Sorenson’s counterpart on foreign policy and national security matters was McGeorge Bundy. Although Kennedy was not enamoured with the complex national security coordination efforts by the White House under Eisenhower, he did find it necessary to have a strong foreign policy-national security operation in the White. House. However, where Eisenhower’s national security advisers in the White House were primarily concerned with organization and the coordination of the vast and complex activities of Defense, State, and a dozen other departments and agencies, the Bundy team was primarily concerned with advising the President on policy matters. The President was his own coordinator when coordination was called for. Bundy’s own training and personality suited him for this kind of role. He would not have been as well suited for the kind of role which Gordon Gray performed so ably for Eisenhower.
Bundy was assisted by a group of very able men an average of ten in his operation in the basement of the White House which Kennedy. used to call his “Little State Department.” As a matter of fact, the organization of Bundy’s office in some respects resembled the State Department. For example, he had a specialist for European affairs (Dr. Carl Kaysen, who also handled disarmament matters), a specialist for Far Eastern Affairs (Michael Forrestal), and a specialist for Near Eastern affairs (Robert Komer).
Bundy held the only meetings that even resembled staff conferences in the Kennedy White House. Each morning he briefed key White House Office staff members on significant foreign policy and national security developments during the past twenty four hours. This briefing was all that took place at the meetings, but they were an important mechanism for coordination of foreign and domestic policy in the White House. None of Kennedy’s advisers were ever out of touch with foreign policy matters and could shift from domestic assignments to assist in a foreign policy crisis with relative ease.
A third office which was of central importance in the Kennedy White House was that of the Appointments Secretary, Kenneth O’Donnell. O’Donnell occupied the same office that McIntyre had occupied a quarter of century earlier, but his responsibilities were much broader than McIntyre’s had been. In addition to handling appointments, O’Donnell was a primary political troubleshooter (comparable to Matt Connelly in this respect), handled liaison with the Secret Service and F.B.I., and, made arrangements for the President’s trips. Pierre Salinger in his memoirs has ranked O’Donnell as the most important member of the Kennedy staff. He certainly was the key man, outside of the President himself, for the internal operation of the White House Office. Since Kennedy dropped the Eisenhower position of Staff Secretary, O’Donnell also kept watch over the general operation of the White House Office services. He worked closely with his Massachusetts colleague, Lawrence O’Brien on all matters relating to politics.
O’Brien was in charge of Kennedy’s legislative liaison operations. Although his White House Office liaison operation was not organized as elaborately as the Persons-Morgan operation, his organization was much more elaborate than Murphy’s had been for Truman. Like Persons and Morgan, O’Brien viewed the office as a center of coordination for legislative liaison officers throughout the executive branch and the Tuesday Morning Breakfast Conference continued to be a central part of his equipment. During Kennedy’s first Congress, O’Brien demonstrated that he was a first-rate political strategist and, although his tactics were often described as high pressure efforts, earning him the title of leader of the Irish Mafia in the White House, he was usually effective. Like Sorenson, O’Brien had a talented group of assistants led by Mike Manatos and Henry Hall Wilson, Jr.