Presidential Aide Meeting Praised for Historic Value

A two-day seminar of top advisers to former American presidents ended Saturday with sponsors saying the discussions will help provide future presidents with a blueprint for managing their administrations.

The unprecedented summit meeting of key presidential advisers, representing administrations from Dwight Eisenhower through Jimmy Carter, gathered at UC San Diego, as part of the university’s 25th anniversary celebration.

While the advisers acknowledged that they had differing styles and methods of conducting business, they agreed there is great value in passing on their knowledge to future chiefs of staff, if only to give them a look at the broad spectrum of how others handled the job.

Sam Popkin, a UCSD political science professor and a panelist, said the significance of the seminar is that it will allow future presidents, starting with the “president-elect in 1988,” to have a foundation from which to build their top staff, and perhaps avoid mistakes.

In fact, Popkin predicted, transcripts of the two-day meeting will be more valuable than any of the scores of books written about the internal workings of the presidency. He said the university would make sure the transcripts are given to the next president.

“A president has to make very important decisions,” said Theodore Sorensen, adviser to John F. Kennedy. “The most important is the choice of his principal White House staff.”

Taking notice of the cordial atmosphere in which the advisers met, Sorensen said it had to do with a common bond shared by the former advisers.

“Despite our disparate political views, we’re all professionals dedicated to a good U.S. government.”

Only the Lyndon Johnson Administration was not represented Saturday, because Harry McPherson, Johnson’s special assistant, left after the Friday session. Also absent was Alexander M. Haig, chief of staff for Richard Nixon and President Reagan’s first Secretary of State. The Nixon Administration was represented, however, by H. R. Haldeman, who served as Nixon’s chief of staff before Haig.

Attending Saturday’s session along with Sorensen and Haldeman were Andrew Goodpaster, from the Eisenhower Administration; Donald Rumsfeld, who served in the Nixon and Ford administrations; Richard Cheney, a Ford Administration aide, and Jack H. Watson Jr., chief of staff for President Carter.

Stability Necessary

The advisers agreed that a stable and honest top staff is necessary not only for the good of the president but for the good of the nation.

“There’ve been four national security advisers in the Reagan Administration in five years. That’s not healthy for this country,” Rumsfeld said. “It’s damaging to this country. You don’t get good on that job in five minutes.”

As they did on Friday, the advisers were congenial and relaxed, at times engaging in banter and swapping amusing anecdotes. Although they never really let their guard down, they talked about stressful behind-the-scenes tensions and exchanged sharp comments among themselves.

Watson received a hearty laugh from his counterparts when he described the job of chief of staff. It’s not like that of a utility infielder, quarterback or goalie, he said, but “more like a javelin catcher.”

While the panelists mildly criticized the press and public for dwelling too much on personalities and not enough on issues of substance, they also agreed the tug-of-war between strong egos was an important element of their jobs.

Sorensen said that at first, Robert Kennedy had problems with the White House’s internal management structure supervised by Sorensen. “Bobby was not willing to submit his legislative plans and policies to my office as other cabinet members did,” Sorensen said. “Later he realized coordination made more sense.”

Difficulties With Kissinger

Both Rumsfeld and Cheney talked about the difficulties Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of State and head of the National Security Council, posed for President Ford. Cheney, who called Kissinger a “super personality,” said Ford wanted Kissinger’s “intellect.” But what happened is “the president (wasn’t) getting credit for foreign policy, Henry Kissinger (was) getting credit.”

Finally, after Ford “wrestled with (it) for a long time . . . Henry lost his second hat,” that of national security adviser. Cheney also had something to say about Kissinger’s long-running feud with Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the Ford Administration’s United Nations Ambassador and now a U.S. Senator from New York.

“I can’t count how many times, once a month, either Pat Moynihan or Henry Kissinger was threatening to resign,” said Cheney, recalling the “battle of those big egos.”

Part of Cheney’s job was to try and soothe the embattled parties, and sometimes this meant intervention by the president. “Sometimes it’s a matter of a little presidential stroking,” Cheney said, noting how Ford one time asked Moynihan to stick around after a cabinet meeting.

“ ‘Pat, the president would like to see you for 20 minutes,’ ” Cheney said, reconstructing the event. “Then they’d sit in the Oval Office and the president would tell him what a good job he was doing.”

Watson, who described the Carter cabinet as generally harmonious, said the biggest rift during his tenure at the White House involved Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, who resigned after the ill-fated attempt to rescue the American hostages in Iran, and Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski, the president’s national security adviser. In this case, Watson was unable to remedy the squabble and “the arbiter there was the president himself.” But Watson had his own thoughts about the matter.

“In my opinion,” he said, “the way to solve that would have been to get rid of Brzezinski.”

Solve Problems Internally

Haldeman said the press’s preoccupation with turf battles and personality conflicts may be “pretty titillating stuff,” but it doesn’t further “the cause of good government.” Haldeman, who resigned as chief of staff as a result of the Watergate scandal, said, “The way you solve internal problems is internally.”

Chiefs of staff “work within the president’s office . . . not in the press room and on the street,” Haldeman said, responding to a suggestion from James Squires, editor of the Chicago Tribune and a panelist, that advisers and presidents should be more open and candid about the inner workings of the White House.

“I had problems . . . but you didn’t hear about them,” Haldeman said.

Saturday’s session was closed to the public. It was not marked by the protests staged the first day, when about 300 people gathered outside the seminar and complained that few students were allowed inside.

The session Saturday met in a large conference room with only about 30 people, including reporters and guests of the university and panel, watching the proceedings. The panel itself consisted of the six advisers and 14 others, including three members of the press and various professors and researchers.

The two-day session was recorded and filmed, and a one-hour program about the seminar will be produced for public television stations and broadcast nationwide. In addition, a book about the seminar will be published.