Okay, alright already, it's overstated, but we tried to run it. 'We', you ask? 'We' were a small group of hot shots - well warm bodies anyway - assembled within the Executive Office of the President in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in the early 1970s to coordinate the delivery of federal services, especially among the grant making departments and agencies of the government.
For decades, the President and the Bureau of the Budget (BoB) were criticized for their inability to bring rational management to the federal establishment and, during the first administration of President Richard M. Nixon, this defect was rectified - as best a piece of legislation and reorganization can - and OMB was born. Mr. Nixon and his most powerful associates determined that they would indeed attempt to lash the beast toward good behavior.
To digress, I worked for the federal government for well over a third of a century and have been observing its workings during the twelve years of my retirement. During that nearly half a century, never has a president come close to Mr. Nixon in his grasp of how government works at the management level. That is not to say anything more than that. The actions that led to his resignation remain reprehensible, and his role in the Watergate debacle diminishes his memory. But, again, I never felt that any other chief executive understood the levers of administrative power as well as RMN.
When Nixon was elected, I was working at the Department of Housing and Urban Affairs (HUD). Meanwhile in the Executive Office of the President many initiatives were being tried to make sense of the federal grant making and state and local assistance programs. One that preceded ours and that was closely related it was the so called 'Flying Feds'. The agencies identified highly qualified employees and made them available to state and local governments to provide expert advice.
To make a long story short, that program was a bust. Sometimes the feds weren't properly identified and weren't right for the job. Often, the state or local elected official requesting the assistance was imposing something from above that just wasn't going to be accepted by his or her bureaucratic underlings. From this venture came the slogan, "I'm from the federal government and I'm here to help." which lingers to this day as a vestige of bureaucratic arrogance.
In any event, the President and his minion continued to cast for ways to get a handle on the federal beast. Among those with ideas was Ken Kugel a long time federal manager who had been around the government and the Bureau of the Budget for many years and whose most recent assignment had been with the Agency for International Development (AID). Ken told us - his troops, the 'we' in this story - that as he observed the way the ambassadors coordinated the efforts of the officials from all of the agencies in the country the idea was sparked of similar cooperation among the domestic agencies.
He kicked the concept around with such old BoB Mandarins as Bill Kolberg and Bill Boleyn. Out of this came the concept of Federal Regional Councils (FRCs). By Executive Order, the President created ten standard regions of the federal government. It was no longer sufficient for an agency with state and local assistance programs to locate its regional headquarters where it saw fit but, rather, all such regional centers would be located in the same ten cities - Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Chicago, Kansas City, Dallas, Denver, San Francisco, and Seattle.
This was a major advance, and as a result the Mayor of Manchester New Hampshire could go to Boston to plead for all of his grants and beat up on the bureaucrats he perceived were yanking his chain. No longer did he have to go to Boston, New York, and Philadelphia and make separate cases, and so it was with the governors and mayors across the nation. It made sense then and it still does. Nixon is unlikely to be remembered for such tinkering, but, from a management perspective, this is an important legacy.
There they were, ten uniform regions with all of the important agencies working - independently - to assist the states and cities. Another need was for an OMB coordinating mechanism to breath even more life into the concept of one-stop shopping and coordinated delivery of assistance.
Kolberg, Kugel, and their friends sold the concept of Federal Regional Councils (FRCs) to the President's top staff and within a short period the concept was born. Within each region, the regional administrators of all of the major grant making agencies would meet on a regular basis and coordinate their activities with the other levels of government. One of these regional federal administrators was promoted in grade and title to the role of Chairman of the FRC.
Back in Washington, the Under Secretary of each of the grant making agencies became a member of the Under Secretaries' Group under the coordination of the Deputy Director of OMB. The baby cried and drew breath. The Under Secretaries could hardly avoid the call from the President and their clout added to the drama and push at the regional level.
Still another nurse maid was perceived to be needed to bring the plan to full fruition. Staff had to be provided in both Washington and in the field. A small staff from the Regional Chairman's agency was dedicated to the task in each FRC, and the highly titled Under Secretaries' Working Group came into being. The Assistant Secretary for Management in each member agency was charged with day to day oversight of the function in each agency, and - usually - one staff person did the work. This group was chaired by Ken Kugel.
I don't know how or why but I became that HUD's staff working group member. The task was in addition to other work on a myriad of department projects. I met with my counterparts from the other agencies at OMB where I came to know the people there who were pumping air into the new entity. The agency staff people, especially the relatively lower ranked ones like me were enthusiastic as we saw any chance at an improvement in managing the federal government as a potentially great advance.
It soon became clear, however, that the higher ranking agency people were not nearly so keen on the idea and were dragging their feet, however discreetly, to avoid getting too close to the embrace of OMB. Students of the federal government know that the lines of command and control do not go straight from the president to the departments heads to the regions. That's the story for political scientists and for another day. Suffice it to say, The departments and agencies were as much under the sway of Congressional Committees as they were to the president.
The great power reserved to the president was that of appointment. The top brass in each department is appointed by the president with the advice and consent of the Senate, and the interest groups and committee chairs from the Congress often provide the field of candidates. Surely, dear reader, you're not shocked at this? For the sake of argument, let's just assume I know what I'm talking about. That's huge and many of the 'we' would support you, but we have to move on if you are the least bit interested in the story.
To recapitulate, the Executive Office of the President, including - I think - the President and the Mandarins of OMB saw the Federal Regional Councils (FRCs) as potentially useful vehicles for coordinating the activities and grant making of major agencies such as Housing and Urban Development; Health, Education and Welfare (Since renamed and reorganized); Labor; the Environmental Protection Administration, Transportation; the law Enforcement Assistance Administration; and others.
The Congressional whales and the top echelons of the agencies saw the FRCs as mechanisms undermining their powers and traditional ways of doing business. In fact, I think both parties were correct and an improvement in state and local assistance could be deduced, at least I thought so - as did my buddies at OMB and in the agencies.
The system was very interesting and I asked Kugel for a job. Within a few months, I found myself working at OMB as a Regional Representative. I liked and admired the managers and my co-workers. Over the coming years and months, I thought the system performed reasonably well - from the perspective of one committed to its success.
