Although President Johnson is now in his fourth year in the White House, to write about his staff organization and his approach to staffing is to write about something is which is still evolving. President Johnson was not really free to develop his own “staff system” until after the election of 1964. For many reasons he felt that it was desirable to keep as many of the Kennedy staff members as possible until after the election. In the “let us continue” spirit, the presence of the Kennedy staff was an important part of the continuity which characterized the very smooth transition standing in sharp contrast to the Roosevelt-Truman transition. Moreover, President Johnson did not have an extensive staff of his own and he did not have time to develop one before the election. He made a decidedly wise decision in asking the Kennedy men to stay with him. However, this decision did make it more difficult for him to put his own stamp on the staff.
The departure of Walter Jenkins from the staff during the campaign made it even more difficult for Johnson to develop his own staff organization. Jenkins had been his primary assistant for two decades. During his months in the White House, he apparently demonstrated his great ability. He knew Johnson well, had the complete trust of the President, and undoubtedly would have been his key staff member if he had not collapsed in 1964. The vacancy he left on the staff would be a very difficult one to fill and led to a considerable reshuffling of duties among staff members.
Then, after the election, two more key assistants, Jack Valenti and Bill Moyers, departed within a few months of each other. Both left to accept high salaried and prestigious jobs outside of government. Thus, during his first three years in the Presidency, Johnson lost three of his most important staff members. During the same period, most of the Kennedy men were also leaving the staff. The result has been that the President has not been able to develop a definitive approach of his own to staff work.
However, some preliminary observations can be made about the Johnson style. He has been intensely interested in alternatives of staff organization. One of the first things he did in the White House was to hold a long session with Clark Clifford about the transition in general in which the organization of the White House Office was a primary topic. Moreover, he began to look around the Government in an effort to find some good staff prospects. He did not hesitate to rob Secretary of Defense McNamara of one of his most able men, Joseph A. Califano, Jr.
President Johnson has clearly kept firm personal control over the work of the White House Office. Although Jenkins and Moyers were key assistants, they were not chiefs of staff. Johnson would not be capable of working with the Eisenhower kind of staff organization. More than any President since Roosevelt, he needs a staff which is intensely personal and absolutely tuned to his own work habits and needs.
Perhaps as a result of the difficulty President Johnson has had in developing the White House Office into the type of staff service he needs, he has turned to outside advisers more than any President since Roosevelt. Although he has found some advisers in executive branch positions, most of them have been from the private sector. The most important of them have been the three Washington lawyers: James Rowe (a Roosevelt Administrative Assistant), Abe Fortas and Clark Clifford. The latter two men have of course been brought into government positions during the Johnson administration.
The Johnson staff men, like the Kennedy men, have been in the public eye with the result that White House Office professional staff positions have now become among the most glamourous positions in government. There can be little doubt that too much publicity can seriously impede the effectiveness of any presidential staff member. In fact, it may almost be stated as a firm principle that the more publicity White. House staff members get, the less useful they are to the President. Only the very rare assistant can be his own man and serve the President at the same time.