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White House Chief of Staff

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(Redirected from White House chiefs of staff) U.S. presidential appointee
White House Chief of Staff
Incumbent
Jeff Zients
since February 8, 2023
Executive Office of the President
White House Office
Reports toPresident of the United States
AppointerPresident of the United States
Formation1946 (Assistant to the President)
1961 (White House Chief of Staff)
First holderJohn R. Steelman
Websitewww.whitehouse.gov
President Joe Biden walks with Chief of Staff Ron Klain along the Colonnade of the White House.
Chief of Staff Jack Watson (1980–1981) meets with President Jimmy Carter in the Oval Office.
President George H. W. Bush sits at his desk in the Oval Office Study as Chief of Staff John Sununu stands nearby.
Chief of Staff Reince Priebus looks into the Oval Office as President Donald J. Trump reads over his notes.

President Barack Obama meets with White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel in the Oval Office.

The White House chief of staff is the head of the Executive Office of the President of the United States, a cabinet position in the federal government of the United States.

The chief of staff is a political appointee of the president of the United States who does not require Senate confirmation, and who serves at the pleasure of the President. While not a legally required role, all presidents since Harry S. Truman have appointed a chief of staff.

In the administration of Joe Biden, the current chief of staff is Jeff Zients, who succeeded Ron Klain on February 8, 2023. The chief of staff is the most senior political appointee in the White House. The position is widely recognized as one of great power and influence, owing to daily contact with the president of the United States and control of the Executive Office of the President of the United States.

Historical background

Originally, the duties now performed by the chief of staff belonged to the president's private secretary and were fulfilled by crucial confidantes and policy advisers such as George B. Cortelyou, Joseph Tumulty, and Louis McHenry Howe to presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Franklin Roosevelt, respectively. The private secretary served as the president's de facto chief aide, in a role that combined personal and professional assignments of highly delicate and demanding natures, requiring great skill and utmost discretion. The job of gatekeeper and overseeing the president's schedule was separately delegated to the appointments secretary, as with aide Edwin "Pa" Watson.

From 1933 to 1939, as he greatly expanded the scope of the federal government's policies and powers in response to the Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt relied on his 'Brain Trust' of top advisers. Although working directly for the president, they were often appointed to vacant positions in federal agencies and departments, whence they drew their salaries since the White House lacked statutory or budgetary authority to create staff positions. It was not until 1939, during Roosevelt's second term in office, that the foundations of the modern White House staff were created using a formal structure. Roosevelt was able to persuade Congress to approve the creation of the Executive Office of the President, which would report directly to the president. During World War II, Roosevelt created the position of "Chief of Staff to the Commander-in-Chief" for his principal military adviser, Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy.

In 1946, in response to the rapid growth of the U.S. government's executive branch, the position of "Assistant to the President of the United States" was established. Charged with the affairs of the White House, it was the immediate predecessor to the modern chief of staff. It was in 1953, under Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower, that the president's preeminent assistant was designated the "White House Chief of Staff".

Assistant to the president became a rank generally shared by the chief of staff along with the other most senior presidential aides such as the White House counsel, the White House press secretary, and others. This new system did not catch on immediately however. Presidents Kennedy and Johnson still relied on their appointments secretaries instead, and it was not until the Nixon administration that the chief of staff took over maintenance of the President's schedule. This concentration of power in the Nixon and Ford White House (whose last chief of staff was Dick Cheney) led presidential candidate Jimmy Carter to campaign in 1976 with the promise that he would not appoint a chief of staff. And indeed, for the first two and a half years of his presidency, he appointed no one to the post.

Average tenure in office

The average tenure for a White House chief of staff is just over 18 months. The inaugural chief of staff, John R. Steelman, under Harry S. Truman, was the president's only chief of staff; Kenneth O'Donnell alone served in the position during John F. Kennedy's unfinished term of 34 months in office. Andrew Card and Denis McDonough each served at least one entire presidential term of office under presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, respectively.

Role

Chris Whipple, author of The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency, loosely describes the role of a White House chief of staff through his interview with former president Barack Obama:

During the last days of his presidency, Barack Obama observed: 'One of the things I've learned is that the big breakthroughs are typically the result of a lot of grunt work—just a whole lot of blocking and tackling.' Grunt work is what chiefs of staff do.

— Chris Whipple

The responsibilities of the chief of staff are both managerial and advisory and may include the following:

  • Selecting senior White House staffers and supervising their offices' activities;
  • Managing and designing the overall structure of the White House staff system;
  • Control the flow of people into the Oval Office;
  • Manage the flow of information to and decisions from the Resolute Desk (with the White House staff secretary);
  • Directing, managing and overseeing all policy development;
  • Protecting the political interests of the president;
  • Negotiating legislation and appropriating funds with United States Congress leaders, Cabinet secretaries, and extra-governmental political groups to implement the president's agenda; and
  • Advise on any and usually various issues set by the president.

These responsibilities have recently extended to firing of senior staff members. In the case of Omarosa Manigault Newman, who published a tape she alleged was made in the Situation Room of her firing by Chief of Staff John Kelly, the chief of staff said that his decision for her departure was non-negotiable and that "the staff and everyone on the staff works for me and not the president."

