The President and His Political Executives

• Author: Stephen K. Bailey
• Published date: 01 September 1956
• Date: 01 September 1956
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/000271625630700105
• Subject Matter: Articles

24

The

President

and

His

Political

Executives

By

STEPHEN

K.

BAILEY

N ICH4LAS

I,

the

&dquo;Iron

Czar&dquo;

of

N

Russia,

was

reputed

to

have

said

shortly

before

his

death,

&dquo;I

do

not

rule

Russia;

ten

thousand

clerks

do.&dquo;

Nicholas,

unfortunately,

was

silent

on

the

extent

to

which

he

ruled the

ten

thousand

clerks.

For

if

the

ten

thou-

sand

clerks

were

his

clerks,

then he

ruled

Russia.

If

they

were

not

his

clerks,

he

did

not.

More

than

time

and

space

separates

nineteenth-century

Russian

Czars

and

modern

American

Presidents.

But

time

and

theory

are

great

solvents.

Czars,

presidents,

pharaohs,

kings,

business

executives,

labor

leaders,

prime

minis-

ters,

popes,

military

commanders-all

have

been

forced

by

occupational

neces-

sity

to

consider

the

question

of

how

(and

to

what

extent)

they

should

at-

tempt

to

control

a

sizable

bureaucracy.

And

the

answer

has

invariably

been

conditioned

by

the

number

of

&dquo;clerks&dquo;

who

could

be

induced,

by

discipline

or

free

response

to

leadership,

to

consider

themselves

loyal

to

the

Chief

Executive.

The

federal

government

of

the

United

States

today

employs

more

than

2,300,-

000

persons.

These

employees

exist

to

recommend

and

to

carry

out

a

bewilder-

ing

array

of

national

policies.

THE

EXECUTIVE

BRANCH-RANGE

AND

VARIETY

These

policies

have

developed

over

time

in

response

to

a

variety

of

needs

and

demands.

Responsibility

for

their

execution

has

been

lodged

in

nearly

seventy

departments

and

agencies

and

over

two

thousand

component

units-

some

old,

some

new;

some

big,

some

small;

some

single-purposed,

some multi-

purposed ;

some

concentrated

geographi-

cally,

some

widely

scattered;

some

highly

responsive

to

Presidential

influ-

ence

and

control,

some

almost

totally

immune

to

Presidential

influence

and

control.

These

federal

departments

and

agen-

cies,

and

their

component

units,

are

managed

internally

by

a

strange

ad-

mixture

of

careerists

(civil,

diplomatic,

and

military)

and

political

appointees

(department

secretaries,

under

secre-

taries,

assistant

secretaries,

deputies,

administrators,

directors,

commission-

ers,

special

assistants,

etc.).

Function-

ally,

except

at

the

highest

levels,

it

is

rarely

possible

to

separate

the

roles

of

careerists

and

political

appointees.

At

the

levels

of

middle

management,

both

categories

are

&dquo;political

executives&dquo;

in

a

policy

sense.

Attempts

at

differentia-

tion

on

the

basis

of

degrees

of

political

responsibility

are

at

best

difficult

in

a

governmental

system

which

is

marked

by

intentional

constitutional

ambigui-

ties

and

by

a

signal

lack

of

party

co-

hesiveness.

The

executive

branch

of

the

federal

government

is,

in

short,

a

many-splin-

tered

thing,

and

short

of

subjection

to

the

kinds

of

instruments

of

conformity

available

to

Czar

Nicholas,

particularly

the

dreaded

Third

Section

of

the

Em-

peror’s

private

chancery,

it

is

bound

to

remain

so.

But

how

much

so?

Surely

some

unity

of

direction

is

necessary.

Our

Constitution

provides

for

it;

our

national

safety

and

welfare

demand

it.

It

is

true

that

some

ad-

ministrative

anomalies

may

be

little

more

than

unaesthetic,

as

when

in

President

Wilson’s

day

brown

bears