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• The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency Crown (New York, NY), 2017

1. The gatekeepers : how the White House Chiefs of Staff define every presidency LCCN 2016046233 Type of material Book Personal name Whipple, Chris, author. Main title The gatekeepers : how the White House Chiefs of Staff define every presidency / Chris Whipple. Edition First Edition. Published/Produced New York : Crown, [2017] Description 365 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 24 cm ISBN 9780804138246 (hardback) 9780804138260 (paperback) CALL NUMBER JK552 .W55 2017 Copy 1 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms CALL NUMBER JK552 .W55 2017 Copy 2 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms

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  Chris Whipple
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  I am the author of the New York Times best-seller, 'The Gatekeepers: How the White House chiefs of staff define every presidency', published by Crown on April 4, 2017. Based on extensive, intimate interviews with all seventeen living chiefs, 'The Gatekeepers' is attracting critical acclaim ("If you're a political junkie or just curious, this book is for you" - Tom Brokaw). I am also the executive producer and writer of 'THE SPYMASTERS: CIA in the Crosshairs', an inside look at the world's most powerful intelligence agency. Airing on SHOWTIME, THE SPYMASTERS draws on more than 100 hours of exclusive interviews with all twelve living directors of the CIA. I also executive produced and wrote 'THE PRESIDENTS' GATEKEEPERS', a primetime documentary series about the White House chiefs of staff, which aired on the Discovery Channel in 2013. Called the world’s second most powerful job – and also the world’s worst - the White House chief of staff translates the president's policies into reality, or disaster. He is the president's most powerful adviser and closest confidant. THE PRESIDENTS’ GATEKEEPERS spans nine administrations and features interviews with former Presidents Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush as well as all the living chiefs of staff - including Rahm Emanuel, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, James A. Baker III, Ken Duberstein, Leon Panetta, Mack McLarty, Bill Daley, Jack Lew and Denis McDonough.
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• Chris Whipple Home Page - http://www.chriswhipple.net/about-chris-whipple/

  Chris Whipple is a writer, a documentary filmmaker, a journalist and a speaker. He is the author of the New York Times best-selling book, The Gatekeepers: How the White House chiefs of staff define every presidency. Critically-acclaimed (“If you’re a political junkie or just curious, this is the book for you”—Tom Brokaw), The Gatekeepers, published April 4, 2017 by Crown, is the first in-depth, behind-the-scenes look at the men who have been the president’s closest advisers, whose actions—and inactions—have defined the course of our country.

  Since George Washington, presidents have depended on the advice of key confidants. But it wasn’t until the twentieth century that White House Chief of Staff became the second most powerful job in government. Unelected and unconfirmed, the chief serves at the whim of the president, hired and fired by him (or her) alone. He is the president’s most important adviser, and the person he depends on to execute his agenda.

  Through extensive, intimate interviews with all seventeen living chiefs and two former presidents, award-winning journalist and producer Chris Whipple pulls back the curtain on this unique fraternity, whose members have included Rahm Emanuel, Dick Cheney, Leon Panetta and Donald Rumsfeld.

  In doing so, he revises our understanding of presidential history, showing us how James Baker and Panetta skillfully managed the presidencies of Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, ensuring their re-election—and, conversely, how Jimmy Carter never understood the importance of a chief, crippling his ability to govern. From Watergate to Iran-Contra to the Monica Lewinsky scandal to the Iraq War, Whipple shows us how the chief of staff can make the difference between success and disaster.

  As an outsider president tries to govern after a bitterly divisive election, The Gatekeepers could not be more timely. Filled with shrewd analysis and never-before-reported details, it is a compelling history that changes our perspective on the presidency.

  A multiple Peabody and Emmy Award-winning producer at CBS News 60 Minutes and ABC News PrimeTime, Chris Whipple is the chief executive officer of CCWHIP Productions. He is the writer and executive producer of The Spymasters: CIA in the Crosshairs, airing on Showtime. For this groundbreaking film, Whipple conducted, for the first time ever, more than 100 hours of exclusive interviews with all twelve living CIA directors and their top operatives.

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Some advice for Reince Priebus: the most successful chiefs of staff have known not only how to take charge but also when to leave
Michael O'Donnell
Washington Monthly. 49.3-5 (March-May 2017): p53.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 Washington Monthly Company
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/
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Full Text:
The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency

by Chris Whipple

Crown, 384 pp.

In 1981, the Atlantic Monthly published a devastating critique of supply-side economics called "The Education of David Stockman." The article was a major embarrassment for the Reagan administration: Stockman was the president's budget director, and had publicly undermined the theory and numbers behind Reagan's entire economic program. The cover of the magazine even featured a photograph of the wayward technocrat. Reagan's chief of staff, James A. Baker III, called Stockman into his White House office for a chat, and put an end to his freelancing:

My friend, I want you to listen up good. Your ass is in a sling.
All of the rest of them want you shit-canned right now.
Immediately. This afternoon. If it weren't for me, you'd he a goner
already.... You're going to have lunch with the president. "The
menu is humble pie. You're going to eat every last motherfucking
spoonful of it.

The scene is the classic depiction of a White House chief of staff: furious, profane, demanding of loyalty as he stands tall over every member of the executive branch save one. Hollywood loves such encounters. The most memorable portrayal of the chief of staff on the small screen, The West Wing, features scores of them, including in the show's second episode, when Leo McGarry dresses down a surly vice president. In House of Cards, Chief of Staff Doug Stamper need only remove his glasses and thrust out his magnificent chin to get results. Failing that, he chokes disobedient underlings half to death.

Baker clearly had to ring Stockman's bell. Yet as the Emmy Award-winning writer and producer Chris Whipple shows in The Gatekeepers, his illuminating history of the office of chief of staff, an effective chief mustn't overplay the drill sergeant card. Javelin catcher, the Abominable No Man, Undersecretary for Go Fuck Yourself--these colorful honorifics lampoon a quality that is essential in the right dose but ineffective when overdone.

And some have overdone it, relishing power and behaving imperially until they were brought down by their own troops. Baker's successor, Don Regan, hung up the phone on the wrong first lady and found himself out on his ear. George H. W. Bush's insufferable first chief of staff, John Sununu, boasted after screaming at a room of people that they would go back to their offices and marvel at how tough he was. His deputy disagreed: "They're going to go back to their offices and tell everyone, 'Sununu is a fucking asshole!'"

