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The Office of the Staff Secretary, a unit recommended by the first Hoover Commission, appeared in the WhiteHouse Office in fall 1953. Since then, many ofits original tasks have become the responsibility ofthe Office ofAdministration. The contemporary staffsecretary serves as the Ut substantive control point before papers reach the Oval Office. "In addition, the staff secretary ypically supervises the Offices of the Executive Clerk, Records Management, and Correspondence. Given the pivotal place ofthe Office of the Staff Secretary in presidential paper, flow, it handles complex policy issues and its work can b highly political. The staff secretary also must be sure that others respond to presidential directives or to questions elicited by the papers the president sees. This article sheds light on the operations of this important unit and summarizes useful approaches to the job of staff secretary.
The subject of White House staffing has never been the centerpiece of presidency literature. However, among the times when staffing should be the primary focus is the transition period when the president-elect prepares to become the next president. This article was prepared as part of a larger project designed to assist incoming White House staff by providing them with an "institutional memory" of sorts, describing and explaining the responsibilities, activities, and structuring of key White House offices.
When one thinks of the White House, one may well envision numerous components-- virtually all essential to the sitting president and most competing for the president's attention. A study ofthe Office ofthe Staff Secretary reveals that this little known entity1 is indeed at the vortex of presidential action, as it determines what paperwork makes its way in and out of the Oval Office. We draw on the experiences and insights of previous presidential aides to provide a show to" manual of sorts that would be useful to incoming staff secretaries and their staffs, particularly those who enter with a new administration. Not intended to be a theoretical or an exhaustive study of the Office of the Staff Secretary, this article seeks to offer a more practical perspective of the inner workings of this key White House unit.
We proceed in four stages. Part 1 identifies the primary tasks of the staff secretary and, in the process, highlights the magnitude...