Expires
Rao, Paul P.
D., N.Y.
$30,000
1948
Good behavior
---
(Chief Judge)
Beckworth, Lindley G. D., Texas
$30,000
1967
Good-behavior
Rosenstein, Samuel
D. Ky
30 000
1968
Good behavior
I
Ford, Morgan
R.,N.Dak.
$30,000
1949
Good behavior
--
Richardson, Scovel
R., Mo.
$30,000
1957
Good behavior
---
Landis, Frederick
R., Ind.
$30,000
1966
Good behavior
---
Watson, James L.
D., N.Y.
$30,000
1966
Good behavior
---
Hebert N.
Maletz, Herman-M:
D., Va.
$30,000
1967
Good behavior
---
Re, Edward
D. NY
30000
1968
&Not yet sworn in 11-26-68)
Two One vacancies as of 3/6/68.
The U.S. Customs Court was created originally in 1890 as
the Board of United States General Appraisers and received its
present name in 1926. It is not to be confused with the U.S. Court
of Customs and Patent Appeals.
The Customs Court has exclusive jurisdiction over civil
actions arising under the tariff laws, the internal revenue laws relat-
ing to imported merchandise, the several customs simplification
acts, the proclamations of the President issued under reciprocal
trade agreements, and other proclamations imposing taxes or quotas
on imported goods. It reviews appraisals of imported merchandise,
including Customs Bureau orders on rates of duty, exclusion of
merchandise, and liquidation of entries.
The nine Judges are named by the President and confirmed
by the Senate. The President designates one as Chief Judge. Not
more than five Judges may be appointed from the same political party.
- 24 -
UNITED STATES TARIFF COMMISSION
Date of
Length of
Name of Person
Party and
Annual
Taking
Term of
Date Tenure
Holding Office
State
Salary
Office
Office
Expires
Metzger, Stanley G.
D., D. C.
$28,750
7/9/67
6 years
6/16/73
(Chairman)
Sutton, Glenn W.
D., Ga,
$28,000
9/1/54
6 years
6/16/72
(Vice Chairman)
Gulliton, James W.
Ind., Ind.
$28,000
12/5/62
6-years
6/16/68
Leonard, will E.
D. La.
28000
10/29/68
UxexpTerm
6/16/69
Thunberg, Penelope H. Ind., Md.
$28,000
8/3/65
6 years
6/16/70
Clubb, Bruce E.
R., Va.
$28,000
7/3/67
6 years
6/16/71
Newsom, Hershel D. R. Ind.
28000
9/29/68
byears
6/16/74
One vacancy as of 3/6/68
The Commission was created in 1916 and its power added to
by the Tariff Act of 1922, particularly with relation to administra-
tion of the "flexible tariff" and "unfair practices in import trade. "
The Tariff Act of 1930 added further powers, designating the Com-
mission to conduct investigations to determine whether imports
were interfering with the agricultural programs undertaken by the
Government.
Primary duty of the Commission is to investigate and report
upon tariff and foreign trade matters and to furnish, on request, such
information to the President, either branch of the Congress, the
House Ways and Means Committee, and the Senate Finance Committee.
The six members are appointed by the President with the
consent of the Senate. Not more than three members may belong
to the same political party. The Chairman and Vice Chairman are
designated annually by the President.
MEMO TO BOB HALDEMAN
From Buchanan
December 19, 1968
Attached is the memo I drafted on the basis of the
dicussions yesterday on the Make-up of the Presidential
Staff, and its operation. What you described may very
well have been what RN's wants, and perhaps it is best.
But before the thing finally congeals that way, I would
trust that RN would give a quick reading to the new book,
The President's Men. To me, the structure seems to be
geometric and workable on paper, but in readity I don't
think it's going to fly. Anyhow, I wanted to give you the
benefit of all of the concerns that arise with me, and some
of these I would imagine are shared by others.
Buchanan
DETERMINED TO BE AN
December 20, 1968
ADMINISTRATIVE MARKING
E.O. 12065. Section 6-102
CONEIDENTIAL
By Emprise
MRS, Date 1-30-80
MEMO TO:
Bob Haldeman
FROM:
Buchanan
I have given considerable thought over the last day
to the organizational structure of the staff, as you outlined,
and, unless you left a portion of it out, I don't think it will
work to the benefit of the President.
First. You, as I understand, are to sit astride all
incoming paper, to read it and to pass final judgement on it.
This will tend to be a rather inhibiting factor if we wanted to
criticize to the President some element of your own operation,
which is really an all-embrasive as of now. Suppose the press
operation is breaking down, and the press is grumbling about it;
suppose special assistants are being flooded with calls about the
ineptitude of the appointments operation; suppose there are
complaints about "nobody getting to see the President" and the
complaints are reaching a point where it is damaging the
Administration; suppose someone wants to demand a restructure of
the staff. Some of these things the President should judge for
himself on the basis on "privileged" input. I am not denigrating
your objectivity. In my experience you have always passed things
on, where I have felt they "ought" to go in. But the presence
itself of a single screen or censor of sorts induces a self-impose
- 2 -
censorship on the writer. Everybody writing memos is going to
tailor them to take into consideration the fact that "your
Administrative Boss is watching you."
I don't think this a wise arrangement and a bit
further on I will mention a few organizational reforms which I
think will eliminate what could be a continuing problem--in the
quality of the paper the President receives.
Secondly, you have in effect told staff that any
"end runs," especially to the President, would mean "it's been
nice knowing you in the White House."
It seems to me unrealistic frankly to attempt to
block all end runs. They are a part of human nature they represent
the oldest play in American politics; on many, many occasions
they have resulted in short-circuiting a foolish decision or
recommending a brilliant idea.
Even JFK recognized that Bundy and Schlesinger and
O'Brien and Sorenson could not be expected to go, hat-in-hand,
to Kenny O'Donnell, outside the door, everytime they wanted to
see the President. So Kennedy deliberately collaborated in their
use of Mrs. Lincoln's entrance into the Oval Room, and some grievous
staff problems were prevented.
What Kennedy did was to "institutionalize" the end run.
As RN is not the type who likes to "chat" with staffers, etc., and
- 3 -
our staff is more effective with the written than the spoken word,
I would suggest the creation of a Dissenters Pipeline to the
President, a secure pouch in which the staff could get to the
Presidnet "for his eyes only" real concerns on their mind, whether
within or without the White House. The fact that it existed would
be an ongoing boost to staff morale; it would not even have to
be used regularly. And should it become clogged or heavy with
traffic, the President should himself instruct X staffer to tend
to his knitting, etc. If you talk with Bryce you will find that
Eisenhower had a different arrangement yet with the same motive.
To provide automatically 15 minutes with the President to any
staffer who requested it, but the staff had damnsite have something
significant to say.
Third. The injunction that anything regarding urban
affairs or anything regarding national security be cleared first
with Moynihan or Kissinger in effect makes them czars of information
in these areas, and it provides simply too much power in their
hands without a check but maybe I didn't get this correctly.
I agree with the need to coordinate the material before
the President, to get all proposals, and their pros and cons before
him at the same time. But if you leave all coordination in the
hands of either of them in these enormously broad areas, then in
effect they can make the decision for the President by the manner
of presentation. It is a simple thing to accomplish.
- 4 -
I don't argue that they will. I only argue that
the President should have his own built-in checks on his own top
people, that the President should have dissent and vigorous
disagreement built into the White House Staff Structure, and it
does not appear to be there under the current arrangement.
Of vital importance, it seems to me, the President
himself has got to have an independent flow of information so that
he can ask informed questions, cogent questions of his top
advisers; he has got to have background so that he can throw out
another alternative in addition to the two that Kissinger may
have presented. In addition, the President should have a brief-case
full of his own "ideas" to bounce off the top advisers.
The way the thing is established, RN's only foreign
policy ideas will already been screened by Kissinger, upon whom
there remains no check.
Fourth. The Press Office. The Zielger approach to
clear every talk with him, or let him know we had it, differs from
Marvin Watson's appraoch of monitoring calls only in that it contains
a "public disclosure" clause, with the onus on the staff member.
Now, on all matters on which one talks for public
record, I concur wholeheartedly. But with the press since I have
been with RN almost, 99 per cent of what I tell them is not for
attribution. I think I have always been able to make a good case
- 5 -
for the President-elect, and for what he tries to accomplish in
my own words, matching wits with these people--and we have only
been burnt a few times in three years. In those three years, I
have been able to soften and improve a hell of a lot of stories,
to get good columns written, to get good reports turned out in
the public media about our whole operation.
Now, if I am going to have to file everyone I talk
with to Zielger, it is quite apparent that when a bad story or
column comes out, and it is found Buchanan talked with the
individual, Buchanan will henceforth be watched. It may have
been that I screwed up, but it may have been that I improved
the column, or prevented a worse one.
The point is that the President, to his own advantage,
has to repose a measure of trust in the people around him and loyal
to him, not just in their personal loyalty, but in their capacity
to deal with these people. I know that Price and Buchanan and
Garment and many others have press people with whom they talk to
and work with, contacts that are private and which we use in
behalf of the cause. If we have to name these people everytime
they come in, again, that will not be censorship, but everyone is
going to say, what the hell, why risk it. If TIME writes a bad
article and I've talked with Fentress or Austin, then I'll catch
hell and it's not worth it, so I won't talk with them or when I do,
- 6 -
I'll give them a lot of crap. You will be inducing that kind
of attitude.
I think this was one of the mistakes of Eisenhower.
It is the daily press, the Historians of the Present, who are
responsible for the fact that he is not rated as a great President.
Only the historians can save Ike now--and whether we like these
press
people or not, they are like Communists, we have to talk with
them and deal with them and trade with them, or we are not going
to be able to really put RN across.
I would hold up as the example the whole primary
season where a number of us were open with these people, took
risks and chances, but, damn'it, it paid off. We won't win unless
we get in the game and risk some ships.
Fifth: The emphasis of the meeting seemed to be
almost totally how to keep things and people away from the
President. Perhaps that is just an impression, but if PN is
going to change things, if he is going to turn the government in
new direction, if he is going to innovate policies, as well as simply
to react correctly to events, then he has got to have a steady
flow of fresh, unalderated and even occasionally bizarre ideas.
He has got to take some risks and chances, and we seem to be
structuring this collateral paper-shuffling to minimize the risk
and chance. We have to remember I thin k that we lack what Ike
and JFK and FDR had which is that personal following and charisma
- 7 -
and trappings of royalty which led the public to ignore or
sympathize with failures. We are going to provide our own
excitement and drama and our Cabient and top it off is a
Cabinet of highly competent technicians, with Moynihan the only
innovator and Kissinger's forte is in pennetrating analysis
from what I have seen; not in drama or imagination.
Sixth: This seems to be a corporate or para-military,
pyramidic structure, which does not lend itself to the office of
the Presidency. From my own experience the President is more
like apublication or newspaper. "Going over his head to the
Publisher" is a way of life there, and it is in that kind of
"creative chaos" that you get the kind of dash and color and
imagination and boldness and daring that I am afraid we are
going to need=- and which doesn't seem to be programmed.
