Secretary to the President of the United States

The Secretary to the President (sometimes dubbed the president's Private Secretary or Personal Secretary) was a former 19th and early 20th century White House position that carried out all the tasks now spread throughout the modern White House Office. The Secretary would act as a buffer between the President and the public, keeping the President's schedules and appointments, managing his correspondence, managing the staff, communicating to the press as well as being a close aide and advisor to the President in a manner that often required great skill and discretion. In terms of rank it is a precursor to the modern White House Chief of Staff.

Stature

Every American President had a private secretary, but the position was not an official one until the McKinley administration. At the time of its peak the Secretary to the President was a much admired government office held by men of high ability and considered as worthy as a cabinet rank;[1] it even merited an oath of office.[2] Three private secretaries were later appointed to the Cabinet: George B. Cortelyou, John Hay and Daniel S. Lamont.

History

During the nineteenth century, Presidents had few staff resources. Thomas Jefferson had one messenger and one secretary (referred to as an amanuensis in the common parlance of the time) at his disposal, both of whose salaries were paid by the President personally. In fact, all Presidents up to James Buchanan paid the salaries of their private secretaries out of their own pockets; these roles were usually fulfilled by their relatives, most often their sons or nephews. James K. Polk notably had his wife take the role.

It was during Buchanan's term at the White House in 1857 that the United States Congress created a definite office named the "Private Secretary at the White House" and appropriated for its incumbent a salary of $2,500. The first man to hold such office officially and to be paid by the Government instead of by the President, was Buchanan's nephew J. B. Henry.[3] By Ulysses S. Grant's presidency, the White House staff had grown to three.[4]

By 1900, the office had grown in such stature that Congress elevated the position to "Secretary to the President", in addition to including on the White House staff two assistant secretaries, two executive clerks, a stenographer, and seven other office personnel. The first man to hold the office of Secretary to the President was John Addison Porter whose failing health meant he was soon succeeded by George B. Cortelyou.[3] Radio and the advent of media coverage soon meant that Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson too expanded the duties of their respective secretaries to dealing with reporters and giving daily press briefings.[5]

Under Warren G. Harding, the size of the staff expanded to thirty-one, although most were clerical positions. During Herbert Hoover's presidency however, he tripled the staff adding two additional private secretaries to the President (at a salary of $10,000[6] each – increased from $7,200[7]) added by Congress. The first Hoover designated his Legislative Secretary (the senior Secretary now informally referred to by the press as the President's "No.1 Secretary"[8] ), the second his Confidential Secretary, and the third his Appointments and Press Secretary.[9]

In 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt converted Hoover's two extra secretaries into the permanent White House Press Secretary and Appointments Secretary, but from 1933 to 1939, as he greatly expanded the scope of the federal government's policies and powers in response to the Great Depression, Roosevelt relied on his "Brain Trust" of top advisers. Although working directly for the President, they were often appointed to vacant positions in agencies and departments, from whence they drew their salaries since the White House lacked statutory or budgetary authority to create new staff positions. It wasn't until 1939, during Franklin D. Roosevelt's second term in office, that the foundations of the modern White House staff were created using a formal structure. Roosevelt was able to get Congress to approve the creation of the Executive Office of the President reporting directly to the President which included the White House Office. As a consequence, the office of Secretary to the President was greatly diminished in stature (mostly due to the lack of a sufficient replacement to Roosevelt's confidant Louis McHenry Howe who had died in 1936) and had many of its duties supplanted by the Appointments Secretary.

In 1946, in response to the rapid growth of the U.S. government's executive branch, the position of Assistant to the President of the United States was established, and charged with the affairs of the White House. Together with the Appointments Secretary the two took responsibility of most of the President's affairs and at this point the Secretary to the President was charged with nothing other than managing the president's official correspondence before the office was discontinued at the close of the Truman administration.

In 1961, under Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the president's pre-eminent assistant was designated the White House Chief of Staff. Assistant to the President became a rank generally shared by the Chief of Staff with such senior aides as Deputy Chiefs of Staff, the White House Counsel, the White House Press Secretary, and others. This new system didn't catch on straight away. Democrats Kennedy and Johnson still relied on their appointments secretaries instead and it was not until the Nixon administration that the Chief of Staff become a permanent fixture in the White House, and the appointments secretary was reduced to only functional importance. In the 1980s the job was re-designated to the White House Office of Appointments and Scheduling.

List of Presidential Secretaries

Private Secretary

Year(s)	Secretary	President
1789–1793 1794–1797	Tobias Lear[lower-alpha 1]	George Washington
1789–1791	Maj. William Jackson[lower-alpha 2]
1797–1801	William Smith Shaw	John Adams
1801–1803	Cpt. Meriwether Lewis	Thomas Jefferson
1803–1804	Lewis Harvie
1804–1805	William A. Burwell
1805–1809	Isaac Coles
		James Madison
1810–1815	Edward Coles
1816–1817	James Payne Todd
1817–1820	Joseph Jones Monroe	James Monroe
1820–1825	Samuel L. Gouverneur
1825–1829	John Adams II	John Quincy Adams
1829–1831	Andrew Jackson Donelson	Andrew Jackson
1831	Nicholas Trist
1831–1837	Andrew Jackson Donelson
1837–1841	Abraham Van Buren	Martin Van Buren
1841	Henry Huntington Harrison	William Henry Harrison
1841–1845	John Tyler, Jr.	John Tyler
1845–1849	Joseph Knox Walker Sarah Childress Polk[lower-alpha 3]	James K. Polk
1849–1850	Cpt. William Wallace Smith Bliss	Zachary Taylor
1850–1853	Millard Powers Fillmore	Millard Fillmore
1853–1857	Sidney Webster	Franklin Pierce
Washington had several young assistant secretaries who made copies of his correspondence. Among these were Robert "Bob" Lewis, Howell Lewis, Bartholomew Dandridge, Jr., and George Washington Craik. As aide-de-camp. His wife, it is said, too was his personal secretary.

