The President's Call: Executive Leadership From FDR to George Bush (50 page)

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Authors: Judith E. Michaels

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steadily increased in the Kennedy White House. They were to increase even more quickly under Johnson and to become pathological under Nixon. (Hess 1988, 82-83)
Johnson shunned the permanent government for guidance in policy development, believing it "too conservative and too incremental for rapid governmental change." Nevertheless, he did trust the bureaucracy to implement his programs and so devoted little attention to policing the bureaucracy, per se (Newland 1985, 139). Perhaps the presidents most negative toward the bureaucracy have been Nixon, Reagan, and to a lesser extent, Carter. "President Nixon considered that President Eisenhower had committed a major error in failing to clean out the 'Democrat-infested federal bureaucracy. . . .' Distrust of the bureaucracy was a recurring theme in almost all of Nixon's public statements" (Seidman and Gilmour 1986, 99-100). However, ''the evidence to support these White House suspicions is less than compelling." A study of the Nixon presidency based on data from 1976 "demonstrated that the 'clashing beliefs' between political officials and career administrators receded" over time, public rhetoric aside. Careerists need not have been considered the enemy. The indications are that
senior bureaucrats, like Supreme Court justices, "follow the election returns." They will in fact defer to a president and support his programs even when they are not happy with either. This was certainly the case during the Nixon years with respect to programs enacted by Congress that had the full authority of law behind them. Where the White House got into trouble in its dealings with the bureaucracy was when it tried to pursue objectives that seemed illegitimate [such as the impoundment strategy). . .. In any case, . . . the "pull" of the presidency is very strong as far as civil servants are concerned. (Rourke 1981, 137)
Whether the shift in Nixon's direction reflected careerist allegiance to neutral competence or simply an expedient listing to the prevailing political winds, "it bodes well for the ability of presidents to control bureaucracy" (ibid., 138).
1
Jimmy Carter had feelings about permanent Washington similar to Nixon's, running as he did as an outsider against the government, determined to master it. He shared with Nixon "a profound distrust of the bureaucracy and faith that bureaucrats can be brought to heel through structural change" (Seidman and Gilmour 1986, 112). However, a more
 
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sanguine view of Carter's feelings about the bureaucracy might be more accurate:
While Carter's preelection rhetoric was anti-bureaucratic, . . . unlike Nixon and Reagan, he did not identify the bureaucrats as the primary cause of the problem. His interest was less focused on dismantling particular bureaucracies and eliminating career jobs. This probably resulted in less conflict between the political appointees and career bureaucrats in the Carter administration, despite his apparent dislike for bureaucracy. (Joyce 1990a, 142)
It took Ronald Reagan in his campaign against Washington to turn the outsider's stance to full advantage. Rather than attempting a reorganization of the bureaucracy, he simply gutted and circumvented it. It was a strategy focused on command relationships and processes rather than on formal structure. It was, indeed, an administrative strategy of centralization that could bypass the recalcitrant Congress and bring the career bureaucracy to heel. The primary elements of this strategy were centralization of the budgetary, appointments, and decision-making processes and control and reduction of regulations (Seidman and Gilmour 1986, 127). Reagan's assault on the bureaucracy was direct, unmistakable, and involved massive personnel changes.
While moving ideologically screened appointees in, the administration also moved career federal employees out. From January 1981 to September 1983, the civilian (not including Post Office or Defense) employment of the government dropped by 92,0007.4%from 1,240,000 to 1,148,000. Twelve thousand employees lost their jobs as a result of reductions in force (RIFs) in FY 1981 and 1982. . . . Also, the administration made generous use of the provisions of the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 to reassign executives from one job or geographic location to another, resulting in some controversial and well-publicized resignations. (Salamon and Abramson 1984, 46-47)
Reagan's policy of privatizing and providing (if pushed) but not producing services through contracting out had an additional unexpected impact on the career civil service, reducing its role and authority. The new style of "administration through third parties converted the role of many senior career executives to that of grant and contract administrators, paymasters, and regulation writers and enforcers." Less and less deliverers of
 
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services, they came more and more to be overseers of a process, regulation enforcers with little creativity or initiative of their own. It is little wonder, then, that a 1983 survey of federal executives found them so angry over a whole host of issues (including salary and political pressure) that more than 70 percent of them declared that they would advise bright young people
not
to seek employment in the federal government (Seidman and Gilmour 1986, 134-35).
Careerist morale and credibility were damaged not just by RIFs and transfers but by the administration's assault on the very legitimacy of the programs they managed, placing them
in the awkward position of having to carry out instructions they felt were inconsistent with the statutes under which they [were] operating. Judicial rejection of many of the administration's regulatory interpretations testifies to the dilemma facing the career bureaucracy. Finally, the administration's tendency to appoint to subcabinet positions persons with strong ideological convictions and its efforts to plug information leaks from the bureaucracy have further undermined the opportunity for the bureaucracy to provide professional input that can influence policy decisions. (Salamon and Abramson 1984, 64)
Further, careerists who dared enter the fray between PASs and the Reagan White House risked dangerous shoals. While they could be key players in battles with the White House-supplying PASs with information, resources, and connections with the Congress and interest networks-their cooperation could backfire when the White House retaliated, as it inevitably would.
The more careerists help appointees win skirmishes against the Office of Management and Budget and the White House staff, the more they may lose the longer-term war over the proper care of a competent civil service. The desire to be responsive to appointees in trouble at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue may undermine future relationships with new appointees who have been carefully schooled in the disloyalties of the particular agency. (Light 1987, 161)
Presidents have several advantages over the career bureaucracy in the modern era. There has been a generalized decline in the willingness of the public to trust to expertise to solve the nation's problems. "When expertise loses its credibility, bureaucracy becomes less formidable as a competitor of the White House" (Rourke 1981, 139).

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