PDF The Gatekeepers How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency Chris Whipple 9780804138260 Books

Download As PDF : The Gatekeepers How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency Chris Whipple 9780804138260 Books

Now with a chapter on the chaos in the Trump administration, the New York Times bestselling, behind-the-scenes look at the White House Chiefs of Staff, whose actions—and inactions—have defined the course of our country.

What do Dick Cheney and Rahm Emanuel have in common? Aside from polarizing personalities, both served as chief of staff to the president of the United States—as did Donald Rumsfeld, Leon Panetta, and a relative handful of others. The chiefs of staff, often referred to as "the gatekeepers," wield tremendous power in Washington and beyond; they decide who is allowed to see the president, negotiate with Congress to push POTUS's agenda, and—most crucially—enjoy unparalleled access to the leader of the free world. Each chief can make or break an administration, and each president reveals himself by the chief he picks. 

Through extensive, intimate interviews with eighteen living chiefs (including Reince Priebus) and two former presidents, award-winning journalist and producer Chris Whipple pulls back the curtain on this unique fraternity. In doing so, he revises our understanding of presidential history, showing us how James Baker’s expert managing of the White House, the press, and Capitol Hill paved the way for the Reagan Revolution—and, conversely, how Watergate, the Iraq War, and even the bungled Obamacare rollout might have been prevented by a more effective chief. 

Filled with shrewd analysis and never-before-reported details, The Gatekeepers offers an essential portrait of the toughest job in Washington.

PDF The Gatekeepers How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency Chris Whipple 9780804138260 Books

"Although this book does not deal specifically with the current administration, it deals with past presidents and how the dealt with the running of the presidency, namely the chief of staff. As you read it, my mind often went to "What's going on at the White House today; whose making the decisions; and who is the president listening to." This book is a wonderful insight into the daily life of the presidency and frankly, how the chief of staff in many cases was able to make or break a president's reputation. There were times that I found the book scary in the sense of one wonders whose really running the ship of state.

For those interested in political dialogue, its a very interesting read."

Product details Paperback 400 pages Publisher Broadway Books; Reprint edition (March 6, 2018) Language English ISBN-10 9780804138260 ISBN-13 978-0804138260 ASIN 0804138265

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The Gatekeepers How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency Chris Whipple 9780804138260 Books Reviews :

The Gatekeepers How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency Chris Whipple 9780804138260 Books Reviews

• This is a really good overview of the role a chief of staff plays in making a successful presidency - or in leaving a presidency exposed to mistakes of policy and politics that can damage the executive's ability to get things done.
  
  Whipple gives brief vignettes of the various Chiefs from Nixon's H.R. Haldeman through Obama's Dennis McDonough (with more or less emphasis given the impact each had on the functioning of the White House). He catalogues their successes and failures and through the overview, one comes away with a good idea of what makes success and what behaviors and actions (or lack thereof) serves an executive poorly. Those interested in political history, politics or recent history will find this fascinating. I think anyone who is tasked as a chief-of-staff, or even a number-two the chief executive of a large organization that must deal with external as well as internal interests would be able to glean a lot of good lessons from Whipple's work.
  
  This book is short as are most of the chapters, but the author does an excellent job of focusing on the key aspects of Chiefs and their work at managing the White House and presidency. While this book could have been titled "James A. Baker and All the Rest," there are a number of Chiefs from both parties who Whipple holds up as great examples of how the enterprise can work well. Equally helpful are some who missed the mark and mishandled their stewardship of this important post.
• Although this book does not deal specifically with the current administration, it deals with past presidents and how the dealt with the running of the presidency, namely the chief of staff. As you read it, my mind often went to "What's going on at the White House today; whose making the decisions; and who is the president listening to." This book is a wonderful insight into the daily life of the presidency and frankly, how the chief of staff in many cases was able to make or break a president's reputation. There were times that I found the book scary in the sense of one wonders whose really running the ship of state.
  
  For those interested in political dialogue, its a very interesting read.
• "The Gatekeepers How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency," by Chris Whipple, is a frank, hot-off-the-press book that incidentally addresses, with stunning and humorous detail, a key dilemma for all CEOs—what’s better a chief of staff or seven or more direct reports?
  
  On Dec. 5, 2008, 12 of the 14 living former chiefs of staff to U.S. presidents gathered at the White House to give advice to Rahm Emmanuel—soon to become the chief of staff to Barack Obama. They didn’t hold back, as Whipple eloquently describes in this robust page-turner book. I couldn’t put it down—and I’m quoting from it almost every day. (Ask my wife.)
  
  I’ve listed 38 “True or False” questions from the book (or not?). The answers are listed at the end of the quiz.
  
