There is a tendency for White House staff immediately after the loss to become absorbed in the reassuring routines of administration, or the challenges of seeking new employment, and to put off focusing on the details of the transfer of authority.

Therefore, if pre-election planning is to be carried out by the incumbent Administration seeking a second term, it will have to be made part of the routine of Executive Office staff institutions, conducted by senior career staff, and initiated well in advance of the election.

The Fatigue Factor

To require the President-elect to take up the reins of government on November 20 puts great strain on a person often exhausted - physically and emotionally -- by a grueling campaign. Not only the President-elect but his campaign aides may be in desperate need of a hiatus to catch their breath and recharge their batteries. To force them to make key decisions about personnel and programs within hours of the election is to risk errors which may haunt the new President the rest of his term.

Let Campaign Passions Cool

Every successful candidate comes out of a campaign with a baggage of slogans, promises, and commitments which encumber his ability to govern. The more time that passes between the election of the assumption of power, the lighter this baggage becomes. It takes time to translate ideology, philosophy, and rhetoric into policies and programs for running a government as complex as ours. In the two most recent elections, this problem has been compounded by the fact that the President-elect had spent four or more years attacking the government he must now lead. The President needs a little time to change his idiom from campaign to to governance.

Save the President From his Friends

It is a truism of Presidential scholars that the skills and personalities most adept at winning elections are not the same as those required to govern a nation. Advance men, fund raisers, and campaign strategists may be completely unprepared to exercise the day-to-day responsibilities and attitudes of statesmanship. The President-elect needs time to put some distance between the campaign apparatus and the Presidency. If he is rushed into office prematurely, the temptation to bring the campaign into the White House may be overwhelming.

To avoid this pressure, an earlier inauguration date must make absolutely mandatory pre-election screening and "short-listing" of candidates for key cabinet and White House jobs. For reasons which we discuss below, no modern President has been very successful in pre-selecting key members of his Administration significantly in advance of the election.

The Perils of Pre-Election Planning

If the inauguration date is to be advanced to November 20 or a comparable early date, the President-elect will have to rely on sophisticated and comprehensive planning initiated months in advance of election day. Presidents Nixon, Carter, and Reagan all initiated such planning with varying success.

Three major problems

of the campaign

all growing out of the dynamics thwart pre-election planners. First is the attention span of the candidate. The first duty of the candidate is to get elected. In the last two months of a campaign when the planners need guidance and decisions, the campaign leadership is jealously guarding the candidate's time and often resents the "distractions" of issues which can be put off until after the election. Plans, for example, to get candidate Carter to narrow the list of candidates for key Cabinet posts in late October in the 1976 campaign were shelved when the gap between Carter and Ford in the polls began to narrow and the campaign responded with new bursts of demands on the candidate's time.

A second problem faced by pre-election planners is the fear by the campaign that news about the candidate's choices will leak out and embarrass the campaign. Campaigns typically promise more than the President can ever deliver; campaign managers, knowing this, like to keep their options open. If several party factions believe that they have the inside track on appointment of a supporter to be Secretary of State, the last thing the campaign wants to do is disappoint them by premature disclosure of the President's choice.

A third problem is the rivalry which pre-election choices may stimulate in the campaign itself. Nothing is more destructive of unity among the candidate's troops than the rumor that while campaign activists are working round the clock to get the candidate elected, a group of "planners" is sitting in a back room somewhere dividing up the spoils of the expected victory. This problem became evident in the Carter campaign of 1976. A small transition planning group directed by Jack Watson was created soon after the convention with the mandate to conduct pre-election screening of personnel and to prepare policy papers on foreign and domestic issues. The Watson group was intentionally segregated from the campaign staff on the theory that otherwise long-term planning would be overwhelmed by short-term crises. The lack of contact between Watson's policy planning staff and Hamilton Jordan's campaign staff, while keeping the planners from being pulled into the vortex of the campaign, led to misunderstanding between the two groups. Intense press interest frustrated the attempts of the planning group to keep a low profile and led to rumor and speculation within the campaign which made it difficult for the planning staff to "market" their analysis with the candidate.

Senator HATCH. Thank you, Mr. Wellford. Let me ask you this, Mr. Macy, do you feel that making a Presidential candidate's Cabinet selections a part of his campaign would be a good change, because that would naturally, it seems to me, come from this type of amendment-or will it make those important Cabinet selections a result of politics rather than reflective thought on, say, truly qualified individuals?

It seems to me that if we go with this November 20 date, it may really be a question about whether Cabinet selections will then be chosen politically rather than reflectively.

Mr. MACY. My belief, Mr. Chairman, would be that the earlier date would have a compelling effect on bringing into play earlier planning, particularly with respect to the selection of key personnel.

Senator HATCH. I will agree with that.

Mr. MACY. And I believe that all too infrequently is there a concern during the campaign about the nature and quality of those that will be accompanying the President into office in key positions, positions that will make the character of his administration.

I think regardless of the length of time, there will be the problem of dealing with the seekers and overlooking the sought; in other words, there is a tendency to turn to those who have been involved in the campaign, and to see them as the principal source. And in many instances, as Mr. Wellford has pointed out, that source is not sufficiently appropriate or prepared to take on senior positions within the administration.

Senator HATCH. It may also be that those who are affiliated with the campaign may be foreclosed because of the need to avoid politics. I mean, this could go either way.

Mr. MACY. That's right.

Senator HATCH. I could see, you know, where there might be a greater sense of bipartisan selection, or selectionship, I guess we could call it, during the campaign if a Presidential nominee or sitting President had to basically talk about his future Cabinet.

