ARCHIVE
White House Workshop
Ronald Reagan (2nd term) Administration - Archive Edition
March 12-13, 1987
White House Workshop - 1987:
A Public Policy Workshop
Held at The Capitol Hill Club.
The Presidency has become the dominant institution in the American political system. The President is the prime initiator and coordinator, the foremost mobilizer of public support and the principal link from and to a variety of groups and individuals-inside and outside the government. His is a multi-faceted office charged with a plethora of responsibilities, a variety of roles, and a range of powers.
How are these responsibilities, roles and powers exercised? The objective of this workshop is to address this and related issues. What is the organizational structure of the modern Presidency and what changes have taken place in this structure in the Reagan Administration? Who holds power in the relatively small, yet complex, White House staff structure? How is national decision-making being managed? What are the current and future prospects for a smooth relationship with the immense federal administrative apparatus?
Despite the continuing avalanche of information pouring out of the nation's media daily on the President, there is an amazing lack of precise and coherent data available tracing the workings of the White House. The White House remains a vague institution at a time of unprecedented domestic policy debates from protectionism to deficits; foreign policy issues, and from arms control to the Iran/Contra episode. To better understand how Presidents, and especially this President, operate, this White House Workshop focuses on current history-the organization, staffing, management and decision-making of the Presidency as seen against the immediate realities of America.
During the 1970s, the Presidency was first viewed as too strong and then too weak. The Reagan Presidency has once again cast the institution into a new light. Can a President achieve his policy agenda-particularly in his second term? Can he continue to control public debate as the quest for his replacement heats up? Can he lead an increasingly independent Congress as a lame duck? If so, under what circumstances, on what type of policy issues, and using what strategic and tactical approaches? Can the President continue to impose his own budget priorities, or does the budgetary process develop a momentum of its own? What impact do interest groups have on public policy? To what extent do Presidents, such as Reagan, become prisoner of the bureaucracies that served them? And what about the policies themselves? Have they worked: What have been their principal consequences? What policy legacies does the Reagan Administration leave to the next President? And finally, what will be the effects of the Reagan legacy to the U.S. military and subsequently to long term national security?
This workshop will explore these and other contemporary issues through candid discussion with present and former White House staff members, White House journalists, and political scientists who have made careers of studying the Presidency. For the government administrator and career professional, this workshop brings them directly into the heart of government and its central decision-making process.
White House Workshop Speakers & Topics
WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION TO THE PROGRAM: Stephen Wayne, Program Facilitator: Author of The Road to the White House and Presidential Leadership
THE EVOLUTION OF THE PRESIDENCY: Stephen Wayne, Program Facilitator
A VIEW FROM BOTH ENDS OF THE AVENUE: Tom Loeffler, Officer, McCamish, Ingram, Martin & Brown; Former Congressman from Texas; Former Special Assistant to President Gerald Ford for Legislative Affairs
THE PRESIDENCY AND THE PRESS: Tom DeFrank, White House Correspondent; Deputy Chief-Washington Bureau, Newsweek magazine
CONSTITUTIONAL LIMITATIONS OF PRESIDENTIAL POWER: John Kramer; Dean, Tulane University Law School; Former Counsel to House Majority Whip Tom Foley
THE ROLE OF THE MILITARY AIDE TO THE PRESIDENT: Lieutenant Colonel Charles F. Brower, IV, USA; Former Army Aide to President Ronald Reagan; Currently Associate Professor, History Department, U.S. Military Academy, West Point, New York
DAY ONE WRAP-UP AND DISCUSSION: Stephen Wayne, Program Facilitator
A LIBERAL ASSESSMENT OF THE REAGAN ADMINISTRATION: Senator George McGovern, Former U.S. Senator and Presidential Candidate
A CONSERVATIVE ASSESSMENT OF THE REAGAN ADMINISTRATION: Burt Pines, Vice President of Research, Heritage Foundation
THE ROLES OF THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF AND THE NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL: FORMULATING MILITARY AND FOREIGN POLICY: Robert Hunter, Director, European Studies, Georgetown University Center for Strategic and International Studies
THE WHITE HOUSE ORGANIZATION AND OPERATIONS: Roger Porter, Professor, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University; Former Deputy Assistant to President Reagan for Policy Development
REAGAN AND THE MILITARY: NATIONAL SECURITY AND THE NEW BUDGET: Lawrence J. Korb, Dean, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. University of Pittsburgh; Former Assistant Secretary of Defense
THE REAGAN PRESIDENCY- AND THE 1988 ELECTION: Karlyn Keene, Managing Editor, Public Opinion magazine; Resident Fellow American Enterprise Institute
THE WHITE HOUSE: PROGRAM OVERVIEW AND DISCUSSION: Stephen Wayne Program Facilitator