Before any great change in Executive Branch management could be perceived, however, the great crisis erupted. The break in of the Democratic National Committee offices in the Watergate complex occurred and the Nixon Administration was on its heels and on the defensive. Opponents of the FRC initiative were soon in the ascendancy and we quickly lost momentum.
After Nixon resigned, interest in FRCs disappeared and the Ford Administration was far more into healing the country and the relations with Congress that had been so strained by the Nixon debacle, including his overreach for power. Those of us working on the effort, took our leaves over the coming months and years and nothing remained of it after several years.
The management and staff of that small office devoted to regional coordination and related activities was, in my judgment, one of the finest groups of people I ever served with. They were called upon to do far more than grant coordination.
Before the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) became the relatively well oiled machine that it is today, our OMB staff and the agencies working with it successfully coordinated federal disaster assistance to State and local governments and citizens devastated by hurricanes, tornadoes, floods and a host of other natural disasters. Long forgotten, some of my colleagues did wondrous work under very trying circumstances.
The staff and the agencies worked closely together to bring aid to communities adversely affected by military base closings and by major new facilities such as the Trident Submarine Bases on the East and West Coasts of the U.S. My friends performed brilliantly under terrible conditions during the oil embargo of 1973 to create the federal organization designed to deal with the crisis.
I would like to name all of the people who served in the agencies and in OMB to achieve what 'we' did, but I know that very worthy people would be left out. Some of these people went on to superlative careers as high as Cabinet level appointments. Others served with distinction in less lofty but very important positions.
To this day, those still alive meet regularly to reminisce about that short but sweet period. That time and its adventures created bonds that still mean much to us, and we remain great friends. There were men and women, young and old, Black and White. It was a time and place in which we served with pride. Time has not diminished our enthusiasm. The federal government has changed and there is little point in re-creating such an organization, but those of us who served will always speak of that time and our associates with pride and fondness.
Wildbill944
Tuesday, August 24, 2004
Wednesday, August 18, 2004
After The Fall
More than a generation has passed since my closest brush with history. What I did could have been accomplished by a number of folks with whom I worked, but I was selected to do the job. It wasn't heroic and to date has not warranted even a footnote in the saga of Richard Nixon, but someday a graduate student in political science or history may find it interesting. I kept no notes or records so, as it's entirely dependent on my memory, it will have to be discounted accordingly.
Since I do not overvalue my role in the change of administrations from Richard Nixon to Gerald Ford, I chose not to write about it before today. Another consideration is that most of the actors are dead and there is little need to protect anyone - not that there was before. Besides what I did and know is not likely to alter the record in a substantive way.
I was working in the Executive Office of the President as a management analyst in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) during the summer of 1974. My primary job was to represent the Office (and by extension, the President) in the operations of one of the ten standard regions established by Mr. Nixon. I will write on this function more in a later posting as it, too, may be of interest to students of Mr. Nixon and his presidency.
You will recall - from memory or the historical accounts, depending on your age - that the pressure on President Nixon to resign was building rapidly as summer of 1974 approached. The cover up of the burglary of Democratic National Committee office in the Watergate office complex was collapsing on all fronts, and the administration was in disarray. As the legal and Congressional screws tightened, it became obvious from press and TV accounts that Nixon was through, and he soon quit rather than face impeachment. The images of his farewell in the White House and as he boarded his plane (formerly Air Force One) are very vivid in my mind's eye.
I recall being appalled by the President's behavior as the saga played out, but I was brought to tears by the poignant scenes that played out for the world to see as he expressed his goodbyes. It was a tragedy in the classic sense, and Sophocles could not have dreamed up a better plot or central character.
To digress, based on my family's experience as working class Irish Catholics during the Great Depression, I had been a life long supporter of the Democratic Party and its presidential nominees. As a career federal employee, I remember being quite apprehensive when Nixon won the election. But over the course of five years, I changed my mind about the president. It was apparent to me that he was no enemy of the career force, and I had the opportunity to thrive during his administration and began my shift to a more conservative political outlook.
So it was that Nixon departed into exile in San Clemente, California, never to be heard from again or so it was thought. But that wasn't the end of it. Apparently Mr. Nixon understood that he was no longer in office but giving up power was one thing but perks was another. From what I recall, it wasn't Nixon who was the problem but a number of those in his entourage who left for the West Coast with him. It seems that the General Services Administration (GSA) - the government's procurer and provider of internal goods and services - was being pushed by various aids to the former president to provide a level of service to him - and them - that didn't take into account the fact that he was no longer the top dog and, by extension, they were no longer big shots. On the other hand, the management and employees of GSA were quite conscious of the fact that a change in administrations had taken place, and they were resisting demands from them for a level of service reserved for sitting Presidents.
Not surprisingly, phones began to ring off the hook in my place of employment, The Office of Management and Budget, the nerve center in the federal government where administrative power is most exercised over departments and agencies. While not privy to what was happening, the rumor was that the then OMB Director, Roy Ash, and other senior officials were being bombarded with complaints from Nixon's staff to straighten out the GSA and get the goods and services flowing as they had before the fall.
It was my understanding that top GSA and OMB managers understood each other and were in agreement that the staff of the former president just didn't get it; they were disgraced and out of office and expected to be treated as if nothing had happened. There was no easy solution to the problem. No one wanted to call the former president and order him to clamp down on these over privileged and spoiled staffers, but a solution had to be found.
Paul O'Neill, who later became President of ALCOA and Secretary of the Treasury under President George W. Bush, was one of Ash's key aids. Paul and I had been trainees in the same agency and neighbors in Northern Virginia, and he was a very friendly acquaintance of mine. He was the one who came up with the solution to send me to San Clemente to handle the situation.
On the day that President Ford issued his pardon of Nixon, I arrived at the former Western White House, Casa Pacifica, in San Clemente, CA. I do not remember much of what happened in those first hours but I met early on with Ron Ziegler, Press Secretary to President Nixon who told me of the pardon and - I felt - tried to intimidate me right from the start.
Over the next hours, I met a large number of people on the Coast Guard Station which was the host facility for the Nixon group. I remember being quite confused about who - aside from the celebrities - was with the former president and those who were with the GSA on site.
Most of the names have been forgotten in the intervening years, but the Nixon people with whom I interacted over the next five or six weeks included Ziegler, Major Jack Brennan, USMC - the president's military aid, Diane Sawyer - now of TV fame who was working with Ron, and Steve Bull - Mr. Nixon's personal aid and executive assistant.
