"The White House is not simply a spoil of victory," observed a former White House official and specialist on presidential transitions. "It's the nerve center of the greatest government in the world and we ought to at least give it the same respect that you do when you take over a second-rate corporation." Currently a lawyer specializing in mergers and acquisitions, this former staffer noted: "When I compare White House transitions and the lack of systems and discipline and preparation that goes into that to what we do when we are taking over a company, it is night and day and, yet, the stakes are so infinitely smaller with the companies than with the White House." The same observation is made by others who have worked in the White House and devoted time and energy to transitions. "You would never start up a company the way people start a White House," observed roy Neel a Chief of Staff for the Vice-President and someone who later served as Presidential Deputy Chief of Staff. Neel and Thomas (Mack) McLarty, Clinton Chief of Staff, were the only senior White House staff who were appointed more than one week prior to the President's Inauguration. With these two exceptions, the names of the Clinton White House senior staff were publicly announced on January 14, 1993, giving them less than a week prior to the Inauguration for them to acclimate to their new roles and to discover the dimensions of their posts. When they did come into the building, they were faced with no institutional memory of previous decisions reached, organizational structures selected, and policies adopted; no outline of their responsibilities; no manual to show how the place worked in preceding administrations.
Preparing the White House to Govern
The White House 2001 Project is a two-part program designed to provide new staff members with information associated with a successful start for a new White House team. It is funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and associated with the American Enterprise Institute's initiative entitled Transition to Governing. The White House 2001 Project was created by presidency scholars working with the Presidency Research Group, a section of the American Political Science Association. The first aspect of the program, the White House Interview Project, involves building an institutional memory for selected White House offices. The second part, the Presidential Nomination Forms Online Project, is planned to reduce the cumbersome, redundant, and often opaque qualities currently characterizing the presidential appointments process. We will create a software package easing the filling out of forms and an online manual supplying information helpful to an understanding of the vagaries of the appointment process.
White House Interview Program. The goal of the White House Interview Program is to smooth the path to power by furnishing incoming staff with substantive information about their offices. Through a private website and with materials on paper, we will give the new people information about the functioning of their offices over a period of six administrations, the organization of their unit, and the roles played by the heads of each office over the course of the last 30 years. The offices under our lens are: Chief of Staff, Staff Secretary, Press Office, Office of Communications, Office of Counsel to the President, and Office of Administration. With information on the operations preceding them, the recently appointed staff members will be able to prepare for what they can anticipate will come their way. The White House Interview Program is managed by the Director of the White House 2001 Project, Professor Martha Kumar. For more information, select the Interview Program.
Presidential Nomination Forms Online Program. In the final report released in 1996, the Twentieth Century Fund's Task Force on the Presidential Appointment Process described the nomination process faced by presidential appointees as a "maelstrom of complexity." There are "too many questions, too many forms, too many clearances," the group concluded. In order to address this problem, we will prepare a software package that nominees can easily download from our website or obtain on CD-Rom and fill out for return to the several relevant federal agencies seeking information. In addition, we will provide an online manual to explain the software and to answer questions about the process. Through our website, we will provide online information in the following areas: links to sites providing materials for nominees; rules, regulations, orientation materials, and guidance of agencies concerning the appointment process; and analytical information walking appointees through the process. NFO is managed by Professor Terry Sullivan, Associate Director of the White House 2001 Project. For more information, select the NFO Program.