Veterans Affairs Department

Anthony J. Principi
Secretary
202-273-4800
"If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog." Or so the saying goes. But Tony Principi doesn't need a pet. In interviews with 32 people-activists, analysts, and officials alike-National Journal heard just one negative comment: that Principi was too willing to extend disability benefits to Vietnam veterans whose ailments were alleged, but not scientifically proven, to have been caused by the defoliant Agent Orange. That's hardly the kind of criticism that will blemish Principi's reputation as a friend of veterans. Such universal acclaim is rare in Washington, and rarer still in the passionate and sometimes poisonous world of veterans' politics. After all, Principi became acting Veterans Affairs Secretary once before, under Bush I, because previous Secretary Ed Derwinski ran afoul of well-organized activists. But Principi soothed the waters skillfully and advocated forcefully on behalf of veterans-not only at the department, but later as a Senate Veterans' Affairs staffer and as chairman of a widely praised commission on reforming veterans' benefits. Indeed, as Principi takes on the VA's intractable backlog of disability claims, its sprawling medical system, and its inflation-eroded GI Bill, his one enemy may be high expectations. But Principi has faced tough fights before: A Naval Academy graduate, he commanded high-risk river patrols in Vietnam. Since then, the 57-year-old New York native has worked in the executive branch, on the Hill, and in the private sector, most recently as president of California-based VA contractor QTC Medical Services. But his ties to the armed forces remain strong: Two of his three children serve in uniform.

Leo S. Mackay Jr.
Deputy Secretary
202-273-4817
Who's Leo Mackay? ask many puzzled veterans' activists. Well, for one thing, he's one smart fellow, answer Mackay's old colleagues. Mackay is only a holder of two degrees from Harvard, a graduate of and former instructor at the Naval Academy, a guest fellow at the Brookings Institution, and a former senior Pentagon staff assistant on nonproliferation. But even these admirers wonder: How did an international relations expert end up at Veterans Affairs? The answer: family. A former Navy "Top Gun"-qualified aviator himself, Mackay told National Journal in an interview that his father, two brothers, a sister, and countless "uncles and cousins" are or were in the military, and he added, "I went into the family business." Deputy secretaries are often the bureaucratic warhorses who carry a politically savvy but technically inexperienced Secretary. But today's VA has its issue expert at the top: Secretary Principi. Mackay's role will be as a "chief operating officer," where he'll bring his five years of big-business management experience-the one thing Principi's resume lacks-to the VA bureaucracy. Mackay, 39, first met then-Gov. Bush while working for defense contractors in Texas, and discussed potential state appointments before later working on Bush's campaign.

Joseph Thompson
Undersecretary for Benefits
202-273-6761
Joe Thompson is VA all the way. An Air Force veteran, he came home from the Vietnam War so sick, he spent a month in a VA hospital. The GI Bill put the New York native through Pace University and George Mason, a GI home loan paid for his first house, and veterans' hiring preferences helped him get his first federal job, as a VA claims examiner in his native New York. "This isn't some abstract public policy that I administer; this is something that has actually greatly affected my life," he told National Journal. Thompson, 54, has worked at the department since 1975. But when he was appointed undersecretary by President Clinton in 1997, he found the "most frightening" problem was that the bureaucracy was full of soon-to-retire Vietnam vets like himself. So he persuaded Congress and the White House to end a hiring freeze and find the money for new hires: 1,500 of them this year alone, in a department of 11,000. With his own four-year term expiring in November, Thompson said he and Principi have not yet decided whether he will stay on.

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