Even though the 1988 transition featured a handover from a two-term president (Ronald Reagan) to his own vice president (George H.W. Bush), experts at Brookings recognized that even an intra-party transition between political allies suffered from a lack of communication between outgoing presidential aides and their counterparts in the new administration.

Lawrence Korb, who was at the time Director of the Center for Public Policy Education at Brookings, saw that in many transitions, a good number of White House aides had little or no prior government experience. Even those who had worked in the federal government had not worked in the White House, and had to learn on the job.

Korb suggested a series of “Transition Conversations” sponsored by Brookings, in which incumbent White House staff members would meet with the incoming aides to discuss policy coordination and the experience of serving in the Office of the President. In his proposal, Korb wrote, “They (White House aides), perhaps most of all new appointees, need an orientation opportunity and are least likely to get one.”

##1##Korb wrote a series of memoranda to Brookings scholars suggesting a series of three dinners; one focusing on national security policy, one for domestic economic policy, and the last for organizing the Office of the President. The Brookings directors and staff that would be in charge of facilitating each dinner conversation were Korb himself and John Steinbruner for national security, Charles Schultze for domestic economic policy, and Stephen Hess and Thomas Mann for organizing the Office of the President.

In addition to working with Korb’s “Transition Conversations,” Hess and Brookings Fellow James Sundquist were panel members in 1988 for a study on the presidency. The study was part of an orientation program sponsored by the National Academy of Public Administration and sought to answer questions such as “How can the President most effectively fulfill his role of chief executive officer,” and “How can the President’s staff and Cabinet members work together to meet the President’s needs and their own executive responsibilities?”

The 1988 presidential transition allowed Brookings to exercise its power as a convening organization to bring experts together, offer nonpartisan advice, and assist a new president in achieving a smooth transition of power.

      

Following the release of his book Organizing the Presidency in 1976, Stephen Hess got a call from his secretary that Governor Carter was on the phone. He responded, “What Governor Carter? I don’t know any Governor Carter.”

It was of course the President-elect, Jimmy Carter, seeking advice across the political aisle. Hess, who first came to Brookings in 1972, had served in the White House under both Eisenhower and Nixon, and was an advisor to President Ford. He had also helped the Ford administration with a White House orientation program for senior political appointees, and Carter knew his advice would be valuable in assembling his new administration.

##1##Hess, who wrote a series of memos to Carter on organizing his administration, was not the only Brookings expert tapped to assist Carter in forming his new government. In fact, several Brookings scholars went to senior positions in the administration. Henry Aaron went to the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, which has since been become the Department of Health and Human Services, with Education later becoming its own cabinet-level agency. And to advise one economic and fiscal policy, Brookings’s Charles Schultze and Barry Bosworth joined the Council on Economic Advisors

Meanwhile, Hess started his recommendations by advising Carter to cut 77 White House staff positions immediately. The previous administrations, Nixon and Ford, were two of the largest in history, and Hess had written in his book that “the size of the White House staff reflects the failed concept of a managerial presidency.”

One reason for the swollen staffs was that the office of legal counsel for the White House grew substantially during the troubled Nixon presidency, and was not adequately drawn down under Ford. Hess further recommended eliminating the Office of Public Liaison, which had been established in the Nixon White House to accommodate “special pleadings” from minority groups and special interests. Hess believed that role could be carried out by appointees to federal departments and agencies outside the White House.

The Brookings scholar also advised Carter to quickly appoint a chief of staff, writing that the President “…should not be his own chief of staff. Otherwise he will find that he is spending considerable time on servicing his staff, rather than the other way around.” While Carter initially did not follow this advice and decided not to have a chief of staff, he eventually appointed Hamilton Jordan to the position in 1979.

Stephen Hess’ Organizing the Presidency demonstrated the Brookings tradition of providing nonpartisan policy and managerial advice to the White House, a tradition Brookings is carrying out in 2008 with its presidential transition project and series of memos to the President-elect.

      

President Lyndon Johnson’s decision not to run for re-election in 1968 preceded one of the most wrenching campaigns in American history, encompassing the assassinations of presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., and culminating in a bitter three-way campaign among Republican Richard Nixon, Democrat Hubert Humphrey and George Wallace running as a third-party candidate.