Rightly or not, I soon focused in on Steve Bull as my principal point of contact. During this period, from my perspective, he was far closer to the boss than the others, and I inferred that he was speaking for Mr. Nixon and that the others represented their own interests. Steve was also very supportive of my mission and seemed not at all hung up on the lack of perks that I gathered were most galling to Messrs. Ziegler and Brennan. I soon began avoiding that pair to the greatest degree possible.
As I went about my business, I interviewed the top GSA managers on site. I was very impressed with their competence and their willingness to cooperate with me. Although it was obvious that they were very gun shy about the Nixon staff, especially the two I'd spotted as being difficult. They also harbored bad feelings toward Nixon's staff based on what they told me was very difficult behavior on the part of the president's people over the entire five and a half years they were in power.
It was evident that the two camps were at loggerheads over how the entourage would be treated. It has been many years since I reviewed the legislation on former presidents, and I'm not going to waste time on this except to say that former chiefs are granted many perks and significant resources during their lifetimes. But Nixon was different in both public perception and in the eyes of GSA managers. Nixon had been disgraced and deserved little of the honors granted former leaders.
On the other hand, President Ford, as far as I could determine, wanted nothing more than to calm troubled waters and to get the government and the nation back on a healthy footing. So the problem became focused for me. We had a small group of people who wanted all or more than all of the perks due them as staff to the former president, and we had an agency full of people who didn't like these people at all and who wanted to assure they got the minimum of assistance. My job was to find the appropriate middle ground.
To the best of my recollection, I never called my bosses for guidance during the entire period I was in San Clemente and was bound and determined that I would create peace between the warring gangs. The Administrator of GSA and one of his key aids flew out and we all danced around the subject. After a long session, I convinced them - that's my story and I'm sticking with it - that the only way to settle the problem was for the GSA folks from top to bottom to stop pouting and start treating the Nixon people like they were any other agency of the government seeking goods and services. By this time, they seemed ready to start acting properly. I pledged to them that I'd get the Nixon folks on board with the same proposal.
One day in the midst of my ordeal, I struck up a conversation with Diane Sawyer. She was very nice and a very attractive young woman. We were in viewing distance of the work stations of a number of the clerical staff, and I commented something along the line of it was very sad to see how demoralized the staff was and how hang dog the members appeared to me. I indicated that I could empathize with their situation of having served the most powerful figure in the world and but who were now suffering the angst that was permeating the air. We parted and I thought nothing more of the incident.
Within minutes, however, I was summoned by Ron Ziegler. As I entered his office I found him in a wild purple rage -at me. He accused me of undermining Mr. Nixon with the Ford Administration in general and with top OMB and GSA managers in particular. He wildly shouted that I was reporting to Washington that the staff in Casa Pacifica was sitting around doing nothing. His ranting continued for perhaps ten minutes before I could get a word in edgewise.
To say that I was embarrassed, shocked and worried would be an understatement. Here, just as I was beginning to make headway with my mission, I stood accused of being a traitor to those I was supposed to be helping, according to the apoplectic Ziegler. It took me some minutes to gather myself. Ziegler had me off balance - a great 'gotcha' - and showed no signs of allowing me to regain my equilibrium.
But I quickly realized that he was playing a false premise to a fair-thee-well and just had to resist him no matter how embarrassing it might be to me. I was not working for the Nixon folks, I was there to settle them down. By this time, Ron was threatening to call Roy Ash and have me recalled to Washington immediately. I had just enough presence of mind to call his bluff. I knew that I was right, but I was more than a little frightened. To be turned into Ziegler's agent would have been ridiculous and would have ruined my mission.
I told him that I was sorry if he thought my observations were injudicious and that I had never made them known to Washington. I was in this job alone and would do it to the best of my ability. If that wasn't sufficient, he was told to make the call as I was sick of the whole affair and was willing to chance being recalled in disgrace.
My apologetic non-apology gave him sufficient room to find an out and we moved on. Naturally, my conversations with Ms. Sawyer and Mr. Ziegler were far more formal and circumspect after that cheap effort to undermine my mission.
Over the next day or so I wrote the definitive manual of how the office of THIS former president would request goods and services from the GSA and how the agency would respond. I gave copies to Steve Bull and the GSA managers. Everyone seemed satisfied. I kept a copy but lost it in the years ahead. Perhaps it still exists somewhere
When I received the call to arms, I was told by my boss, Dick Feezle, that my assignment would be for the indefinite future, maybe up to six months. But everything seemed to settle down and after some four to six weeks (I can't really remember), I declared victory and headed home.
As nothing was ever heard again from the Nixon crowd or the GSA on the matter, my mission was a great success.
EPILOGUE
President Nixon was quite successful in rehabilitating his persona and died in not nearly the level of disgrace that might have been had he passed away shortly after the resignation.
I saw and heard Mr. Nixon almost every day I was in San Clemente, but I never met him. Each morning, I'd hear him greet the guards outside my office window. His booming voice was unmistakable. I was amazed that he could pull himself together to chat with the officers in a time frame so close to the resignation.
Steve Bull gave me a tour of the presidential office, and I have interesting but completely unimportant stories about that too. To me, Steve was the good guy and steadying influence in what was transpiring during those extraordinary days.
Diane Sawyer became rich and famous and a great success in broadcasting.
Ron Ziegler moved on, if not up, and had a middling successful career as a lobbyist and association executive.
I lost track of all of the others.
It took me months to recover from the assignment. During my stay in San Clemente, I had become nearly as paranoid as the exiles themselves. It was not a job that I bragged about much during the intervening years.
While in California, I stayed at the San Clemente Inn. This hotel had been the social and political center for the presidential entourage and the hangers on while Nixon was in Casa Pacifica. There were pictures of all of the beautiful people and the great parties on the walls throughout the place. But while I was there, the pall that had descended on the inn was heavy indeed. I've never been back, so I have no way of knowing if business and the atmosphere recovered. But as I recall, it closed after a few years.
