3
contains a virtual blueprint for an Executive Office of the Presidency (EOP) premised on
the ideal of neutrally competent presidential advisers. But more than four decades later, a
1980 study by the National Academy of Public Administration (the Price-Siciliano
commission), using language strongly reminiscent of Brownlow, advocated restoring a
stronger element of neutral competence within the EOP. To cure the problems caused by
a presidential staff system that had become overly focused on the president’s short-term
political needs, the Commission advised that, “The Executive Office of the President
needs institutionalized arrangements for longer term policy research and analysis.”
5
What explains this ongoing zeal for neutral competence among so many students
of the presidency? In large part, it is rooted in historical interpretations of Franklin
Delano Roosevelt’s presidency (1933-45). Roosevelt’s use of staff, more than any of his
successors, has been cited as epitomizing the traditional virtues of neutral competence.
Even Hart acknowledges that FDR paid more than lip service to this administrative
philosophy. Indeed, the evidence strongly suggests that the Brownlow Committee, which
sought to institutionalize a source of neutrally-competent staff within the EOP, largely
put down on paper what Roosevelt wanted to hear.
6
Moreover, Roosevelt evidently
embraced this administrative approach at a time when the demands for presidential
leadership were arguably greater than that experienced by later presidents. If there is
empirical evidence to support the neutral competence advocates’ case, it would likely be
found in FDR’s presidency.
Since Roosevelt thus offers an important historical test case for both critics and
advocates of neutral competence, this paper looks more closely at the evolution of the
5
Cited in Hart, The Presidential Branch, 219.
6
See Dickinson, Bitter Harvest, 86-113.
Convention