The President's Call: Executive Leadership From FDR to George Bush (35 page)

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Authors: Judith E. Michaels

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Page 107
viewing a political appointment as a ticket to the greater financial rewards available in the private sector" (ibid., 111).
The hoary short-termer personnel system traditionally "creates what is basically an accidental collection of individuals with little past commitment to political leadership and few enduring stakes in government's own capabilities and performance" (Heclo 1977, 154). In contrast, the Reagan appointees were determined to change government and to do so as quickly as possible, given their limited tenure.
Many clearly entered government because of their strong commitment to Reagan and to his political agenda. While some of our interviewees were uncomfortable with the label "ideologue," almost all expressed clear knowledge of, and support for, the Reagan agenda. The core of that political agenda was limited government, particularly in domestic agencies, and a strong defense posture. [They] lent support to the view of Newland (1983) that "(p)ublic administration under President Reagan . . . (was), to a significant extent, ideological political administration." (Ban and Ingraham 1990, 115-17)
George Bush's appointees, as discussed below, were of a different stripe. While generally less radical and with a revolution to extend rather than create, they were more likely to value government and good management, per se.
Risks Attendant to Appointments
Presidents face not only limitations on their appointing authority, but risks in its use. One risk is that through an appointment, the president may actually lose, rather than gain, control over the executive branch. Because a president cannot manage his entire government from the White House, he must in large measure work through his cabinet, yet the truism holds that "the president and the cabinet are natural enemies," with competing power bases and avenues of support. "Presidents thus make their appointment decisions the way investors make their choices in the stock marketwith anticipation and trepidation, never being altogether certain whether they will be helped or hurt by the people they elevate to high government office" (Rourke 1991b, 124-25).
Operating in a zero-sum power game, the more appointment power a president gives to his cabinet, the less loyalty he commands from his appointees' appointees. They are, understandably, most loyal to the person to whom they owe their position, in this case the cabinet secretary.
 
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When PASs prove "disloyal" by, for instance, publicly disagreeing with administration policy, or perhaps not supporting it strongly enough, the White House can demand the resignation of the PAS in what is essentially a political firing of a political appointee. However, to do so makes the administration look bad, or at least less than competent
7
Removal can be politically costly. It may disturb groups that identify with the departing official and send a strong signal to the public of an administration in disarray. At the very least, it is an admission of a presidential mistake. Moreover, [there can be international repercussions. When President Carter undertook his celebrated cabinet purge in 1979, he triggered widespread alarm in Europe as well as the United States as to the stability of his own government. (Rourke 1991b, 124)
PASs do have a defense against the charge of disloyalty, even if they are powerless to retain their positions through its use. That is that as political appointees, they serve solely at the pleasure of their political boss, the ultimate boss being the president. However,
it is difficult, if not impossible, to be loyal to the president's objectives when these goals are so often ambiguous, poorly communicated, or subject to rapid change. Executive officials often complained that the policies of the Carter White House had these characteristics. Moreover, a president may well have a covert agendaespecially in foreign affairsthat differs radically from what White House pronouncements might suggest. (Ibid., 130)
While appointees can be fired, they can hardly be blamed for acting on their own initiative when agency decisions have to be made in the vacuum of White House indecision or inaction.
Disloyalty is not the only grounds for removal. Appointees can be fired or pressured to resign for illegal activities (à la Oliver North), to assume the blame for higher-ups (à la Robert McFarlane), or simply if they prove to be a political embarrassment or liability (à la Chief of Staff John Sununu, forced from office for a combination of arrogance and billing the government for the pursuit of his philatelic interests and other hobbies. . . . Famous for his utter boredom with budget matters, [he often put] his feet on the table and [read] stamp catalogues during budget meetings with the Hill.
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Even when presidents appoint persons whom they believe will carry out their policy goals, there is a tendency for appointees' loyalty to shift
 
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to their agency or their agency's constituencies, ''marrying the natives" as it is derisively called by White House aides, when appointees take on the perspective of their agency. Reagan made conscious efforts to counter these tendencies toward co-optation by encouraging his appointees
to distance themselves from their own agencies' personnel during the transition period. They were also exposed to task force reports and briefings on the policies of their agencies by conservative organizations like the Heritage Foundation. This strategy was designed to inoculate them with conservative antibodies that would provide protection from the liberal viruses to which the administration expected appointees to be exposed once they began to have close contact with civil servants. (Ibid., 130)
Reagan also employed the tactic of frequent reassignment of his appointees so they would not get too close to their agency and careerists. These strategies may have worked to alienate PASs somewhat from their agencies but it did not do much to warm them to White House overtures on how to run their agencies. And, in fact, the Reagan PASs "were highly critical of the way in which White House staff members tried to interfere with their work. It turned out that Reagan's executives were no less determined to maintain their managerial autonomy than their predecessors in previous administrations had been" (ibid., 130).
Nixon's White House failed in its attempts at control because they were based on the faulty and hubristic assumption that the White House really
could
control the government directly. The Reagan White House had to face the same reality. As discussed above, there are too many other competing playersthe Congress, the party, special interests, other PASs, and the federal bureaucracy itselffor the White House to exert direct control. The more it tries to do so, the more opposition it engenders. The managerial presidency soon finds its reach exceeds its grasp.
Even an operation as sophisticated as Nixon's White House Personnel Office was unable to accomplish its goals of controlling the government and improving relations with the Congress. As one observer notes, "Systems do not manage; people manage." The WHPO, despite its strengths, "never fully overcame the absence of presidential involvement, the insensitivity of senior White House staff, the unrestrained antics of some of its aggressive implementers, or its flawed perception of White House capabilities for administrative personnel management. The system worked, but the grand design collapsed" (Mackenzie 1981, 56).
A president who wants to exert a significant degree of power is well

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