Political Science 3300, The American Presidency, April 11, 2012

 

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The President and the Bureaucracy 

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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

 

    

   Presidents Struggles to Exercise more Control

        George W. Bush

        Richard Nixon

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Watergate

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For a Watergate Chronology, click here
 

 

1. The Heroic President and the Limits of Power

 

 

2. The Setting: A Regime in Disarray

   

        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 (here are excerpts) leaked by Daniel Ellsberg

 

5. The Plumbers Unit

 

 

 

6. The Crime

 

 

7. The Election and the Opening Months of Nixon's second term

 

 

 

 

8. The Investigations

 

 

        A Special Prosecutor: Archibald Cox

 

 

        The Senate Watergate Committee

 

 

        The tapes

 

 

9. The "Saturday Night Massacre"

 

 

        A new special prosecutor: Leon Jaworski

 

     

10. The Supreme Court and United States v. Nixon (1974)

 

The Dispute: Nation versus Leader

• Congress and the Special Prosecutor subpoena the White House tapes

 

• The President refuses, claiming executive privilege

 

• The Special Prosecutor: the President is not Above the Law

 

• Both sides claim that the nation's system of government is at stake

 

 

 

11. Impeachment Hearings

 

12. The Consequences