Many of Truman’s speeches were major policy formulation events and the White House Office staff worked very closely with the Cabinet members and the departments in their formulation. Truman relied on his Cabinet and the departments much more than Roosevelt had, and this, plus his use of the Bureau of the Budget, is one reason 'that he was able to keep his White House staff so small. He seldom had more than eleven men reporting directly to him from the White House Office. The major speeches went through seven to ten drafts and throughout this process there was constant interchange with the appropriate departments and agencies.
Clifford took on one new chore that was beginning to be a recurrent one in the White House and that was the task of coordination of national security matters. this, of course, was Hopkins bailiwick during the war, and Roosevelt himself had been constantly involved with the war effort after Pearl Harbor. After the war, there was even more need for coordination of defense matters as the defense establishment itself underwent an extensive reorganization. Most of Clifford’s efforts involved the defense and post-war recovery agencies. A major part of his effort was devoted to coordination of policy and practices between these agencies and the State Department. Murphy, as Special Counsel, was not as actively involved in national security matters as Clifford had been.
In addition to the Steelman and Clifford operations, Truman found that he had to formalize congressional liaison work much more than Roosevelt had done. When Roosevelt had a special task involving Congress, he called on Corcoran or Rowe or someone else to do that particular job. Truman, facing a Congress controlled by the opposition party soon after he took office, began to look to Charles Murphy to coordinate the executive’s relations with Congress. Murphy did not develop any elaborate machinery in the White House for congressional liaison. However, he did gather around him a group of bright young assistants Bell, Neustadt and Lloyd among them. In addition to these duties, Murphy also had special responsibility for drafting messages to Congress and assisted Clifford on speeches. Murphy’s position as Administrative Assistant then was another important office highly involved in policy and political matters. After he replaced Clifford as Special Counsel in 1950, Murphy an: continued to carry on the congressional liaison work from 'that office. The 'new duties apparently blended quite well with his old ones.
Another Administrative Assistant who had a special area of responsibility was Donald 8. Dawson. Dawson was staff coordinator on matters of personnel and patronage. George J. Schoeneman and Raymond R. Zimmerman had handled these matters before Dawson’s appointment in August, 1947. Dawson handled liaison with the departments and agencies on management problems on a rather elaborate scale. He kept in close touch with politicians in and out of Congress on patronage matters and apparently maintained good relations with the Civil Service Commission at the same time, The patronage tasks were among the most difficult ones in Truman’s Presidency and they tied very directly into the work of Steelman (with the departments) and an Murphy (with Congress). Dawson’s work then was pivotal and he developed some very firm procedures in his office. He kept a detailed file on potential candidates for office and most of Truman’s appointments outside of the customs positions and federal courts came from the Dawson file. After 1948, Dawson also handled arrangements for Truman’s trips and political appearances.
With the exception of Murphy and Dawson the Administrative Assistants tended not to be front-line men in the Truman Administration. In fact, they served primarily as assistants to Murphy, Clifford and Steelman. The development of an able cadre of supporting staff for key staff members was an important aspect of the Truman White House Office. In my interviews with the Truman men, I soon discovered that they liked to talk about span of control and most of them felt that the President should not have more than a dozen staff men reporting to him. When asked, “Were the professional staff services adequate to meet the demands on the President?” and “For instance, did you need more men on the staff?”, the ten Truman respondents unanimously replied in the negative.