The White House World: Transitions, Organization, and Office Operations (review)

This collection of essays from political and presidential scholars has both an institutional and an academic function. Part of the White House 2001 Project funded by the Pew Trust, The White House World includes edited forms of briefing materials prepared to help inexperienced White House staffers make the difficult transition from campaigning to governing. Indeed, the book amply illustrates how difficult it can be to reconstruct the support systems that must be in place for a new presidency. As Kumar and her colleagues note in the second essay, "Meeting the Freight Train Head On," new appointees enter a building with "empty desks, no files from their predecessors, and a figurative inbox containing expectations the president will deliver on his promises beginning the moment he enters the Oval Office" (5). There is no time for a leisurely learning curve. They need to quickly launch a new White House bureaucracy that will support the ambitious plans of a new administration.

The hindsight assessments of 75 former staffers from six different administrations are woven into most of the book's 20 essays. Among them are major figures such as Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, David Gergen, and Mike McCurry. Three essays in part 1 cover transitions. Part 2 offers a variety of perspectives on the working environment for presidential staffers. The larger third section includes detailed and helpful descriptions of key staff positions, including Chief of Staff, Staff Secretary, White House Counsel, Press Secretary, and the Office of Communications. And part 4 concludes with seven brief chapters on the presidential transition of George W. Bush.

The book offers new insights even for seasoned observers of the presidency. For example, Mary Anne Borelli, Karen Hult, and Nancy Kassop offer useful background on the increasingly complex role of the White House counsel, noting that the job has become more challenging as our national life has polarized. Like most of the other essayists in this collection, they notice that organizational lines sometimes don't reflect actual practices in the pressure cooker of the West Wing. There is surprise, for example, that President Gerald Ford's decision to pardon former president Richard Nixon—"arguably the most significant legal decision of his administration" (208)—was not vetted by White House Counsel Philip Buchen. The president's lawyer was hardly the first staffer to be surprised at being kept out of the loop. But the example provides a sobering reminder that White House channels are as easily subverted as their counterparts in more ordinary types of organizations.

Many of the chapters in this book were written by the veteran observer Martha Kumar, and several are of special interest to communication scholars. "The White House Is Like City Hall" and "The Pressures of White House Work Life" offer interesting assessments of the personal sacrifices that must be made when staffers sign on to work in an organization that is essentially an "artificial construct." And longer studies of "The Office of Press Secretary" and the "Office of Communications" provide needed updates to our knowledge of how presidential staffs create and handle their own newsmaking opportunities. As Kumar demonstrates, understanding how various staff members interpreted the flow chart for the Office of Communications in the Clinton administration helps us see how various tasks such as speechwriting were assigned and how they were "cleared" through the chain of command.

The persistent reader of The White House World will be rewarded by new insights and some surprises. For example, David Gergen is quoted early in the book reminding readers that campaign staffs who actually "know the guy" must be included in the permanent organizational structure. His view challenges the conventional wisdom that there should be a wall between those of the campaign and those who create policy and govern. Likewise, a Reagan staffer observes that a president's work style should be the generative force in deciding how the White House staff should be...