Deep Throat
The GSA managers in Casa Pacifica never hesitated to criticize the Nixon staff. One of their constant complaints was that GSA staff was considered sub-human by the entourage. This manifested itself in many ways but one common means was by leaving important - if not highly classified - papers on their desks when they departed for the day or for play. This was interpreted by the managers as disrespectful to the intelligence of the staff since it was inferred that they were not smart enough to understand what was in the documents.
While these managers and I had no clue on who might be "Deep Throat" of Woodward and Bernstein fame, this lack of respect for the brains of ordinary government employees always left me with a miniscule feeling that the ultimate source of the downfall might have been a little cleaning lady with far more on the ball than that for which she was being given credit.
A couple of interesting hearsay points. The GSA managers on site were not reluctant to describe to me their feelings toward some of the famous members of the entourage and a couple of them are worth passing on. Bob Haldeman and John Ehrlichman were the two most important and powerful staffers to President Nixon. As you know, both served time in prison after the fall and both were much feared within the government during their days in power. On site in Casa Pacifica, Haldeman was despised by the GSA folks, but, contrary to what I had expected, Ehrilchman was much admired and respected as a kind and gentle man in his dealings with low level staff.
I had an ordinary life as a mid level federal manager and a great retirement in which I wrote historical novels
The End.
Wildbill944
Since I do not overvalue my role in the change of administrations from Richard Nixon to Gerald Ford, I chose not to write about it before today. Another consideration is that most of the actors are dead and there is little need to protect anyone - not that there was before. Besides what I did and know is not likely to alter the record in a substantive way.
I was working in the Executive Office of the President as a management analyst in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) during the summer of 1974. My primary job was to represent the Office (and by extension, the President) in the operations of one of the ten standard regions established by Mr. Nixon. I will write on this function more in a later posting as it, too, may be of interest to students of Mr. Nixon and his presidency.
You will recall - from memory or the historical accounts, depending on your age - that the pressure on President Nixon to resign was building rapidly as summer of 1974 approached. The cover up of the burglary of Democratic National Committee office in the Watergate office complex was collapsing on all fronts, and the administration was in disarray. As the legal and Congressional screws tightened, it became obvious from press and TV accounts that Nixon was through, and he soon quit rather than face impeachment. The images of his farewell in the White House and as he boarded his plane (formerly Air Force One) are very vivid in my mind's eye.
I recall being appalled by the President's behavior as the saga played out, but I was brought to tears by the poignant scenes that played out for the world to see as he expressed his goodbyes. It was a tragedy in the classic sense, and Sophocles could not have dreamed up a better plot or central character.
To digress, based on my family's experience as working class Irish Catholics during the Great Depression, I had been a life long supporter of the Democratic Party and its presidential nominees. As a career federal employee, I remember being quite apprehensive when Nixon won the election. But over the course of five years, I changed my mind about the president. It was apparent to me that he was no enemy of the career force, and I had the opportunity to thrive during his administration and began my shift to a more conservative political outlook.
So it was that Nixon departed into exile in San Clemente, California, never to be heard from again or so it was thought. But that wasn't the end of it. Apparently Mr. Nixon understood that he was no longer in office but giving up power was one thing but perks was another. From what I recall, it wasn't Nixon who was the problem but a number of those in his entourage who left for the West Coast with him. It seems that the General Services Administration (GSA) - the government's procurer and provider of internal goods and services - was being pushed by various aids to the former president to provide a level of service to him - and them - that didn't take into account the fact that he was no longer the top dog and, by extension, they were no longer big shots. On the other hand, the management and employees of GSA were quite conscious of the fact that a change in administrations had taken place, and they were resisting demands from them for a level of service reserved for sitting Presidents.
Not surprisingly, phones began to ring off the hook in my place of employment, The Office of Management and Budget, the nerve center in the federal government where administrative power is most exercised over departments and agencies. While not privy to what was happening, the rumor was that the then OMB Director, Roy Ash, and other senior officials were being bombarded with complaints from Nixon's staff to straighten out the GSA and get the goods and services flowing as they had before the fall.
It was my understanding that top GSA and OMB managers understood each other and were in agreement that the staff of the former president just didn't get it; they were disgraced and out of office and expected to be treated as if nothing had happened. There was no easy solution to the problem. No one wanted to call the former president and order him to clamp down on these over privileged and spoiled staffers, but a solution had to be found.
Paul O'Neill, who later became President of ALCOA and Secretary of the Treasury under President George W. Bush, was one of Ash's key aids. Paul and I had been trainees in the same agency and neighbors in Northern Virginia, and he was a very friendly acquaintance of mine. He was the one who came up with the solution to send me to San Clemente to handle the situation.
On the day that President Ford issued his pardon of Nixon, I arrived at the former Western White House, Casa Pacifica, in San Clemente, CA. I do not remember much of what happened in those first hours but I met early on with Ron Ziegler, Press Secretary to President Nixon who told me of the pardon and - I felt - tried to intimidate me right from the start.
Over the next hours, I met a large number of people on the Coast Guard Station which was the host facility for the Nixon group. I remember being quite confused about who - aside from the celebrities - was with the former president and those who were with the GSA on site.
Most of the names have been forgotten in the intervening years, but the Nixon people with whom I interacted over the next five or six weeks included Ziegler, Major Jack Brennan, USMC - the president's military aid, Diane Sawyer - now of TV fame who was working with Ron, and Steve Bull - Mr. Nixon's personal aid and executive assistant.
Rightly or not, I soon focused in on Steve Bull as my principal point of contact. During this period, from my perspective, he was far closer to the boss than the others, and I inferred that he was speaking for Mr. Nixon and that the others represented their own interests. Steve was also very supportive of my mission and seemed not at all hung up on the lack of perks that I gathered were most galling to Messrs. Ziegler and Brennan. I soon began avoiding that pair to the greatest degree possible.
As I went about my business, I interviewed the top GSA managers on site. I was very impressed with their competence and their willingness to cooperate with me. Although it was obvious that they were very gun shy about the Nixon staff, especially the two I'd spotted as being difficult. They also harbored bad feelings toward Nixon's staff based on what they told me was very difficult behavior on the part of the president's people over the entire five and a half years they were in power.
It was evident that the two camps were at loggerheads over how the entourage would be treated. It has been many years since I reviewed the legislation on former presidents, and I'm not going to waste time on this except to say that former chiefs are granted many perks and significant resources during their lifetimes. But Nixon was different in both public perception and in the eyes of GSA managers. Nixon had been disgraced and deserved little of the honors granted former leaders.
