George Akerson's Legacy: Continuity and Change in White House Press Operations

"Organization cannot make a genius out of an incompetent. On the other hand, disorganization can scarcely fail to result in inefficiency." Dwight Eisenhower (quoted in Walcott and Hult, 1995, 24) "Throw the organizational charts out. It's relationships among people that make government work." Robert M. Gates (quoted in Ferris, 2008, 9) The White House staff, once commonly envisioned as a hardy band of policy and politics generalists, is now widely understood to be a formal organization. It is an unusual one to be sure, but one that can be analyzed productively with the conceptual tools used to study more stable and bureaucratized entities (see, e.g., Burke 2000; Dickinson 1996; Rudalevige 2002). Indeed, organizational analysis has proven valuable in understanding the development of units within the White House organization (e.g., Pika 1991; Hult and Walcott 2004; Walcott and Hult 1995; Weko 1995). Nevertheless, the press office is a hard case. It is small, staffed by people who typically do not value organizational constraints, and exists in a turbulent, crisis-to-crisis environment that defies neat planning, careful division of labor, and orderly processes. As a result, one might question how valuable it is to look at this particular part of the White House from an organization theoretical standpoint. Here, we will explore this question by starting at the beginning with the first full-time White House press secretary and tracing how the office itself and its location in the web of hierarchy, influence, and communication have evolved since then. The tools we will use are those that we have used before--especially the "organizational governance" approach (see, e.g., Hult and Walcott 2004). Thus we will examine the influences that have provoked growth and change in the press operation (the task environment, the preferences of the president, the influence of precedent, and conventional wisdom) and the resulting activities, arrangements, and outcomes. Yet we will remain sensitive throughout to the fact that the press office also is a relatively small group whose interpersonal dynamics matter greatly and that the relationship between the press secretary and the president may matter more than anything else. Structuring for Press Relations: 1929 to 1968 Before 1929, presidents were aided by a single "secretary to the president" (with the exception of Abraham Lincoln, who had two) whose duties typically included dealing with reporters (cf. Grossman and Kumar 1981, 21ff). It was not until Herbert Hoover brought what one critic derisively called "the era of the Super-Administrator ... (when) Efficiency came to the White House" (A Washington Correspondent 1929, 385) that staff help expanded, and one individual was designated as the press secretary. The pioneer in this role was George Akerson, a veteran journalist who previously had worked under Hoover in the Commerce Department. There, Hoover had cultivated the press, so the job of press secretary seemed to hold promise. However, things turned out badly when Akerson and fellow secretary to the president Lawrence Richey fought over who controlled access to the president, who himself proved to be unforthcoming with the press. Akerson was blamed by reporters, lost the internal battle to Richey, and resigned midway through Hoover's term (Walcott and Hult 1990). The team dynamic was not there. Things improved after a fashion under Akerson's successor, Theodore Joslin, although he was unpopular with his colleagues and was derided by one fellow journalist as "the only known example of a rat joining a sinking ship" (Burner 1979, 256). At least Joslin and Richey got along. Despite the rough start, the idea of a press specialist in the White House was one whose time had come. Franklin D. Roosevelt emulated Hoover in designating one of his three secretaries, Stephen Early, as press secretary. In a White House characterized by conviviality and loyalty to the boss, Early thrived and FDR's press relations did likewise (Walcott and Hult 1995, 62). …