Empowering the White House: Governance Under Nixon Ford and Carter

by Hult, Karen M.; Walcott, Charles E.

• ISBN13: 9780700612987
• ISBN10: 070061298X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-01-01
• Publisher: Univ Pr of Kansas

Summary

"On the surface the new president seems to inherit an empty house," Hugh Heclo, a recognized expert on American democratic institutions, has noted. "In fact, he enters an office already shaped and crowded by other people's desires." "Empowering the White House examines how Richard Nixon entered that crowded Oval Office in 1969 yet managed to change it in a way that augmented the power of the presidency and continues to influence into the twenty-first century how his successors have governed. Nixon's White House is perhaps best remembered for the growth in the size of the staff, which operated under the supposed iron first of H. R. Haldeman. But more important than size and management style to the character of the Nixon White House were the assigned tasks, complexity, and dynamics of the burgeoning staff. Faced with hostile majorities in Congress and executive branch careerists assumed to be committed to a Democratic agenda, Nixon sought to control his political fate by engaging more actively than earlier presidents in public relations and the mobilization of su

Author Biography

Karen M. Hult and Charles E. Walcott are professors of political science at Virginia Tech

Table of Contents

Preface	vii
Introduction	1	(7)
1. Setting the Stage	8	(9)
2. Staff Organization and Governance	17	(29)
3. Public Outreach	46	(32)
4. Interest Group Outreach: The Office of Public Liaison	78	(27)
5. White House Counsel	105	(13)
6. Congressional Relations	118	(17)
7. Structuring for Policy Processes	135	(19)
8. Speechwriting	154	(11)
9. Analysis and Conclusions	165	(16)
Notes	181	(68)
Index	249