On the other hand, President Ford, as far as I could determine, wanted nothing more than to calm troubled waters and to get the government and the nation back on a healthy footing. So the problem became focused for me. We had a small group of people who wanted all or more than all of the perks due them as staff to the former president, and we had an agency full of people who didn't like these people at all and who wanted to assure they got the minimum of assistance. My job was to find the appropriate middle ground.
To the best of my recollection, I never called my bosses for guidance during the entire period I was in San Clemente and was bound and determined that I would create peace between the warring gangs. The Administrator of GSA and one of his key aids flew out and we all danced around the subject. After a long session, I convinced them - that's my story and I'm sticking with it - that the only way to settle the problem was for the GSA folks from top to bottom to stop pouting and start treating the Nixon people like they were any other agency of the government seeking goods and services. By this time, they seemed ready to start acting properly. I pledged to them that I'd get the Nixon folks on board with the same proposal.
One day in the midst of my ordeal, I struck up a conversation with Diane Sawyer. She was very nice and a very attractive young woman. We were in viewing distance of the work stations of a number of the clerical staff, and I commented something along the line of it was very sad to see how demoralized the staff was and how hang dog the members appeared to me. I indicated that I could empathize with their situation of having served the most powerful figure in the world and but who were now suffering the angst that was permeating the air. We parted and I thought nothing more of the incident.
Within minutes, however, I was summoned by Ron Ziegler. As I entered his office I found him in a wild purple rage -at me. He accused me of undermining Mr. Nixon with the Ford Administration in general and with top OMB and GSA managers in particular. He wildly shouted that I was reporting to Washington that the staff in Casa Pacifica was sitting around doing nothing. His ranting continued for perhaps ten minutes before I could get a word in edgewise.
To say that I was embarrassed, shocked and worried would be an understatement. Here, just as I was beginning to make headway with my mission, I stood accused of being a traitor to those I was supposed to be helping, according to the apoplectic Ziegler. It took me some minutes to gather myself. Ziegler had me off balance - a great 'gotcha' - and showed no signs of allowing me to regain my equilibrium.
But I quickly realized that he was playing a false premise to a fair-thee-well and just had to resist him no matter how embarrassing it might be to me. I was not working for the Nixon folks, I was there to settle them down. By this time, Ron was threatening to call Roy Ash and have me recalled to Washington immediately. I had just enough presence of mind to call his bluff. I knew that I was right, but I was more than a little frightened. To be turned into Ziegler's agent would have been ridiculous and would have ruined my mission.
I told him that I was sorry if he thought my observations were injudicious and that I had never made them known to Washington. I was in this job alone and would do it to the best of my ability. If that wasn't sufficient, he was told to make the call as I was sick of the whole affair and was willing to chance being recalled in disgrace.
My apologetic non-apology gave him sufficient room to find an out and we moved on. Naturally, my conversations with Ms. Sawyer and Mr. Ziegler were far more formal and circumspect after that cheap effort to undermine my mission.
Over the next day or so I wrote the definitive manual of how the office of THIS former president would request goods and services from the GSA and how the agency would respond. I gave copies to Steve Bull and the GSA managers. Everyone seemed satisfied. I kept a copy but lost it in the years ahead. Perhaps it still exists somewhere
When I received the call to arms, I was told by my boss, Dick Feezle, that my assignment would be for the indefinite future, maybe up to six months. But everything seemed to settle down and after some four to six weeks (I can't really remember), I declared victory and headed home.
As nothing was ever heard again from the Nixon crowd or the GSA on the matter, my mission was a great success.
EPILOGUE
President Nixon was quite successful in rehabilitating his persona and died in not nearly the level of disgrace that might have been had he passed away shortly after the resignation.
I saw and heard Mr. Nixon almost every day I was in San Clemente, but I never met him. Each morning, I'd hear him greet the guards outside my office window. His booming voice was unmistakable. I was amazed that he could pull himself together to chat with the officers in a time frame so close to the resignation.
Steve Bull gave me a tour of the presidential office, and I have interesting but completely unimportant stories about that too. To me, Steve was the good guy and steadying influence in what was transpiring during those extraordinary days.
Diane Sawyer became rich and famous and a great success in broadcasting.
Ron Ziegler moved on, if not up, and had a middling successful career as a lobbyist and association executive.
I lost track of all of the others.
It took me months to recover from the assignment. During my stay in San Clemente, I had become nearly as paranoid as the exiles themselves. It was not a job that I bragged about much during the intervening years.
While in California, I stayed at the San Clemente Inn. This hotel had been the social and political center for the presidential entourage and the hangers on while Nixon was in Casa Pacifica. There were pictures of all of the beautiful people and the great parties on the walls throughout the place. But while I was there, the pall that had descended on the inn was heavy indeed. I've never been back, so I have no way of knowing if business and the atmosphere recovered. But as I recall, it closed after a few years.
Deep Throat
The GSA managers in Casa Pacifica never hesitated to criticize the Nixon staff. One of their constant complaints was that GSA staff was considered sub-human by the entourage. This manifested itself in many ways but one common means was by leaving important - if not highly classified - papers on their desks when they departed for the day or for play. This was interpreted by the managers as disrespectful to the intelligence of the staff since it was inferred that they were not smart enough to understand what was in the documents.
While these managers and I had no clue on who might be "Deep Throat" of Woodward and Bernstein fame, this lack of respect for the brains of ordinary government employees always left me with a miniscule feeling that the ultimate source of the downfall might have been a little cleaning lady with far more on the ball than that for which she was being given credit.
A couple of interesting hearsay points. The GSA managers on site were not reluctant to describe to me their feelings toward some of the famous members of the entourage and a couple of them are worth passing on. Bob Haldeman and John Ehrlichman were the two most important and powerful staffers to President Nixon. As you know, both served time in prison after the fall and both were much feared within the government during their days in power. On site in Casa Pacifica, Haldeman was despised by the GSA folks, but, contrary to what I had expected, Ehrilchman was much admired and respected as a kind and gentle man in his dealings with low level staff.
I had an ordinary life as a mid level federal manager and a great retirement in which I wrote historical novels
The End.