Richard Nixon's first chief of staff, H. R. Haldeman, garnered a reputation in Washington for the iron hand he wielded in the position. Referring to himself as "the president's son-of-a-bitch", he was a rigid gatekeeper who would frequently meet with administration officials in place of the president, and then report himself to Nixon on the officials' talking points. Journalist Bob Woodward, in his books All the President's Men (1974) and The Secret Man (2005), wrote that many of his sources, including Mark Felt, later revealed as "Deep Throat", displayed a genuine fear of Haldeman.

List of White House chiefs of staff

Image Name Start End Duration President
John Steelman December 12, 1946 January 20, 1953 6 years, 39 days Harry S. Truman
(1945–1953)
Sherman Adams January 20, 1953 October 7, 1958 5 years, 260 days Dwight D. Eisenhower
(1953–1961)
Wilton Persons October 7, 1958 January 20, 1961 2 years, 105 days
Kenneth O'Donnell
De facto
January 20, 1961 November 22, 1963 2 years, 306 days John F. Kennedy
(1961–1963)
Walter Jenkins
De facto
November 22, 1963 October 14, 1964 327 days Lyndon B. Johnson
(1963–1969)
Bill Moyers
De facto
October 14, 1964 July 8, 1965 267 days
Jack Valenti
De facto
July 8, 1965 June 1, 1966 328 days
Marvin Watson
De facto
June 1, 1966 April 26, 1968 1 year, 330 days
James Jones
De facto
April 26, 1968 January 20, 1969 269 days
Bob Haldeman January 20, 1969 April 30, 1973 4 years, 100 days Richard Nixon
(1969–1974)
Vacant April 30, 1973 May 4, 1973 4 days
Al Haig May 4, 1973 September 21, 1974 1 year, 140 days
Gerald Ford
(1974–1977)
Donald Rumsfeld September 21, 1974 November 20, 1975 1 year, 60 days
Dick Cheney November 20, 1975 January 20, 1977 1 year, 61 days
Vacant January 20, 1977 July 18, 1979 2 years, 179 days Jimmy Carter
(1977–1981)
Ham Jordan July 18, 1979 June 11, 1980 329 days
Jack Watson June 11, 1980 January 20, 1981 223 days
James Baker January 20, 1981 February 4, 1985 4 years, 15 days Ronald Reagan
(1981–1989)
Don Regan February 4, 1985 February 27, 1987 2 years, 23 days
Howard Baker February 27, 1987 July 1, 1988 1 year, 125 days
Ken Duberstein July 1, 1988 January 20, 1989 203 days
John Sununu January 20, 1989 December 16, 1991 2 years, 330 days George H. W. Bush
(1989–1993)
Samuel Skinner December 16, 1991 August 23, 1992 251 days
James Baker August 23, 1992 January 20, 1993 150 days
Mack McLarty January 20, 1993 July 17, 1994 1 year, 178 days Bill Clinton
(1993–2001)
Leon Panetta July 17, 1994 January 20, 1997 2 years, 187 days
Erskine Bowles January 20, 1997 October 20, 1998 1 year, 273 days
John Podesta October 20, 1998 January 20, 2001 2 years, 92 days
Andy Card January 20, 2001 April 14, 2006 5 years, 84 days George W. Bush
(2001–2009)
Josh Bolten April 14, 2006 January 20, 2009 2 years, 281 days
Rahm Emanuel January 20, 2009 October 1, 2010 1 year, 254 days Barack Obama
(2001–2009)
Pete Rouse
Acting
October 1, 2010 January 13, 2011 104 days
Bill Daley January 13, 2011 January 27, 2012 1 year, 14 days
Jack Lew January 27, 2012 January 20, 2013 359 days
Denis McDonough January 20, 2013 January 20, 2017 4 years, 0 days
Reince Priebus January 20, 2017 July 31, 2017 192 days Donald Trump
(2017–2021)
John Kelly July 31, 2017 January 2, 2019 1 year, 155 days
Mick Mulvaney
Acting
January 2, 2019 March 31, 2020 1 year, 89 days
Mark Meadows March 31, 2020 January 20, 2021 295 days
Ron Klain January 20, 2021 February 7, 2023 192 days Joe Biden
(2021–2025)
Jeff Zients February 8, 2023 January 20, 2025 1 year, 318 days
Susie Wiles January 20, 2025 Designate −29 days Donald Trump
(2025)

See also

References

  1. "New Quarters". Time. December 17, 1934. Archived from the original on January 20, 2009. Retrieved May 8, 2008.
  2. "An Appointment". Time. August 20, 1923. Archived from the original on December 22, 2008. Retrieved May 9, 2009.
  3. Hassett, William D. (1958). Off The Record With FDR 1942–1945. Chicago, Illinois: Rutgers University Press. p. 36. Retrieved May 9, 2009.
  4. "Hamilton Jordan, Carter's Right Hand, Dies at 63". The New York Times. May 21, 2008. Retrieved March 7, 2016.
  5. Michael Nelson (2013). The Presidency and the Political System. SAGE Publications. p. 351. ISBN 9781483322896. Retrieved March 7, 2016.
  6. ^ Whipple, Chris. (2017). The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency. New York: Crown Publishing Group.
  7. "Transcript". CNN. August 13, 2018.
  8. Woodward, Bob; Bernstein, Carl. (1974) All the President's Men. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-671-21781-5
  9. Woodward, Bob. (2005). The Secret Man. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-7432-8715-0
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