Transition at the White House

...they must be supplied with policy directives for future programs, as well as be stuffed quickly with information that will enable them to function acceptably for the moment—usually in a field unfamiliar to them...

...He mentions the anger he feels every time he hears of new violence against persons in Washington itself, and contemplates that his wife, like other women, cannot be out at night and feel safe...

...The incoming President must rely on his predecessor's goodwill and control of subordinate officials in accepting the assistance and coaching available to him during the transition...

...The problem of transferring the Presidency used to take the form of assuring that the shift of power from one President to the next would be orderly, in the sense that it would be willing...

...He will be in the hands of others...

...John Macy's importance in the transition lies in the fact that he has about 30,000 names in his "talent bank...

...These men and women who will constitute "the Administration" must not only be moved to Washington...

...When the President-to-be is entertained at the White House for the first time after his election he is, unavoidably, a listener...

...In some instances an Assistant Secretary or a political person may be asked to hold the fort until the Nixon administration moves its own man in...

...President Eisenhower has entertained a fear that Inauguration Day ?a moment of practical dead center for the Federal government mechanism" is his phrase—is potentially a dangerous time for the nation...

...In a six-page memorandum to all the departments and agencies, Murphy set forth general transition procedures, including the instruction that they each prepare a two-volume basic reference book for the incoming head—actually modeled after the similar documents prepared by the Eisenhower Administration for the 1960-61 transition...

...In this phase the President-elect discovers—if he did not know it all along—that men with minds and intentions as good as his own have been wrestling with the nation's problems...

...Yet, he is protecting his prerogatives with a jealousy that is the oldest tradition of the office...

...Knott has arranged interim offices for the incoming administration in the new red-brick Executive Office building across the street from the old one...

...In the early exchanges between Murphy and Lincoln, the attention of the new administration was called to the value of subjecting all proposed major appointments to full field security investigations...

...Up to now Nixon himself—who is established at the Hotel Pierre in New York—has not availed himself of their use...

...The President-elect suddenly is tongue-tied on the central public questions, tensely determined to give no offense to any segment of the people at home or to those in his nonvoting constituency in many parts of the world...

...He was interviewing people even before the conventions, both as prospective jobholders and as sources of names...

...there might not be sufficient time afterward...

...To guard against disasters of this kind, the President and the President-elect must have very frank discussions...

...that the room for maneuver in setting new courses for the nation is narrower than his friends hoped or his enemies feared, and perhaps than even he himself believed...

...who privately had referred to Kennedy as a "young whipper-snapper...

...Nevertheless, the apparent slowness of the President-elect to name a Director of the Budget caused some eyebrow-lifting, among Nixon people as well as Administration people, for it is in the Bureau of the Budget that a President sets his priorities and the tone of his administration...

...Furthermore, since the passage of the Twentieth Amendment to the Constitution, establishing January 20 as Inauguration Day, the incoming Chief Executive arrives at his office for the first time after Congress has already been in session for two weeks or so...

...The Nixon side is understandably eager to have these documents, and the matter is under discussion...

...The relationship between the arriving and departing chiefs is subtle and cannot always be judged immediately...

...Shortly, 2,000 or so filing cabinets containing them will be on their way to Austin to occupy secure warehouse space recently made available...

...Vice President Humphrey appointed two spokesmen who visited with Murphy...

...he must begin his term at full tilt...

...should be avoided...

...And as the President faces South again, he muses on the cost of his program to "11 States, and 22 men"—a wistful reference to his native section and its Senatorial contingent, and the permanent changes for both that he was pivotal in fashioning...

...Since the names cannot be submitted by Nixon until he is sworn in, speed in confirmation will be essential...

...Lincoln also confers with Lawson B. Knott Jr...

...Other "banks" to which the new administration will have access include those of the Armed Services and the one in the Office of Emergency Planning...

...Johnson has privately said, though, that he appreciated Nixon's desire to be cautious in making appointments...

...It was quickly adopted...

...and program operations and administration...

