To Serve the President: Continuity and Innovation in the White House Staff

Publication Date: October 2008

Publisher: Brookings Institution

Author(s): Bradley H. Patterson Jr.

Research Area: Government

Keywords: Oval Office; Management; Presidential transition

Type: Book

Coverage: United States

Abstract:

In this insightful and entertaining book, a veteran of several presidential administrations opens a window onto the closely guarded Oval Office turf. Nobody knows more about the duties, the difficulties, and the strategies of staffing and working in the White House than Brad Patterson. With two enormously successful books about 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue already under his belt, Patterson was granted unprecedented access to George W. Bush's key staff.

In To Serve the President, he parlays his experience and access into the most authoritative and readable account yet of the operations, offices, and most important, the people of the complete White House team. What is its organizational structure, and what impressive innovations recently have been made in White House staffing in the face of changing events? What exactly do these people do? And how do they figure into the larger picture of managing a nation? Unique in this new book is Patterson's newsmaking revelation of the total size and total cost of the contemporary White House--information that is simply not available anywhere else.