Seventh; Let me suggest that RN adopt, on top of
the existing pyramid for his onw benefit, a circular structure
where he, like FDR, draws directly and regularly on the people
on his staff for ideas and criticism of what is going on, and
for what should go on.
This is something no one can impose upon him, but it
is needed. RN has about him some twenty or more people in
whom he has some confidence I think and whom he should constantly
cross check things. The potential McCarthy appointment would have
- 8 -
a diaster in a matter of weeks I believe, with that arrogant
messiah up at the UN spouting his own policy and philosophy
and anyone of half a dozen of RN's advisers, it would seem to me,
would have shot that thing down before it got above the treeline.
I don't know how that got so far--perhaps the press is wrong--
but it indicates to me decisions are not being put through
enough tests.
If RN is not going to have something like this
within his staff, how is he going to ge the bad news which he
has to have, ona regular basis to know where something needs
changing. Also, again, RN should know regularly I think what the
press is thinking and writing and saying. The Fourth Estate
may be the American Institution most in need of reform, but
we have to do deal it, because in the short run, and very possible
in the long run, and ve they are going to be grading our papers.
TV is now final solution--both Romney and the Vice President-elect
cna testify.
Eighth: Staff members I think have to have a channel
of communication with the President for another reason. To them
it is the lifeblood, frankly, which enables them to represent
the President' interest, to look out for those interests, to draw
information from press and the Departments. If it is known that
some of RN's aides cannot get his ear at any time, their usefulness
to the President is destroyed and though the President may have
a staff of forty for operational purposes it will amount to only
- 9 -
those few who are known to have his confidence and communicate
with him.
Similar arguements obtain with regard to salary and
title of the President's aides, a matter which is properly the
subject of another memo.
In the last analysis Robert, Structure is Policy;
that is why the N. Vietnamese are battling in Paris over the
structure of that conference; that is why the structure of this
White House staffing can't come off some block chart, because
the lines of communication on that chart are going to
determine the direction of the Nixon Years.
THE Presionar
(MW
2ND DRAFT (SEPT 16 1969)
ASST TO THE
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(DEPUTY ASST)
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COMMERCE
Personal Notes on the Reorganization of the Personal Staff
Haldeman and Butterfield: To remain relatively unencumbered -- to
be responsible for the continuous efficiency and responsiveness of the
staff to implement new and better ways of doing things to continually
inspect and trouble-shoot -- to be able to work interchangeably in all
areas -- to guide "emphasis" appropriately, etc. -- to insure that the
President's requests are fulfilled, and that he is served and supported
in the best possible manner.
Rose Mary Woods: Essentially no change; however I would suggest
some slight enlargement of this office, perhaps by 2-3 persons. I
think it would be appropriate if Rose Mary's office assisted the Chapin
and Newbrand offices with the handling of visitors (especially senior
dignitaries and close friends of the President) while they wait to go
into the Oval Office. It is my understanding that adjacent to RMW's
new office, and just off the West Lobby, there will be one or two
small but very nicely furnished waiting rooms. It makes sense to
me to have one or two competent and attractive receptionists under
Rose Mary's jurisdiction attend to these rooms and to their occupants.
Chapin: Essentially no change; however, the daily routine should be
operated in such a way as to allow Dwight more time to think of and
develop ideas -- to innovate -- to get more PR mileage out of the
President's appointments, trips, visits, drop-bys, and ceremonies.
(I understand that Dwight is working now on improvements to his office
and its system of operation, so I have put no further thought to his baili-
wick.)
Magruder: To be responsible for the development and implementation of
special projects -- to move with some degree of independence among the
offices of Chapin, Ziegler, Klein, and Keogh. A day-to-day "herd-rider" --
a bright and competent person to ramrod programs.
Ziegler: Essentially no change to continue to be responsible for Ollie
Atkins' office. (11 people + Atkins' 9 = 20 total)
Klein: Essentially no change to continue to insure that the President
and his policies and programs are accurately represented and widely
disseminated. (13 people; perhaps a few too many for the mission)
Keogh: Essentially no change except for the probable absorption by his
office of Noble Melencamp's office of 4 persons and the responsibility
for giving continual attention to the substance and quality of Presidential
letters. (24 people; we should analyze staff and try to reduce total number)
Davies: Should continue to operate essentially as it does now, but
there are a number of ways to get more out of the mission of the
office -- more things along the lines of Julie's participation. If
someone in the West Wing is eventually put in charge of the entire
"East Wing" operation it would make sense to me to have John Davies
report to or at least through that man. I say this because all other
functions which concern the residence are a part of the East Wing
operation
and the Tour Office concerns the residence exclusively.
(7 people in this office)
Aide: The Armed Forces Aide should be considered an integral member
of the staff, which of course he is. I suppose his East Wing location is
responsible for the impression that he is not
and Carson Howell
does not list the office at all. Whereas I do not think this office need
be moved to the West Wing, I do think it essential that the Aide attend
the "West Wing's" morning staff meeting and become exposed to the
day-to-day concerns of the President and the balance of the personal
staff. I would leave to Don Hughes all aspects of "organization and/or
reorganization. " (Incidentally, although only 13 persons are listed
under the office of the Aide, Col. Hughes has command and operational
jurisdiction over WHCA personnel and many others. The total figure
is classified and considered "sensitive".
Stuart: I will not elaborate here for it is my understanding that Chuck
is working independently on East Wing reorganization. I would say only
that it is quite obvious that we miss opportunities to promote the First
Lady and her activities
including regular White House social functions.
(There are 28 persons listed in the combined offices of Gerry Van der
Heuval, Sandy Fox and Lucy Winchester.)
Personnel: The function of this office is obvious, and its efficient
operation is of great importance. Errors of negligence and slipshod
performance can cost us untold losses in the image and PR areas. I
don't like the idea of our having to superimpose Flanigan over Flemming
as top personnel man. If the requirement to do so is valid (and I don't
question at all that it is) we should look hard for an individual who can
handle the full job to our complete satisfaction. (There are 16 people
in Flemming's office. It should be one of the first that Haldeman and
Butterfield look into in their IG capacities.)
Security: Whatever functions John Ehrlichman and his staff perform
vis-a-vis security should properly be vested in a separate office on the
personal staff of the President. Ehrlichman must relinquish some of
his current responsibilities even though gradually if he is to take
on the task of overseeing all domestic affairs for the President.
2
Proposed Actions to be Taken
The actions which we eventually take to reorganize will depend wholly
on our concept of how this particular staff should function. If it is to
be, in effect, an agency which serves the President by "operating and
producing", then a personnel total around the presently assigned num-
ber is probably justified. On the other hand, if we adopt the more
traditional staff concept, its function will change drastically and
become one which provides policy guidance
a
staff
which serves as a flexible team of executives insuring appropriate
liaison between the President and the departments (and the entire
outside world). In such case something more on the order of half our
present number, or even less, would be reasonable.
For the purposes of this early collection of thoughts on the matter I'll
assume that a really drastic change is not the way we want to go
but
that nonetheless economy of operation is definitely one of our principal
objectives. I would first of all do these things:
Leave Chapin's office as is.
Put Terry Good's office of 5 persons (Presidential Papers) under
the Staff Secretary and within the Secretariat. (See Attachment
"A" for mission of Office of Presidential Papers.)
Eliminate altogether Bud Wilkinson's office, and give serious
thought to what other office or offices might absorb the essential
portions of his mission and the most competent of his people
including Bud, himself. (See Attachment "B" for mission of Bud's office.)
Find a way to transfer Stan Blair from the White House payroll
to that of the Vice President's office.
Insist that Henry Kissinger appoint a deputy. His role and that of
his office and their extreme importance to the President
would seem to me to demand that he name a deputy who can really
substitute for him in his absence
even if that deputy might
happen to be a military officer.
Eliminate the separate office of the Special Assistant to the
No
President for Liaison with Former Presidents
and allow
the Armed Forces Aide to absorb the responsibility.
Eliminate the office of the Secretary to the Cabinet and allow the
Cabinet liaison mission to be absorbed by the offices of Haldeman-
Butterfield and Cole. (See Attachment "C" re mission of the Office
of Secretary to the Cabinet.)
Allow John Whitaker to take over a new office (and job title) --
Assistant to the President for Environmental Affairs, or some-
thing similar. In this capacity he would be responsible to the
Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs (John Ehrlichman)
for all matters concerning environment, natural resources,
conservation, agriculture, etc.
Give Moynihan responsibility for education and manpower, health
and welfare, community development, youth, aging, crime, and
civil rights. Put Len Garment's operation under Pat and Bob
Brown's office under Len. Moynihan's job title would not change
separate
but he and his entire newly enlarged office would work through
Ehrlichman.
Give Flanigan responsibility for commerce and transportation,
defense-related items (including space), Vet benefits, govern-
ment services, Business Council liaison matters, SEC, consumer
affairs, etc. Put Virginia Knauer's office under Peter, and
extract the entire personnel (Flemming) operation from this
purely domestic affairs office. Peter would work through
Haldeman when wearing his "personnel" hat
and through
Ehrlichman when wearing his "Government services" hat. --
Begin looking now for a more competent Personnel Chief to
replace Flemming (and to preclude the necessity of holding
Flanigan to two separate and distinct roles on different staff
levels).
-- Analyze Klein's staff and its operation in a manner similar to
Stuart's recent thorough study of the East Wing operation.
- Have Keogh analyze his own staff, including the Melencamp
addition, with an eye toward strict economy of operation.
-- Consider Dent's office and where it might best fit into the
Executive Office organization.
Think about increasing by 2-3 persons the office of Rose Mary
Woods
not now, but later after her move to what is now
the press area -- and for reasons indicated in my notes on the
"Personal Staff".
Eliminate the office of Arthur Burns and give serious thought to
what other office or offices might absorb the most competent of
his people.
2
Look for ways to eventually eliminate the separate office of
Science and Technology. The functions of this office could well
be performed by Flanigan's new office. (See Attachment "D" re
mission of Office of Science and Technology.)
Use most competent people from "eliminated" offices of Bud
Wilkinson, General Shultz, Arthur Burns and the Cabinet Secre-
tary to build Whitaker's new staff, and other offices under
Ehrlichman.
-- Move Al Toner now from Whitaker's office to that of Ken Cole.
-- Move to the office of the Armed Forces Aide the two car washers
now working in the White House garage. Under the present set-
up they represent a separate support unit which, of course, is
ridiculous.
Give serious thought to transferring the Ushers Office from the
support staff (under Bill Hopkins) to the personal staff.
within the
"East Wing" bailiwick overseen by Chuck Stuart. Newbrand's
office might also be transferred from the support staff to Chapin's
staff. I mention these possibilities in that both Newbrand and
Scouten are responsive on a daily basis to persons on the
President's personal staff.