Nixon prevailed. The new president confronted an unpopular war in Vietnam, uncertainty about Johnson’s Great Society initiatives on the home front and a restless, deeply divided populace.

Then-Brookings President Kermit Gordon decided the Institution could best advise the president-elect by focusing on pressing policy issues.##1##He gathered 18 experts—including Brookings scholars Charles L. Schultze, Herbert Stein and James L. Sundquist—to put together Agenda for the Nation, a collection of essays on policy recommendations for the White House. Anthony Downs, who would later join Brookings in 1977, also contributed to the work.

Gordon felt addressing domestic policy was particularly vital for the incoming administration, referring to what he called the central paradox of American society: “On the one hand, we are a nation which sees itself as wracked and divided over problems of poverty, riots, race, slums, unemployment, and crime; on the other hand, we are a nation which is clearly enjoying high prosperity, rapid economic growth, and a steady diffusion of affluence at a rate almost unimaginable a decade ago.” Schultze, Stein, Sundquist and Downs all wrote articles addressing domestic policy and strategies for improving Johnson’s Great Society programs.

In “Budget Alternatives after Vietnam,” Schultze set forth a series of recommendations to reduce military spending by promoting initiatives to limit U.S. and Soviet strategic forces and reevaluate U.S. foreign commitments. He also suggested a rigorous screening of existing federal programs such as farm price-support programs and the space program. Stein’s essay, “Unemployment, Inflation, and Economic Stability,” made suggestions for stabilizing inflation without increasing unemployment. In “Jobs, Training, and Welfare for the Underclass,” Sundquist called for equalizing access to public services through infrastructure and community outreach programs so that more non-metropolitan areas could utilize these services. Downs’ article, “Moving toward Realistic Housing Goals,” addressed Johnson’s Model Cities Program, and his recommendations focused on securing financing for the program, encouraging technological innovation and administrative reform to promote federal coordination.

With Agenda for the Nation, Brookings helped set out a policy framework for an administration in tumultuous times, and contributed to the debate over the controversial policy issues of the day. The effort would be repeated 35 years later when a new Agenda for the Nation was published by the Brookings Institution.

      

Nearly 50 years ago, the country weathered a historical presidential transition in turbulent times, as John F. Kennedy bested Richard Nixon in the race to replace Eisenhower. Brookings played a behind-the-scenes role to help ease the transition.

“[Brookings] deserves a large share of the credit for history’s smoothest transfer of power between opposing parties.”

Theodore C. Sorensen, Special Counsel to John F. Kennedy

The 1960 race between Kennedy and Nixon came at a particularly delicate time. The Cold War was threatening to become a hot war and the nuclear arms race was intensifying.

With a grant from the Carnegie Foundation, Brookings’s then-president, Robert Calkins, gathered a discreet advisory group to help plan for a smooth transition, no matter who won the presidency. The 14 former government officials had all been presidential advisers. They included Brookings scholars and business executives from top American corporations, all with managerial talent and broad experience in domestic and foreign policy.

Eisenhower’s counsel, David W. Kendall, was key to establishing the Brookings transition project and bringing all sides to the table, and the White House sent cabinet secretary Brad Patterson to the table. Nixon sent Brigadier General Robert Cushman, Jr., and Kennedy sent Clark Clifford. It was a nonpartisan, cooperative effort of a scope difficult to imagine in today’s highly charged, partisan political environment.

Under the leadership of Brookings scholar George Graham, the group reviewed nine confidential memos to the president. The memos, drafted before the election, were not meant for publication and were never widely circulated. Candid, forthright assessments of the keys to a successful transition and the political pitfalls that abounded, the memos offered up historical analyses of the governing styles of presidents who had gone before, especially Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower. They offered frank advice to the incoming president about how to manipulate the levers of power, and how to deal with Congress and the news media to implement his policies and display leadership.

To judge from this passage in Calkins’ New York Times obituary, the project was a success:

The organization’s (Brookings) influence was evident when President John F. Kennedy took office in 1961. His Administration relied heavily on the institute’s briefing papers on many issues facing the nation. Theodore C. Sorensen, who was Kennedy’s special counsel, wrote that Brookings “deserves a large share of the credit for history’s smoothest transfer of power between opposing parties.”