Mr. MACY. Certainly more in the way of communication between the incumbent and the new President is desirable for all purposes. I am encouraged by what I heard here on my left, because my own experience has been that it has been very difficult for the incoming and outgoing Presidents to come together and deal with some of these critical issues.

It would seem to me that the earlier date would prompt some discussion as to the retention of certain officials for at least a brief period of time in order to assure some continuity.

Senator HATCH. But that prompts another question in my mind. Do you feel that a Presidential candidate can realistically be expected to run his campaign and organize the Cabinet at the same time? Won't the Cabinet selections be more the product of an election atmosphere, maybe of politics, than of reflective thought aimed at selecting the most qualified people? That is putting it another way. That is something that bothers me.

Mr. Wellford, do you have some comments about that?

Mr. WELLFORD. I think you have put your finger on one of the most vexing problems in trying to think through the practicalities of preelection selection.

In the Carter campaign, 1976, there was a schedule developed in July 1976, after the convention, which would have had the candidate, Carter, go through a final selection of people for key Cabinet and White House positions in the last 2 weeks of the campaign.

Now, that was all thought out very rationally and was considered by the people who put the plan together as a sign of great responsibility and foresightedness. And in an ideal world that would be true.

But several practical problems arise. First, when you talk about key Cabinet and White House positions, you are talking about dividing up the fruits of victory to a significant degree, both for staff and for interest groups. And the people who are running the campaign day to day, who are out there trying to win votes in a 24hour mad race to the White House, they get very uncomfortable when they hear that there is a group of planners sitting behind closed doors deciding who is going to get the key jobs in the White House, and it tends to sow disunity and suspicion within the President's own ranks.

Second, there is the problem of leaks about some of these choices. Senator HATCH. I think in time the Presidential candidates won't have to worry about leaks; they are going to have to actually declare who their people are going to be. That is one of the problems, it seems to me-both a plus and minus-I see it more as a minus personally.

But if the Presidential candidate is more concerned about selection of his Cabinet before his own election than he is in the election, then they may have to be, because it may be that that may be part of the election process. That may be good or bad-I don't know. That is one thing I am trying to ascertain here.

Mr. WELLFORD. I think, Senator, that there are occasions when it has worked somewhat, and those occasions where you have a rare combination of an elder statesman with the complete trust of the candidate, who has clearly taken himself out of any ambition to hold a position himself, so he is trusted by everybody-Clark Clifford played that role to some degree for Kennedy in 1960. If you have such an individual with that kind of trust, then some of this preselection can take place in the right kind of atmosphere.

But that is a rare circumstance. And I think it is basically a very difficult problem.

Senator HATCH. Mr. Wellford, you indicated that you don't agree with this particular amendment, but you would be amenable to a shortening of the time. Senator Pell, the author of this amendment, has indicated that he would be amenable to a slight extension of the time, maybe 10 days, maybe 2 weeks.

How does that sound to you? Would that alleviate your concerns and resolve the problems that you see in your mind here?

Mr. WELLFORD. My sort of rough estimate is that if you had a period of 6 to 7 weeks-let's say 6 weeks after the election-which would put you about the week before Christmas—

Senator HATCH. It would put you right about Christmas time. Mr. WELLFORD. Yes. That would be enough time to give the President-elect the opportunity to get his key people together and at the same time provide a little distance from the campaign. ›

Senator HATCH. You agree with the thrust of what Senator Pell and Senator Mathias have said, that the Congress needs to come into being about a week before whatever date is decided for the inauguration of the President under this amendment?

Mr. WELLFORD. I think so. One thing that I am absolutely convinced of is that last month before the inauguration has produced very little value for the President-elect or the country, in my experience; there has been a lot of wasted motion and a lot of confusion about who was in charge of this country.

And I think we can't tolerate that any more.

Senator HATCH. One thing that intrigued me about your statement was that if you do shorten the time, you may have less-well, you alleviate the necessity of a last-ditch swansong budget, and you have both indicated this budget and the▬▬

Mr. MACY. State of the Union.

Senator HATCH [continuing]. And State of the Union Address-I remember when President Carter left office, he provided for massive increases in the military, if you looked at his 5-year plan. And a number of Democrats have been very uncomfortable with that ever since because actually Reagan's increases for the military, as I understand it, are below what Carter recommended over the same 5-year period. And it has been somewhat embarrassing to the Reagan administration and somewhat embarrassing to some of our colleagues who don't agree with increasing the military as much as President Reagan or, in this case, President Carter, and a lot of people felt that the 5-year estimate on the military that Carter put forth in his budget proposal was for political purposes.

And the Reagan people would choose to believe that, of course, he was being a statesman, recognizing the problems that exist.

But I see a lot of games like that that presently do exist under our present system. I worry a little bit about your suggestion that maybe a week before Christmas we could install the President. Mr. MACY. I shoot for December 1.

Senator HATCH. You would shoot for December 1 rather than December 20.

Mr. MACY. I think that that provides the pressure that is desired in the amendment, and also gives enough time to work out some of these fundamental decisions.

Senator HATCH. I am also looking at this problem of the intensity and the stress of modern Presidential campaigns. I looked at Walter Mondale this morning, and he looked like he had been dragged through a wringer; I mean, he really looked tired. And Gary Hart has been suffering from bronchitis and other problems. And for those who really get involved in a major primary contest, it becomes an endurance contest as much as anything else, in some ways.

Mr. MACY. I think we need to look at that process also, Mr. Chairman.

Senator HATCH. Well, they may be too tired, if you just give them from just, say, November 4 to December 1-they may need that little bit of time to kind of catch up.

If you have that short of time, that means they don't have time to take a week or two off; they have got to go right to work solving