When President Kennedy came into office, he had been the recipient of more advice about the organization of the White House Office than any of his predecessors. Clark Clifford, Richard Neustadt, and the Brookings Institution nad each prepared elaborate background papers for him before the election in order to help him through the transition. Each of these advisers had given detailed attention to the White House Office and had discussed alternative plans of organization.
'In reading the memoranda of those advisers, Kennedy immediately decided that he could not operate his staff on the Eisenhower pattern. This decision was confirmed by the transition contacts between the Kennedy men and the Eisenhower staff members. The Kennedy staff organization represented a return to the basic characteristics of the Roosevelt-Truman examples. The men who served on his staff were mostly generalists although they had more fixed areas of assignment than the Roosevelt or Truman men. However, Kennedy could not rave made his White House Office a replica of either the Roosevelt or Truman organization because government in the 1960’s was vastly different from that experienced by these two Democratic predecessors. Nor could Kennedy ignore everything in the Eisenhower organization precedent. Some of the Eisenhower arrangements were useful for Kennedy and he kept them.
In addition to the advance planning, Kennedy had another advantage over his predecessors when he took office. He had already been operating for many months with a very elaborate staff organization in his campaigns for the nomination and for the office itself. The campaigns had been a valuable testing ground for staff and most of the appointees to the White House Office staff had survived the test of the campaigns. They had already developed work patterns as assistants to Kennedy. He knew what to expect from them and they knew his abilities, expectations, and
President Kennedy was his own chief of staff. He carefully supervised the work of his staff in the White House Office. He initiated assignments personally, received all reports from his top aides, and, as Sorenson has written, “decided what it is he need not decide.” He carefully guarded his own options. Again, in Sorenson’s words, Kennedy’s staff organization “imposed upon him heavy burdens of overseeing everything we were doing, but he much preferred those burdens to the handicaps of being merely a clerk in his own office, caught up in the routines and recommendations of others.” There was no hierarchy in the Kennedy White House Office.
The workload of the Kennedy White House Office centered around several key offices. Kennedy restored the office of Special Counsel to the status it had enjoyed under Rosenman, Clifford, and Murphy and, in fact, greatly expanded its scope of activity. Theodore Sorenson, one of his most trusted aides, was named to fill the office and he was as sisted by three very able men Myer Feldman, Richard N. Goodwin, and Lee White. Sorenson was the primary staff adviser on domestic policy matters and speech-writer par excellence. His handiwork can be seen in almost every message that Kennedy sent to Congress. However, he was much more than a speech writer. Although he did not make decisions for the President, his opinion was respected and frequently persuasive.
Since Sorenson’s time was taken up with domestic policy matters, his assistants were needed to handle the more traditional duties of the Special Counsel. Feldman was viewed by his fellow staff members as an exceptionally able lawyer and he was responsible for regulatory agency matters and most other matters relating to business— including tariffs and trade. He also supervised the drafting of Presidential proclamations and Executive Orders. White handled. civil rights matters in close coordination with Robert Kennedy and received special assignments in matters of public housing and power. White also handled presidential pardons and pleas for clemency. Goodwin was primarily involved in speech-writing and quickly developed a special interest in Latin American affairs.