The five presidents who have served during the period of this study have differed a good deal in the occupations from which they have recruited their staff members. Roosevelt recruited primarily from government and news reporters getting about one-fourth of his staff members from each category. Truman recruited about half of his men from the ranks of government employees. Eisenhower looked primarily to the business world for his staff, recruiting about one-third of them from that category. Kennedy recruited two-thirds of his staff members from government ranks, most of them having had experience on the staff side of government, and the academic world. Johnson has relied primarily on government service, again mostly staff men, and the business world for his staff members.
Although a good many members of the staff in each administration have held law degrees, relatively few of them have been engaged primarily in the private practice of law before their appointment to the White House. None of the Roosevelt and Truman staff members had received their primary occupational experience in the academic world, but that category has become rather prominent for the three most recent Presidents, Eisenhower naturally showed some preference for men who had had backgrounds in the military several of them had served on his military staff. Five of Eisenhower’s appointees came directly from student status on the campus to the White House without significant employment along the way. Only one staff member in the period, Roosevelt’s Daniel J. Tobin, has been recruited from the ranks of organized labor, and he remained on the staff only a few months.
Political experience does not appear to have been a particularly important qualification for White House Office staff service. Only fifteen of the 169 staff members since 1939 have had their primary experience as politicians, and most of them have served for short terms on special assignments half of them in the Eisenhower administration. As one of the respondents put it in an interview. “There is only room in the White House for one politician.” However, this is not to say that political know-how is of little value to White House staff members. A good many of the men in the “government service staff” category in: Table were involved primarily in politics.
Table V. Primary Occupations Before Appointment, White House Office Professional Staff, 1939–1967
| Occupation | FDR¹ | HST² | DDE³ | JFK⁴ | LBJ⁵ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Government, non-political | 4 (26.6%) | 11 (55%) | 11 (12.8%) | 11 (39.3%) | 13 (40.6%) |
| — (Staff) | (2) (13.3%) | (2) (10%) | (5) (5.8%) | (10) (35.7%) | (10) (31.3%) |
| Politics | 3 (20%) | 0 | 8 (9.3%) | 3 (10.7%) | 1 (3.1%) |
| Business | 2 (13.3%) | 1 (5%) | 26 (30%) | 1 (3.6%) | 7 (21.9%) |
| News Reporting | 4 (26.6%) | 3 (15%) | 6 (7%) | 1 (3.6%) | 3 (9.4%) |
| Law, private practice | 0 | 3 (15%) | 12 (14%) | 4 (14.2%) | 4 (12.5%) |
| Academic | 0 | 0 | 11 (12.8%) | 7 (25%) | 4 (12.5%) |
| Military | 1 (6.6%) | 2 (10%) | 7 (8.1%) | 1 (3.1%) | 0 |
| Labor | 1 (6.6%) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Student | 0 | 0 | 5 (5.8%) | 0 | 0 |
¹ Data available for 15 of 16 staff members. ² 20 of 22. ³ 86 of 86. ⁴ 28 of 28. ⁵ 32 of 33.