The Modern American Presidency

In 1896, the White House employed just six stenographers and a handful of clerks and secretaries. A century later, the staff had swelled to thousands. How this change occurred--and what it did to the presidency--is the subject of Gould's astute primer in executive power and privilege. The focus is on bureaucracy: how each president assembled a staff, coordinated with Congress and projected his agenda (and image) to the press. Gould (The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt) sees William McKinley as the unrecognized father of the modern presidency: the first to appear on film, build a war room and use commissions to avoid congressional oversight. He was also the first to appoint a de facto chief of staff, a position that would become one of the most powerful in Washington. Gould has similarly illuminating insights on most of McKinley's successors. He shows that the staged""photo op"" of today has its roots with Franklin Roosevelt, whose handlers were forced by his disability to make elaborate preparations for public appearances. Gould also notes that Woodrow Wilson was the first president to deliver the State of the Union address in person and that Richard Nixon installed the""continuous campaign"" long before Dick Morris instructed Bill Clinton to do it. To be sure, this is strictly an introductory text; moreover, not every president has the goods to provoke worthwhile analysis. Nonetheless, this is a concise, intelligent survey of the transformations of the White House over the past century. 36 b&w photos.