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The creation of the council, which will be formed by executive order rather than by legislation, underscored Nixon's desire to make the Cabinet a functioning organ of the executive branch. The popular conception of the Cabinet as some sort of collegial center of authority, in which members make decisions collectively, has rarely been supported by facts, and is certainly not Nixon's goal now. In recent decades particularly, the Cabinet has not really functioned as a unit of any kind. It is, said Historian Clinton Rossiter in 1956, "at best a relic of a simpler past."
Generally speaking, the stronger the President, the less his reliance either on the Cabinet as a body or on Cabinet members as individual advisers. Jack son and Lincoln,* Theodore Roosevelt and Cousin Franklin, John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, all found the Cabinet a cumbersome entity. During the transition eight years ago, Kennedy inquired of three of his staff aides: "Just what in hell is a Cabinet for?" He never found a satisfactory answer.
Many Presidents have relied heavily on an inner ring of personal aides and cronies. Jackson's coterie was the first to be known as the Kitchen Cabinet, and sometimes seemed to rival the official Cabinet in influence. Wilson had his Colonel Edward House, F.D.R. had Harry Hopkins and other assistants. Roosevelt kept Cordell Hull as Secretary of State for twelve years, but somehow neglected to take him to the important wartime conferences with Allied leaders. Even Eisenhower, who attempted to give the Cabinet status by appointing a Cabinet secretary and having regular agendas prepared for meetings, had his Sherman Adams.
Lyndon Johnson also attempted to restore some importance to Cabinet proceedings, but he is by nature averse to open disputation, particularly if the view in dispute is his own. Participants in his Cabinet meetings recall listening to much trivia—the type of latrines being installed in Resurrection City, the kind of doors being used at Dulles Airport, presidential admonitions about the high cost of printing Government documents.
Solidity and Serenity
Nixon does not intend to yield his decision-making powers to his Cabinet. Nor is he likely to boast, as Calvin Coolidge did, that he listens only to advisers "provided by the Constitution and the law." But he does seem convinced that it is a mistake for a President and his immediate staff to attempt to concentrate all the engines of authority in the White House. He has encouraged his Cabinet members to play an active part in selecting their own ranking subordinates. In the past, department heads have sometimes had no say in choosing their deputies and assistants.
Nixon also seems genuinely interested in hearing divergent opinions. Early in his campaign he chose aides from both the G.O.P.'s liberal and conservative wings. The pattern has continued through the choosing of the Cabinet. Last week he boasted: "I haven't found any one of them who agrees with me completely on everything that ought to be done. But that's all to the good. I don't want a Cabinet of yes-men." If Nixon sticks to his determination to keep his mind and ears open, and if his department chiefs rise to the challenge, the new crew should have a good chance of creating the "open administration" that Nixon has promised.