On the other hand, too little backbone creates its own problems. Bush's second chief of staff, Sam Skinner, was overwhelmed by his responsibilities in what he called "the worst job in the world." His boss soon found himself longing for Sununu's take-no-prisoners style, which for a time at least got results. More recently, Andrew Card struggled to corral the big personalities and broad portfolios of George W. Bush's cabinet. His inability to wrangle Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, and especially Vice President Dick Cheney contributed to a rancorous atmosphere and catastrophic policy decisions like the invasion of Iraq. When Rumsfeld himself was chief of staff to President Ford, he had no problem standing up to administration heavies. He told Secretary of State Henry Kissinger that if he couldn't show up on time to meetings in the Oval Office, he should stop coming altogether. And when the president wanted to go to Tip O'Neill's birthday party, Rummy told him he'd have to walk.

The sergeant or the milquetoast; vulnerable to backstabbers or enemy fire: it is a delicate balance to strike. That is especially the case if you are Reince Priebus trying to manage a mercurial chief executive and an unconventional West Wing staff. Priebus might consider reading this book.

The White House chief of staff is a modern position, dating from the 1950s. Sherman Adams was the first official chief, under President Eisenhower, but the job caught on only during the Nixon administration, after Presidents Kennedy and Johnson ran their own shops. Yet elements of the position have existed in other forms, and one of the weaknesses of The Gatekeepers is that it disregards the job's fascinating antecedents. Woodrow Wilson had his Colonel House and Franklin Roosevelt his Harry Hopkins: advisers who were close to the president personally, enjoyed his confidence, and advised him on matters of policy and politics. Other presidents used private secretaries and personal assistants for the same purpose. Adams gets barely two pages in this book, even though he was a fascinating figure who perhaps first embodied our hard-bitten image of a chief. Time magazine described him as a grizzly bear with a barked shin.

H. R. Haldeman created the template for the modern chief of staff under President Nixon, devising the West Wing staffing system that most subsequent administrations have followed. There was a chain of command leading up to the chief, whose role was to control access to the president and tee up issues for his attention. Haldeman told his team that the president's most valuable asset was his time, and he refused to waste a minute of it on issues that were not properly vetted or that could be resolved by others. What he wanted in a staffer was someone who "would remain in the background, issue no orders, make no decisions, emit no public statements," and who was "possessed of a high competence, great physical vigor, and a passion for anonymity." Haldeman lived out that credo, sitting against the wall during cabinet meetings, and handling every detail of Nixon's presidency.

What he lacked was the ability to keep his principal from his own worst excesses. At times he tried. Whipple recounts a scene in which Nixon ordered Haldeman to give lie detector tests to every employee of the State Department. Haldeman responded with passive resistance, declining to institute a program that would have been dubious legally and impossible practically, and explaining away his slow-footedness until Nixon lost interest. Yet Haldeman also enabled Nixon's paranoia and vindictiveness. He matched the president's anti-Semitism slur for slur. White House recordings show that when Nixon finally let Haldeman go, it was a mawkish scene in which the inebriated president clearly knew he was making a loyal soldier fall on his sword. "Let me say you're a strong man, goddamn it, and I love you. ... By God, keep the faith. Keep the faith. You're going to win this son of a bitch."

Here we reach the matter of timing, knowing when to leave the stage: what Jerry Seinfeld described as "showmanship." Rumsfeld advises new chiefs of staff that they have to be willing to be fired, which is another way of saying they mustn't be afraid to tell the president what he doesn't want to hear. But the most successful chiefs leave the job of their own accord. Leon Panetta told President Clinton that he would serve for a maximum of two years; Baker made it clear that he would leave when the right cabinet position opened up. Rahm Emanuel--who tempered outrageous brashness with an extraordinary ability to move legislation--left the Obama administration after a year and a half to run for mayor of Chicago. By contrast, Sununu and Regan resisted the door. Sununu ignored multiple messengers whom President Bush sent to fire him. Regan left the Reagan administration in a fit of pique, submitting a one-line letter of resignation after he had been replaced and then never speaking to the president again.

What makes a successful chief of staff? The Gatekeepers both does and does not supply the answer. The book is an overview rather than an in-depth study, with some chiefs earning only a page or two of superficial analysis. And Whipple relies on too many blockbuster interviews of cabinet secretaries and even a president (Bush 41), overlooking White House staffers. Yet Whipple has done readers a service by presenting all of the chiefs of staff here, in one place, for side-by-side comparison. Reading about them sequentially, one divines four essential competencies. A chief of staff must have mastery of management, policy, and politics--and he must have the president's confidence. Very few have combined all four.

Two of the best chiefs worked for Bill Clinton: Leon Panetta and John Podesta. The first two years of the Clinton presidency were aimless ones, with the famously disorganized president setting a tone of scattered ineffectiveness. Arriving in 1994, Panetta changed that, with the help of ace deputy Erskine Bowles, who would take over after Panetta left in 1996. They added structure to Clinton's schedule, closed his perennially open door, and relentlessly focused on his strategic priorities. Panetta had "an iron fist in a velvet glove," cultivating friends with his jovial manner but, like Baker, cracking down as needed. He made an ally of Hillary Clinton, and steered the West Wing through the government shutdown. John Podesta was Clinton's final chief, and later proved an invaluable adviser to President Obama. Podesta helped the administration regain direction and purpose after the Monica Lewinsky scandal and subsequent impeachment. A brisk policy expert with fine political antennae, Podesta was well liked by his staff, who continue to remember him fondly.

Lower down the list are Denis McDonough, President Obama's final chief of staff, Josh Bolton under George W. Bush, and Dick Cheney, who served President Ford. McDonough was simpatico with his president in a way of few other chiefs, an alter ego to the solitary and analytical Obama. With Podesta's help, McDonough made effective use of executive orders late in what was shaping up to be a disappointing second term, although he was unable to accomplish as much as the hyperactive Emanuel. Bolton reimposed structure in President Bush's White House by reasserting control over the staff and the cabinet. And under Ford, Cheney was an effective chief mainly in contrast to his predecessor Rumsfeld, who had driven everyone crazy with his bottomless arrogance and general unpleasantness. In a bit of irony for modern readers, the master of darkness was known in his youth as a laid-back people person, with "a softer management style" than Rumsfeld. Under Cheney, "the place really hummed." But then, the Ford presidency did not end particularly well.