...But whatever the personal feelings of the President about the President-elect, the business of transferring the White House is now a complicated operation fraught with dangers and opportunities that did not exist in the early Presidency...

...The first volume, Murphy suggested, should contain statements on such matters as the agency's mission and statutory authorities, a chart of its basic organization, its budget arrangements including an account of budget planning for next year, biographical data on key personnel, the agency's statutory or administrative relationship to other agencies and to other governments, legislative procedures regarding the agency's affairs, and finally policy and program issues divided into three categories: those requiring immediate attention, those "coming into focus within 12 months," and those of "a longer range or continuing nature...

...Nor can the new President dawdle or take refuge in the idea that he is a "new boy" who does not know the ropes...

...In England and other countries governed under a Parliamentary system, where there is always a shadow cabinet ready to step into office, the transfer of governmental power can be accomplished overnight...

...He and the President-elect have known each other for years and the sparring periods in their relationship is long since over with...

...To aid in the fuller judgment by historians that can come only after the passage of time, President Johnson has already made detailed arrangements for the handling and management of his papers at the Presidential library being constructed on the campus of the University of Texas...

...Seldom photographed and never written about, Hopkins is a beloved and "indispensable" figure who will be on hand to greet the newcomers...

...These reports contain the stuff for future legislation...

...Both Eisenhower and Kennedy had been forced to use private and party funds to pay for their transitions to power...

...Lincoln's relationship with Clifford is, therefore, a logical one...

...One day's appointments on his calendar in late September included David Lilienthal, the TVA planner...

...Do that!' And nothing will happen...

...Being patriots, moreover, Presidents have an occupational fear that they leave the White House in less competent hands than their own...

...Lincoln and Murphy have established what both men regard as a warm and comfortable working relationship, aimed formally at maintaining orderly channels of communication...

...He talks of his Administration's work in the past tense, and in taking stock of it he answers unhesitatingly a question about whether in retrospect he thinks he took any wrong turns: "Yes, we've made mistakes...

...In the present transition, President Johnson is eager to offer President-elect Nixon the same kind of courtesy and helpfulness he would expect if the circumstances were reversed...

...Hopkins, who first came to the White House as a mail clerk in Hoover's Administration, is one of those rare men with "a passion for anonymity" that Franklin Roosevelt so much admired...

...Glenn Olds, former Dean of International Studies of the University of the State of New York, was engaged in "manpower development" early in the campaign...

...Eisenhower relied in substantial measure on at least two management consultant firms to find personnel, an arrangement that had several shortcomings...

...The new President must in a trice find 70 Cabinet and subcabinet officials and approximately 2,000 additional people to fill other important posts...

...and Mitchell Sviridoff, the urban specialist, among others...

...The volumes are now ready and await their users...

...The second volume of "helps," Murphy prescribed, have information on these subjects: personal arrangements for the chief (including salary and benefits...

...Lincoln says that if the new administration has 300 of its new people on hand on January 20, "it will be doing very well indeed...

...Kennedy's proposal was enthusiastically endorsed, too, by former Presidents Eisenhower and Truman...

...The President himself is serene?possibly more serene than at any time in his public life—and in good spirits, a manner that bespeaks his pride as well as his relief...

...That the matchless burden and passion of the office will again change hands without rancor or reluctance remains a fact of national political life...

...The Presidential transition is comparable to the transfer of authority in any large corporative institution...

...Resisting any temptation to flood the White House with his own retinue, he came riding in the back seat of an automobile completely by himself...

...The interviewing in which Frantz is engaged in Washington will continue for a considerable time after the Johnsons return for good to the LBJ Ranch...

...Excessive length and detail...

...New officials with unfamiliar duties might respond to an emergency with confusion and irresolution...

...Without criticizing his Attorney General, Ramsey Clark, he thinks that perhaps a Department of Justice prosecution in connection with the civil commotion during his Administration would have been helpful...

...I must confess to considerable gratification in this visit with the young man who was to be my successor...

...Of the $450,000 allotted to each side, $75,000 will be earmarked for the Vice President involved—a figure based on Vice President Humphrey's transition costs in 1964-65...