Although changes in titles of personnel are not of any immediate
importance it is a subject to which some thought might well be
given as we implement our reorganization. In the end, if the
titles make good sense, it will help considerably toward one's
understanding of the organization of the entire Executive Office
of the President.
Give thought to the most appropriate procedures for instituting a
Domestic Council, to respond to the domestic needs and crises
just as the National Security Council responds to national security
needs and crises. The President should serve as Chairman and
most of its members should be the Cabinet officers concerned
with various aspects of domestic affairs. It should have an
Executive Secretary who serves as a permanent official
as
does the Executive Secretary of the NSC. The Urban Affairs
Council (which happens now to be a separate entity within the
Executive Office of the President), the EQC and most other
committees and councils now formed should (if still required)
become subcommittees of the Domestic Council.
3
-- Give thought to the possible elimination, or absorption into
some other department or agency, of the National Aeronautics
and Space Council, the Office of Emergency Preparedness,
the Office of Science and Technology, the Office of Economic
Opportunity, and the Office of the Special Representative for
Trade Negotiations. Admittedly changes such as these will
take months (even years) to effect but whatever appears most
logical to us now should be incorporated into our over-all
reorganization game plan. The National Council on Marine
Resources and Engineering Development was just recently
extended to June 30, 1970 so, without further action on
our part, it will expire at that time.
4
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
OFFICE OF PRESIDENTIAL PAPERS
This office is a point of liaison between the White House and the
National Archives for the development of programs leading to the
establishment of the Richard Nixon Library and the collection,
arrangement and description of papers, records and documents
relating to President Nixon, his family and his Administration.
Mr. Terry W. Good is responsible for seeing that these assign-
ments are carried out.
Attachment "A"
Office of Charles B. Wilkinson
Consultant to the President
Serving as consultant and adviser on youth affairs including:
Vice Chairman, President's Council on Youth Opportunity
College Student Voluntary Action Programs
Summer Intern Programs
White House contacts with student leaders and organizations
White House liaison with:
The Advertising Council
American Red Cross
Boards and Commissions, such as the American Revolution
Bicentennial Commission and the Presidential Scholars
1970 White House Conference on Children and Youth
White House adviser on matters of immediate concern, such as: draft
reform, drug abuse, campus unrest, and amateur athletic problems.
Collateral duties:
Organize Sunday White House Worship Services
In process of finalizing recommendations concerning non-
regulatory boards and commissions
Represent Administration as speaker, television interviews, etc.
Staff: James Atwater, Jeffrey Donfeld, and John Campbell, who have
responsibilities in areas listed above. One staff assignment
currently in process of being filled.
Attachment "B"
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF THE CABINET
1.
Set Cabinet agenda items.
2.
Route agenda items not of Cabinet-wide interest to
smaller Cabinet Committees' Executive Directors
(e.g. g. Moynihan, McCracken, DuBridge, etc.)
3.
Attend Urban Affairs Council and Environmental
Quality Council meetings to keep tracking on the
issues.
4.
Set up appointments. with various White House staff
members and Cabinet Officers to resolve issues.
5.
Set up appointments for Cabinet Officers with the
President via Chapin, especially when "temperatures
are high. "
6.
Numerous handholding chores, for example:
a) move personnel Presidential appointments -
very time consuming
b) tabulate personnel progress reports to Mr.
Haldeman -- (now monthly)
c) organize Cabinet attendance at various
Presidential functions
d) answer questions all day long from Departments
on all sorts of nitpicking matters
e) coordinate quarterly inventory of departmental
activities.
Attachment "C"
OFFICE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Evaluates and reviews major policies, plans and programs
of science and technology of the various agencies of the
Federal government
with emphasis given to their
relationship to national security and foreign policy.
Assures close liaison between the Federal government
and the scientific and engineering communities.
Dr. Lee DuBridge is responsible for the above mission
and in addition serves as Chairman of the Federal Council
for Science and Technology.
Attachment "D"
Initially Proposed Actions and
The Current Status of Each
I believe we all agree that the traditional staff concept -- that of
relatively few people advising the chief (in this case the President)
re policy decisions, and to some extent serving as his antennae for
keeping abreast of domestic and foreign affairs as well as the moods
and attitudes of the people -- is the best concept to adopt in working
out a White House Staff reorganization characterized by economy of
operation and over-all efficiency. The big, cumbersome "work
staff" which generates volumes of material from within its own
resources and feels compelled to re-do (rather than simply review
and screen) all correspondence inbound to the President is to be
avoided. But, I think we agree too that we should not effect an
immediate drastic reduction in our personnel strength. We should,
instead, reduce our numbers gradually and take great care that
competent people are not moved out and away but rather over and
up to positions which offer new and at least equal challenges.
Proposed actions as forwarded last week for your consideration are
listed below
followed by brief statements as to their status as
of noon on September 17th.
-- Leave Chapin's office as is.
Okay. No argument. What few changes might occur
here will be at Chapin's direction after Bob Haldeman's
approval.
-- Put Terry Good's office of 3 persons (Presidential Papers)
under the Staff Secretary, i.e. within the Secretariat.
Okay. We should do this now. I suggest that Ken Cole
(and possibly Butterfield representing Haldeman) talk
to Terry Good on Monday morning, September 22, and
effect the transfer at that time.
Eliminate altogether Bud Wilkinson's office, and give serious
thought to what other office or offices might absorb the essen-
tial portions of his mission and the most competent of his
people
including Bud, himself.
We will combine the offices of Bud Wilkinson, Bob
Brown and Len Garment under Garment's super-
vision
Garment assuming the title, "Assistant
to the President for Human Affairs" or something
similar, and reporting to the President through
John Ehrlichman, Assistant to the President for
Domestic Affairs. I see no reason why the three
offices mentioned cannot be combined without delay
and suggest September 22nd as the effective date.
Find a way to transfer Stan Blair from the White House
payroll to that of the Vice President's office.
This can be done and is being worked out at the present
time between Butterfield and Carson Howell.
Insist that Henry Kissinger appoint a deputy. His role and
that of his office and their extreme importance to the
President would seem to me to demand that he name a
deputy who can really substitute for him in his absence
even if that deputy might happen to be a military officer.
We concede to Henry that a deputy should not be
appointed or designated
and that soon-to-be
Brigadier General A1 Haig corresponds to a deputy
in all ways which matter.
Eliminate the separate office of the Special Assistant to the
President for Liaison with Former Presidents
and allow
the Armed Forces Aide to absorb the responsibility.
We will leave this office as is, but keep a sharp look-
out for a prospective (civilian) replacement for Brigadier
General Schulz.
Eliminate the office of the Secretary to the Cabinet and allow
the Cabinet liaison mission to be absorbed by the offices of
Haldeman-Butterfield and Cole.
We will hold off on this action for the time being, retain
Whitaker as the office principal and in no way alter
current staffing.
2
Allow John Whitaker to take over a new office (and job title) --
Assistant to the President for Environmental Affairs, or some-
thing similar. In this capacity he would be responsible to the
Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs (John Ehrlichman)
for all matters concerning environment, natural resources,
conservation, agriculture, etc.
For the time being at least, we will hold John Whitaker
in his present capacity as Cabinet Secretary. However,
we will continue to think of "Environment Affairs" (or
something similar) as a third section or office within
John Ehrlichman's domestic affairs organizational
structure.
Give Moynihan responsibility for education and manpower,
health and welfare, community development, youth, aging,
crime, and civil rights. Put Len Garment's operation under
Pat and Bob Brown's office under Len. Moynihan's job title
would not change
but he and his entire newly enlarged
office would work through Ehrlichman.
All but civil rights will be given to Pat Moynihan. That
particular mission will be renamed "human affairs", or
something similar, and established as a separate bailiwick
under Len Garment as described above. We agree that
Moynihan's job title will not change but that his office will
work through Ehrlichman.
Give Flanigan responsibility for commerce and transportation,
defense-related items (including space), Vet benefits, govern-
ment services, Business Council liaison matters, SEC, consumer
affairs, etc. Put Virginia Knauer's office under Peter, and
extract the entire personnel (Flemming) operation from this
purely domestic affairs office. Peter would work through
Haldeman when wearing his "personnel" hat
and through
Ehrlichman when wearing his "Government services" hat. --
Begin looking now for a more competent Personnel Chief to
replace Flemming (and to preclude the necessity of holding
Flanigan to two separate and distinct roles on different staff
levels).
Okay. All agree.
3
Analyze Klein's staff and its operation in a manner similar
to Stuart's recent thorough study of the East Wing operation.
We are holding off on this for now. Chuck Stuart will
make an impartial study of Klein's staff and its mission
upon his return from vacation.
Have Keogh analyze his own staff, including the Melencamp
addition, with an eye toward strict economy of operation.
Jim Keogh is performing this analysis at the present
time and will report his findings and opinions in a
memo to Butterfield.
Consider Dent's office and where it might best fit into the
Executive Office organization.
The problem has been considered and solved. Dent's
office will come. under Bryce Harlow, with Harry serving
as one of Bryce's deputies.
Think about increasing by 2-3 persons the office of Rose Mary
Woods
not now, but later after her move to what is now
the press area -- and for reasons indicated in my notes on the
"Personal Staff".
We have all agreed to discard this idea for now and the
near future.
Eliminate the office of Arthur Burns and give serious thought to
what other office or offices might absorb the most competent of
his people.
We have eliminated Dr. Burns' office from the latest draft
of the organizational chart
and we have moved the
names of his staff personnel to the "White House Miscel-
laneous" category.
Look for ways to eventually eliminate the separate office of
Science and Technology. The functions of this office could
well be performed by Flanigan's new office.
4
Evidently all agree but no action will be taken now or
in the near future. This project is being moved to
the back burner.
Use most competent people from "eliminated" offices of
Bud Wilkinson, General Schulz, Arthur Burns and the
Cabinet Secretary to build Whitaker's new staff, and other
offices under Ehrlichman.
Proposed disposition of each office mentioned has been
discussed in paragraphs above.
Move Al Toner now from Whitaker's office to that of Ken Cole.
We have agreed that for the time being we will leave
John Whitaker's office intact.
Move to the office of the Armed Forces Aide the two car washers
now working in the White House garage. Under the present set-
up they represent a separate support unit which, of course, is
ridiculous.
Butterfield has discussed this project with Bill Hopkins
and relayed action responsibility to Colonel Hughes.
Don sees no problems here and will report back when
the transfer has been completed.
Give serious thought to transferring the Ushers Office from
the support staff (under Bill Hopkins) to the personal staff
within the "East Wing" bailiwick overseen by Chuck Stuart.
Newbrand's office might also be transferred from the support
staff to Chapin's staff. I mention these possibilities in that
both Newbrand and Scouten are responsive on a daily basis to
persons on the President's personal staff.
The Ushers Office (under Rex Scouten) and the Reception
Desk (under Bob Newbrand) will remain as two sep-
arate units on the support staff
and under the over-
all supervision of Bill Hopkins.
