Richard Nixon and the Creation of the Modern Presidency

Richard Nixon and the Creation of the Modern Presidency
Nixon Legacy Forum
Franklin & Marshall College
Lancaster, PA
January 29, 2014

An on-stage discussion featuring Andrew M. Rouse, Executive Director of President Nixon’s Advisory Council on Executive Organization (Ash Council). He talked about how the Council provided recommendations for measuring the impact and efficiency of Federal policy, minimizing bureaucratic inertia, and solving the overlapping and often conflicting missions of departments and agencies government-wide. Geoff Shepard, an Associate Director of President Nixon’s Domestic Council moderated.

The Ash Council (President’s Advisory Council on Executive Organization)

PICTURE: President Nixon standing with Ash Council in San Clemente (8_20_69_37whpo-1853-03-i-whpo-ec)

Background

Upon winning the presidential election of 1968 President-elect Richard Nixon began the process of preparing to assume the presidency in January of 1969. Given his experience in government and his vision for a more modern presidency Richard Nixon knew the work that had been assigned to his pre-presidential task force was not a small one. To make the most efficient use of the time as possible President-elect Nixon set up seventeen task forces to study the various aspects of the Executive Branch and determine how to modernize the branch and make the presidency more effective.

After the inauguration President Nixon began to put the task force recommendations into actions. President Nixon recognized the federal government had grown considerably since the 1930s and the ability to govern effectively had been diminished. President Nixon believed the machinery of the federal government of the United States has grown obsolete. Therefore, he sought to reorganize the operations of the Executive Office of the President to make it more responsive to the president’s desires, and more accountable to the people.

President Nixon sought to transform the Executive Office of the President from one where the heads of the various cabinets directed operations of that department nearly independently to one where the president had more direct input into the various activities by the departments. On January 30, 1969 President Nixon issued a special message to Congress requesting new authority to reorganize the Executive Branch. To make these changes President Nixon authorized the creation of the President’s Advisory Council on Executive Organization (PACEO). President Nixon would go on to appoint the council on April 5, 1969 with Roy L. Ash as the Chairman of the council. The first four members of the council were John B. Connally, Fredrick R. Kappel, Richard M. Paget, and George Baker. Walter Thayer would join the council as on June 2, 1969 and held the position of Special Consultant to the President. Thayer was responsible for assisting in the establishment of the council.

During the sixteen months in existence the council made numerous recommendations that would lead to a sweeping reorganization of the Executive Branch to meet the nations needs in an ever-changing world while meeting the president’s expectations of increasing oversight by reducing the number of those who directly report to the president. The most prominent of these recommendations were delivered to the president as fourteen memoranda (listed below) and were delivered between July 19, 1969 and November 19, 1970. Of these fourteen memoranda only three were made public at the time. The creation of a final report was discussed but no such report was prepared.
The recommendations of the President’s Advisory Council on Executive Organization (the Ash Council) set into motion a series of events that transformed and modernized the presidency with the intent of making recommendations for measuring the impact and efficiency of federal policy, minimizing bureaucratic inertia, and solving the overlapping and often conflicting missions of departments and agencies government wide. Prior to the reorganization that would follow from the Ash Council’s recommendations cabinet members would direct the study of recommended changes to their area of oversight and they would decide what policies to implement and tended to operate on their own.

In 1970 the Ash Council proposed the creation of the Office of Telecommunications Policy (OTP), the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to follow up on the 1969 proposal to organize the Executive Office of the President. The Council also proposed task forces be created to deal with organized crime and the growing trafficking of narcotics.

Reorganization plan number two reorganized the Bureau of the Budget into the Office of Management and Budget bringing the cabinet departments and the budget office under more direct presidential oversight making the president a chief executive in fact as well as in title.

In August of 1970 the President’s Advisory Council on Executive Organization completes its work and resigns. Recommendations from the Ash Council would continue to be implemented throughout President Nixon’s time in office and beyond. Roy L. Ash would continue to advise President Nixon and in 1973 would become the Director of the Office of Management and Budget.