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Sherman Adams used to be called "the abominable no-man," because part of his job was to say no to the people that Eisenhower either could not or would not see. Bob Haldeman got very much the same reputation in the Nixon White House. But the plain fact is that a President needs an abominable no-man if his time is to be organized effectively so that he can get done the things that he has to get done — and especially il he is to have the uncluttered time in his schedule that he needs in order to think.
Of all the duties Presidents have, none is more important than thinking, and none is less appreciated by those who measure presidential activity by flurries of paper or items on the appointment schedule.
If power is to be exercised effectively, it has to be exercised selectively. A President selectively. A President cannot squander his energies, his attention and his ability to make things happen on the trivial without slighting the important.
This is one of the reasons we should trim down the functions of the Federal Government — stripping away decisions that do not have to be made in Washington, and placing the power of decision with states, localities and the private sector. This also argues, paradoxically, for limiting the size of the White House staff. Staffs develop functions; staff members acquire staffs of their own; these multiply functions further. If you want to trim back the functions, one place to begin is by trimming back the staffs.
With large staffs, you also get too many people who glory in the reaction on the other end of the telephone line when a secretary says, "The White House is calling." It is not "the White House" calling; it is some particular person who happens to work at the White House, and who may or may not be calling with the President's authorization. The bigger the staff, the greater the likelihood that this will be abused — and also the more internal rivalries, jealousies and feuds, which tend to expand as the little empires expand.
In a simpler, less threatening past, America could dally with notions of "congressional" government — with the theory that a President's role was to follow the will of the people, as expressed through their representatives in the Congress. But Congress is not equipped, institutionally, to respond to the challenges that face the United States abroad. As De Gaulle once commented to Andre Malraux, parliaments can paralyze policy, but they cannot initiate it.