Wildbill944
Tuesday, August 10, 2004
Telling the Truth to Power
The principal job of many employees is to tell the truth to power. That's pretty simple and straightforward isn't it? Perhaps not if the truth is that management is running the business into the ground and, especially, if it's a family owned business. So it is with government; candidates for mayor, governor, and president run on platforms or policy proposals that pretty much guarantee the electorate that they know how to run or reform an agency or department. As their fantastic new policy is implemented, data begin to accumulate and occasionally ('Rarely' might be the better word as you well know, dear reader) the program just isn't working the way the leaders intended. Somebody (Now who might that be?) has the nasty task of telling the truth to power. Do they (does it) really want to hear it?
We are now in the midst of reforming the intelligence agencies of the federal government because they are considered to be unable to cope with the terrorist threat that faces the nation. That's a certainty. From the perspective of a person who is very interested in this process but who does not have the experience of working in or with one of the intelligence agencies, the reform seems long overdue as these institutions are still geared up to fight the Cold War.
But I do know something about how federal employees are dealt with as it relates to telling the truth to power. I spent most of my working life in Washington in positions close enough to power to observe the interaction between analysts and political appointees and politicians. My guarantee is that where truth meets political power there is ever tension. And that's not bad in every circumstance. That a federal education, housing, or agricultural program is not playing out as envisioned is usually not a matter of life and death for the nation. Most program managers do not have so much of themselves invested in a policy effort that they cannot bring themselves to accept the need for change even if it can't be accomplished politically.
Late night comics constantly remind us that many programs are quite funny in their application. Their jokes elicit laughs but not changes because, as we all know, inefficiencies are often built into the system in order to lubricate the gears of government. You're shocked? Please!
In the case of the intelligence agencies, however, the nation and the lives of our citizens are at stake, and there can be no doubt that we are in a life and death struggle with Islamist terrorists, regardless of the labels of their organizations. Of course, there are lots of things we might do beside doing battle with these monsters. We could capitulate - withdraw our forces from Muslim regions, drop our financial and military support for Israel, stop supporting what the terrorists call our puppet regimes in the Islamic world and otherwise bow to the pressure. We could assess the complaints of our enemies and institute reforms that appear reasonable in our approach to the Muslim world. Or we can maintain status quo in our policy and attempt to annihilate the terrorists. I don't know about you, reader, but the first and third options don't impress me. My guess is that over time, the wisdom of the American people will force our politicians into some form of the second option in concert with killing as many of these crazies as possible.
As the 2004 election approaches and the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission sit as a roadblock in the middle of the electoral highway, federal candidates leap to make hay from the report of the commission. Congressional committees are racing to hold hearings. The presidential candidates are shouting their support for all or major portions of the report. The Central Intelligence Agency will or will not be central. The new Director of National Intelligence will or will not have the power to hire and fire, to transfer funds between agencies.
One thing, however, gets scant attention as the deliberations express train rolls on: how do we assure that truth gets to told to power? Having participated in hundreds if not thousands of meetings between political appointees and staff, I wonder how reform can come to human nature through moving organization boxes about? Power in governmental agencies is by its nature hierarchical; there are always people at the table with far more clout than others. Many of those powerful people, dear reader - you'll be shocked - are very self confident and do not take lightly to being told that what they are pushing is contradicted by facts, especially by a bunch of low life bureaucrats. The usual reaction in human organizations calls for them to brow beat their underlings to see the 'truth'. Sort of a 'Flogging will continue until morale improves', approach. I know that this will raise an eyebrow, but higher ranking people in government and the military think that higher graded people are, by their rank, smarter and wiser than their underlings. You don't believe that? You are so innocent.
Thus, when the Bush - Cheney Administration made up its collective mind to attack Iraq, it didn't send the Vice President to CIA headquarters to learn that we shouldn't be acting on its already made decision. The analysts were under great pressure - can you envision the pressure that a figure like Dick Cheney brings to bear of a room full of ordinary bureaucrats? - to rethink their views. People do not run for high - really high - public office to learn that they're full of baloney from a bunch of lifer slackers.
The trick in reorganizing to save the nation is to assure that truth gets told to power without the messengers being stomped. And, just as important, that just because the messengers' analysis and recommendations are not accepted the commander isn't subject to every whistle blower's dream of a great big "Gotcha!"
I think they'll just move the boxes. That's all I could do. If they do their best, it will be an improvement.
Wildbill944
We are now in the midst of reforming the intelligence agencies of the federal government because they are considered to be unable to cope with the terrorist threat that faces the nation. That's a certainty. From the perspective of a person who is very interested in this process but who does not have the experience of working in or with one of the intelligence agencies, the reform seems long overdue as these institutions are still geared up to fight the Cold War.
But I do know something about how federal employees are dealt with as it relates to telling the truth to power. I spent most of my working life in Washington in positions close enough to power to observe the interaction between analysts and political appointees and politicians. My guarantee is that where truth meets political power there is ever tension. And that's not bad in every circumstance. That a federal education, housing, or agricultural program is not playing out as envisioned is usually not a matter of life and death for the nation. Most program managers do not have so much of themselves invested in a policy effort that they cannot bring themselves to accept the need for change even if it can't be accomplished politically.
Late night comics constantly remind us that many programs are quite funny in their application. Their jokes elicit laughs but not changes because, as we all know, inefficiencies are often built into the system in order to lubricate the gears of government. You're shocked? Please!
In the case of the intelligence agencies, however, the nation and the lives of our citizens are at stake, and there can be no doubt that we are in a life and death struggle with Islamist terrorists, regardless of the labels of their organizations. Of course, there are lots of things we might do beside doing battle with these monsters. We could capitulate - withdraw our forces from Muslim regions, drop our financial and military support for Israel, stop supporting what the terrorists call our puppet regimes in the Islamic world and otherwise bow to the pressure. We could assess the complaints of our enemies and institute reforms that appear reasonable in our approach to the Muslim world. Or we can maintain status quo in our policy and attempt to annihilate the terrorists. I don't know about you, reader, but the first and third options don't impress me. My guess is that over time, the wisdom of the American people will force our politicians into some form of the second option in concert with killing as many of these crazies as possible.