5
Although changes in titles of personnel are not of any
immediate importance it is a subject to which some
thought might well be given as we implement our re-
organization. In the end, if the titles make good sense,
it will help considerably toward one's understanding of
the organization of the entire Executive Office of the
President.
All agree.
-- Give thought to the most appropriate procedures for instituting
a Domestic Council, to respond to the domestic needs and
crises just as the National Security Council responds to
national security needs and crises. The President should
serve as Chairman and most of its members should be the
Cabinet officers concerned with various aspects of domestic
affairs. It should have an Executive Secretary who serves
as a permanent official
as does the Executive Secretary
of the NSC. The Urban Affairs Council (which happens now
to be a separate entity within the Executive Office of the
President), the EQC and most other committees and councils
now formed should (if still required) become subcommittees
of the Domestic Council.
It is my understanding that all of us, including the
President's Advisory Council on Executive Organiza-
tion, do want to move ahead toward formation of a
Domestic Council. Normally, the creation of such an
organization would require legislative action i.e. the
passage of a special Act prepared in close coordination
with the Office of the Attorney General. Congressional
approval of an Act such as this can be (and often is)
helped along somewhat by earlier publication of an
Executive Order putting the substance of the proposed
Act in being
and thereby sort of selling the nation
and the Congress on its necessity, and at the same time
getting everyone used to its existence and its role in the
conduct of governmental affairs. Whereas I believe the
domestic (functional) organization under John Ehrlichman
should start to take shape right away, I can see merit
to delaying action on the Domestic Council at least until
Roy Ash's group has elaborated on its earlier views and
proposals.
6
Give thought to the possible elimination, or absorption
into some other department or agency, of the National
Aeronautics and Space Council, the Office of Emergency
Preparedness, the Office of Science and Technology, the
Office of Economic Opportunity, and the Office of the
Special Representative for Trade Negotiations. Admit-
tedly changes such as these will take months (even years)
to effect but whatever appears most logical to us now
should be incorporated into our over-all reorganization
game plan. The National Council on Marine Resources
and Engineering Development was just recently extended
to June 30, 1970
so, without further action on our
part, it will expire at that time.
These projects will receive continued attention.
Allow John Ehrlichman to retain the prime counsel function
and over-all responsibility for security.
We should compromise here. John should continue to
serve as the President's personal consultant on legal
matters
and to handle the personal (legal) affairs of
the First Family (property transactions, trust funds,
etc.). Further, he should keep his current battery of
Deputy Counsels to assist him with the staffing of
"domestic" papers. However, John should relinquish
his responsibility for security matters and allow it to
be transferred to Haldeman but placed in the charge of
a legal expert on the President's personal staff. While
overseeing the security function, this legal expert should
serve additionally (actually, primarily) as a "staff counsel"
for the Secretariat.
7
Personnel Working in Various Offices of The White House Staff
Who Are Not Officially Listed by Carson Howell's Personnel Office
And For Whom There Is No Official Authorization To Date.
ADDITIONAL PERSONNEL ASSIGNED TO HARRY DENT, EOB OFFICE
Tom Lias
-temporarily on RNC payroll, to be on
White House
Margaret Joyce Connor
-detailed from Small Business Administration
Rosemary K. McManus
-detailed from Interior Department
Nyle M. Jackson
-detailed from Post Office Department
Claire Comtois
-detailed from Post Office Department
Jack Gleason
-detailed from Commerce Department
Carol Duncan
-detailed from Commerce Department
Tom Reed
-California National Committeeman,
volunteer
Joel Fisher
-detailed from State Department, currently
traveling in Europe, not expected to return
to White House job
ADDITIONAL PERSONNEL ASSIGNED TO HARRY DENT, EAST WING OFFICE
Gordon Brownell
- detailed from Department of HEW
ADDITIONAL PERSONNEL ASSIGNED TO HARRY FLEMMING
Dave Lissy
- detailed from GSA - Archives
Gary Cunningham
- detailed from Veterans Administration
Peter Millspaugh
- detailed from Department of the Interior
ADDITIONAL PERSONNEL ASSIGNED TO DR. KISSINGER
William Anthony K. Lake
- detailed from State Department
ADDITIONAL PERSONNEL ASSIGNED TO DANIEL P. MOYNIHAN
Arthur M. Klebanoff
- entered on duty 9/2/69, not on any agency
rolls as of 9/11/69
Jean G. Robinson to be transferred from Mr. Moynihan to Len Garment.
ITEK CORPORATION - 10 MAGUIRE ROAD
LEXINGTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02173 - (617)-276-3001
FRANKLIN A. LINDSAY PRESIDENT
December 17, 1968
The Honorable Richard M. Nixon
450 Park Avenue
New York, New York 10022
Dear Mr. President-Elect:
The attached memorandum has been prepared at your
direction by your Task Force on Organization of the Executive
Branch. We have tried in this study to identify a limited
number of actions that might be taken in the early days of
your administration to preserve options, to take advantage of
opportunities, and to begin to get at urgent problems. We
have also outlined a longer term program for achieving effec-
tive reorganization which we believe will preserve your initia-
tives and give you the most flexibility.
We urge that you move quickly in outlining your organi-
zation programs in order to seize and hold the initiative, and
we have outlined a specific program for your consideration.
Although these recommendations did not anticipate Mr.
Moynihan's appointment as Assistant for Urban Affairs, we be-
lieve that our recommendations are consistent with this appoint-
ment and demonstrate their flexibility to your needs.
We are pleased to be asked to do this study and hope it
will be of assistance in the tasks that lie ahead.
Sincerely,
Franklin Linday
Chairman,
Task Force on Organization
of the Executive Branch
FAL:db
Attachment
MEMBERS OF THE NIXON TASK FORCE ON
ORGANIZATION OF THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH
Phillip E. Areeda
Professor of Law, Harvard Law School, Harvard University
Assistant Special Counsel to the President 1956-1961
David E. Bell
Vice President, The Ford Foundation
Administrator, Agency for International Development 1962-1966
Director, Bureau of the Budget 1961-1962
Roswell L. Gilpatric
Partner, Cravath, Swaine and Moore
Deputy Secretary of Defense 1961-1964
Under-Secretary of the Air Force 1951-1953
Stephen Horn
Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution
Legislative Assistance to Senator Thomas H. Kuchel 1960-1966
Administrative Assistant to Secretary of Labor, James P. Mitchell 1959-1960
Marshall A. Jacobs
Partner, Jacobs, Persinger and Parker
Director, Reeves Broadcasting Company
Henry Loomis
Partner, St. Vincents Island Company
Deputy Commissioner of Education, Department of Health, Education and Welfare
1965-1966
Director, Voice of America, United States Information Agency 1958-1965
Ernest R. May
Professor of History, Harvard University
Member, Historical Section, Joint Chiefs of Staff 1952-1954
Rufus E. Miles, Jr.
Director, Mid-Career Program, Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University
Director of Administration and Assistant Secretary for Administration, Department
of Health, Education and Welfare 1953-1965
John A. Perkins
Chairman of the Board, Dun and Bradstreet, Inc.
Under-Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare 1957-1958
Don K. Price, Jr.
Dean, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
Vice President, The Ford Foundation 1953-1959
Member, President's Advisory Committee on Government Organization 1959-1961
Staff Director, Committee on the Department of Defense Organization 1953
Elliot L. Richardson
Attorney General of Massachusetts
Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts 1964-1966
United States Attorney, Massachusetts 1959-1961
Assistant Secretary for Legislation, Department of Health, Education and Welfare
1957-1959
Charles L. Schultze
Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution
Director, Bureau of the Budget 1965-1967
Member of the Staff, President's Council of Economic Advisers 1952-1958
Charles B. Stauffacher
Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration, Continental Can Company
Assistant Director, Office of Defense Mobilization 1951-1952
Executive Assistant Director, Bureau of the Budget 1950-1952
Rocco C. Siciliano
President, Pacific Maritime Association
Special Assistant to President Eisenhower for Personnel Management 1957-1959
Assistant Secretary of Labor for Employment and Manpower, Department of Labor
1953-1957
Franklin A. Lindsay, Chairman of the Task Force
President, Itek Corporation
Principal, McKinsey and Company, Inc. 1956-1961
Member, President's Committee on National Security Policy 1957
Copy No.
SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS
We recommend that the President-elect give first priority to organizing more
effectively the White House and Executive Office as the best way to improve the opera-
tions of the entire Executive Branch.
1. We urge preparation now of a message for early delivery to Congress. It should
request renewal of the President's general reorganization authority: that is, reenact-
ment of the statute expiring in December 1968, which, with certain limitations, authorizes
the President to submit reorganization plans which will take effect unless vetoed by
Congress within 60 days. In addition, this message should request new discretionary
authority to reorganize the Executive Office without further reference to Congress. The
first Hoover Commission pointed out as long ago as 1949, that "to enable the President
to make use of the total resources in a flexible manner, he should be given complete
freedom to adjust the internal relationships of the President's Office." At present,
the President does not possess formal reorganization powers for his own Executive
Office which are comparable to those of Cabinet officers in their separate departments.
He should have such powers.
2. Using these powers (or resorting to administrative expedients if Congress
declines to act), the President should provide himself with new or improved resources
1
in five critical areas: executive management, program development, personnel manage-
ment, organizational reform, and provision of critical information.
a. First, he should elevate and greatly strengthen the Budget Bureau's Office of
Executive Management, placing it under a new Deputy Director and assigning it responsi-
bility to review, evaluate, and coordinate federal programs and to make sure that exe-
cutive departments work in harmony and make the most effective use of regional and
local agencies, especially in their relation to state and local governments.
b. Second, he should establish a new Office of Special Studies under a Director
with the status of a presidential assistant. With a small career staff and authority to
form specialized program development committees of both government officials and
outside experts, this Office would provide in-depth studies of problems on which the
President needs careful and reflective advance thought. Such an office would provide
studies which are responsive to the President's needs and which are much less subject
to the risks of irresponsible action inherent in public commissions.
c. Third, he should establish an Office of Executive Personnel to guide and review
proposals for changes in the many federal personnel systems, and eventually to set
policies governing recruitment, classification and transfer of all super-grade civil
service personnel.
d. Fourth, he should reestablish the President's Advisory Committee on Govern-
ment Organization, the members of which would be drawn from private life. With no
permanent staff of its own, but with full support from the Budget Bureau's new Office
of Executive Management, this Committee would recommend to the President plans for
2
improvements in the organization and administration of the Executive Branch. We
believe that this device will provide far greater flexibility and responsiveness to the
President's needs than would a new, statutory "Hoover Commission."
e. Finally, by reinforcing the Bureau of the Budget, the National Security Council,
and the staff resources available to his chief assistants, the President should achieve
an improved capability for obtaining critical information, both from the Executive
Branch and from the outside.