By common consent, the most effective White House chief of staff ever to hold the position was Jim Baker, who read the riot act to poor David Stockman in 1981. Nearly every subsequent chief has sought to emulate him. Baker had an uncanny command of policy and politics, managed the West Wing efficiently, and enjoyed Reagan's full confidence. He was prepared for each meeting and spoke with the authority of the president. "Day in and day out, he's focused," said Margaret Tutwiler, former undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs at the State Department under George W. Bush. "He does not wing it. He thinks before he speaks." Baker was well matched to his boss, for his knowledge of detail complemented Reagan's lack of it. As campaign manager Stuart Spencer put it, "Reagan was, 'I've got a role to play, I've got a script to learn--and you're a producer, you're a director, and you're a cameraman: Now you do your job and I'm gonna do mine.'" The upshot, Spencer said, was: "You've got to have one hell of a chief of staff!"

Baker was. One of Whipple's interviewees described him as a maestro. He forged quick alliances with Nancy Reagan and her close friend Mike Deaver, collected members of the press, and hand-picked staff in every department. He was a straight shooter and tough, but no tyrant, and with his sharp Texas charm he won the staff's loyalty. A pragmatist, Baker focused on legislation that was achievable rather than ideologically pure. He reasserted command in the West Wing after the assassination attempt on Reagan in 1981, and used the president's ensuing swell in popularity to advance budget legislation. Baker's hardest test was managing the conservative side of Reagan's cabinet, particularly Edwin Meese and Jeanne Kirkpatrick. Yet he won more battles than he lost, and was asked to return by the first President Bush. Tom Wilkinson memorably portrayed Baker in the Bush/Gore movie Recount, and gave a hint of his legendary effectiveness as he took control of a roomful of tentative staff. "Now, we can sit here drinking tea and discussing the virtues of federalism, or we can start throwing punches."

The Carter administration, by contrast, offers a cautionary tale. Disregarding Haldeman's staff structure, Carter initially declined to hire a chief of staff, instead attempting to recreate the "spokes of the wheel" plan of Kennedy's West Wing. The president sat at the center, and each of his senior advisers shared equal access. A model intended to bring the president a diversity of viewpoints resulted in chaos, with murky lines of sight and few objectives achieved. As Carter speechwriter James Fallows later wrote in a scathing critique:

Carter and those closest to him took office
in profound ignorance of their jobs.
They were ignorant of the possibilities
and the most likely pitfalls. They fell
prey to predictable dangers and squandered
precious time.... Carter did not
devour history for its lessons, surround
himself with people who could do what
he could not, or learn from others that
fire was painful before he plunged his
hand into the flame.
Several days before President Trump's inauguration, the New York Times wrote that the incoming chief of staff, Reince Priebus, was inheriting "one of the most daunting and uncertain situations any recent chief of staff has faced." The president's most famous punchline is "You're fired," and during the transition he boasted, "We have no formal chain of command around here." Priebus, in theory, has authority over Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, Counselor Kellyanne Conway, and Senior Adviser Jared Kushner. But Kushner is family, and Bannon emerged in January as Trump's point man. Vice President Mike Pence has broad authority that may supersede everyone's but Trump's. News reports abound describing these individuals jockeying for the president's favor. In his prior life at the Republican National Committee, Priebus was an institutionalist renowned for his fund-raising. Those skills got them to the West Wing, but they won't help in a knife fight.

The Gatekeepers was written before President Trump took office, but it is impossible to read without an eye to current events. The book's lesson is that a presidency's success is bound up closely with the abilities and authority of his chief of staff. In his boldest claim, Whipple even asserts that the Iran-Contra affair would not have happened had James Baker still been Reagan's chief. That is unknowable but carries the ring of truth; Whipple writes that "a plot to sell arms to Iran through shady middlemen with Swiss bank accounts would never have passed Baker's smell test." Perhaps that is a fifth competency: every chief of staff needs a strong nose. Let's hope Reince Priebus has one.

Michael O'Donnell is a writer and attorney who is a frequent contributor to the Washington Monthly. His writing also appears in the Atlantic, the Wall Street Journal, and the Nation.

