A third special appointment during the war years was that of Eugene B. Casey as Special Executive Assistant to the President. After the 1940 election, a number of leaders in the Democratic party organization became concerned that Roosevelt was losing interest in politics. It was becoming more and more difficult for them to make contact with the President. At the same time, Henry Wallace and other leaders interested in agriculture were concerned that Roosevelt’s interest in the war would lead to the total neglect of their interests. Casey, with the encouragement of Ed Flynn and Wallace, became a special coordinator for the President on party and agriculture matters.
A fourth special wartime position was that of “Chief-of-Staff to the Commander-in Chief” held by Adm. William Leahy. He presided over the meetings of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and was FDR’s main contact with the military. He gave the President a daily briefing on the military and intelligence situation.
A more important change during the war years occurred when Roosevelt himself gradually became less involved in staff work on domestic matters. The staff men, especially the Administrative Assistants, worked with less direction and with fewer conflicting assignments after 1942.
The image of lack of organization in the Roosevelt White House was reinforced by the comings and goings of borrowed staff members who had no office in the White House, but frequently spent more than half of their time there. Among the more important men in this category were Benjamin Cohen and Thomas Corcoran (who usually occupied the table in the Cabinet Room as a base of Cohen and Corcoran were as important as most of FDR’s official staff members for several years before Corcoran fell out of grace. There were occasional conflicts between the official staff members and the “outside” staff. Corcoran, for instance, was frequently at odds with McIntyre about appointments and Hopkins about political matters.
The schedule of the White House Office staff was designed to complement the President’s schedule. The White House Office day usually began with a brief conference while Roosevelt had his breakfast. Although Roosevelt never held staff meetings, several staff members would show up at breakfast and the day’s work would be discussed. Watson, Early, Mcintyre, William Hassett, Rosenman, and Hopkins were frequently in attendance in varying combinations. The only other time when the staff members regularly met with the President in groups of three or more was in the hour preceding his press conferences when briefings were completed and strategy on possible questions discussed. After the breakfast conference, the staff members were
[Page 18 of the original paper is missing from the Nixon Library scan; the text resumes on page 19, in the section on the Truman White House Office, 1945-1953.]