...Herbert Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt irritated each other so much that cooperation was impossible...

...But there is an important difference: The action and initiative are provided substantially by the group coming in, and the aim of the established group is to be helpful, not to instruct...

...He finds out that the layers of public policy set by his predecessors are intractable indeed...

...The quick appointment of the dean of diplomats, Robert D. Murphy, to be the liaison man between the Department of State and the new administration was greeted enthusiastically by the President...

...Lincoln, who points out that his not seeking a position in the new administration helps fit him for the job, was an Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Eisenhower Administration and is at present a member of the law firm of which Nixon's is the senior name...

...And so the turnovers of the Presidency have remained, although the meaning of the word friendly has sometimes been badly strained: Despite protestations to the contrary, the surrendering of power is usually painful...

...Rusk's deference, of course, was owing to the fact that the proposed event would take place during the Nixon administration...

...The $900,000 sum, based roughly on the cost of the transitions of 1952-53 and 1960-61, will be divided between the entering and the departing Administrations...

...Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower were quickly at loggerheads in the 1952-53 transfer period, Truman even concluding one letter to Eisenhower during the campaign with the tart words, "From a man who has always been your friend and who always intended to be...

...Unmistakably, the heat is off, and the hour for drawing up a trial balance is at hand...

...They only discuss personally what is described as "consequential business...

...Throughout the entire proceedings he conducted himself with unusual good taste...

...They are in touch with each other on occasion, but they do not casually pick up the phone to engage in conversation...

...Under the previous arrangements when Inauguration Day was March 4, the new President usually had a nine-month honeymoon before he had to face Congress—a bad system for many reasons but one which at least created the impression that a new President could ease into his responsibilities at a civilized pace...

...Fears of a military attack on Inauguration Day are not commonly entertained in Washington...

...Nevertheless, the awareness is general that an administration is more likely to make mistakes and miscues in its early days than later on...

...So tight is the schedule that in the same circumstances, President Kennedy spent some of the time between his inauguration ceremony and the beginning of the inaugural parade signing Presidential "commissions"—the prized diplomas done in copperplate script which signify that the persons named on them are Presidential appointees...

...Congress awaits him formally organized and ready to zero in on the proposals he had had to whip into shape hastily, if not frenetically...

...This law was developed out of a recommendation that President Kennedy made to Congress to provide Federal funds for the work of future Presidents-elect...

...The transition is also a trying time for the incumbent President...

...In charge of the White House files and paperwork, he and his staff make the functioning of the Presidency administratively continuous...

...Inevitably, there are points of conflict between the Nixon people and the Johnson people...

...Nixon's representative, now engaged in the task, was Franklin B. Lincoln Jr...

...As the changing of the Presidents nears its climax, the Nixon people display the eagerness and the nervousness of brides going to the altar...

...Shortly after noon on January 20th, when President-elect Nixon takes the oath of office, the world will once more be witnessing America's stirring rite of political renewal...

...When John Adams succeeded Washington peacefully to become the second President in 1797, Americans were delighted—and a few even amazed—that the process turned out to be friendly and smooth...

...The Johnson Administration so far has not turned over to its successor the reports on a number of critical issues prepared by special Presidential task forces in the last year...

...President Eisenhower's first meeting with John F. Kennedy was correct and apparently surprising to Ike...

...The incident illustrates the type of problem the principals must face during the transition, and the sensitivities involved...

...When newsmen reported shortly afterward that Nixon had said he would have a veto on foreign-policy dectsions of the Johnson Administration, the White House was both puzzled and irritated...

...One can only speculate as to whether the banking collapse in the early days of 1933 could have been cushioned by a friendlier transition...

...personnel policies and administration...

...Poor Ike —it won't be a bit like the Army...

...Meanwhile, the outgoing Administration begins to "decompress...

...Lincoln has had ready access to Secretary of Defense Clark Clifford's file on transition affairs, Clifford having been in charge of the Truman side of the shift to Eisenhower and having helped Kennedy prepare for his takeover...

