Wanted: Chief-of-staff with clout to keep America safe

The president of the United States had just summoned White House correspondents into the Oval Office.

And as the veteran correspondents clustered in front of the president’s desk, rather bored but nevertheless ready to report LBJ’s latest newsbreak du jour, Newsday’s new correspondent, a newcomer who frankly looked like a kid compared to the other credentialed correspondents, began edging his way around to the back corner of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s desk.

The young reporter was determined not to appear as awestruck as he frankly was at being inside this historically powerful room for the first time. But he had just seen something he’d never heard or read about before—and he wanted a better view of it.

So he edged around until he was alongside LBJ and he could read the labels on the four-button desktop thingamajig that was near the president’s right hand. LBJ famously loved gadgets—and on his desk were four buttons—they were labeled “Coffee,” “Tea,” “Fresca” and “Watson.”

Hmmmm. Later, Newsday’s new kid walked into the office of LBJ’s press secretary. After apologizing in advance for probably sounding like a rookie, he asked George Christian to explain LBJ’s four-button thingamajig.

“Ha! Nobody has ever asked me about that before!” chortled Christian. “OK, here’s your scoop: When the president wants a cup of coffee, he just mashes the Coffee button—and in comes one of the Navy waiters with a nice cup of hot coffee. When he mashes the Tea Button, in comes a Navy waiter with some tea. When he mashes the Fresca Button, in comes the Navy waiter with a glass of Fresca with ice cubes.

“And if he mashes the Watson Button, in comes Marvin Watson—ready for whatever!”

Marvin Watson—the president’s chief of staff! It is hard to wrap our minds around the prospect of President Donald Trump’s retired four-star Marine Gen. John Kelly being similarly summoned and racing in ready for whatever.

That was my first introduction to the role of a White House chief of staff, the second-most powerful U.S. government job. The chief of staff is called the gatekeeper to the president; mainly the job is to be the roadblock to the POTUS—empowered to protect their presidents from impatient, insistent, maybe even intemperate top advisers and cabinet secretaries. Insiders call the role the president’s S.O.B.

Last Sunday, W. Marvin Watson died at his home outside Houston at age 93.

His only official title in LBJ’s White House was “Appointments Secretary”—but everyone called Watson LBJ’s chief of staff. I’ve known some excellent presidential chiefs of staff in the decades since LBJ, and some who failed at the job. The best, in terms of doing what was best for his president, was Ronald Reagan’s chief of staff, James A. Baker III.

But what even Washington’s cognoscenti don’t realize is that what makes a chief of staff great often is not what they do, but what they wisely don’t do when they are asked—and even ordered to do it.

So we recall George Christian’s explanation that, when LBJ mashed the Watson Button, in came Watson, “ready for whatever.” The Washington Post’s excellent obituary writer, Matt Schudel, wrote about two instances when Watson loyally leapt to do LBJ’s whatever. Once, after LBJ insisted (as all presidents have!) that he needed a leak-proof administration, Watson ordered White House telephone operators to log all incoming and outgoing calls. Of course that leaked—backfired bigtime!—and was abandoned. Also, after LBJ offhandedly mused about wanting a wall so reporters couldn’t see who was coming and going, Watson ordered workers to build a wall between the White House and the Executive Office Building. Wiser officials undid that blunder.

But—prepare to be shocked!— an award for the best non-compliance by a chief of staff goes to Richard Nixon’s H. R. (Bob) Haldeman. Yes, the one who did crime-time in prison for his Watergate scandal cover-up! But remember: President Nixon’s tape recordings revealed Nixon repeatedly pressed his staff to burglarize Washington’s Brookings Institution—“blow the safe,” Nixon ordered; firebombing the think tank was also discussed—to recover what Nixon’s Team thought were purloined government Vietnam War documents. But while they humored the boss, that crime was never committed.

Today, we grimace at each day’s White House newsbreak: Tweets from a president who won’t stop taunting and goading a North Korean dictator who has nearly achieved his nuclear ambitions; or tweets that keep insulting Muslims who may not be sympathetic to our plight.

We desperately need a White House chief of staff who possesses the wisdom, persuasiveness and perseverance to convince his boss to finally stop making America grate again. Sad.