The Gatekeepers
Roger Bishop
BookPage.
(Apr. 2017): p24.
COPYRIGHT 2017 BookPage
http://bookpage.com/
Full Text:
AMERICAN HISTORY
THE GATEKEEPERS
By Chris Whipple
Crown
$28, 384 pages
ISBN 9780804138246
Audio, eBook available
When a presidential campaign is over and the winning candidate is in the White House, he (and in the future, she) must
face the difficult task of turning political rhetoric into concrete legislation or executive action. Presidents get
accustomed to people agreeing with them, but it is imperative that the top elected official in the land has someone with
the authority to challenge the president. He or she must be willing to "speak truth to power" when problems emerge and
must be ready to accept the blame when things go wrong, but be certain that when things go well, the president is the
one who receives credit.
For many years that person has been the White House chief of staff. With his carefully researched, bipartisan and
eminently readable The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency, Chris Whipple
has written a must-read book for all who want a backstage view of the presidency, from the Richard Nixon years
through Barack Obama's two terms. Based on extensive, intimate interviews with all 17 living former chiefs of staff,
former presidents Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush, and many others, this is a treasure trove of experiences. James
Baker, chief of staff for Ronald Reagan, who later served as treasury secretary and secretary of state, says a strong
argument can be made that the position is the "second-most-powerful job in government." Forty years after he served as
Gerald Ford's chief of staff, Donald Rumsfeld said the position was "unquestionably the toughest job I ever had,"
despite later serving as secretary of defense under two presidents.
Whipple is an acclaimed writer, documentary filmmaker and multiple Peabody and Emmy Award-winning producer at
CBS' "60 Minutes" and ABC's "Primetime." The remarkably candid interviews and reader-friendly narrative of this
book make for very informative and entertaining reading.
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Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Bishop, Roger. "The Gatekeepers." BookPage, Apr. 2017, p. 24. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA490551638&it=r&asid=dbc7bbc7aabfe278cc86090873b34234.
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The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs
of Staff Define Every Presidency
Carol Haggas
Booklist.
113.13 (Mar. 1, 2017): p24.
COPYRIGHT 2017 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
Full Text:
* The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency.
By Chris Whipple.
Apr. 2017.384p. illus. Crown, $28 (9780804138246). 353.03.
The position of White House chief of staff is a relatively modern construct. Ideally a combination of trusted confidante
and devils advocate, the chief of staff is the one person tasked with keeping the president and his administration on
point and on schedule. The success or failure of any presidency can often lie squarely on the shoulders of this person
who is neither elected nor confirmed for the position. From the outrageous hubris of John Sununu in the George H. W.
Bush White House to the pompous arrogance of Donald T. Regan in Ronald Reagan's, the chief of staff can hinder a
president's image, affect his legacy, and, indeed, limit his time in office. Others, such as the consummate professional
James A. Baker (also Reagan), Leon Panetta (Bill Clinton), and Andrew Card (George W. Bush), have imposed a strict
sense of organization, control, and decorum over the most powerful office in the world. Having interviewed all 17
living former chiefs of staff and two former presidents, Whipple offers a scintillating behind-the-scenes look at an
office that is all but invisible to the public. This is page-turning catnip for political junkies, who will read it with an eye
to what lies in store for Reince Priebus and the Trump administration.--Carol Haggas
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Haggas, Carol. "The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency." Booklist, 1 Mar.
2017, p. 24. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA488689428&it=r&asid=5e13be622d8ccbefc98e94bf68096548.
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Whipple, Chris. The Gatekeepers; How the White
House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency
Jacob Sherman
Library Journal.
142.4 (Mar. 1, 2017): p94.
COPYRIGHT 2017 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution
permitted.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/
Full Text:
Whipple, Chris. The Gatekeepers; How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency. Crown. Apr. 2017.
384p. photos. notes. bibliog. index. ISBN 9780804138246. $28; ebk. ISBN 9780804138253. POL SCI
Journalist and documentarian Whipple has written a detailed account of the White House chief of staff's development.
The current role started with the Nixon administration and H.R. Haldeman. Whipple demonstrates that the position can
be a major factor in the success or failure of presidencies. Men have failed as chief of staff because they thought the
power of presidency filtered through them, leading to inflated egos. Successful figures were those willing to see
alternatives and check infighting within administrations. This is a worthwhile read that compares well with Bradley H.
Patterson Jr.'s The White House Staff and Kate Andersen Brower's The Residence. Through firsthand accounts of the
presidency, it gives valuable understanding of the position and would be a great tool for Reince Priebus as President
Donald Trump's chief of staff VERDICT Highly recommended for those seeking a history of the modern presidency or
political insight. [See Prepub Alert, 10/17/16.]--Jacob Sherman, John Peace Lib., Univ. of Texas at San Antonio
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Sherman, Jacob. "Whipple, Chris. The Gatekeepers; How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency."
Library Journal, 1 Mar. 2017, p. 94. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA483702175&it=r&asid=e038f2d3505f177cc74c24add2fb1ef9.
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Whipple, Chris: THE GATEKEEPERS
Kirkus Reviews.
(Feb. 1, 2017):
COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Whipple, Chris THE GATEKEEPERS Crown (Adult Nonfiction) $28.00 4, 4 ISBN: 978-0-8041-3824-6
Peabody and Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Whipple chronicles the roles as well as the successes and
failures of White House chiefs of staff from the Richard Nixon to Barack Obama administrations.The modern White
House chief of staff, the gatekeeper to the president and manager of White House operations, emerged during the Nixon
administration. While presidents Kennedy and Johnson preferred a more decentralized system with multiple advisers,
Nixon's chief, H.R. Haldeman, created a strong, focused organization that has endured for nearly a half-century. The
author discusses subsequent administrations and their chiefs in chronological order. James A. Baker III, Ronald
Reagan's first chief of staff, is seen as the gold standard. Also successful were Gerald Ford's two chiefs, Donald
Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney. Among those whose performance fell short were Hamilton Jordan for Jimmy Carter,
Donald Regan for Reagan, and Mack McLarty for Bill Clinton. Throughout the book, Whipple identifies several
variables that affect performance: presidential access and support; management style; and whether the chief serves as
an honest broker, allowing all arguments on issues to be presented, or as a strict advocate. Also pivotal is whether he--
all the chiefs have been men--views himself as a principal, essentially a peer of the president, or as a staff member;
invariably, the former is a recipe for failure. An unusual element was added when George W. Bush's vice president,
Cheney, experienced from White House politics during the Ford administration, was able to thwart the efforts of Bush's
chief, Andrew Card. Whipple also reviews the high and low points of the past eight administrations, and he greatly
enhances the narrative with his many interviews, some of which were used for a documentary he did on the subject in
2013. A well-researched, well-written review of a unique government position--informative for the general public and
an insightful blueprint for the new administration.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Whipple, Chris: THE GATEKEEPERS." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Feb. 2017. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA479234629&it=r&asid=2f2994a0566a5682a86ca0df985fe527.
Accessed 15 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A479234629
10/15/2017 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1508108614204 6/6
The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs
of Staff Define Every Presidency
Publishers Weekly.
264.5 (Jan. 30, 2017): p190.
COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency
Chris Whipple. Crown, $28 (384p)
ISBN 978-0-8041-3824-6
Whipple, a documentary filmmaker and first-time author, surveys recent U.S. presidential history by profiling chiefs of
staff from Nixon to Obama. He doesn't quite justify his subtitle or even try particularly hard to prove its far-reaching
claim, but he does recount a vibrant narrative of the real-world West Wing and give insight into the oft-mentioned but
little-explained role of White House Chief of Staff. Repurposing original interviews conducted for a documentary film
that Whipple cowrote, The President's Gatekeepers, the book is peppered with stories and insights from many of the
chiefs of staff and other key players including presidents Carter and George H. W. Bush. Whipple also draws from
other histories and political memoirs, giving the book an insiders' feel as it recounts historical episodes such as the
Watergate break-in, the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan, the 9/11 attacks, and the unsuccessful rollout of
healthcare.gov. The confident and fast-paced narrative is enhanced by having actual historical players contribute wellrounded
(and sometimes surprising) characterizations of presidents and other Washington luminaries. In this pageturner
of a history, readers will discover new facets of historical events that they felt they already knew. Agent: Lisa
Queen, Queen Literary Agency. (Apr.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency." Publishers Weekly, 30 Jan. 2017, p.
190. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA480195220&it=r&asid=dd953d8d92d157170119b27f1c4b1a11.
Accessed 15 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A480195220

