of the situation, he quickly cleared out these early job seekers and not one of them received an appointment to the White House Office staff. Truman then requested several Roosevelt staff men, including Rosenman, Hassett, and Niles, to stay on the job and they did so.
In less than one year Truman had decisively reorganized the White House Office to suit his own needs. Although several individual members of the Roosevelt staff became very helpful aides for Truman, the new President could not have operated with Roosevelt’s staff organization and work habits. The Truman staff men continued to be generalists. Most of them did not come to the job as specialists on a particular subject. However, they did tend to fall into fixed areas of assignment much more readily than the Roosevelt men. There was none of Roosevelt’s lack of organization in the Truman office.
Throughout his Presidency Truman did follow Roosevelt’s example by using the three Secretaries to handle the most recurrent duties of the White House office. Charles G. Ross served as Press Secretary until his death in December, 1950. He was replaced by Joseph Short who also died in office near the end of Truman’s term. Matthew Connelly, an old confidant, served as Appointments Secretary and primary political troubleshooter. Hassett continued to serve as Corresponding Secretary.
Staff work on matters of policy tended to center around two offices, the office of “The Assistant to the President” and the office of the Special Counsel to the President.
John R. Steelman served as “The Assistant to the President.” Steelman had served with distinction in the United States Conciliation Service for ten years under Roosevelt and was an industrial consultant in New York when Truman came into office. He was highly recommended as a specialist on labor affairs by Francis Perkins and Truman’s Secretary of Labor, Lewis B. Schwellenbach. Truman had some difficulty in persuading Steelman to return to government service from his high paying position in New York, and came up with the new title as a special incentive to keep him in the White House. The title came out of the experience of James F. Byrnes in the Office of Defense Mobilization where Byrnes had had unusual powers delegated to him by Congress and the President, and was frequently referred to as “The Assistant President.” It was the same title that Eisenhower was to give to Sherman Adams.
Steelman was a mediator in the White House. He handled labor matters, but he was even more important to Truman as a coordinator of the executive departments and agencies. He handled the family fights in the executive branch and in performing this task he worked very closely with the Bureau of the Budget. It was during the Truman Administration that the Bureau became something more than a budget agency, although Harold Smith had started it on the way under Roosevelt. In some respects, 'the Bureau was an extension of the White House Office, furnishing the Office with valuable assistance and providing a primary recruiting ground for its staff members. David Stowe, David Bell, Richard Neustadt, David Lloyd, and Frederick Lawton all moved from the Bureau to the White House Office and several of them later returned to the Bureau.
Rosenman stayed with Truman as Special Counsel until late 1945. After his departure, the office remained vacant for about six months, although Truman’s naval aide, Clark Clifford, who had worked with Rosenman on several speeches, began to do much of Rosenman’s work. Clifford was appointed Special Counsel in June, 1946, and remained in that office for four years. The duties of the office remained much as they had been under Rosenman. Clifford was responsible for writing speeches and checking bills and Executive Orders from both a legal and policy point of view. Under Clifford and his successor, Charles Murphy, it was the key position on the staff for policy formulation.