  TRUE OR FALSE?
  
  H.R. (BOB) HALDEMAN, 1ST Chief to President Richard Nixon (1969-73)
  [ ] T/F “…Haldeman’s successors credit him with creating the model for the modern White House chief. There is no one-size-fits-all template; every president has different needs. But the ‘staff system’ conceived by Haldeman is a model of governance designed to prevent calamity. Time and again, presidencies that have failed to follow it have paid a heavy price.”
  [ ] T/F “The executive branch of the U.S. is the largest corporation in the world. It has the most awesome responsibilities of any corporation in the world, the largest budget of any corporation in the world, and the largest number of employees. Yet the entire senior management structure and team have to be formed in a period of 75 days.”
  [ ] T/F “The president’s time is his most valuable asset.”
  [ ] T/F Haldeman’s speech to Nixon’s incoming staff noted, “How we decide what is major and what is minor is the key to whether this is a good White House staff or a lousy one.”
  [ ] T/F “When asked what books the president was currently reading, he would answer with another question, what books did I recommend the president read?”
  
  GEN. ALEXANDER HAIG, 2nd Chief to President Richard Nixon and Interim Chief to President Gerald Ford (1973-74)
  [ ] T/F Haig was President Nixon’s last chief of staff and held that role when Nixon resigned on Aug. 9, 1974. He served as Ford’s chief for just 44 days. “Haig, scheming and mercurial, acted as though he was the president, and Ford his understudy.”
  [ ] T/F “From the start, Gerald Ford’s White House resembled a kids' soccer game, everyone running toward the ball. Ford had announced that he would govern with eight or nine principal advisers reporting directly to the president—a circle, with Ford at the center. He called it ‘the spokes of the wheel.’ But the result was chaos and dysfunction.”
  
  DONALD RUMSFELD, 1st Chief to President Gerald Ford (1974-75)
  [ ] T/F Rumsfeld convinced Ford that the “spokes of the wheel” organizational chart didn’t work. Ford noted, “Without a strong decision-maker who could help me set my priorities, I’d be hounded to death by gnats and fleas. I wouldn’t have time to reflect on basic strategy or the fundamental direction of the presidency.”
  [ ] T/F “Genial and outgoing, Gerald Ford saw the best in everybody; it was Rumsfeld’s job to suspect the worst.”
  [ ] T/F Advice to Rahm Emmanuel “Immediately pick your successor.”
  [ ] T/F “Unflinching, even by Rumsfeld’s standards,” the chief sent a memo to the president, prior to Ford’s re-election campaign, that “must rank as one of the most scathing missives ever sent to a president.” The final section of the memo, “EFFECTIVENESS,” urged Ford to focus on just “three to five big things” that demonstrated his administration had “sensible answers for the questions Americans are asking…”
  
  DICK CHENEY, 2nd Chief to President Gerald Ford (1975-77)
  [ ] T/F “Back in the 1970s, Cheney [who also served as Vice President to George W. Bush] had taken a job aptitude test. His ideal career match? An undertaker.”
  
  PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER (no chief 1977-79)
  [ ] T/F This book “is the story of how Carter, the quintessential outsider thought he could act as his own chief, thereby crippling his presidency.”
  
  HAMILTON JORDAN, “de facto”1st Chief to President Jimmy Carter (1979-80)
  [ ] T/F “The ‘spokes of the wheel’ approach was not working.” So reluctantly, “two and a half years into his presidency, Carter agreed to give Ham Jordan the duties, and the title, of chief of staff. But it was obvious that Carter had gone all in on a bad bet He had chosen the wrong person for the job.”
  [ ] T/F Author Chris Whipple “Overconfidence is an occupational hazard for incoming presidents—perhaps especially to Carter.”
  [ ] T/F “No detail of government was too trivial for the president’s attention.”
  [ ] T/F “We were at a reunion one day,” recalls Arnie Miller, a former White House aide, “and I said to Carter, ‘Thank you for empowering us to do things.’ And he said, ‘I didn’t do anything. I just read your memos.’ I said, ‘You didn’t just read them, you corrected the typos!’ That’s the level of detail he got into, which the chief of staff should have been doing.” The author adds, “Instead, the president personally signed off on everything from typos in memos to requests to play on the White House tennis court.”
  
  JACK WATSON, 2nd Chief to President Jimmy Carter (1980-81)
  [ ] T/F The role of White House Chief of Staff is that of a “javelin catcher.”
  