Although the President probably will not want to make immediate changes else-
where in the Executive Office, possession of reorganization powers would enable him
later to transfer functions or personnel into or out of such units as the Office of Emer-
gency Preparedness, the Office of Science and Technology, and the Council of Economic
Advisers.
3. We recommend further that the President assign to the recreated Advisory Com-
mittee on Government Organization, as a matter of continuing high priority, the study
of the desirability for consolidating, or dividing, existing agencies concerned with both
domestic and foreign affairs. In the meantime, we urge use of small Cabinet or NSC
committees as flexible instruments for executing programs which cut across departmen-
tal and agency boundaries.
We do not recommend a statutory "Hoover Commission" because we believe that
it is unlikely to be responsive to your needs, that it will be slow and cumbersome in
getting at problems, and that it will deprive you of the initiative and flexibility to use
the most suitable approach to each major organizational problem.
3
4. We also recommend that the President impress upon each newly appointed
agency head:
a. The potential usefulness of long-range budget planning as a tool for gaining
control over his departmental policies and programs
b. The need for top quality assistants, including men skilled in budgetary analy-
sis, to serve him directly in staff, not line, positions
c. The importance of establishing better criteria by which to measure the effec-
tiveness not only of experimental but also of on-going programs
d. The importance of active steps to improve morale among, and obtain enthusi-
astic cooperation from, departmental career employees in the field as well as in
Washington
5. Finally, we urge that the President himself take steps to win understanding,
confidence and cooperation from the career employees upon whose performance much
of the success of his administration will depend.
Each of these recommendations receives amplification in sections that follow.
4
INTRODUCTION
The Nixon administration has a unique opportunity to convert the federal govern-
ment from a sprawling, cumbersome bureaucracy that has become virtually unmanage-
able in such areas as urban problems into an instrument which will serve the public
interests responsively and effectively.
There has now developed a durable consensus among both the Democratic and
Republican parties, manifested in a substantial body of legislation, that the federal
government has major responsibilities for promoting the health, education, and welfare
of the citizenry; helping rebuild our cities; modernizing our transportation system;
achieving a high level of economic growth with full employment and stable prices;
controlling the balance of payments; and bringing the disadvantaged into meaningful
participation in our democratic society. These new functions are in addition to the
more traditional but greatly expanded functions of defense and foreign affairs.
The issue now is not whether government should do these and other things the
public requires to improve our society, but how it can do them well.
There is, therefore, an urgent need to organize and manage the executive branch
for the most effective execution of its myriad responsibilites-from delivering mail on
time to attaining a peaceful world order.
5
The resources for attaining a great society are available but our institutions, and
most especially our governmental institutions, have failed so far to utilize our vast
resources with the imagination, vigor, and skill required to move the country forward.
Greatly improved governmental organization and management are not mundane and
technical considerations. They are central to the task of the new administration. They
are of the highest priority and of the greatest significance. If they are accomplished,
the benefits will be felt by every citizen, and the government will regain the confidence
and respect of the people it is expected to serve. If they are not accomplished, our
society cannot help but deteriorate further, perhaps fatally.
In this light, we have addressed ourselves to the most pressing problems of govern-
mental organization and management that will face the new administration in its first
90 days. We have identified tasks that must be tackled immediately with courage
and boldness, SO that the immediate opportunities and options for real improvement in
government efficiency are not lost, and we have set forth specific recommendations for
action in the 90-day period.
We have also provided for the tools which we believe the President will require
to carry out the more fundamental reforms of the Executive Branch in the longer run.
These tools, or instruments for more thorough analysis and more profound change,
are designed to provide you with the most practical means for continuously improving
governmental operation and for bringing about responsible and efficient administration.
These include, as detailed in our report, a greatly strengthened Office of Executive
Management, a new Office of Special Studies, an Office of Executive Personnel, and a
revised President's Advisory Committee on Government Organization.
6
We believe these recommendations, taken together, will provide you with the ability
to respond more rapidly to urgent problems, flexibility enabling you to adopt the govern-
mental mechanism to your changing needs, and a means of giving clear direction to the
various agencies of the Executive Branch that should respond to your leadership.
In summary we believe you need:
Freedom from any further encroachment, throughadded statutory limitations and
regulations, on your constitutional functions as Chief Executive
Increased flexibility to cope with the urgent problems you will face
The ability to select from among a range of different organizational devices that
approach which will be most effective in solving each individual problem
An increased capability for "quick reaction" responses to urgent problems.
7
REPORT OF TASK FORCE ON ORGANIZATION OF
EXECUTIVE BRANCH OF THE GOVERNMENT
ORGANIZATION OF THE EXECUTIVE OFFICE
The device of delegating to the President responsibility for reorganizing the Exec-
utive Branch, subject to review and veto by Congress, originated under President Hoover
with the Economy Act of 1932. Alternately strengthened and diluted by subsequent acts,
this power is, under present legislation, subject to two limitations. First, a simple
majority in either House suffices for a veto. Second, no plan may create or abolish
any executive department. Ideally, we believe, the Reorganization Act of 1949 (now
Ch. 9, title 5, U.S. Code) should be extended without the subsequently added limitations,
and with Congress exercising its veto only by concurrent resolution or, at most, by a
constitutional majority of either House. But we do not feet that the gain would be worth
the necessary political battle. Therefore, we recommend that the President request only
the present more limited reorganization authority be extended by the new Congress.
With regard to the Executive Office, however, it is our view that the potential
benefits of new reorganization authority are great enough to justify an expenditure
of "political capital" should this be necessary. Past reorganization plans have trans-
ferred to the heads of most executive departments substantial authority over internal
8
organization. The President's control over his own Executive Office is, at least in
formal terms, much weaker. Since the Office serves the President directly in the
execution of his constitutional authority as Chief Executive, we believe strongly that
he should seek from Congress authority to reorganize it by executive order as he sees
fit-to transfer powers or to delegate powers within it at his discretion, and without the
possibility of subsequent negative Congressional action.
Political Obstacles
We do not minimize the political obstacles. The Congress will inevitably be sus-
picious of any proposal that threatens to increase the power of the President. In an
opposition-led Congress, this will be doubly the case. In addition, President Nixon
will have to explain some of the purposes for which he seeks reorganization authority.
In doing so, he will inevitably arouse fear that he intends to encroach on jealously
guarded interests. The proposed strengthening of the Budget Bureau's capacity to
exercise leadership in management improvement, for example, will be recognized by
some as foreshadowing possible moves to consolidate federal activities on regional or
functional bases. As a result, some Congressmen will fear subsequent moves to shift
facilities or personnel from their districts or states. Others will speak up for bureau-
cratic groups whose autonomy might thereby be jeopardized. Similarly, our proposed
Office of Executive Personnel could be seen as potentially threatening the powers of
the Civil Service Commission and the independence of the elite Foreign Service. It
could give some adversaries of the administration opportunity to cry alarm over the
danger of the President's reviving the spoils system.
9
Requirements for Funds
The President should, in his supplemental budget, request an increase in appropria-
tions for the Executive Office. Although all of our proposed new Executive Office
units would be small, we foresee immediate need for some new professional-level
personnel and additional funds for consultants and contract research. Also, a part
of the White House staff has, in the past, been detailed to the Executive Office and
charged to budgets of other departments. In addition, we believe that the President
should ask for the increase of his Emergency and Special Projects funds to $20 million,
and at very least to $10 million. For the past 12 years this fund has remained in the
vicinity of $2 to $2.5 million, which has been very inadequate to permit the President
to meet unforeseen but urgent needs.
We do not believe that such supplemental funds for the Executive Office will prove
difficult to obtain. In the past, the Appropriations Committees have not seriously
questioned such requests. The principal force for restraint has been the Budget Bureau
which, after stripping back budget requests of the Departments, has been loath to re-
commend enlarged or even adequate monies for the Executive Office. Obtaining re-
organization powers will, we believe, pose more political difficulty than securing funds
with which to put such powers effectively to use.
Specific Needs of the Executive Office
We recommend reorganization of the Executive Office of the President
10
in several areas.
Improved Information-Gathering. At present, the White House and Executive Office
stand at a relative disadvantage as compared with executive departments and agencies.
Since they have few career officials, they experience much more turnover during a
presidential transition. And because White House files belong to the outgoing President
rather than to the on-going government, new men in the White House and Executive
Office have less to turn to in the way of written records. The problem is greatest,
probably, in the national security area, where the key personnel and many of the most
important documents depart. It is least in regard to legislation, where the Budget
Bureau's Legislative Reference unit has a career bureaucracy and maintains records
covering all but the most sensitive political aspects of past legislative proposals.
Nevertheless, lack of adequate information on current issues will confront all men
newly entering the White House and Executive Office and will continue to concern them
even after settling in.
We see no single across-the-board solution to this problem. In part, but only in
part, the problems relate to information retrieval. The Budget Bureau has recently
let a contract for an information retrieval system. When it is in operation, the Bureau
should be able to obtain and produce more readily program and performance data on the
broad range of government activities.
We suggest also that you ask President Johnson to make arrangements by which
you can from time to time make specific requests to his designated librarian for infor-
mation that may prove to be unavailable in departmental files.
11
In larger part, immediate and foreseeable problems in the White House and Execu-
tive Office staff arise from limitations of staff. Men are so preoccupied that they do not
have time even to send for files, staff studies, or the like, bearing on problems before
them. Using reorganization powers, the President could shift staff permanently or
temporarily from one unit to another or assign one unit a regular function in support
of another-instructing a unit of the Budget Bureau, for example, to provide continuing
aid to his assistant for national security affairs.
An Office of Executive Management in the Bureau of the Budget. The Bureau of
the Budget has long had responsibility for organization and management problems. In
recent years, however, its capability for dealing with such problems has atrophied. An
Office of Executive Management has been established during the last year within the
Bureau for the purpose of restoring, broadening, and strengthening the management
and program coordination role, but no head for this Office has yet been appointed. The
objective thus remains only an aspiration. We believe that it should be given high pri-
ority. Accordingly, we urge the creation of a second Deputy Directorship, the appoint-
ment of this Deputy Director as head of the Office of Executive Management, and the
assignment to this Office of additional money and manpower.
The Office of Executive Management should then become the President's principal
internal staff for coordinating, reviewing, and improving federal organization and
management. It should examine and prepare reports on the manner in which federal
or federally-aided services are coordinated on the national and regional levels and
delivered at the local level. In some cases, this duty should involve not only coordina-
tion of current programs but also redefinition and redesign of those in which confusion
12
or inefficiency seem inherent or about which serious consumer dissatisfaction mani-
fests itself. Ultimately, this Office probably should establish field offices to monitor
decentralized programs of departments and agencies. The Office should, in addition,
provide basic staff work for the reestablished Advisory Committee on Government
Organization and, on its own, attack such matters as the efficiency of the General
Services Administration, policies for government contracting, etc.
Creation of an Office of Special Studies. One clear lack in the present Executive
Office is capacity for in-depth analysis of problems not immediately at crisis stage
but foreseeably important to the President and not adequately examinable by any exist-
ing department, agency, or interdepartmental committee.
