THE ADMINISTRATION
(See Cover)
When he quit the Department of Health, Education and Welfare in 1962, Secretary Abraham Ribicoff described it as the "department of dirty water, dirty air and dirty looks. I feel sorry for the so-and-so who is going to take my place." One of his predecessors, Marion Folsom, an Eisenhower appointee, complained: "They expect you to know everything, and it's just not possible." One Congressman has called the department "a nightmare," another "a monstrosity." Others call it the Department of Headaches—or, more specifically, the Department of Wealth, Aggravation and Hellfire.
John William Gardner, 54, the so-and-so once removed from Ribicoff (former Cleveland Mayor Anthony Celebrezze came in between), takes wry pleasure in recalling the bloodcurdling things he heard about his sprawling domain when he first took over in August 1965. Then he adds: "I think that people just don't say that any more."
HEW's sixth secretary in its 14 years, Gardner has even more problems to cope with than any of the others, but he hardly seems disgruntled by the dimensions of the job. With characteristic wit, he once described his concerns as "a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems." But as head of a department with a $12.3 billion budget (plus $25 billion more for social security), 150 programs and 100,000 employees, Gardner derives pride from the fact that he is quite literally the construction boss of Lyndon Johnson's visionary effort to build a Great Society. He is a Republican, but he wholly subscribes to Democrat Johnson's dreams for a better nation. "This department touches every American, from the preschool child to the elderly," said Gardner when he accepted its command. "It has been handed an absolutely staggering set of assignments that can result in enormous good to the American people. It must be well-managed. That is an exciting challenge."
Cash Flood. The challenge has been made doubly exciting—and devilishly difficult as well—by the congeries of social and economic reforms to which the Johnson Administration has committed itself in the past three years. The 89th Congress put no fewer than 136 major domestic bills on the books, and nearly everybody from federal administrators to municipal bookkeepers has been overwhelmed as a result. "Our aspirations," says Gardner, "have outrun our organizational abilities."
Medicare was one instance. Though HEW officials prepared for its introduction with what the President called "just about the largest single management effort since the Normandy invasion," there were inevitable bottlenecks.
As the program got under way, hospitals had 50% of their Medicare forms bounced back because of errors, causing two-month delays in payment and forcing some of them to seek short-term loans from banks.
The 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act was another example. Title I of the act, a $1 billion program to upgrade the schooling of poor children, held vast promise. But the cash it released hit many areas like a flash flood, running off before it could be absorbed. Illinois, for example, was able to use only $52 million out of the $61 million authorized. "It's like having $50 million to spend in