Memorandum from James Rowe, Jr. to James E. Webb, with Related Material

the RECORDS ano COMMISSION ON ORGANIZATION OF THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH OF THE GOVERNMENT December 1, 1948 1626 K STREET NW. WASHINGTON 25, D.C. MEMORANDUM FOR THE BUDGET DIRECTOR. Dear Jim: Reorgenization I hope you can get the President: (a) To call Dean Acheson over tomorrow or the next day to talk to him on reorganization; and (b) To give a guarded answer at his press conference tomorrow on his conversation with Hoover. Hoover's interview with the press - as the most casual inspection of the New York and Washington papers shows - has given the definite impression that the President approved Hoover's scheme in detail. From what Hoover told the Commission in executive session this morning there was no such approval given by the President. Nonetheless the impression is general that the President has approved Hoover's plans. Inherent is the implication that this is a Commission progrem. As you know, the fact is that these are all Hoover's ideas. Not only has the Commission not agreed to them, but we have not even discussed most of them. I think the entire matter was a deliberate tactic by Hoover to muzzle his Commission. I am afraid that he has achieved that objective. If he can tell the President these are the Commission plans and tell the Commission these are the President's plans (he did not do so in this case but he left the implication that there was no disagreement be- tween the President and himself), we are in rather bad shape. You know the material in these task reports fairly well. You know, for instance, the difficulty I have been having to stop some of the nonsense about the Executive Office. This should be the easiest thing to do because Hoover agrees this is entirely within the province of the President to arrange any way he sees fit. So you can imagine what diffi- culty we are having in other fields. For instance, one of the six "administrations" which Hoover