Unlocking the Cabinet
Reich, Robert
Unlocking the Cabinet Robert Reich provides an inside look at life in the inner sanctum BY ROBERT B. REICH March 2- Washington This afternoon, I mount a small revolution at the Labor...
...She picks up her pad...
...The White House’s arrogant center is replicated on a smaller scale within every cabinet department...
...I ask Kitty...
...8:OO p.m...
...I make a list of what I want them to transmit through the bubble henceforth: 1. The angriest, meanest ass-kicking letters we get from the public every week...
...So what...
...budget 12:oo 1:OO p.m...
...The real criterion Tom and Kitty use (whether or not they know it or admit it) is their own experienced view of what a secretary of labor with my values and aspirations should choose to see and hear...
...Clare and I have lived together for a quarter century and even she wouldn’t know...
...Here, for example, is today’s timetable: 6:45 a.m...
...9:15 a.m...
...2. Complaints from department employees about anything...
...Security guards are dispatched...
...I take the elevator to floors I’ve never visited...
...No one gives me a bath, tastes my food, or wipes my bottom-at least not yet...
...It’s not safe...
...budget) Lunch with JG from National League of Cities CNN interview (taped) Congressional leadership panel Congressman Ford NEC budget meeting at White House Welfare meeting at White House National Public Radio interview Conference call with mayors Telephone time Meet with Maria Echeveste (Wage and Hour) Kitty and Tom daily briefing National Alliance of Business reception Return to apartment (taped) I remain in the bubble-even when I’m outside the building-ushered from place to place by someone who stays in contact with the front office by cellular phone...
...The Washington hierarchy is, in fact, less like a pyramid than a Mandelbrot set, whose large-scale design is replicated within every component part, and then repeated again inside the pieces of every part...
...Screw him...
...They called this morning...
...I feel bullied...
...All others seelung access must first be scheduled, and have a sufficient reason to take my precious germ-free time...
...I’m at the northernmost outpost of the building, in bureaucratic Siberia...
...How in hell could someone She knows she has me...
...If he’s under thirty, don’t talk to me until you’ve checked with someone higher up...
...I’ll never be surprised or shocked...
...2:lS p.m...
...They have no way of knowing...
...Tom and Kitty have hired three people to handle my daily schedule (respond to invitations, cull the ones that seem most promising, and squeeze all the current obligations into the time available), one person to ready my briefing book each evening so I can prepare for the next day’s schedule, and two people to “advance” me by making sure I get where I’m supposed to be and depart on time...
...Kitty is sitting next to my desk, reading from her daily list of Things to Tell the Secretary...
...I’ll schedule it...
...Kitty rolls her eyes...
...Tom and Kitty insist it has to be this way...
...Visit a factory, go on local TV, meet the Plain Dealer editorial board, plant the flag...
...Next time when the White House gives me an order, find out how old he is...
...715 a.m...
...People would force themselves on me, harass me, maybe even threaten me...
...But which way...
...545 p.m...
...When will this guy learn that he has to be a cabinet secretary...
...I won’t go...
...In the end, of course, a security guard finds me and takes me back to the bubble...
...Don’t worry,” Kitty says patiently...
...people without college degrees...
...The result is chaos...
...The twenty-somethings Tom and Kitty have assembled regard assistant secretaries with the same disdain that White House staffers have for cabinet officials...
...3. Bad news about hck-ups, large and small...
...Occasionally they are called in to get their next round of orders before being returned to their outposts...
...She looks back at her list...
...Don’t you see...
...6. A random sample of calls or letters from real people outside Washington, outside government-people who aren’t lawyers, investment bankers, politicians, or business consultants...
...But I’ll be damned if I’m going to let them run my life!’ In fairness, arrogant centers do serve legitimate purposes...
...You’re going to Cleveland...
...How old is Steve...
...They are of course dazzled by the splendor of the court, and grateful for the chance to visit...
...Anything that even resembles a good idea about what we should do better or differently...
...I hired them because I sensed this, and everything they’ve done since then has confirmed it...
...The storm isn’t over, but I know I have no choice...
...You’re in Clevelandl’ “I’ll go this time...
...The President is going to New Orleans, other cabinet members are going to other major cities...
...And each assistant secretary has his or her own arrogant center, whose twerps treat the heads of regional ofices like provincial bumpkins...
...I sneak out of my big office by the back entrance and start down the corridor...
...6:15 p.m...
...Houses don’t make phone calls...
...She sighs...
...Only Tom, Kitty, and my secretary walk into the office whenever they want...
...I send the memo to Tom and Gtty...
...10:15 a.m...
...Kitty is amused...
...Some twerp in the White House who has no clue what I’m doing in this job...
...It’s as if the warden had discovered an escape from the state pen...
...8. Calls and letters from business executives, including those who hate my guts...
...4:OO p.m...
...Secretary escapes from bubble...
...700 p.m...
...Time to head back...
...From the point of view of the White House staff, cabinet officials are provincial governors presiding over alien, primitive territories...
...Next time give me a beeper, and I’ll call home to “YOU must have someone with you...
...You’d be surprised...
...Kitty is glancing through the rest of the list while she reels off the obvious...
...Who wants me to go to Cleveland...
...It was good for me...
...The Labor Department’s own arrogant center is located on the second floor, arrayed around my office...
...The White House...
...It’ll be one day...
...But if I see and hear only what “someone like me” should see and hear, no original or out-of-theordinary thought will ever permeate the bubble...
...Find the Secretary...
...He probably is under thirty...
...Someone from Cabinet Affairs...
...And it is also occasionally true-dare I admit it even to myself...
...Why...
...Yes, boss...
...You shouldn’t do that,” she says sternly...