The most fundamental reason for the creation of an institutional arm for special
studies within the Executive Office of the President is the need for depth studies which
anticipate crises well before they happen and which propose timely, preventive, or
corrective action. Unless a special, separate office is created within the Executive
Office of the President, assigned the specific responsibility of conducting or organizing
depth studies of major issues which the President and his key advisers identify as
emerging problems which have not yet reached the crisis stage, the Administration
is likely to move from crisis to crisis, unprepared to cope with them through advance
analysis, preventive action, and contingency planning. To fill this lack, we recommend
creation of an Office of Special Studies.
Such an Office should be headed by a man in whom the President has high confidence.
He might appropriately serve both as its Director and as an assistant to the President,
13
playing a dual role comparable to that of the Science Adviser (who is both a presidential
assistant and head of the Office of Science and Technology).*
This Office of Special Studies should have a small permanent staff, combining strong
analytic talent with a capacity to organize team projects. Much of the Office's work
would be done by career people borrowed from departments or agencies and by out-
siders, brought in from state or local government or the private sector. Studies would
be prepared by (1) task groups directed by the permanent staff or (2) presidentially
appointed committees, for which the Office would provide or arrange staffing, or (3) by
contractors, with the Office developing the specifications and probably also negotiating
contract terms.
This Office shouldata all cost avoid overloading itself. Its key function would be to
achieve for the President the kind of long-range planning that is almost inevitably pre-
cluded if a number of problems have to be dealt with at the same time. Its Director
should have instructions to concentrate on problems with specified characteristics.
They should be problems (1) cutting laterally across departmental lines, (2) involving
state or local government or private sector units as well as federal agencies, or (3) of
such a character that no single department or agency could study them objectively or
adequately. The Office should avoid assignments that can be dealt with adequately by a
department or agency or by any other element of the White House or Executive Office.
At the same time, however, the Director should clearly not concentrate so exclusively
* If the role of this Office were primarily domestic affairs, Mr. Moynihan might
serve as its director even though the potential range of studies would be broader than
urban problems.
14
on long-range problems as to lose contact with the day-to-day concerns of the Presi-
dent. It would be important that he maintain continuing contact with presidential assis-
tants handling more short-term assignments.
Examples of the studies which such an office might be asked to undertake are:
a. An examination as to how to divide up the problems of the cities into manageable
components for purposes of separate, dovetailing studies. The problems are so numer-
ous, complex, and interrelated as to make extremely difficult any general study without
separate sub-studies. The development of a conceptional framework, showing how such
components would relate to the larger purpose, suggesting priorities, and suggesting
the varying methods by which each component study might best be conducted could well
be one of the first projects undertaken.
b. A review of grant mechanisms, especially proposals for block grants, revenue
sharing, and related fiscal devices for strengthening state and local governments and
services. This is an area in which there is bipartisan interest. Much work has been
done in this field but it is not in a form which will permit the President to accept any
existing packaged proposal. Much more careful staff work needs to be done from the
President's perspective.
c. Tax credits to private business to assist in overcoming urban ghetto problems.
The Treasury Department, the Council of Economic Advisors, and the Bureau of the
Budget have traditionally been strongly opposed to tax credits in almost any form (with
the sole exception of the investment tax credit). If the President is to obtain a sym-
pathetic or unprejudiced analysis of the idea to which he gave support during the
15
campaign, he is more likely to get it in this office than in the institutions which have
stoutly and steadfastly opposed tax credits of any kind through both Republican and
Democratic Administrations.
d. Methods of engaging the participation of the recipients of services at the local
level while maintaining reasonable standards and accountability. This problem, high-
lighted by the school decentralization plan and the teacher's strike in New York, seems
very likely to be the forerunner of many more such issues. The Federal Government
cannot escape eventual involvement. The President needs to be forearmed.
e. Means of doing more of the government's business through outside organizations.
In addition to straight contracting, there are many other devices, such as public corpora-
tions, that can be useful in providing public services more effectively than can be done
directly by government agencies.
An Office of Executive Personnel. The achievement of maximum efficiency from
competent personnel is the goal of any organization, whether public or private. Federal
personnel have been studied and re-studied ad infinitum-but the goal is far from
attained. Recommendations are made periodically by various groups and individuals.
One of the most notable-and which is still fresh after four years-is the Committee
for Economic Development (CED) report on Improving the Executive Management in the
Federal Government.
We agree with the CED's focus on the key people employed by the Federal Govern-
ment-some 8,600 of them: i.e., the career and political executives holding senior
positions in departments, bureaus, divisions and independent agencies, on whom the
16
effective management of the Federal Government depends. Our recommendations center
on those who manage, for this is the group that ultimately makes or breaks an admin-
istration. Though other areas of personnel management are important, at this time
priority should be given to the strengthening of the managerial and professional staffs
in the Executive Branch.
Although the President is constitutionally the Chief Executive, his capacity to exert
effective leadership in personnel matters has been progressively limited by legislative
action, especially in the last 40 years. Yet, the President cannot evade the constitutional
responsibility for performance and results in the Executive Branch. Since 1930 Congress
has enacted a mass of detailed legislation, tending to freeze many administrative de-
tails of personnel administration into statute, thus depriving the President and his
Cabinet of needed discretion and flexibility. Today, after some 1,500 separate statutes
have passed affecting personnel, the President can exert only minimal influence over
the selection, supervision, motivation, and evaluation of the key career executives on
whom he must depend for effective execution of his policies.
Historically, there have been three central units of government charged in one way
or another with assisting the President on executive personnel matters: the Civil
Service Commission, the Special Assistant to the President for Personnel Management
(discarded in 1961), and the Bureau of the Budget. We believe and recommend that such
resources could be more effectively organized and that the President's efforts to
strengthen the executive personnel of the government can be greatly enhanced if there
is an assignment of responsibility within the Executive Office of the President for the
broad development of executive personnel.
17
Accordingly, we recommend that there be established in the Executive Office of
the President an Office of Executive Personnel.
We are agreed that ultimately this Office should manage the recruitment, classi-
fication, transfer, and separation of all super-grade civil servants, including those in
the Foreign Service and other special systems. It should be the agency through which
the President sets policy governing recruitment, promotion, etc., throughout the career
federal service. It should also lead in creative proposals for motivating and upgrading
the civil service.
We believe that the degree to which formal responsibilities for super-grade per-
sonnel can be assumedby this Office at the outset can only be determined by a testing
of the receptivity of Congress. We believe you should move as fast as you can.
A further role which such an Office could perform now would involve staff work,
perhaps for a special Presidential commission, on the fundamentals of personnel sys-
tems and relationships between federal and non-federal systems. Rigidities have
developed which impede the mobility of personnel between systems of the Federal
government, between systems of state and local governments and the Federal govern-
ment, and between private and public employment. An Office of Executive Personnel
should seek remedies for these symptomsof hardening in our arteries.
A further responsibility should be to assess the implications of rapid growth in
employee unionism, collective bargaining, and threatened or actual strikes both as a
general national problem and as a specific problem in respect to unionized Federal
employees. While no major strike of Federal employees has yet occurred, the hand-
writing is on the wall. This problem certainly deserves a good anticipatory study. The
Office of Special Studies could provide the support for such a study.
18
Reestablishment of a President's Advisory Committee on Government Organiza-
tion. A committee of this general nature existed from the time of the first Hoover
Commission until 1961. Made up of distinguished private citizens, it would view organi-
zational problems in the executive branch without the biases inevitably to be found in
agency representatives or active members of the House or Senate. It has provided
successive Presidents with sensible and useful advice on such problems.
We recommend its reestablishment not only on the assumption that it will render
equivalent service to the Nixon administration but also because we believe that it can
be more effective than a new "Hoover Commission," such as is now advocated widely.
For reasons detailed below, we regard the "Hoover Commission" concept as undesirable.
We believe that this Committee can provide both flexibility and responsiveness to
your needs. It will be able to attack urgent problems quickly, without the long delays
inherent in a single massive reorganization study. Some of the organizational problems
it might study are:
The possible inclusion of AID and USIA within an expanded State Department
The organization of present independent agencies such as NASA and the AEC
The combining, or separating, of departments and agencies concerned with
human problems.
These are discussed in more detail later.
19
We believe further that an Advisory Committee could serve the President as a
primary means for getting quickly at such complex and urgent questions as how to
improve the management of non-military foreign activities. With the Budget Bureau's
strengthened Office of Executive Management supplying most of the staff work and
relevant agencies the rest, the Committee could review possible organizational changes
and make recommendations to the President on whatever timetable he fixed.
Other elements in the Executive Office. After obtaining reorganization powers, the
President should, in addition, review existing elements in the Executive Office to deter-
mine whether changes in them are needed or desirable. He needs to consider whether
he wishes to retain in the Executive Office some policy-setting mechanism for poverty
programs or whether all elements of the Office of Economic Opportunity should be re-
moved or dispersed. His position on this question must be determined early, for
Congress must enact new legislation on OEO by June. After determining to what ex-
tent relations with state governments will remain under the charge of the Office of
Emergency Preparedness or will become the concern of the Vice-President, he may
choose to transfer some OEP functions and personnel to other units in the Executive
Office or the executive branch. He may wish some change in the small Office of the
Special Representative for Trade Negotiations. He probably will not want to alter the
character or structure of either the Council of Economic Advisers or the Office of
Science and Technology.
Fallback expedients in the event that reorganization powers prove unobtainable
Although our recommendations concerning the Executive Office can best be carried
20
out if the President acquires the discretionary authority to reorganize, many could be
effected, even in the absence of such authority.
a. Office of Executive Management. As noted above, the shell of such an Office
exists in the Budget Bureau. The President could instruct his Budget Director to assign
one Assistant Director exclusive responsibility for that Office and to provide it adequate
resources. Congress would probably supply the requisite manpower and money even if
it rejected the reorganization proposal.
b. The NSC. If it seems desirable to increase the NSC staff, the President could,
as in the past, use Special Projects funds and/or borrow agency personnel without
transferring them formally or budgetarily to the Executive Office. Similarly, he could,
if he chose, give his assistant for national security affairs a second hat as Executive
Secretary of the NSC and allow him to organize the staff as he chose.
c. Special Studies. Though the President could almost certainly obtain special
legislation setting up an Office of Special Studies, he might encounter Congressional
demand that its Director be subject to Senate confirmation. Probably, therefore, the
President would be better advised simply to assign the functions of such a Director
to one of his assistants and leave it to that assistant to beg or borrow the personnel
and funds required to commence analytical work on urgent problems of the character
described.
d. Office of Executive Personnel. Failing the ability to create such an Office the
President could perpetuate the arrangement that now exists: that is, he could give a
second job to the man whom he appoints as Chairman of the Civil Service Commission
21
and use him in the White House as, among other things, a general adviser on personnel
policy. By assigning this individual some White House or Executive Office staff, the
President could probably induce a start on exchanges with state and local governments,
for legislation already authorizes such exchanges. The President could direct this
official to look at possible methods for integrating the various federal personnel systems
and of broader issues in the personnel field.
e. Advisory Committee on Government Organization. The President does not need
reorganization powers to reestablish this Committee. Nor does he need such powers
to instruct the Budget Bureau to provide its staff work. On the other hand, in the
absence of Executive Office reorganization, it seems likely that it would be more dif-
ficult for the President to use this Committee as a means of addressing major problems
of government organization because his ability to resist Congressional pressure for a
new "Hoover Commission" would be reduced.