As the 2004 election approaches and the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission sit as a roadblock in the middle of the electoral highway, federal candidates leap to make hay from the report of the commission. Congressional committees are racing to hold hearings. The presidential candidates are shouting their support for all or major portions of the report. The Central Intelligence Agency will or will not be central. The new Director of National Intelligence will or will not have the power to hire and fire, to transfer funds between agencies.
One thing, however, gets scant attention as the deliberations express train rolls on: how do we assure that truth gets to told to power? Having participated in hundreds if not thousands of meetings between political appointees and staff, I wonder how reform can come to human nature through moving organization boxes about? Power in governmental agencies is by its nature hierarchical; there are always people at the table with far more clout than others. Many of those powerful people, dear reader - you'll be shocked - are very self confident and do not take lightly to being told that what they are pushing is contradicted by facts, especially by a bunch of low life bureaucrats. The usual reaction in human organizations calls for them to brow beat their underlings to see the 'truth'. Sort of a 'Flogging will continue until morale improves', approach. I know that this will raise an eyebrow, but higher ranking people in government and the military think that higher graded people are, by their rank, smarter and wiser than their underlings. You don't believe that? You are so innocent.
Thus, when the Bush - Cheney Administration made up its collective mind to attack Iraq, it didn't send the Vice President to CIA headquarters to learn that we shouldn't be acting on its already made decision. The analysts were under great pressure - can you envision the pressure that a figure like Dick Cheney brings to bear of a room full of ordinary bureaucrats? - to rethink their views. People do not run for high - really high - public office to learn that they're full of baloney from a bunch of lifer slackers.
The trick in reorganizing to save the nation is to assure that truth gets told to power without the messengers being stomped. And, just as important, that just because the messengers' analysis and recommendations are not accepted the commander isn't subject to every whistle blower's dream of a great big "Gotcha!"
I think they'll just move the boxes. That's all I could do. If they do their best, it will be an improvement.
Wildbill944
Sunday, August 08, 2004
Random Thoughts on Landscaping and Gardening
Landscaping and gardening have been among my lifelong passions. I'm very lucky as my wife shares and complements me completely in these endeavors. My interest began in childhood when those I loved most dearly, my parents, grandparents and uncles and aunts with whom I lived in a large multi-family house got down in the dirt and created beauty in the City of Brockton, MA. Their effort was a combination of English cottage and English formal with an emphasis on tea roses. In my mind it is still very beautiful. Occasionally, when I pass by the old place, I can still see a few signs of their garden outline and I am filled with pleasurable memories.
My spouse and I have owned four houses, and we've landscaped all of them. The first two, suburban houses in ordinary but nice subdivisions in the Washington, D.C. suburbs of Virginia, got the Capital treatment - lots of azaleas, rhodies, andromedas - lightly echoing the English park style. We enjoyed the work as well as the efforts at creativity and we loved the neighborly recognition for our efforts. Obviously, we were young.
We then moved to a Cape Cod cottage in a seaside village in Massachusetts bound and determined not to landscape the large lot as we were tired of gardening and all the work it entailed. Over the course of several years our compulsions got the better of us and the madness returned full force. The result was a much closer version of the English park style. Something along the lines of a 'garden undressed' that Capability Brown might have patted us on the head for doing a good job - for rank amateurs.
These labors of love were accomplished without much thought. I had read a lot of books on landscaping and gardening and developed a rather substantial collection on the aspects of landscaping design and horticulture. As I aged, however, I found these texts lacked something very basic - the reason we get into the business. Most of them simply assumed that the reader was interested and failed to explore the why of the subject.
The book that had the greatest influence on me was Geoffery and Susan Jellicoe's The Landscape of Man. It was from this marvelous text that I came to understand the why of landscaping, that gardens could synthesize man's great and opposite needs - a place to satisfy those of religious bent with a reminder of paradise and, for those possessed of logical minds, an environment in which to think deeply and contemplate. Sir Geoffery and Susan also offered the clearest insight that I have ever come across concerning the derivations of both formal and informal style of landscaping. Shocking to me in its obviousness - but again maybe not to you, dear reader - the formal is inspired by man's agricultural manipulation of the land and the informal from beautiful and romantic natural settings.
The Jellicoe's steered away, however, from the problems of small residential gardens and busied themselves in explaining the magical landscapes of great civilizations with which most gardeners are at least somewhat familiar. My collection is full of books that tell the reader how to create a front garden, side and back gardens, Japanese Gardens, formal and almost any other type of landscape, but they avoid the why one would do such a thing, assuming that I - and you - know why.
Surprisingly, some of the best books in approaching this problem are the most commercial Ortho books and others of similar vein such as the Readers Digest books on landscaping. Most of the other books in my library stress how to rather than why. How to attract birds or butterflies with plantings, how to use color in the garden and so on. Why would you do such a thing? Why to bring pleasure, of course, but it's far deeper than that.
We dig and plant to create a paradise for contemplation and enjoyment, and we're right back to what the Jellicoes have been trying to tell us. How should we use this spark of wisdom? To attempt to understand what our personal paradise would look like and attempt to create it, to try to see just what makes us tick and to satisfy it by manipulating a small bit of our world.
Someone ought to write a book on why a person should be motivated to create a personal garden in the first place. I'm not going to do it. Why not you, dear reader?
One practical thing that I've learned about gardens that has never appeared in print before this paragraph is that at least for one purpose a garden situated on the east side or end of your house is the best. The books usually denigrate the east side as not sunny enough or whatever. But in very warm climates such as that of Northern Virginia where I live and on hot sunny summer days in most places, the east side cools early in the afternoon. Before the mosquitoes come out and make sitting and contemplating impossible, happy hour is best experienced in such a garden. Don't say there wasn't anything valuable in this column.
Cheers,
Wildbill944
My spouse and I have owned four houses, and we've landscaped all of them. The first two, suburban houses in ordinary but nice subdivisions in the Washington, D.C. suburbs of Virginia, got the Capital treatment - lots of azaleas, rhodies, andromedas - lightly echoing the English park style. We enjoyed the work as well as the efforts at creativity and we loved the neighborly recognition for our efforts. Obviously, we were young.
