Transition veteran: It pays to plan ahead

In 1976, a certain Southern governor started planning a presidential transition before he had even secured his party's nomination. NationalJournal.com's Anne Wagner talked to Jack H. Watson Jr.--President Carter's transition head and later chief of staff--about the mistakes made, lessons learned and advice for the incoming administration.

Q: I know you headed up President Carter's transition in 1976. How did you end up with that job?

A: In the spring of 1976... we put together a low-profile, small group that would be separate from the campaign, which of course was ongoing, that would plan for the possible transition in the event he won in November.... I evolved the idea of the way we would approach that over a series of memoranda. Then, in very early June, [Carter] said that he thought it was a good idea and for me to proceed with it. It's the appreciation for the institution of the presidency that makes people... hand off to the new administration in a way that makes it as easy as possible for the new people.

So in the summer and early fall of 1976, I headed a small group, which came to be called the Carter-Mondale Policy Planning Group. It was a group of professional men and women that gathered from around the country to do planning on national security, environmental issues, government organization issues, and, of course, appointment issues.... We were organizing all of that data, all of that information and all of those requests as they came in and trying to put it in a retrievable, organized system so when the time came--if the time came--we would have all of that data at our fingertips.

That whole effort proceeded through July, August, September and October. When he won the election in early November... I delivered to him a series of briefing books on all of these various subjects... He asked if I would head up [the transition], which I did. Then I went into the White House and served on the White House senior staff for the four years, originally as assistant to the President... and then became White House chief of staff to Carter. And it was from the White House chief of staff position that I directed the transition of government from President Carter to President-elect Reagan in 1980.

Q: So you've done both sides of the transition process?

A: I did. Not to do anything until after the election would be a grave mistake.

Q: Were you with the campaign before starting to work with him on the transition?

A: Yes, I was.... I was on the board of the Georgia Department of Human Resources, which was the largest department of state government. I was a practicing lawyer, but was a pro bono chairman of the board of the department of resources throughout his term and into the succeeding governorship, until I resigned to go to Washington with the President. And during the campaign itself I had been... chairman of the Georgia finance committee and was one of the national finance chairmen.

Q: Going into his presidency, Carter was a governor with little or no Washington experience, and it was a very close election. How did that affect your job with that transition, and how did that transition play out under those circumstances?

A: One of the reasons we spent the time we did on those several months of information gathering and organization of information was so that we would have a head start in the event he was elected in November, and it helped. It worked. We had a very successful transition.

But the closeness of the election did not really affect the transition itself. Jack Marsh was counselor to President Ford, and was designated by President Ford as his director of transition... Dick Cheney was the chief of staff to President Ford at the time, so I was working with Dick Cheney in his role as chief of staff, with Jack Marsh in his role as transition coordinator, and with others. Their help to me, their cooperation to us, their handling of the incoming President was great, and I've always been grateful for it and I tried to reciprocate exactly that same kind of attitude in 1980 and '81 with Governor Reagan and his people.

Q: So there was a lot of coordination between the two administrations? If you don't focus exclusively on those matters of highest priority that must be dealt with in the first six months of the administration, you will be overwhelmed.

A: Absolutely.... People who have served a President, particularly those who are very close to the President in the White House, understand the presidency as an institution.... And it's the appreciation for the institution of the presidency that makes people do everything they can to hand off to the new administration in a way that makes it as easy as possible for the new people to come in and take over.

Q: You started planning the 1977 transition early. Do you think that made it that much more successful?

A: I think it's a very bad idea not to start planning for an administration quietly, even though you don't know that you're going to win of course. You've got to be very careful about the manner in which you do it--it has to be a very low-profile effort.... Once it is determined that one of two people will be the next President of the United States, the responsible thing for them to do is to begin quietly getting ready for the possibility that they will be the President-elect in November.... Not to do anything until after the election would be a grave mistake.

Q: What was your biggest challenge throughout the transition?

A: One of the biggest challenges was integrating the influx of people who had worked so hard on the campaign with the policy planners... to create a smooth, seamless, transition organization that incorporated and integrated all of the people from these different places on the campaign....

I think we could have done that better.... if I had to pick the greatest challenge that would be it.

Q: How do you think you accomplished that?

