Political Science 3300     
The American Presidency       November 5, 2008

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The President and the Bureaucracy 

1. Things the President Needs to Know About the Bureaucracy

    a. It's big and complicated 

    b. Administrators have power because they have expertise and discretion

    c. Civil Service makes it hard to control the people who work for you

    d. Bureaus have Allies

    e. The Problem of Communication

    f. You need the bureaucracy to succeed.

2. How have presidents tried to control the bureaucracy?

    The Cabinet

            Richard Nixon's effort to use Cabinet Government

            George W. Bush and the Cabinet

    The Growing role of vice-presidents

         Richard Cheney

    The President's Bureaucracy: The Executive Office of the President

       The White House Staff

       The Bureau of the Budget / Office of Management and Budget

      The National Security Council

   President Bush's Struggle to Exercise more Control

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Watergate

For a Watergate Chronology, click here

1. The Heroic President and the Limits of Power

2. The Setting: A Regime in Disarry

        Deep Divisions In The Nation, 1968-1969

        The Politics of Preemption

3. The Main Characters:

    Richard Nixon - An "Active-Negative" - assumes the Heroic Presidency

                - A self-reliant manager

    Nixon increasingly depended on loyalists in the White House staff, especially

    The H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman ("The Palace Guard)

4. The Motive: National Security Leaks

        - Spring, 1970: Student demonstrations peak

        - July, 1970:
            Nixon approves the "Huston plan" to expanding domestic spying.

        - June 1971: The New York Times and other papers begin publishing

            The Pentagon Papers (read excerpts) leaked by Daniel Ellsberg