We then moved to a Cape Cod cottage in a seaside village in Massachusetts bound and determined not to landscape the large lot as we were tired of gardening and all the work it entailed. Over the course of several years our compulsions got the better of us and the madness returned full force. The result was a much closer version of the English park style. Something along the lines of a 'garden undressed' that Capability Brown might have patted us on the head for doing a good job - for rank amateurs.
These labors of love were accomplished without much thought. I had read a lot of books on landscaping and gardening and developed a rather substantial collection on the aspects of landscaping design and horticulture. As I aged, however, I found these texts lacked something very basic - the reason we get into the business. Most of them simply assumed that the reader was interested and failed to explore the why of the subject.
The book that had the greatest influence on me was Geoffery and Susan Jellicoe's The Landscape of Man. It was from this marvelous text that I came to understand the why of landscaping, that gardens could synthesize man's great and opposite needs - a place to satisfy those of religious bent with a reminder of paradise and, for those possessed of logical minds, an environment in which to think deeply and contemplate. Sir Geoffery and Susan also offered the clearest insight that I have ever come across concerning the derivations of both formal and informal style of landscaping. Shocking to me in its obviousness - but again maybe not to you, dear reader - the formal is inspired by man's agricultural manipulation of the land and the informal from beautiful and romantic natural settings.
The Jellicoe's steered away, however, from the problems of small residential gardens and busied themselves in explaining the magical landscapes of great civilizations with which most gardeners are at least somewhat familiar. My collection is full of books that tell the reader how to create a front garden, side and back gardens, Japanese Gardens, formal and almost any other type of landscape, but they avoid the why one would do such a thing, assuming that I - and you - know why.
Surprisingly, some of the best books in approaching this problem are the most commercial Ortho books and others of similar vein such as the Readers Digest books on landscaping. Most of the other books in my library stress how to rather than why. How to attract birds or butterflies with plantings, how to use color in the garden and so on. Why would you do such a thing? Why to bring pleasure, of course, but it's far deeper than that.
We dig and plant to create a paradise for contemplation and enjoyment, and we're right back to what the Jellicoes have been trying to tell us. How should we use this spark of wisdom? To attempt to understand what our personal paradise would look like and attempt to create it, to try to see just what makes us tick and to satisfy it by manipulating a small bit of our world.
Someone ought to write a book on why a person should be motivated to create a personal garden in the first place. I'm not going to do it. Why not you, dear reader?
One practical thing that I've learned about gardens that has never appeared in print before this paragraph is that at least for one purpose a garden situated on the east side or end of your house is the best. The books usually denigrate the east side as not sunny enough or whatever. But in very warm climates such as that of Northern Virginia where I live and on hot sunny summer days in most places, the east side cools early in the afternoon. Before the mosquitoes come out and make sitting and contemplating impossible, happy hour is best experienced in such a garden. Don't say there wasn't anything valuable in this column.
Cheers,
Wildbill944
Thursday, August 05, 2004
Preemption v. Prevention
When the primary reason for the War in Iraq - Saddam had weapons of mass destruction that threatened us and our allies in the region - came up empty, the Bush - Cheney Administration moved on to less salient reasons for its action, e.g. ridding the world of a wicked tyrant.
As the American people became dubious of the value of the incursion into Iraq that appeared to divert resources away from our efforts in Afghanistan against the Taliban and al Qaeda, the President and his surrogates acted aggressively to backfill the arguments. Their message: no matter that WMDs were not found, we did the right thing in attacking Baghdad as Saddam posed a long term threat in the region and to us directly. Now that's a lot more dicey from the perspective of the world community and international law.
Obviously, if a government sees a build up in an enemy that, based on its best intelligence and the actions and statements of the threatening country, imperils its citizens, it is not - in itself - a violation of international law to preemptively strike that nation. Such action is always questionable, however, and, as you will recall, Hitler used this line of argument - overtly false - to attack Poland in 1939, setting off W.W. II.
On the other hand, the president's latest argument that prevention rather than preemption was sufficient basis for the attack creates a completely new ball game as it relates to international law and common sense.
Many countries act in ways that are not in the best interest of the U.S. For example, China threatens us in the Formosa Straits; India and Pakistan are in a long term nuclear standoff that involves us all; the use of oil as an economic weapon is threatened by a number of countries, including Venezuela. All of these actions could be considered threatening, but our self interest and international pressure and law prohibit our attacking them. Thank God!
Iraq will be a scar on this presidency that will grow more ugly as the events recede into history. Win or lose in November, the president has made a gross error of judgment that we will have to live with for a generation or longer. We are less able to fight the war on terror and we have stirred animosity against the U.S. in places undreamed of before this debacle.
The War in Iraq has made us less safe from terrorism, and it has wasted precious resources that could be being used right this moment to hunt down and destroy our enemies. Sad!
Wildbill944
As the American people became dubious of the value of the incursion into Iraq that appeared to divert resources away from our efforts in Afghanistan against the Taliban and al Qaeda, the President and his surrogates acted aggressively to backfill the arguments. Their message: no matter that WMDs were not found, we did the right thing in attacking Baghdad as Saddam posed a long term threat in the region and to us directly. Now that's a lot more dicey from the perspective of the world community and international law.
Obviously, if a government sees a build up in an enemy that, based on its best intelligence and the actions and statements of the threatening country, imperils its citizens, it is not - in itself - a violation of international law to preemptively strike that nation. Such action is always questionable, however, and, as you will recall, Hitler used this line of argument - overtly false - to attack Poland in 1939, setting off W.W. II.
On the other hand, the president's latest argument that prevention rather than preemption was sufficient basis for the attack creates a completely new ball game as it relates to international law and common sense.
Many countries act in ways that are not in the best interest of the U.S. For example, China threatens us in the Formosa Straits; India and Pakistan are in a long term nuclear standoff that involves us all; the use of oil as an economic weapon is threatened by a number of countries, including Venezuela. All of these actions could be considered threatening, but our self interest and international pressure and law prohibit our attacking them. Thank God!
Iraq will be a scar on this presidency that will grow more ugly as the events recede into history. Win or lose in November, the president has made a gross error of judgment that we will have to live with for a generation or longer. We are less able to fight the war on terror and we have stirred animosity against the U.S. in places undreamed of before this debacle.
The War in Iraq has made us less safe from terrorism, and it has wasted precious resources that could be being used right this moment to hunt down and destroy our enemies. Sad!
Wildbill944
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