Stephen Hess Book Updated: Organizing the Presidency

Washington—Organizing the White House and staffing key positions in their administrations are among the most important decisions modern American presidents make. These decisions reflect their own management style, political ideology, and personality. The successes and failures of our presidents often hinge on these decisions.

Brookings Senior Fellow Stephen Hess, himself a veteran of White House service, has written frequently about presidents. In 1976—in the wake of the Watergate scandal and the resignation of President Nixon—he wrote the original edition of Organizing the Presidency (Brookings Institution Press). It so impressed Jimmy Carter that the incoming president asked Hess for advice on organizing his White House.

New editions, updating the chronicle of subsequent White House organizations, have been issued over the years. The latest edition, carrying the analysis through the first years of the current George W. Bush administration, has just been published.

At this forum, officials who served in the Executive Office of the President under nine Chief Executives, including Franklin D. Roosevelt, will discuss the White House organizations and appointments they knew firsthand. They will draw lessons for the present and the future.