White House Office of the Staff Secretary

The Staff Secretary ("Staff Sec") is a position in the White House Office responsible for managing paper flow to the President and circulating documents among senior staff for comment. It has been referred to as "the nerve center of the White House." Specifically, the Office of the Staff Secretary decides which decision memos, briefing materials, lists of potential nominees, briefing books, intelligence reports, schedules, correspondence, and speech drafts end up on the president’s desk, as well as how and when the president will receive them. The Staff Secretary also works with senior White House staff to edit all of these materials and ensure they are ready for the president's consumption.

White House Office of the Staff Secretary

Agency overview
Formed	1953; 71 years ago (1953)
Headquarters	West Wing, White House Washington, D.C., U.S. 38.8975°N 77.0376°W / 38.8975; -77.0376
Agency executive	Stefanie Feldman, Staff Secretary
Parent department	White House Office

President Barack Obama surprises members of the Office of the Staff Secretary in the West Wing of the White House during an impromptu drop-by visit on May 21, 2009

The Office of the Staff Secretary is generally composed of a Staff Secretary, a Deputy Staff Secretary, and several Associate Staff Secretaries. The Office of the Staff Secretary, along with its sub-offices—the Office of the Executive Clerk, the Office of Records Management, and the Office of Presidential Correspondence—is the largest of the White House Offices.^[1]

The current Staff Secretary is Stefanie Feldman.^[2]

Function

Due to the high volume of important memos, meetings and decisions generated for the President's attention, the Staff Secretary is tasked with deciding which papers should go to the President's desk—and when the paper should be sent to him. These documents range from presidential decision memos and bills passed by Congress to drafts of speeches and samples of correspondence.^[3] The Staff Secretary relies on close coordination with Oval Office Operations and the Scheduling Office to decide when and how the President would like to receive documents.

The Staff Secretary's principal role is to review the incoming papers and determine which issues must reach the President. Secondary to this, Staff Sec determines who else in the administration should comment on the issue to give the President a full picture of the situation. Staff Sec then compiles the documents with the relevant commentary for the President's consumption.^[3]

Traditionally, the Staff Secretary is a position of great trust due to the influence it can wield over which information is allowed to reach the President, and who is given the opportunity to comment on those issues.

The Staff Secretary or a designated Assistant Staff Secretary always accompanies the President on any work-related travel.

History

The position was established under President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1953, one of the recommendations of the Hoover Commission (Commission on the Organization of the Executive Branch). Under Eisenhower, the first staff secretaries focused particularly on screening national security communications; in this role, Colonel Andrew J. Goodpaster was thought to overshadow the President's special assistant for national security.^[4]

With the appointment of businessman Jon Huntsman, Sr., as Staff Secretary in the Richard Nixon White House, the role was vastly expanded to absorb the functions of the Office of Management and Administration. These new roles included personnel management, finance and operations, services (such as access to the White House Mess and limousine fleet), facilities and furniture, and oversight of the Executive Clerk and Visitors Office.^[5]

Almost all of these responsibilities—as well as Presidential Correspondence—were spun off during the Carter Administration into the newly created Office of Administration.

During the Reagan Administration the Offices of the Staff Secretary and the Executive Clerk were reunited with Presidential Correspondence in a configuration that has remained fairly consistent through the subsequent presidencies.^[3]

President Trump's second White House Chief of Staff, John F. Kelly, reiterated the importance of the role of the Staff Secretary in managing the flow of information around the White House.^[6] His decision to allow a Staff Secretary with only an interim security clearance has been criticized.^{[citation needed]}

List of Staff Secretaries

Image	Name	Start	End	President
	Pete Carroll	January 20, 1953	September 17, 1954		Dwight D. Eisenhower
	Andrew Goodpaster	October 1954	January 20, 1961
	Bill Hartigan	January 20, 1961	August 4, 1961		John F. Kennedy
	Ken Cole	January 20, 1969	November 1969		Richard Nixon
	John Brown	November 1969	February 22, 1971
	Jon Huntsman	February 22, 1971	January 1, 1972
	Bruce Kehrli	January 1, 1972	May 1974
	Jerry Jones	May 1974	May 1975
					Gerald Ford
	Jim Connor	June 1975	January 20, 1977
	Richard Hutcheson	January 20, 1977	January 20, 1981		Jimmy Carter
	David Gergen	January 20, 1981	June 17, 1981		Ronald Reagan
	Dick Darman	June 17, 1981	February 1, 1985
	David Chew	February 1, 1985	April 1987
	Rhett Dawson	April 1987	Fall 1988
	Jim Cicconi	January 20, 1989	December 1990		George H. W. Bush
	Phillip Brady	January 14, 1991	January 20, 1993
	John Podesta	January 20, 1993	June 30, 1995		Bill Clinton
	Todd Stern	June 30, 1995	March 11, 1998
	Phillip Caplan	March 11, 1998	Spring 1999
	Sean Patrick Maloney	September 14, 1999	January 20, 2000
	Lisel Loy	2000	January 20, 2001
	Harriet Miers	January 20, 2001	June 6, 2003		George W. Bush
	Brett Kavanaugh	June 6, 2003	May 30, 2006
	Raul Yanes	June 3, 2006	January 20, 2009
	Lisa Brown	January 20, 2009	January 30, 2011		Barack Obama
	Raj De	January 30, 2011	April 2012
	Douglas Kramer	April 2012	February 2013
	Joani Walsh	2014	January 20, 2017
	Rob Porter	January 20, 2017	February 7, 2018		Donald Trump
	Derek Lyons	February 7, 2018 Acting: February 7, 2018 – June 6, 2018	December 18, 2020
	Jessica Hertz	January 20, 2021	October 22, 2021		Joe Biden
	Neera Tanden	October 25, 2021	May 26, 2023
	Stefanie Feldman	May 26, 2023	present

References

1. "White House Staff Disclosure 2014". whitehouse.gov. Archived from the original on January 20, 2017. Retrieved October 7, 2014 – via National Archives. Alt URL
2. Baker, Peter; Shear, Michael D.; Rogers, Katie; Kanno-Youngs, Zolan (June 4, 2023). "Inside the Complicated Reality of Being America's Oldest President". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved June 5, 2023.
3. "Office of the Staff Secretary" (PDF). WhiteHouseTransitionProject.org. Retrieved November 13, 2014.
4. Description of creation of staff secretary position
5. "Staff Secretary". NixonLibrary.gov. Retrieved November 26, 2014.
6. Maggie Haberman (August 24, 2017). "John Kelly's Latest Mission: Controlling the Information Flow to Trump". The New York Times. Retrieved August 25, 2017.

External links

• AmericanPresident.org description of position
• Description of creation of staff secretary position
• List of officeholders
• Records of the White House Office of the Staff Secretary, Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library