O'Donnell, Michael. "Some advice for Reince Priebus: the most successful chiefs of staff have known not only how to take charge but also when to leave." Washington Monthly, Mar.-May 2017, p. 53+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA491487782&it=r&asid=98e0ac5238f02a971af87b44d4984922. Accessed 15 Oct. 2017. Bishop, Roger. "The Gatekeepers." BookPage, Apr. 2017, p. 24. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA490551638&it=r. Accessed 15 Oct. 2017. Haggas, Carol. "The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency." Booklist, 1 Mar. 2017, p. 24. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA488689428&it=r. Accessed 15 Oct. 2017. Sherman, Jacob. "Whipple, Chris. The Gatekeepers; How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency." Library Journal, 1 Mar. 2017, p. 94. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA483702175&it=r. Accessed 15 Oct. 2017. "Whipple, Chris: THE GATEKEEPERS." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Feb. 2017. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA479234629&it=r. Accessed 15 Oct. 2017. "The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency." Publishers Weekly, 30 Jan. 2017, p. 190. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA480195220&it=r. Accessed 15 Oct. 2017.

• National
  https://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/book-review-why-white-house-chiefs-of-staff-matter-in-the-gatekeepers-by-chris-whipple-1.25837
  Word count: 1468

  Book review: why White House chiefs of staff matter in The Gatekeepers by Chris Whipple
  From Donald Rumsfeld to Reince Priebus, behind each US president is a chief of staff who holds the access key to the most powerful man in the world.

  Steve Donoghue
  Steve Donoghue
  March 28, 2017
  Updated: March 28, 2017 04:00 AM
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  White House chief of staff Donald Rumsfeld in the Oval Office in September 1974, a month into Gerald Ford’s presidency. David Hume Kennerly / Getty Images.
  White House chief of staff Donald Rumsfeld in the Oval Office in September 1974, a month into Gerald Ford’s presidency. David Hume Kennerly / Getty Images.
  During the 2016 United States presidential campaign, property tycoon and reality TV personality Donald Trump frequently promised that if he were elected, he would go to Washington and “drain the swamp”, removing career political hacks and bringing in new blood. When he was elected, however, in addition to packing the White House with relatives and controversial figures, he picked a long-time swamp-dweller for one of the most important jobs, appointing Republican party apparatchik Reince Priebus as his chief of staff.

  It is by default a tremendously consequential decision. As journalist and documentarian Chris Whipple points out at the start of his invigorating new book The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency, “the fate of every presidency arguably hinges on this little-understood position”.

  Under normal political circumstances, the choice of chief of staff is weighed up for some time, a decision influenced by range of factors. Who has the managerial skill to manage the hundreds of people jockeying for the president’s attention? Who has the networking finesse to reach out to leaders of Congress in ways that help the administration’s agenda without compromising the president? Who has the intellectual clarity to keep the bigger picture of the Oval Office job in view, and the personal courage to make sure the president never loses sight of it?

  “The chief must be the gatekeeper who decides who sees the president,” writes Whipple. “He must almost always be in the room to prevent end runs by people pushing their own agendas.”

  Whipple interviewed each of the 17 surviving chiefs of staff for his book, and two former presidents. Anyone who has ever interviewed a public figure and encountered a deeply-ingrained ability to avoid saying anything pointed or memorable will admire Whipple’s skill in drawing out vivid line after vivid line from his diplomatic and reticent subjects. And although the chiefs he interviewed have beliefs across all the social and political spectrum, they all agree about the job itself. “If people tell you they want to leave the White House, they’re probably lying,” George W Bush’s chief of staff Andrew Card tells Whipple. “Nobody really wants to leave the White House.”

  On the morning of September 11, 2001, Card had to whisper in the president’s ear, “America is under attack.” And it was Card who was there in the room during the tense, calamitous days of Bush’s decisions to launch the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, decisions about which he is fascinatingly blunt.

  “I did not see it necessarily as Vietnam but I could see that the climate in America would be more akin to the climate around Vietnam,” Card tells Whipple. “I remember being concerned about how long the war was taking, both in Afghanistan and Iraq. And I knew that America could become war-weary very quickly.”

  Card’s experiences in the job featured momentous wars and natural disasters. Not every chief Whipple interviews has such high-stakes war stories to relate. But the personal drama in every administration is no less intense, and these chapters capture that drama in ways a more distanced, scholarly approach would not be likely to match.

  There are make-or-break issues in every one of the administrations The Gatekeepers covers, from the Nixon years in which chief of staff H R “Bob” Haldeman set the pattern for the modern iteration of White House chief of staff, according to Whipple, through to the chiefs employed by presidents Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H W Bush, Bill Clinton, George W Bush and Barack Obama.

  Ford, for instance, came to the job from his Congressional office in which he had favoured an informal approach among his top staff, a “spokes of the wheel” model that allowed fairly open access to the boss. And for a while, he duplicated this pattern in the Oval Office, favouring his official photographer David Hume Kennerly on personal grounds – until Donald Rumsfeld, Ford’s first choice for chief of staff, who became secretary of defence under George W Bush, objected to the chaos created by the “spokes of the wheel” approach at the presidential level.

  Ford reluctantly agreed: “Without a strong decision-maker who could help me set my priorities,” he recalled, “I’d be hounded to death by gnats and fleas. I wouldn’t have time to reflect on basic strategy or the fundamental direction of my presidency.”

  The nuance of Ford’s observation – the way the chief of staff simultaneously alleviates and accentuates the essential loneliness of the presidency – is realised in half-a-dozen variations throughout Whipple’s book. Some presidents, like Reagan, favoured a chief who would function almost as a co-chairman, running meetings and keeping a tight rein on the executive branch; Reagan got “consummate Washington insider” James Baker to perform just such a function – something the previous president, Jimmy Carter, had failed to do. Whipple points out: “Carter was arguably the most intelligent president of the twentieth century, whereas Reagan had once been called, unfairly, ‘an amiable dunce’. Yet in choosing Baker, Reagan had intuited something his predecessor did not grasp.”