...Don’t screen out the wacky ones...
...7. “Town meetings” with department employees here at headquarters and in the regions...
...I try to retrace my steps but keep coming back to the same point in the wilderness...
...I have no idea how old he is...
...We were worried...
...YOU might get lost...
...We need to know where you are.’’ She sounds like the mother of a young juvenile delinquent...
...This is the Labor Department, not Bosnia...
...But in all other respects I feel like a goddamn two-year-old...
...They want you to go to Cleveland...
...Orders from twerps in the White House didn’t bother me at the beginning...
...Because we’re hitting the first hundred days of the Clinton administration and the President along with his entire cabinet are fanning out across America to celebrate, because Ohio is important, because there are a lot of blue-collar voters out there, and because you haven’t been to Ohio yet...
...Kitty isn’t pleased...
...All of them now join Tom and Kitty as guardians of the bubble...
...What’ll I do out there...
...I’ll just lumber along, blissfully ignorant of what I really need to see and hear-which are things that don’t merely confirm my preconceptions about the world...
...I’m lost...
...I stay in the bubble after business hours...
...She see if you need me...
...8:30 p.m...
...500 p.m...
...Now, can we move on...
...We know...
...But it’s not a matter of trust...
...Kitty sits patiently, waiting for the storm to pass...
...Now, I have a whole list-” ‘‘I bet he’s under thirty...
...If I dine out, I’m driven to the destination and escorted to the front door...
...Leave apartment Arrive office Breakfast with MB from the Post Conference call with Rubin Daily meeting with senior staff Depart for Washington Hilton Speech to National Association of Private Industry Councils Meet with Joe Dear (OSHA enforcement) Meet with Darla Letourneau (DOL From the book Locked In the Cabinet by Robert Reich...
...7:lO a.m...
...I don’t know...
...Free at last...
...9. Lunch meetings with small groups of department employees, randomly chosen from all ranks...
...3:OO p.m...
...They transmit to me through the bubble only those letters, phone calls, memoranda, people, meetings, and events which they believe someone like me ought to have...
...No big deal...
...This is going to be another one of those days...
...Whatever gets through to me is carefully sanitized...
...Town meetings” in community colleges with adult students...
...Copyright 1997 by Robert B. Reich...
...Here I am, a member of the president’s cabinet, confirmed by the Senate, the head of an entire government department with eighteen thousand employees, responsible for implementing a huge number of laws and rules, charged with helping people get better jobs, and who is telling me what to do...
...9:40 a.m...
...I interrupt again...
...1115 a.m...
...Town meetings” in working-class and poor areas of the country...
...The bubble protects me...
...Background: My cavernous office is becoming one of those hermetically sealed, germ-free bubbles they place around children born with immune deficiencies...
...5. Anything from the President or members of Congress...
...The alarm is sounded: Secretary loose...
...You’ll go to Cleveland,” Kitty says calmly...
...smiles knowingly and heads back to her office...
...The provincial governors are important only in a ceremonial sense...
...HOWdo you decide what I do and what gets through to me...
...Kitty is about to discuss the next item on her list...
...Now I can’t stomach snotty children telling me what to do...
...But I still hate those snotty kids...
...We have you do and see what you’d choose if you had time to examine all the options yourselfsifting through all the phone calls, letters, memos, and meeting invitations,” she says simply...
...I wander to places in the department I’ve never been...
...April 29- Washington “The White House wants you to go to Cleveland...
...They wear the colors and show the flag...
...I trust Tom and Kitty...
...Set up meetings with some of them...
...I visit the mailroom, the printshop, the basement workshop...
...8:30 a.m...
...Then, still feeling rebellious and with nothing on my schedule for the next hour (the NEC meeting scheduled for 3:OO was canceled) I simply walk out of the bubble...
...Anything of any importance occurs in the imperial palace, within the capital city...
...They share my values...
...4. Ideas, ideas, ideas: from department employees, from outside academics and researchers, from average citizens...
...But the storm has been building for weeks, and it won’t pass anytime soon...
...I’ll never be forced to rethink or re-evaluate anything...
...Unlocking the Cabinet Robert Reich provides an inside look at life in the inner sanctum BY ROBERT B. REICH March 2- Washington This afternoon, I mount a small revolution at the Labor Department...
...that provincial governors go native, forgetting that their primary loyalty is to the crown, to the president, rather than to the inhabitants of the territories with whom they deal every day...
...By now I’ve wandered to the farthest reaches of the building, to corridors never walked by anyone ranking higher than GS-12...
...Who called...
...She is about to move to the next item on her list, when I stop her...
...She puts down her pad and stares blankly at me...
...Reprinted with the permission of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc...
...get lost in this building...
...The hour is almost up...
...I’m scheduled to the teeth...
...They have a broader perspective than the view from any single province...
...I have spontaneous conversations with employees I’d never otherwise see...
...But how can you possibly know what I’d choose for myself...
...I try to save what’s left of my face...
...Meetings with conservative Republicans in Congress...
...Kitty discovers I’m missing...
...8:OO a.m...
...Those that don’t get through are diverted elsewhere...
...What dzference does it make...
...We’ve worked together only a few weeks...
...Steve somebody...
...That’s ridiculous...
...1:30 p.m...
...I’m defiant...
...9:OO p.m...
...After dinner, I’m escorted back to the car, into the apartment building, into the elevator, and to my apartment door...
...A large portion of the American population is under thirty...
...Telephone calls are prescreened, letters are filtered, memos are reviewed...
...I’m working myself into a frenzy of self-righteousness...
...Otherwise I’d be deluged with calls, letters, meetings, other demands on my time, coming from all directions...
Vol. 29 • July 1997 • No. 7