  JAMES BAKER, 1ST Chief to President Ronald Reagan (1981-85)
  [ ] T/F “You can very well make the argument that White House chief of staff is the second-most-powerful job in government.”
  [ ] T/F “The man considered the gold standard in the job, James Baker, found the experience so emotionally grueling and deeply painful that he went to Ronald Reagan and tried, unsuccessfully, to quit.”
  [ ] T/F “As for Reagan, when it came to firing people, he was a marshmallow; the president believed in second, third, and often fourth chances.”
  
  DONALD REGAN, 2ND Chief to President Ronald Reagan (1985-87)
  [ ] T/F “As chief of staff, Baker had been emphatic ‘The most important word in the title is staff.’ Regan had other ideas.
  [ ] T/F “When Baker heard about the incident, he knew Regan was finished. ‘He hung up on the first lady!’ Baker recalls, still incredulous, 30 years later. ‘That’s not just a firing offense. That may be a hanging offense!”
  
  HOWARD BAKER, 3rd Chief to President Ronald Reagan (1987-88)
  [ ] T/F “Joy Baker, the wife of Howard Baker Jr., was at their summer home in Florida when the phone rang. ‘It was the president, and he said he’d like to speak to Howard,’ she recalled. ‘I told him that Howard was at the zoo with his grandchildren. And the president said, ‘Well, wait until he sees the zoo I have in mind.’”
  [ ] T/F After a spirited one-on-one meeting with Nancy Reagan, Baker told a colleague “Don’t let anyone tell you that there has never been a woman president of the United States!”
  
  KEN DUBERSTEIN, 4th Chief to President Ronald Reagan (1988-89)
  [ ] T/F “One of the problems with Don Regan was that he shut the door to the Oval Office. My attitude was, instead of having Reagan read all the material, open the door and let him see people. He’s an actor. He likes to look at people. He learns that way—whether it was congressmen or White House staff or cabinet officers.”
  [ ] T/F Two years after Reagan’s historic speech, “…the Berlin Wall would indeed come down, and the Soviet Union would crumble. ‘He knew what he wanted to accomplish and he went and accomplished it,’ says Duberstein. ‘As he would say in his farewell address, not bad, not bad at all for a B-movie actor.’”
  
  JOHN SUNUNU, 1st Chief to President George H.W. Bush (1989-91)
  [ ] T/F “Sununu was better at managing the boss than the staff, and Bush welcomed his whip-cracking efficiency as a gatekeeper.”
  [ ] T/F Per Brent Scowcroft “Sununu wanted to be the prime minister.”
  [ ] T/F “His penchant for playing prime minister led him to screen out policy proposals he didn’t like. Cabinet secretaries complained so bitterly that the president set up a post office box at his home in Kennebunkport—a back channel for messages that would otherwise get spiked by the chief.”
  [ ] T/F Sununu “This was a very involved president, a very agenda-driven president, a very goal-oriented president.”
  [ ] T/F “I think being chief of staff was the easiest job I ever had. It’s the job where I had all the resources that were necessary in order to do the job. I was never in doubt as to what the president wanted. And so I was able to go home every night with virtually everything quite tidy.”
  [ ] T/F “At a bill-signing ceremony on the White House lawn, he shouted at a Washington Post reporter ‘You’re a liar. All your stories are lies. Everything you write is a lie!’”
  [ ] T/F Some years later, Sununu admits, “…thinking that not talking to the press was a strong plus…I did that out of loyalty to the president. I didn’t realize that maintaining better relationship with the press would have been of value to the president.”
  [ ] T/F When calls for Sununu’s resignation became too loud to ignore, George H.W. Bush asked his son, George W. Bush (then 45-years-old), to inform Sununu. Why? Bush 41 was “allergic to confrontation.”
  
  SAM SKINNER, 2nd Chief of Staff to President George H.W. Bush (1991-92)
  [ ] T/F “Skinner should have known he was in for a rough year On his first day as chief of staff, George Bush threw up on the prime minister of Japan.”
  
  JAMES BAKER, 3rd Chief to President George H.W. Bush (1992-93)
  [ ] T/F “The people who don’t succeed…are people who like the chief part of the job and not the staff part of the job.”
  
  You’ll have to read the book to see if the chiefs of staff to Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama fared any better! For example
  
  [ ] T/F Wondering if Clinton would be as good at governing as he was at campaigning, one staff “would sum up the frustration of his first year and a half ‘We went from War Room to Dorm Room.’”
  
  ANSWERS You guessed it. They are ALL true. (Yikes!)
• Terrific book! Chris Whipple does an excellent job detailing the background of many of the issues of our times and how the Chief of Staff affected the outcome. Good insight into each President while keeping it all factual. Reader of the audio book, Mark Bramhall, has a smooth voice and didn't get bogged down with any dramatics while reading...just kept it steady and clear - great job! Overall I found the book well worth the price and only wished Chris had added another 50-100 pages.