  Other presidents preferred a less dominant individual, a discussion-facilitator more on the lines of president Obama’s fourth, and final, chief, former deputy national security adviser Denis McDonough, who was reluctant to make policy arguments alone with the president. “It’s not fair,” he tells Whipple. “I make it when somebody can rebut it – keep me honest. Hold me accountable.”

  But despite the general note of self-effacement struck by all the interview subjects in these pages, few of them actually displayed that kind of self-effacement in the job – the pervasive impression is that a strong, perhaps even unpleasant, personality is virtually a requirement.

  Foremost in that category in modern times would be former Republican governor of New Hampshire John Sununu, who cut a bloody swath as president George H W Bush’s ringleader. “Sununu was better at managing the boss than the staff,” writes Whipple, adding diplomatically, “The president appreciated his intelligence and wit.”

  Sununu’s reign as chief of staff, before it ended in a minor scandal, was legendary for its ruthlessness, but owing to its dependency on friendly interviews, The Gatekeepers contains very little of that kind of raw narrative.

  President Clinton’s second chief, Leon Panetta, provides some of the book’s saltiest quotes, but the prevailing impression is one of judicious friendliness. Obama’s first chief, Rahm Emanuel, can talk about doing “the Wrap” with the President, a walk around the circular driveway of the White House’s South Lawn, but instead of learning about the political plotting in those conversations, we hear that First Lady Michelle Obama would sometimes tease, “Oh, look – the boys are on their walk!”

  Given the political climate in the US, Whipple can hardly avoid casting nervous glances at the current Oval Office. “Donald Trump’s stunning election victory over Hillary Clinton poses an unsettling question: What kind of president will he be?” he asks. “Will he run the White House the way he campaigned: demonizing opponents and making seat-of-the-pants decisions, with no regard for facts or nuance? Or will the burdens of the office put a brake on Trump’s worst instincts – and enable him to govern effectively?”

  These questions were set down on paper long before the breaking news of the day, of course. In the few weeks since The Gatekeepers appeared in bookstores, some tentative answers have started to surface, and in the face of deranged late-night tweets, gratuitous personal insults delivered to key international allies, and major legislative defeats suffered at the hands of his own political party, not even Trump’s staunchest supporters would say those answers point toward “govern effectively”. No, even this early, one thing is crystal clear: Priebus shouldn’t get too comfortable in his office.

  Steve Donoghue is managing editor of Open Letters Monthly.

• NPR
  http://www.npr.org/2017/04/04/522632374/book-examines-17-gatekeepers-into-the-white-houses-inner-workings
  Word count: 1605

  Book Examines 17 'Gatekeepers' Into The White House's Inner Workings

  Listen· 7:59

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  April 4, 20174:47 PM ET
  Heard on All Things Considered
  NPR's Robert Siegel talks to Chris Whipple and former White House Chief of Staff James Baker about The Gatekeepers, Whipple's look at how chiefs of staff have defined decades of presidencies.

  ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

  When a new president takes office, we're all very mindful of who'll be the next secretary of state who'll be the secretary of defense or attorney general. But the personnel choice that's often more influential is one that requires no Senate confirmation. It's often someone we barely heard of, but it's the person who stands between the president and a multitude of appointees, special interests, job seekers, political opponents, old friends. You name it. It's the White House chief of staff, the subject of Chris Whipple's new book, "The Gatekeepers."

  We're joined now by Mr. Whipple, who's in New York. Welcome to the program.

  CHRIS WHIPPLE: Thanks for having me.

  SIEGEL: And also by a man who was chief of staff to two presidents, not to mention secretary of state and secretary of the Treasury, James Baker, who joins us from Houston. Secretary Baker, welcome to the program.

  JAMES BAKER: Thank you, Robert.

  SIEGEL: Let me ask you first, Chris Whipple. You interviewed all 17 former White House chiefs of staff, and you quote Nixon's chief of staff, Bob Haldeman as saying, "our job is not to do the work of government" - defer to Cabinet departments, he meant. But then you write, in practice, almost all the governing - actual governing, real decisions did take place in the West Wing. Is that typical of things ever since?

  WHIPPLE: You know, it's absolutely true, and it's been true since the days of Haldeman and Nixon. You know, the irony here is that Haldeman became the poster boy for Watergate, the worst scandal in history. And yet most of the - his successors would tell you that he wrote the template for the modern empowered White House chief of staff.

  He ran a tight ship. He executed Nixon's agenda, and he did it pretty well until he was of course done in by Watergate and his inability to speak truth to power, which of course is another major responsibility. But since the days of Haldeman, power really does reside in the White House.

  SIEGEL: James Baker, you were Ronald Reagan's chief of staff and then his treasury secretary. And you were George H.W. Bush's chief of staff but also his secretary of state. Do you think you had more influence when you were running one of the big agencies or when you were the gatekeeper to the Oval Office?

  BAKER: Well, it depends on which of my presidents you're talking about. I was of course personally closer to George Bush because we'd been friends for 40 years. I had run all of his presidential campaigns, so nobody was going to ever get between me and my president. And when I went out as secretary of state and said something, they knew I was talking for the president of the United States, and nobody questioned it.

  With Ronald Reagan, it was a little different. I was the outsider. I had run two campaigns against Reagan before he asked me to be his chief of staff. But he invested me with great authority and great responsibility and gave me great loyalty. I've said oftentimes that being white house chief of staff is perhaps the second most powerful job in Washington, D.C. I think that's true. But so much depends upon your relationship with your present.

  SIEGEL: Chris Whipple, you mentioned speaking truth to power. That means telling the most powerful person in the country no sometimes. Who were some effective naysayers, and who were some who couldn't say no loud enough or often enough?

  WHIPPLE: Well, you know, interestingly, both Jim Baker and Leon Panetta will tell you that that is the single most important thing - telling the president what he didn't want to hear. Ronald Reagan was hell bent on going to Capitol Hill and tackling Social Security reform as his very first major initiative.

  Jim Baker, the insider - Ronald Reagan was smart enough to know he needed an insider. Baker told him that's the third rail of American politics. You touch it, you get electrocuted. As a result, Reagan changed course, and he pursued the economy with laser-like focus and pursued tax reform instead.

  SIEGEL: There was also a question of whether members of the Cabinet, Secretary Baker, would be given polygraph tests to see if they were leaking. You were confronted with that problem.

