How White House Rivalries Shaped History
Historian Tevi Troy's latest book, 'Fight House: Rivalries in the White House from Truman to Trump,' explores how infighting can make or break a president.
By Kyle Sammin
March 6, 2020
A president’s ideas matter, but without the right people in place to make them a reality, they will never be more than wishful thinking. Competent management requires both vision and execution. As Tevi Troy explains in his new book, Fight House: Rivalries in the White House from Truman to Trump, a White House lacking one of these will experience chaos. One lacking both is destined to fail utterly.
Troy, an historian and the author of two previous books on presidential history, begins his tale with the beginning of the modern White House staff structure in the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt. The rise of the first truly massive administrative state in America led Roosevelt and his people to reimagine the way the chain of command should work in the executive branch.
Once, the cabinet was the true decision-making body, confirmed by the Senate, advising the president on policy choices, and largely running their departments as they saw fit. The cabinet was composed of some of the most eminent leaders in the president’s party, forming both his brain trust and his cadre of managers.
At the same time, there had always been unofficial advisors who had the president’s ear. From Andrew Jackson’s so-called “Kitchen Cabinet†to Harry Truman’s poker buddies, to Donald Trump’s children and son-in-law, presidents have sought advice from outside the cabinet structure, usually to the annoyance of the party regulars who were thereby sidestepped. Under Franklin Delano Roosevelt, though, the unofficial was made official, and the power shift from the cabinet to the White House staff began in earnest.
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https://thefederalist.com/2020/03/06/how-white-house-rivalries-shaped-history/