A: It worked out finally but we had a lot of bumpy moments.... I think the President put together an excellent Cabinet, I really do, as evidenced by the fact that most of his Cabinet stayed the whole four years with him. I think that if you talk to the people who assumed the Cabinet secretary positions--in Defense, Interior, Treasury, OMB and so forth--they would say that the work that had been done during the policy planning period and during the transition was helpful to them in getting them off to a running start.

Q: What were some of the surprises you encountered?

A: There were lots of surprises. It's very important for the President-elect and his people to maintain a low profile, not to be out there acting either like a candidate or like a President. They are neither.

Q: Every day, I'm sure.

A: Surprises every day. It's a matter of exclusion. Putting together a successful transition involves a tremendous discipline in keeping things off the transition agenda that don't really need to be there. There are tremendous pressures, external pressures and even internal pressures on the President-elect to address this issue, to put this issue or this decision on his transition agenda.... If you don't focus exclusively on those matters of highest priority that must be dealt with in the first six months of the administration, you will be overwhelmed.

If you try to plan, in other words, for a whole four-year administration, you can't do it. There's not time to do that. So if you're going to do it well, you have to pick your targets, you have to pick your priorities, and you have to impose discipline on the whole transition process.... So that's a day-by-day constant challenge, because there are always pressures to add things or to change things.

Q: Was there a typical day while you were going through this?

A: There were no typical days. The transition is a lot like being in the White House. You never know when you get up in the morning where the problems are going to pop up. Another challenge of those who are running a transition is to limit the number of people who are purporting to speak for the President-elect. I think one of the most important things for us to focus on in a bipartisan way is fixing the way in which presidential appointments and Senate confirmations occur.

I also think it's very important for the President-elect and the vice President-elect and their people to maintain a very low profile throughout the transition. There is only one President at a time.... Everybody in the world, both in our own country and internationally, needs to understand that in the case of this year, President Clinton is the President of the United States until the oath of office passes the office on Jan. 20 to the next man. So during the transition period, it's very important for the President-elect and his people to maintain a low profile, not to be out there acting either like a candidate or like a President. They are neither.

And, on the one hand, it's hard. The candidates have been running for office for two years or more... and all of a sudden, it's over.... Therefore it's not only not necessary, it's really counterproductive to have the President-elect and the Vice President-elect out there giving speeches because, for one thing, there's so much work to be done. There's so much internal work to be done putting together the new administration, deciding who is going to fill the Cabinet positions, and who is going to constitute the White House staff.... What changes to the budget must be made, and what is the President going to say in his earliest speeches?

Q: So they should stay in the background?

A: And plan. Get ready. That's why we have the transition.

You know, in the earlier history of our country the inauguration wasn't until March.... I'm not suggesting that I think we need more time... because the difference between four months and ten weeks is not all that great. [But the] best thing to do is to operate with the parameters and the constraints of the current period and to do it as well as you can.

Q: With the shorter and shorter time that we have to make these transitions, it also seems at the same time that it takes longer to get these nominees selected and approved by the Senate. Is that trend going to keep continuing and is that going to be difficult in the future?

A: I hope not. I think one of the most important things for us to focus on in a bipartisan way is fixing the way in which presidential appointments and Senate confirmations occur. I think that it's taking way too long for the FBI clearances, it's taking way too long for the Senate confirmation, and it's sometimes taking too long for the President's own team to... come up with the people they want to nominate and put through the FBI clearance process. I think that in a truly bipartisan way, we need to sit down and say to ourselves, "What information do we really need to have? What kind of information is relevant?

I think our whole query into backgrounds, into personal lives, has gotten too intrusive. I think it ranges way too widely and has departed from the most relevant inquiries into fitness for the job. That's something that neither the Democrats can fix by themselves, nor the Republicans. It's something that we are going to have to do in a genuinely bipartisan way.

Q: Looking at this year, and this particular election, do you think that the delay and the bad blood over the Florida returns will significantly affect the transition? Don't make big organizational changes before you've had a chance to run the office and to see how the office functions.

A: Well, it is certainly delaying it.... I am confident that both Governor Bush and Vice President Gore are quietly attending to matters that they can be attending to for their possible administrations. But it's still a complicating factor, for us not to know yet who the new President is going to be.