The President could meet most of his pressing needs by one expedient or another,
even though he were denied reorganization power or he judged it politically unwise to
seek such power. We nevertheless recommend that he take the more difficult route of
seeking reorganization authority. We do so, in the first place, from conviction that
each need can be better met thereby. In the second place, we do so in recognition that
we are not situated to judge all, or perhaps even most, of the new demands that the
next few years will make on the President and his Office. We believe that he requires
and should seek the organizational flexibility to cope with these demands, and we as-
sume that, whatever the political costs, they will be smaller in the "honeymoon" period
than at any subsequent time.
22
Why no new "Hoover Commission"?
The first Hoover Commission achieved great success for two reasons. First, it
used for leadership a former President who, mellowed by a long period in private life,
stood almost above party. Second, the subject matter was clearly defined and within
the traditional limits of studies of public management and government organization.
Even the second Hoover Commission lacked the second of these advantages, for it
undertook to report on policy issues as well as management. As a result, it enjoyed
much less success. The Eisenhower administration found many of its recommenda-
tions distasteful, and Meyer Kestnbaum spent a large part of his time as a presidential
assistant either disavowing or refusing to act on the second Commission's reports.
We doubt the advisability of a commission imitating the first Hoover Commission.
It seems to us unwise either to have the study headed by the obviously eligible ex-
President or to have it address traditional problems of organization or management.
The needs of the executive branch are too urgent and too disparate to await deliberate
and comprehensive examination. The great problems calling for such examination-the
federal system and executive-legislative relations-do not lend themselves to appraisal
by a large body consisting of ex-officio members. We suggest in more detail in later
paragraphs how these problems might be approached.
It is our fear that a new "Hoover Commission," created by bills such as the Pearson
or Ribicoff bills (S.47 and S.2116) introduced in the last Congress, would handicap the
President in dealing with what we have already described as the major challenge facing
him. On the one hand, its existence would encourage postponement of less-than-
comprehensive organizational changes, by means of which he may inch toward more
23
effective accomplishment of governmental purposes. On the other hand, its eventual
comprehensive report could add up to criticism of him for not having reached objectives
which he might have attained. This latter result would be all the more likely if the
Commission, following the original model, was equally divided in party membership
but with actual control in the opposition party.
We believe the administration and the country will benefit if the President ener-
getically advocates a targeted rather than a scattergun approach-the handling of
urgent administrative problems by an on-going Advisory Committee and study of prob-
lems of unusual complexity by commissions specially selected for the purpose.
THE MANAGEMENT OF THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH
Our Task Force has not attempted to examine in detail any organizational problems
other than those of the Executive Office. While the paragraphs that follow present
some basic recommendations, they consist mostly of points that might well become
early agenda items for a reconstituted Advisory Committee on Government Organization.
The Cabinet
We are in agreement that the Cabinet as such can seldom be used for decision-
making. Department heads have very little in common. The interests of the Secretary
of Defense and the Postmaster General, for example, seldom overlap. An attempt by
the President to promote Cabinet debate on serious issues is likely to encounter resis-
tance from department heads fearful lest ill-informed or peripherally interested
colleagues speak against them. This has happened in the past. Nor would the President
24
be served, for he could well find Secretaries bringing forward proposals of which he
disapproved, merely to demonstrate that a majority would support them.
Regular meetings of the Cabinet can nevertheless serve a very useful purpose. They
help department heads maintain a sense of identification with the administration. If
organized essentially as briefing sessions, they can educate members and make them,
in their individual capacities and in their public statements, more sensitive to the broad
demands pressing on the President. In addition, there will be subjects important to all
Cabinet members, such as federal employee labor-management relations, which can be
discussed usefully by all.
Departmental reorganization
A strong case can be made out for reorganizing the Executive Branch to consolidate
departments of overlapping jurisdiction. HEW, HUD, and elements in transportation
and Labor all deal with aspects of the urban-welfare complex. Interior and Agriculture
both concern themselves with natural resources. State, related agencies such as ACDA,
AID, and USIA, the CIA, and segments of Defense all have to do with foreign affairs.
If some functional groupings were achieved, the President's span of control would not
extend over so many disparate department heads. Super-Secretaries presiding over
such groupings might be able to bring about cooperation such as a Secretary of Defense
has proved able to realize from the once-separate departments now under his charge.
Most of us are not persuaded, however, that the case for merging departments has
yet been proved. The units making up HEW have not been brought into cooperative re-
lationships, and some of our members believe that merger of HEW with other depart-
25
ments would make less sense than would removal of Education and elevation of it to
departmental status in its own right. Though many concur that Interior and Agriculture
should ideally be united in a single Department of Natural Resources, none believes
that a proposal to such an effect would make headway against the vested interests that
have consistently opposed such a merger in the past. As for a Department of Foreign
Affairs, the group feels that there is strong logic for grouping at least some of the
present foreign affair agencies, although in the judgment of several, there would be
strong resistance from within the agencies.
Our own recommendation is that the reestablished Advisory Committee on Govern-
ment Organization reexamine proposals for super-departments. Past studies exist in
plenty. Relatively little staff work should be required to bring them up to date. The
Committee could promptly lay before the President various alternatives and the pros
and cons for each. Applying his own knowledge and his own sense of the desirable and
the possible, he can then judge whether he wishes to present any major reorganization
proposal to Congress.
Cabinet committees
In the meantime, problems that do not fall clearly within the jurisdiction of any
one agency might be entrusted to small Cabinet committees. We visualize ad hoc, not
standing, committees, and we would recommend that each be kept as small as possible.
(One member of the Task Force contends that any committee of more than three will
have difficulty reaching decisions.) Possible subjects for such committees might in-
clude manpower programs, the relationship between transportation development and
urban development, control of public disorders, and the future of Selective Service.
26
In each committee, one Cabinet member or his designee could serve as chairman,
present recommendations to the President, and then bear responsibility for arranging
the coordinated execution of the President's decisions. A presidential assistant would
presumably be associated with each such committee. His duties could include provision
of any necessary staff work and follow-up on execution. Through design of such com-
mittees and through appointments to them, the President could give one Cabinet member
or one presidential assistant a leading role in several functional areas. However, in
order for this arrangement to work well, the President must make it quite clear that
the "lead" cabinet member has his full support.
We admit to some uncertainty as to how successful the Cabinet committee device
might prove. Standing Cabinet committees, such as those on price stability, have clearly
lacked effectiveness. Ad hoc Cabinet committees could turn out to be unnecessary
bureaucratic layers, intervening between the President and his assistants on the one
hand and operating officials on the other. Certainly, if Cabinet officers designate
alternates to sit for them on such committees but fail to give their alternates full
powers, the device could make for delay or confusion or both. And it may be that a
Cabinet committee system would require a small central staff comparable to that
serving the NSC. The proposed Office of Special Studies can provide the analysis
necessary for coordination of major programs. We nevertheless put forward the sug-
gestion that the President use the device of Cabinet committees for a few broad problem
areas such as urban activities.
27
The National Security Council
The NSC is, in effect, a Cabinet committee. Its statutory members are the
President and Vice-President, the Secretaries of State and Defense, and the Director
of the Office of Emergency Preparedness. In practice, President Eisenhower included
as regular participants the Secretary and Under Secretary of the Treasury, the Under
Secretary of State, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs,
The Director of the CIA, and often the service secretaries, the individual service chiefs,
the UN Ambassador, and a number of others. As a result, the NSC tended to lose
much of its usefulness for action purposes. Meanwhile, a large staff had gathered to
serve it. A Planning Board prepared papers for it, and an Operations Coordinating
Board undertook to follow up action on NSC recommendations approved by the Presi-
dent. In 1961, President Kennedy practically did away with the NSC and its staff or-
ganizations. Seldom summoning formal NSC meetings, he dealt directly with individual
departmental officials through his White House national security staff.
President-elect Nixon has already announced his intention to revitalize the NSC.
We would recommend that, in doing so, he take care to prevent its becoming once again
cumbersome and routinized. To that end, we would urge that he use full meetings of the
statutory members, advisers, and deputies much as he uses Cabinet meetings: that
is, for mutual education rather than for decision-making. Most of the time, he would
find it preferable, we believe, to convene committees of the NSC, made up exclusively
of himself, his national security assistant, one staff man to take action notes, and the
Cabinet officers or agency heads principally concerned with the issue in hand. Thus,
for example, an NSC committee considering a clandestine operation might include, in
28
addition to the President and his aides, only the Secretary of State and the CIA Director.
One on the food-for-peace program might be limited to the Secretaries of State, the
Treasury, and Agriculture.
We would also recommend strongly against the reestablishment of large special
staffs like those of the Planning Board and the OCB. Planning, participation in decision-
making, and follow-up are not readily separable. There must be continuous communi-
cation-not just the passing of paper-between those thinking ahead, those making de-
cisions, and those carrying out the decisions.
It is our view that the key to successful revitalization of the NSC lies less within
the White House and the Executive Office than within the departments and agencies
concerned with national security. To be sure, the President and his national security
assistant need stronger staff resources. The twelve to fifteen professionals now work-
ing on the NSC staff are adequate for monitoring Situation Room traffic, making sure
that all agencies get their views to the White House, and following up on immediate
actions. At a minimum, this staff should have four to six additional members, charged
not with watching cable flow but with reflection on longer-term issues. Also, it might
be useful to the President's assistant and his staff to possess a small research and
analysis unit, not necessarily housed in the Executive Office, searching out background
information, past departmental staff studies, and the like.
Chiefly, however, planning and analysis should take place within the agencies. We
would urge that special attention be given to strengthening such capabilities in the State
Department. If that Department possessed a planning staff as strong and as intimately
29
associated with the Secretary as the Defense Department's Office of International
Security Affairs, the President's assistant and his planners would need much less
staff work of their own. Their numbers could remain small, and they could concentrate
their efforts more effectively.
Similarly, the coordination function ought to fall primarily on the operating agen-
cies. To the extent that the President's assistants can count on agency officials to
manage activities in their jurisdiction, they can follow up presidential decisions with
relative ease. A phone call from a Presidential assistant to the Deputy Secretary of
Defense may be all that is necessary, for example, to check up on execution of a
decision by the military establishment. If comparable management capability could
be created in the State Department, perhaps extending to activities such as those of
AID and USIA, the operational burdens to be borne by the NSC staff could be
comparatively light.