  BAKER: Well, yeah, that was a rather aberrant event. We had a National Security Council meeting one time from which emanated a rather destructive leak. And the president went along with the recommendation of his national security adviser to require the people at the meeting to take lie detector tests.

  Well, when I learned of it, I walked in the Oval Office, and he was - President Reagan was having lunch with Vice President Bush and Secretary of State George Shultz. And I said, Mr. President, here's what's happened, and here's why this doesn't work. And as soon as I outlined what had happened, George Shultz said, well, Mr. President, if you want me to take a lie detector test, I'll take it, but it will be the last thing I do as your secretary of state. So the president recognized that this was a terrible error, and he reversed it. So I think it's very true that speaking truth to power is one of the principle requirements if you're going to be an effective chief of staff.

  SIEGEL: Well, from the wisdom, Chris Whipple, that you've come by by interviewing all of the living former White House chiefs of staff and, Jim Baker, from what you gleaned from being a White House chief of staff, what advice would you give Reince Priebus, the current White House chief of staff, and, for that matter, President Trump about how to make that relationship work? Chris, let's start with you.

  WHIPPLE: Well, you know, I would say so far that if you oppose everything Trump stands for, this is the White House staff for you. Priebus has made rookie mistakes galore. No competent chief of staff would allow executive orders to go out without being vetted by the departments that are involved.

  The chief can't seem to fill critical jobs in the White House. The daily message is a muddle. And of course it's a challenge with the president because ultimately the president has to empower a chief of staff, and it's not clear that he has.

  BAKER: I got to tell you. I thought that Reince Priebus did an extraordinarily fine job as chairman of the Republican National Committee presiding over a primary - a really (laughter) goat-rope-type primary with 17 candidates, and he handled himself extraordinarily well. I still think that he has great potential to be a very good White House chief of staff, but as you said, Chris, he has to be empowered by his president.

  And there are any number of people in this White House who have broad and rather undefined responsibilities that cut across both domestic and foreign policy. It's very difficult under those circumstances to have a coordinated, single, focused message, and that's something that's very important to the success of an administration.

  SIEGEL: How tough a job is it, by the way? How much does it take out of you?

  BAKER: I've said it's the toughest job in government, and I believe that. And when Ronald Reagan asked me to take the job, I said, Mr. President, this job is best done I think in two-year increments. He said, fine, we'll do it for two years. When I left in 1985, I'd been there for four years, three weeks and two days or something like that. But anyway, I'd been there longer than any other prior White House chief of staff who hadn't gone to jail...

  SIEGEL: (Laughter).

  BAKER: ...Because you lose - you use up your political chips in a hurry. You take all the javelins that are intended for the old man.

  SIEGEL: Yeah.

  BAKER: And it's a very, very tough job.

  SIEGEL: And Chris...

  WHIPPLE: It's extraordinarily tough. I mean what does it tell you that the average tenure is a little less than two years? Dick Cheney attributes his first heart attack to the experience. Bill Daley came down with shingles a month after he left. It's extraordinarily tough, and it was tough on Jim Baker, too.

  SIEGEL: Well, Chris Whipple, author of "The Gatekeepers: How The White House Chiefs Of Staff Define Every Presidency," thank you very much for talking with us today.

  WHIPPLE: Thank you, my pleasure.

  SIEGEL: And James Baker, we're going to hear more from you tomorrow about what your current activities are and also the state of Republican environmentalism. Thanks for talking with us today.

  BAKER: You're sure welcome. Thank you, Robert.

  (SOUNDBITE OF GEORGE BENSON SONG, "BENSON'S RIDERS")

• History News Network
  http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/165835
  Word count: 823

  5-1-17
  Review of Chris Whipple's “The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency”

  Books
  tags: book review, The Gatekeepers

  16 7 8

  by Kathryn Smith
  Kathryn Smith is a writer and editor whose most recent book is The Gatekeeper: Missy LeHand, FDR and the Untold Story of the Partnership that Defined a Presidency, to be released in paperback June 7.

  The troubles and performance of Donald Trump’s chief of staff, Reince Preibus, during his first 100 days on the job were predicted by journalist and documentary maker Chris Whipple, author of The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency (Crown, $28). In a January interview, he blamed Priebus for many of the missteps of Trump’s first month in office, saying, “At this rate, Priebus could challenge Donald Regan, [Ronald] Reagan’s second chief, as the least effective in history.”

  Ouch.

  Whipple knows of what he speaks. The Gatekeepers is a fascinating book focusing on the chief of staff role from Nixon to Obama, ending with a bit of speculation about the man serving Donald Trump.

  Observers of the political scene will find this book well worth their time and attention. Whipple’s style is lively and engaging, and he peppers the pages with colorful quotes and marvelous anecdotes. He’s done his homework, interviewing all 17 former chiefs and two presidents, as well as combing through the memoirs of those who had died.

  Dwight Eisenhower was the first president to designate a “chief of staff,” though earlier presidents had staff who functioned in a similar role. In the Roosevelt administration, the title “secretary” was used, and the chief job was held by Louis Howe, Marguerite LeHand (the only woman to function as chief) and Edwin Watson. The job was as grindingly hard then as it is today. Roosevelt survived all three of his de facto chiefs, who all died of cardiovascular and lung disease before he was claimed by a cerebral hemorrhage in 1945.

  Neither John F. Kennedy nor Lyndon Johnson had a chief, though Whipple says they could have used the help. “The White House chief translates the president’s agenda into reality,” Whipple writes. “When government works, it is usually because the chief understands the fabric of power, threading the needle where policy and politics converge.”

  When Richard Nixon was elected in 1968, he chose ad executive H.R. Haldeman, whom he called his “pluperfect son of a bitch” and “Lord High Executioner.” Haldeman dealt with agenda items from the sublime to the ridiculous—Nixon had him run down information about vintages in the White House wine cellar—and sometimes staying the president’s worst illegal impulses. However, Haldeman was actively involved in the Watergate coverup and went to prison for it, the ultimate example of loyalty to his president. (The two never shook hands until the day Nixon fired him.)