...The outgoing Adniinistration is unwilling to see the newcomers reap whatever political reward may flow from the documents...

...No one knows this better than Presidents...

...The explanation for the misstatement that it accepts up to now is that Nixon had in mind Rusk's courteous gesture...

...When Johnson is among friends in the White House and is in a wry mood about public questions, he says to them with mock-impatience in his voice, "I'll be so glad when Dick Nixon is in this room...

...As Eisenhower has written soberly, the President can rely on "well-established procedures" in making major decisions, but he must know the procedures before he comes to office...

...He does not specify whether such a step would have been helpful in dealing with urban problems or only as a political strategem...

...THE AMERICAN INTERREGNUM Transition at the White House By Henry F. Graff The Presidential transition is now in full swing: The Cabinet has been designated, high-ranking officials are being named, and the shape of new policies in many fields is being hammered out...

...Knott is in the picture chiefly because he administers the $900,-000 appropriated for the changeover under the Presidential Transition Act of 1963...

...In a modest way, the White House has been running an employment agency to find places for them with the newcomers...

...Nixon readily accepted the paragraph and the invitation it contained...

...In a figurative sense, each outgoing President makes the same kind of bequest to his successor...

...President Polk, for example, wrote of his successor, the hero of Buena Vista: "General Taylor is, I have no doubt, a well-meaning old man...

...Similarly, incoming officials should not be overwhelmed with unsolicited advice and recommendations...

...the General Services Administrator, John W. Macy Jr., the Chairman of the Civil Service Commission and chief talent hunter for the Johnson Administration, and Charles Zwick, the Director of the Bureau of the Budget...

...The past is not less remarkable than the new possibilities for the solution of problems that always seem to shine so brightly on Inauguration Day...

...He is shifting his gears from being a candidate for office—full of promises and carping oratory—to another frame of mind in which he sees himself the proponent of a program and the President of all the people, eager to be persuasive to those who did not vote for him as well as satisfying to his supporters...

...The President publicly announced the fact September 5, and sent letters to the three major candidates inviting them to appoint representatives and expressing his wish to do all he could to make the transition cordial...

...Kennedy, Eisenhower said, had to know for example, "the significance of the satchel filled with orders applicable to an emergency and carried by an unobstrusive man who would shadow [him] for all his days in office...

...The oral history of the Johnson era is being prepared under a distinguished historian, Joe B. Frantz of the University of Texas, formerly the chairman of its department of history...

...This practice, followed since the days of the Truman Administration, was recommended to the Nixon people as a prudent procedure, for it is not a mandatory one...

...internal communications (including details about staff meetings, the clearance of documents, etc...

...He feels keenly the need not to bind his successor's hand, and at the same time not to yield a milligram of his authority until the day of departure arrives...

...His mind frequently turns to the subjects of the lectures he intends to deliver on college and university campuses next spring...

...He can protect himself in this silence partly because he must not intrude on the prerogatives of his predecessor, partly because he does not yet have access to the levers that control Presidential power...

...power was never far from people's minds...

...Every President leaves the Oval Office with the work incomplete...

...He has already made available to Nixon the 10,000 top names and biographies in his keeping...

...At the beginning of Presidential history, the collective experience with monarchy that included false claimants to the throne as well as usurpations of Henry F. Graff is a Professor of History at Columbia University...

...Thus audible evidence of the congeniality of the transition may be the few soprano Texas accents that will continue to be heard around the Executive offices...

...More recently, President Truman contemplated General Eisenhower's accession to the White House with comparable misgivings: "He'll sit here and he'll say, 'Do this...

...In the United States there are less than 11 weeks between Election Day and Inauguration Day—a period that is too short to do thoroughly all that is required to shift the reins of government, and too long for any interregnum in a democratic age in a shrunken world...

...The blank pages of the book of history that they gaze at lure them and dazzle them and give them pause...

...At the first Nixon-Johnson meeting a few days after the election, Secretary of State Dean Rusk asked the President-elect if he would approve a paragraph to be included in the Secretary's address to the nato nations the following week, extending an invitation to them to meet in the United States next year on the 20th anniversary of the alliance...