Members of the Task Force have agreed that one of the two Under Secretaries
of State should have responsibility for managing the complex decision-making
process within state. A further possibility would involve assignment of primary
responsibility for coordination over the whole foreign affairs community to this Under
Secretary. Through the existing Senior Interdepartmental Group-Interdepartmental
Regional Groups (SIG-IRG) or some substitute mechanism, he could both search out
and report to the NSC issues dividing agencies and also supervise the execution of
decisions. If so, he should be added as a regular participant, like the President's
national security assistant, in all NSC committee meetings.
30
The size of the NSC staff and the number and variety of functions to be performed
by it depend altogether on the strength and structure of agencies concerned with national
security policy, especially the Department of State.
Individual agencies
Though we did not address in detail the organizational problems of particular de-
partments, we can offer one observation applicable to most if not all. It is that depart-
ment heads characteristically lack adequate staff resources. In nearly all, the top level
is large in terms of numbers, but most Assistant Secretaries or equivalents have line
responsibilities. They are charged with administering operating bureaus or clusters
of bureaus. Inevitably, they become spokesmen for the particular interests or per-
spectives which their bureaus represent. Most Cabinet Secretaries thus have almost
no high level aides helping them consider problems from a department-wide or a presi-
dential standpoint.
The one great exception is the Department of Defense, where all Assistant Secre-
taries or equivalents have functional jurisdiction (such as Systems Analysis, Interna-
tional Security Affairs, and Research and Engineering), cutting laterally across oper-
ating lines. These Assistant Secretaries, equipped with staff of their own, can present
the Secretary with well-worked-out alternatives to proposals coming from the JCS,
the services, or the field commands. To be sure, the structure and problems of the
military establishment are unique, and the Defense model cannot be borrowed whole-
sale by other departments. Nevertheless, the principle that a department head should
have high level staff not engaged in supervising line activities seems to us one of univer-
sal applicability.
31
a. Planning-Programming-Budgeting (PPB). One obvious use for high level
departmental staff is budgetary analysis. PPB, first applied in Defense and then
introduced into civilian agencies in 1965, provides a method by which department heads
may gain greater control over decisions within their bureaucracies. It involves requir-
ing operating agencies to make explicit the long-range goals and long-range budgetary
consequences of program proposals. Once goals and consequences have been stated, it
can become possible for the Secretary's staff to analyze and put before him alternative
proposals for pursuing the same goals, alternative definitions of goals involving dif-
ferent sets of budgetary consequences, and comparisons of the relative costs of poten-
tially competing programs.
It is already quite clear that PPB provides no magic formulae for decision-making.
An observable result of its application in Defense was a rise in overall demand for funds.
One member of our Task Force holds that the traditional device of an arbitrary budget
ceiling serves even better to force consideration of priorities. Nevertheless, the
majority of us believe that PPB can serve a useful purpose in enabling a department
head to perceive and make choices among alternative goals and programs.
PPB is, however, primarily an analytical tool, the utility of which depends alto-
gether on by whom and how it is employed. Department heads cannot expect useful
results unless they seek and place in staff positions first-rate analysts either from
within their own agencies or from corporations, business schools, or research cen-
ters. One clear lesson from recent experience is that PPB can only be applied se-
lectively. It has no relevance at all for some problems. The Bureau of the Budget
has required agencies to analyze in depth too many programs and issues, and the
32
resultant analysis has usually been of poor quality. Another clear lesson is that
provision for systematic evaluation is very seldom built into on-going programs.
Even projects avowedly experimental in nature have often been undertaken without
any specific plan for evaluating their results.
We would recommend therefore that instructions to department heads to apply PPB
be modified to call for selective use. We recommend also that the Bureau of the Budget
design and issue a set of program evaluation standards, providing among other things,
that no funds be furnished for "experimental" or "demonstration" projects unless the
projects are explicitly designed to include evaluation.
b. Research. Another functional area suitable for high level staff concentration is
research and development. In a number of departments, research is either divided up
among operating bureaus or is neglected altogether. It seems to us that in nearly all
cases decisions on research and development should be linked to the long-range policy
planning properly in the province of the department head or the President.
Morale in the federal service
Given the challenges that face the Nixon administration, we regard it as of the ut-
most importance that the President and all his major appointees devote special efforts
to winning enthusiastic cooperation from the career employees who, in the end, execute
their decisions, represent the government in the eyes of the public, and determine the
quality of government services. Some of the energy which in other circumstances might
go to building constituencies for legislative proposals should, in this administration,
go to winning loyalty and understanding among the government's own agents.
33
We recommend that each department and agency head be made aware of the Presi-
dent's desires in this regard. We further recommend that the President himself set a
conspicuous example. He should, if possible, arrange for an early post-inaugural
meeting with the Executive Officers Group. An association made up of top departmental
administrators, this Group meets regularly and has a secretary in the Executive Office.
We suggest that an appropriate agenda item for such a meeting would be the proposed
Office of Executive Personnel described above.
Subsequently, the President should find occasions to visit departments in Wash-
ington and, whenever possible, facilities in the field. It should not be a burden to him
sometimes to deliver statements or hold meetings in places other than the White
House or sometimes to use as a forum outside of Washington a gathering of federal
employees rather than one of businessmen, church representatives, or the like. The
resulting stimulus to morale could be of great importance to the administration's long-
run performance.
A PARTIAL CHECKLIST OF ORGANIZATIONAL PROBLEMS
DESERVING EARLY CONSIDERATION
Major long-term problems
a. Federalism. As stated earlier, we regard federal-state-local relations as a
subject calling for careful and sustained examination.
Over the past generation, along with the centralization of policy decisions and
financial support in Washington, has come a decentralization of the actual administration
34
of federal programs, both to the states and cities on the one hand, and on the other hand
to private institutions such as universities and business corporations. Some of the most
difficult administrative problems today are not within the federal bureaucracy, but in
the network of grant-in-aid and contractual relations through which are administered,
for example, the new poverty and economic opportunity programs as well as the slightly
older military, space, and atomic energy programs. The problems of the ghetto and of
the "military-industrial complex" cannot be brought under control by action within the
Executive departments alone. No official study has been made which would bring to the
Congress and the public an appreciation of the way in which the effectiveness of our
policy and the economy of our administration depend on the new structure of public
and private federalism.
These problems probably call for a new and critical study, administrative and
managerial in focus, but inescapably political in its implications. A small committee
of both eminent private citizens and able government officials would be best situated
to make an objective study without the temptation to turn it against the policies of the
administration.
b. Congressional-executive relations. The most difficult problems in organization
and administration are now no longer merely managerial; they have their roots in
Congressional politics and in the new procedures invented by Congressional committees
for the control of particular parts of the executive. For example, all recent Presidents
have found that the impossibility of reorganization in fields like rivers and harbors and
the construction of dams is not the result of administrative, but of fundamental political
35
difficulties. Problems such as these cannot be solved merely by formal reorganization
or the reallocation of statutory authority. The increase in the use of such procedures
as annual authorizations, and requirements that specific administrative acts be approved
formally or informally by Congressional committees or subcommittees, now gives new
tools for control to members and staffs of Congressional committees. Earlier organi-
zational studies, because they were asking for Congressional action, considered it
imprudent to raise issues of legislative-executive relations. Reform in this area can
come only if it can be shown that the interests of the President and the Congress as a
whole are not in conflict, but that they have a common interest in establishing compre-
hensive and responsible policy against the special interests created by alliances be-
tween Congressional subcommittees and particular federal bureaus.
This difficult subject may well call not for formal study but for a series of informal
discussions between the President and leading members of the executive on the one
hand, and Congressional leaders on the other. Some special studies of the problem
commissioned by the Executive Office (perhaps with the collaboration of the Legislative
Reference Service of the Library of Congress) could serve as the basis for the agenda
of such discussion. The President and one or two Cabinet members might get together
with three or four senior legislators to discuss lessons that might be drawn from a
study of one particular appropriations process. Other Cabinet members and legislators
might review a study of a different subject. In view of the inherent difficulties in this
relationship it would perhaps be wiser not to be committed in advance to any set schedule
or pattern.
36
Problems for Consideration by an Advisory Committee
on Government Organization
a. The foreign affairs community. No administrative problem is more urgent
than that of how to introduce greater planning and managerial capacity into the welter
of agencies concerned with diplomacy, aid, propaganda, arms control, intelligence
collection and evaluation, and military action. Among specific matters deserving
consideration are the Foreign Service Association proposals for reorganization of the
State Department; the perennial question of how much autonomy AID and USIA should
enjoy; the possible desirability of transferring administration of military aid from
Defense to State; the competition existing among intelligence agencies; and the question
of whether the Joint Chiefs of Staff should continue to be made up of operating heads of
services.
b. The urban-welfare complex. The problems here are second in urgency only to
those in the foreign affairs community. Among specific issues are the future disposi-
tion of operating activities of OEO; the coordination of federal efforts in welfare and
education; and the future of federal efforts to assist state and local law enforcement
agencies.
37
c. Problems of lesser urgency. These include possible transformation of the Post
Office into a public corporation; possible consolidation of federal activities relating to
communications, cultural affairs, and scientific affairs; the future administration of
the space program; and possible means for improving or altering the character of
regulatory agencies.
Franklin A. Lindsay, Chairman
Philip E. Areeda
David E. Bell
Roswell L. Gilpatric
Stephen Horn
Marshall A. Jacobs
Henry Loomis
Ernest R. May
Rufus E. Miles, Jr.
John A. Perkins
Don K. Price, Jr.
Elliot L. Richardson
Charles A. Schultze
Charles B. Stauffacher
Rocco C. Siciliano
38
Memo to H.R. Haldeman
From Buchanan
December 22, 1968
During our conversation about the "diatribe" I discussed
briefly the idea of having the Kissinger or Moynihan who takes
all the pros and cons to the President being required to file
with the "dissenter" a copy of how the Minority view of the
dissenter is presented.
The purpose of course is to guarantee to those making the
inputs that their views are being fully presented, that the
President is getting the "other side of the coin" ably presented.
It is an idea which you may not agree with but it gets
at a goal which I am sure you concur in namely - - that we must gua-
rantee that RN is made privy to the best arguments on every side
of an issue.
Buchanan
The reason I am sending this along is that it was not in the smemo
that I sent and it is a thought which you want to consider or
modfy in setting the structure up.
Buchanan
December 19, 1968
To Messrs: Ash
Haldeman
Harlow
Kissinger
Mayo
Moynihan
From:
Henry Loomis Ah
The Task Force on Organization of the Executive Branch
submitted its report yesterday. Mr. Burns considered
it of sufficient importance to discuss it with Mr. Nixon
today and to suggest that it warrants careful reading.
I am enclosing a copy for your information.
Mr. Lindsay has indicated that he would be happy to
discuss the report further with any of you who may be
interested.
tends to identify problems in ash report
poses diametricily opposite concept to asks proposal
good for compairson - which fits Pres. style?
contrast will help cuptabije