No passion for Brownlow: Models of staffing the presidency

Post‐Watergate critics of the American presidency have directed much attention to the problem of controlling the White House staff. This paper argues that their proposals have ignored an implicit lesson contained in the Brownlow Report of 1937 and that it is unrealistic to build the Cabinet and department secretaries into any model of white House staff functions, particularly as a constraint mechanism on the staff. Such proposals understate the political role of the staff and approaches to reform must search for a political rather than an institutional response.