...He must exercise his power until the last moment, counting on the declining days in office to press his program to the limit and to tidy the historical record of his era...

...Then he sums up his prodigious labors simply and crisply: "I am well satisfied...

...former Governor Wallace appointed a representative to whom Murphy spoke once on the phone...

...In making these assignments, Murphy is at pains to point out, the departing President is not pressing his influence beyond his time in office: "He is simply fulfilling his Constitutional obligation to see to it that the laws be faithfully executed...

...A clearance that normally takes six weeks can be provided by this unit in one week...

...Vice President Humphrey has, though, turned over to the Nixon forces the position papers on foreign policy that were prepared for him during the campaign...

...Douglas Dillon, a former Secretary of the Treasury;, Winston Paul, the business executive...

...In our conversation I was struck by his pleasing personality, his concentrated interest and his re-ceptiveness...

...A similar arrangement was made available to Kennedy when he was the President-elect...

...During the next three weeks there will be farewell parties in every part of Washington: Department and agency heads will be presented with their desk chairs as mementos in ceremonies full of sentiment and nostalgia...

...The process is clearly vaster than the Founding Fathers ever dreamed, and more treacherous because this is the nuclear age and we live under the threat of instant crises at home and abroad...

...Besides the staff under Hopkins, some of the secretaries now serving President Johnson's people will be staying on under President Nixon...

...President Johnson will see to it that someone is left in charge of any agency whose new chief has not yet been named, or has not yet arrived on the scene...

...The Nixon Group—a phrase that Lincoln uses to describe the President-elect and his chief advisers—has been working on its personnel problem for months now...

...We tried to do too much too quickly," he says of the domestic program, and he comments particularly on the problems of administering parts of it...

...The cost of transitions, inevitably hidden from public view, includes salaries and office space for staffs and for officials not yet legally installed...

...In July, President Johnson named Charles S. Murphy, a soft-spoken elder statesman of the White House originally from North Carolina, who had served as special counsel to President Truman, to be in charge of transition matters from the Johnson side...

...The Murphy memorandum further recommended to outgoing officials that their briefings of the newcomers "should be concise and devoted to essential information...

...Many of the new appointees will soon be meeting informally with the chairman and members of the Senate committees responsible for approving their nominations...

...He is, however, uneducated, exceedingly ignorant of public affairs, and, I should judge, of very ordinary capacity...

...President Truman left behind in a locked drawer of the Presidential desk a set of urgent memoranda for President Eisenhower's immediate attention...

...The President's personal staff vacates the White House with him on Inauguration Day, but left behind is the permanent White House staff of about 200 people under the direction of William J. Hopkins, Executive Assistant to the President...

...In addition, neither man can claim leverage on the other in consequence of a strangle hold on public popularity—a particular feature of the current transfer of office...

...This transition is a uniquely American problem that recently has become more serious than in the past...

...He feels keenly that his Administration did not come to grips well enough with the problem of crime in the streets...

...in addition, the two men have known each other well since both were young lawyers...

...Johnson knows that as the twilight deepens on his time in power, his chief duty is to pass on the problems of the nation to Nixon in comprehensible form...

...although his personnel operation is set up there...

...Ike declares that this concern was on his mind as he attended Kennedy's swearing-in ceremony in 1961, even though he had confidence in the alertness of the American Armed Forces and in the briefings that he and his staff had provided for the incoming admini-tration...

...To expedite clearances?and to prevent leaks of names—a special section has been established in the FBI under one of the Bureau's top officials, C. D. Deloach...

...The peculiar combination of misinformation and newness in office that made the Bay of Pigs adventure a fiasco in 1961 will always be the classic illustration...

...With a somewhat patronizing air Ike afterward wrote of the session...

...He knows, too, that his historical "record" is being written indelibly from his first day in office, not from the time he finally feels ready...

...Having announced that he is conducting a nationwide hunt for the "right people," Nixon—and Lincoln—are being inundated with letters of inquiry and application...