Having said that, I don't think there is any constitutional crisis here.... It's been a difficult period for everybody, but I don't think that the difficult period poses irreparable problems or constitutional crises of any kind. I think we just get through this, we do the final vote count, we certify the results in Florida, we know who our next President is going to be, and we move on....

We're going to have to have a time of healing and reconciliation, and both the winning and the losing candidate should do everything they can, by their actions and their words, to facilitate that reconciliation and that coming together. We'll do it.

Q: Do you think the next President-elect will have enough time to actually get everything together before he is inaugurated?

A: Well, you do what you have to do. The short answer is yes. You never have enough time, but you take what time you've got, and you use it to the maximum advantage. Going back to what I said earlier, it becomes all the more important for you to focus on only those things that are of the highest and most immediate priority and get them done first. Defer attention on other matters until later. Don't even think about those things that don't require immediate attention during the transition.

I think there's little doubt--and there's certainly no doubt in my mind--that the most important thing for the new President to do is to form his team, to form the leadership of his administration. That whole process constitutes the overriding priority. If that's done well, he's off to a good start. If that is not done well, it doesn't bode well for the new administration.

Q: Is there anyone outside of the campaigns who can help move the transition process along this year?

A: Absolutely. The members of the committees that will be doing the reviews that are part of the confirmation process. The FBI can do its clearances in a proper, thorough and focused, expedited way. And, I don't want to be redundant, but focus is all-important here. Let's focus in that clearance process and in the confirmation process, on those issues and those matters which determine whether or not the nominee is fit for the post to which he or she has been nominated. Let's not do a character assassination. Let's not do an endless and literally boundless inquiry into everything the person has ever done or said, because that is a self-defeating process.

None of us is perfect. I think--and it doesn't matter whether the President is Republican or Democrat, and it doesn't matter if I as a citizen agree with the particular nomination that the President is making--the President has a right to make his nominations. And there should be a kind of rebuttable presumption in favor of the President's selection. It doesn't mean that everybody in the Senate lays down their oars and doesn't do their job. Of course they do their job. But focus on the things that are most important, and let the process work.

Q: How important do you think President Clinton and his staff will be during this transition?

A: They can be very helpful, in doing the handoff, in preparing summary statements of the overriding issues that the administration is facing, department by department and agency by agency. Again, they need put a very sharp focus... on those highest priority issues: This is how the department is organized here, here is the interface that this department has with the Congress, these are the relevant committees in the House, these are the relevant committees in the Senate -- very focused summaries of information about the departments that will be helpful to incoming people. That's what the outgoing administration can do, and I'm sure it's what the Clinton administration will try to do.

And, of course, that's true whether the handoff is to Vice President Gore and Senator Lieberman or whether the handoff is to Governor Bush and Mr. Cheney. It needs to be done that way.

Q: You've really put a lot of focus here on focus itself. Do you think that's the most important thing in the transition?

A: Yes.

Q: Do you have any other advice for whoever the winner will be?

A: First, select your White House staff early... Your head of congressional relations, your chief of staff, your press secretary, your White House counsel. Get the senior members of your White House team formed and announced and in place as quickly as possible. Number two, don't make big changes that you don't have to make. Don't come in and say, for example, that you're going to cut 25 percent of the White House staff. Because while that has a nice ring to it, get in there and see what you need, how things work.

Don't make big organizational changes before you've had a chance to run the office and to see how the office functions. That's a mistake that many Presidents--including Carter--came in and said, "I'm categorically going to cut 25 percent of the White House staff." Get in there and see how things work before you start making decisions like that.

Next, respect the civil servants. They are, by and large, professionals who want to do their jobs well, and just because they have been serving a Democratic President for the past eight years, if Governor Bush comes in as President, he should not be anything but respectful of the civil servants of the federal government. Just because they have been working for eight years under a Democratic administration does not mean that they are not there to serve his administration as well. Those are the people that make everything work, they are the people that help get the messages drafted for Congress, obviously under the policy guidance of the new team, but they are the people that make things run on time--respect them and incorporate them into your team.

Finally, keep the inauguration planning completely separate from the administration plans. Designate the leadership for your inauguration quickly and as early as possible. Have that entire inaugural planning and implementation effort separate from your governance, from your transition planning for the government.