Contrasting Models of White House Staff Organization: The Eisenhower,Ford, and Carter Experiences

Analysts of the presidency agree that White House staffs may be organized along one of three lines: a competitive model, a hierarchical model, or a collegial model. This article details the interaction patterns of the Eisenhower, Ford, and Carter senior White House staffs in an empirical test of the basic assumptions of these models of staff organization. These three administrations represent very different conceptual approaches to the problem of staff interaction. The results of the analysis of private and group meeting access by the senior staff with the President clearly indicate that our models do not capture the full range of staff interaction and that other factors need to be given more serious consideration in our conceptualizations of the operation of the White House.     

Oral History and the Gerald R. Ford White House: The Specter of Watergate

For the last sixty years, presidential libraries have providedand preserved critical source materials essential for the studyof the history of presidents of the United States. Oral historiesat those libraries have become an increasingly important partof their key archival collections, with one or two major exceptions.This article analyzes and compares official oral history collectionsat the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library with those of othertwentieth century presidents and seeks to explain why the oralhistories currently available for research there were so limiteduntil Mr. Ford's death in 2006. The reasons for this are anintriguing blend of developed White House policy, benign neglect,the role of tape recorders in bringing Ford to the Oval Office,and the continuing influence of the ghost of the Watergate scandaleven well beyond the years Gerald R. Ford occupied the nation'shighest political office.     

The Eisenhower Administration: Bridge to the Institutionalized Legislative Presidency

Eisenhower's contributions to the modern presidency are primarily institutional and to some extent, stylistic: his reliance on the professionalism of civil servants in the Bureau of the Budget, his continuation of the annual programming process as well as the procedures for coordinating the executive branch's legislative role, his creation of a White House office to represent him on Capitol Hill, and his respect for Congress as a legislative body. What Eisenhower did not do is equally significant: he did not reject the model of an activist presidency, reverse the New and Fair Deal policies of his Democratic predecessors, or pursue his centrist agenda in a blatantly partisan manner. The Eisenhower experience demonstrates that incivility, inhumanity, and inanity are not inevitable consequences of divided government.