### III. LEADERSHIP WITHIN THE DEMOCRATIC PROCESS

#### D. The Presidency and the President

*Insert beginning middle of page 54*

##### 2. Nature of presidential staff

Since the first World War the President of the United States, like the executives of other Western democracies, has been enforced to develop a complex array of staff and committee machinery to help him in the development and execution of public policy. Nowhere is such machinery more necessary, or more complicated, than in the all important areas of foreign and military policy, where the chief executive's constitutional responsibilities are most sweeping.

Originally the President relied on the Secretary of State - in the early days almost singlehanded - to develop our foreign policy and co-ordinate the international activities of the entire executive branch. In the last few decades this has proved impossible, largely because the Department of State has never been set up and staffed so as to concern itself either with those newer aspects of international affairs for which traditional diplomacy was ineffective, or with the constitutional and administrative problems involved in coordinating a vast executive machine. As a result the President has come to rely either on the staff agencies in the Executive Office (such as the Bureau of the Budget or various temporary ad hoc staff agencies), or on a variety of special interdepartmental committees, from the august statutory National Security Council down to temporary interdepartmental working groups.

VI - Report

February 26, 1958

(Price revision)

VI - Report

February 26, 1958

(Price revision)

(Insert page 54 - continued) - 2

Perhaps the most important thing to say about the President's executive machinery is that it is the President's personal problem. No outside advisers can with confidence prescribe the details of the staff machinery which the President needs. Nor can it be set up by Congress, since statutory machinery tends to be too rigid and inflexible and by its very legal status may handicap rather than help the President.

But two things seem clear as to the general approach which is required.

The first is that it has been a mistake for the past several decades to look on the Department of State as just another executive department, which needs like the others to be coordinated either by the President personally, or by agencies in his Executive Office. This mistake was perhaps inevitable because of the basic attitude of the Department of State itself. In order to escape the vices of political patronage it tended to set itself and the Foreign Service apart from the Presidency, and to avoid involvement in the great issues of policy and politics with which the President must grapple.

Over the next several decades it may well be that the President's most important move in the organization of his executive office would be

VI - Report

February 26, 1958

(Price revision)

(Insert page 54 - continued) - 3

to fuse into it the Secretary of State as his principal adviser on inter-national affairs, since the management of international affairs now requires almost as much attention to the coordination of the executive branch as to negotiations with foreign powers or deliberations in the United Nations. The job of Secretary of State, no doubt, is already big and important enough for any one man. But it is not the Secretary's own job; it is only a part of the responsibility of the President. And it may be made easier rather than harder if the President lifts it out of a position in which it is in conflict with that of other members of his Cabinet, and uses it as an instrument of his own constitutional authority to develop a measure of unity with respect to international affairs throughout the executive branch.

The second major approach would be closely related to the first: the President, in the mixture of independent staff work and committee deliberations within his Executive Office, needs to put more emphasis on flexible and independent staff work, and to reduce the rigidities and complications involved in the great network of interdepartmental committees.

With respect to his Cabinet, the President has always kept it a flexible and confidential council of advisers, whatever may have been

VI - Draft

February 26, 1958

(Price revision)

(Insert page 54 - continued) - 4

from time to time its operational shortcomings. As the interdepartmental consultation at the Cabinet level and in the network of Executive Office Committees is carried on, the first guiding principle should be to guarantee that they remain flexible agents of advice for the President and not a bureaucratic tangle in which responsibility will be lost and executive energy smothered. To this end the composition and scope of each committee should be kept completely subject to the President's day-by-day discretion, and the deliberations of each committee should be supported and followed through by staff work under the President's, rather than any committee's, direction.

rather than any committee's direction.

be supported and followed through by staff work under the President's
day-by-day discretion, and the deliberations of each committee should
of each committee should be kept completely subject to the President's
executive energy and inspiration. To this end the competition and scope
and not a bureaucratic tangle in which responsibility will be feet and
guarantee that they remain flexible agents of advice for the President
Committees is carried on, the fact that underlying principle should be to
consultation at the Cabinet level and in the network of Executive Office
from time to time its operational shortcomings. As the interdepartmental

(insert page 24 - continued) - 4

(price revision)
February 26, 1929
W - Draft