  Trump came to office promising to “drain the swamp,” and one thing you don’t see in his administration is a bunch of GOP re-treads. This was unusual. Most previous Republican—and Democratic—presidents have brought in seasoned old hands and plugged them into new roles. Before serving as George W. Bush’s vice president, Dick Cheney was Gerald Ford’s chief of staff and George H.W. Bush’s secretary of defense. (There is a common refrain from those who knew him when he was a rather loveable chief, “What happened to Cheney?”)

  Presidents who decided to ignore the old hands often paid dearly for it, and none more so than Jimmy Carter. His chief was Hamilton Jordan, a hard-partying Georgian who antagonized Congress and just about everyone else he encountered, once purposely spilling a drink down a woman’s blouse in a bar. George H.W. Bush brought in his friend John Sununu as chief, who did the much the same thing, though his sin was not drunken antics but using expensive government travel for personal business such as attending rare stamp shows.

  The best chief on the Republican side, Whipple says, was James Baker, who served Ronald Reagan. Reagan’s worst years began when Baker and treasury secretary Don Regan switched jobs. (Regan’s goose was cooked when he hung up the phone on Nancy Reagan.) The best Democrat chief of staff—and one of the most beloved figures in Washington—was Leon Panetta, who got Bill Clinton organized and focused … but could not prevent his dalliance with a White House intern.

  John Dean, former counsel to Richard Nixon and a key figure in Watergate, wrote about The Gatekeepers in Time recently. He said, “I suggest Trump read Chris Whipple’s book. But he doesn’t read, or even have the patience to listen to the audio edition.”

  Too bad.

• Newsday
  https://www.newsday.com/entertainment/books/the-gatekeepers-review-chris-whipple-on-the-evolution-and-importance-of-white-house-chiefs-of-staff-1.13376933
  Word count: 897

  ‘The Gatekeepers’ review: Chris Whipple on the evolution and importance of White House chiefs of staff
  Updated April 10, 2017 6:00 AM
  By Paul Alexander Special to Newsday

  + -
  President Ronald Reagan and his chief of staff
  President Ronald Reagan and his chief of staff James Baker, the gold standard of chiefs of staff, according to writer Chris Whipple. Photo Credit: The LIFE Images Collection / Getty / Dirck Halstead
  REVIEW
  THE GATEKEEPERS: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency, by Chris Whipple. Crown, 384 pp., $28.
  On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, in a classroom in Emma Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida, President George W. Bush sat observing a group of second-graders. Before he had entered the room, his staff told him a small airplane had crashed into one of the World Trade Center towers. Now a man came in, leaned down, and whispered to Bush, “A second plane hit the second tower. America is under attack.”
  The man was Andrew Card, the White House chief of staff. That the chief of staff would be the person who imparted to the president such history-changing news underscores the importance that staff position has come to hold in the modern American presidency. Neither elected nor confirmed, the chief is hired and fired by the president at his pleasure. Established in 1946, the position has become so vital that no modern presidency has functioned well without one.
  Veteran journalist and television producer Chris Whipple (“60 Minutes,” “Primetime”) has written “The Gatekeepers,” a chronicle from Richard Nixon to Barack Obama of the White House chiefs of staff — “the story of men who define the presidencies they serve.” Carefully researched and eminently readable, “The Gatekeepers,” which grew out of Whipple’s 2013 documentary “The Presidents’ Gatekeepers,” provides a fresh view of the modern presidencies. Whipple cuts to the heart of what, or more to the point who, makes a presidency succeed or fail.
  Take Nixon. Neither John F. Kennedy nor Lyndon B. Johnson had a chief of staff. Nixon wanted to be different. His choice was H.R. Haldeman, a California-bred ad executive and self-described “pluperfect SOB.” Haldeman was tough, but not with Nixon. His devotion prevented him from demanding that Nixon stop condoning illegal behavior carried out on his behalf. Nor did Haldeman insist Nixon tell the truth about the Watergate break-in and cover-up. Instead Haldeman himself lied to the Senate about Nixon’s involvement and went to prison for it. “If I had to do it over,” Haldeman later said, “I would do so differently.”
  To Whipple, Gerald Ford, who assumed office after Nixon resigned, could not have been better served by his chief — former Nixon aide Donald Rumsfeld, whose deputy was a young Dick Cheney. Under Rumsfeld and Cheney’s guidance (Bob Schieffer would call Cheney “the best staff man I ever dealt with”), Ford nearly survived his unpopular pardon of Nixon and the badly managed end of the Vietnam War. His loss to Jimmy Carter saw the closest margin in the Electoral College since 1916.
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  Disgusted by Nixon’s “imperial presidency,” Carter, the peanut farmer from Plains, Georgia, chose not to hire a chief of staff. As a result, Whipple notes, Carter “signed off on everything from typos in memos to requests to play on the White House tennis court.” By the time Carter brought in Hamilton Jordan (a hard-drinking former University of Georgia frat boy who resented the Washington establishment) and then Jack Watson, it was too late. A domestic gasoline shortage and the Iranian hostage crisis had destroyed his presidency.
  Whipple argues that George W. Bush was also poorly served by his chief, since affable Andy Card proved no match for Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld — together again in the White House. That Cheney received the Presidential Daily Brief each morning before Bush indicates his level of control over the White House. So when Cheney and Rumsfeld made their move to invade Iraq in 2003, Card was out of his league. The failed war in Iraq would come to define Bush’s legacy.
  Without question, the most admired chief of staff was hired by Ronald Reagan in 1980 — James A. Baker III, the smooth-as-silk Texas lawyer who was George H.W. Bush’s close friend and tennis doubles partner. Even-tempered and politically savvy, Baker became, Whipple believes, the gold standard of chiefs of staff without whom “there would have been no Reagan Revolution.” That worked against Donald Regan, the former Merrill Lynch chairman who replaced Baker for Reagan’s second term. Brash and publicity-hungry, Regan lasted until, in a heated exchange on the telephone with Nancy Reagan, he hung up on the first lady. “That’s not just a firing offense,” Baker said. “That may be a hanging offense.”
  The verdict is out on the Trump administration, so Reince Priebus is not considered here. In all, Whipple discusses 23 chiefs of staff who served the previous eight presidents. To Whipple, a president’s fate is determined not only by outside events but by the person he chooses to help him manage those events. Or as historian Richard Norton Smith says: “Every president reveals himself by the presidential portraits he hangs in the Roosevelt Room, and by the person he picks as his chief of staff.”

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