Private Secretary to the White House

Year(s)	Secretary	President
1857–1859	James Buchanan Henry	James Buchanan
1859–1861	James Buchanan II
1861–1865	John G. Nicolay	Abraham Lincoln
1861–1865	Maj. John Hay[lower-alpha 1]
1865–66	Col. William A. Browning	Andrew Johnson
1865	Col. Reuben D. Mussey, Jr.[lower-alpha 1]
1866	Edmund Cooper
1866–1869	Brig. Gen. Robert Johnson
1866–1869	Col. William G. Moore[lower-alpha 1]
1869–1873	Robert M. Douglas[lower-alpha 2]	Ulysses S. Grant
1873–1876	Col. Levi P. Luckey[lower-alpha 2]
1876–1877	Ulysses S. Grant, Jr.[lower-alpha 2]
1869–1872	Col. Horace Porter[lower-alpha 1]
1869–1873	Brig. Gen. Frederick Tracy Dent[lower-alpha 1]
1869–1876	Col. Orville E. Babcock[lower-alpha 1]
1877–1881	William King Rogers Webb C. Hayes	Rutherford B. Hayes
1881–1882	Joseph Stanley Brown	James A. Garfield
		Chester A. Arthur
1882–1885	Fred J. Phillips
1885–1889	Col. Daniel Scott Lamont	Grover Cleveland
1889–1893	Maj. Elijah W. Halford	Benjamin Harrison
1893–1896	Henry T. Thurber	Grover Cleveland
As Military Secretary. Grant was closer to his military secretaries who did most of the work normally associated with the Private Secretary.

Secretary to the President

Year(s)	Secretary	President
1897–1900	John Addison Porter	William McKinley
1900–1903	George B. Cortelyou
		Theodore Roosevelt
1903–1909	William Loeb, Jr.
1909–1910	Fred W. Carpenter	William Howard Taft
1910–1911	Charles D. Norton
1911–1912	Charles D. Hilles
1912–1913	Carmi Thompson
1913–1921	Joseph Tumulty	Woodrow Wilson
1922–1923	George B. Christian, Jr.	Warren G. Harding
1923–1924	C. Bascom Slemp	Calvin Coolidge
1925–1929	Everett Sanders
1929–1933	Walter H. Newton[lower-alpha 1] Lawrence Richey[lower-alpha 1]	Herbert Hoover
1929–1931	George Edward Akerson[lower-alpha 1]
1931–1933	Ted Joslin
1933–1936	Col. Louis McHenry Howe	Franklin D. Roosevelt
1937–1938	James Roosevelt
1941–1943	Col. Marvin H. McIntyre
1944–1952	William D. Hassett[lower-alpha 2]
		Harry S. Truman
1952–1953	Beth Campbell Short[lower-alpha 2]
President Hoover had three private secretaries. The additional two were later "Appointments Secretary" and "Press Secretary". As "Correspondence Secretary to the President"

Appointments Secretary

The appointments secretary was the guardian of the President's time. He had the responsibility of acting as "gatekeeper" and decided who got to meet with him.

Eisenhower appointed Arthur H. Vandenberg Jr. to the position, but he took a leave of absence before Eisenhower's inauguration and later withdrew without ever having served.

Year(s)	Secretary	President
1929–1931	George Edward Akerson[lower-alpha 1]	Herbert Hoover
1931–1933	Ted Joslin[lower-alpha 1]
1933–1938	Col. Marvin H. McIntyre[lower-alpha 2]	Franklin D. Roosevelt
1938–1945	Maj. Gen. Edwin "Pa" Watson
1945–1953	Matthew J. Connelly
		Harry S. Truman
1953–1955	Thomas E. Stephens	Dwight D. Eisenhower
1955–1957	Bernard M. Shanley
1957–1961	Thomas E. Stephens
1961–1963	Kenneth O'Donnell[lower-alpha 3]	John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson
1965–1968	W. Marvin Watson[lower-alpha 3]	Lyndon B. Johnson
1968–1969	James R. Jones[lower-alpha 3]
1969–1973	Dwight Chapin	Richard Nixon
1974–1976	Warren S. Rustand	Gerald Ford
1977–1978	Timothy Kraft	Jimmy Carter
1978–1981	Phil J. Wise
As Appointments and Press Secretary. Before 1937 the title was only "Assistant Secretary to Appointments". De facto White House Chief of Staff.

Press Secretary

Personal secretary to the President

The Secretary to the President should not be confused with the modern President's personal secretary who is officially an Administrative Assistant in the President's Office. All had been female until the appointment of Nick Luna in 2019.

Year(s)	Secretary	President
1933–1941	Missy LeHand	Franklin D. Roosevelt
1941–1945	Grace Tully
1945–1953	Rose Conway	Harry S. Truman
1953–1961	Ann C. Whitman	Dwight D. Eisenhower
1961–1963	Evelyn Lincoln	John F. Kennedy
1963–1969	Gerri Whittington	Lyndon B. Johnson
1969–1974	Rose Mary Woods	Richard Nixon
1974–1977	Dorothy E. Downton	Gerald Ford
1977–1981	Susan Clough	Jimmy Carter
1981–1989	Kathleen Osborne	Ronald Reagan
1989–1993	Linda Casey	George H. W. Bush
1993–2001	Betty Currie	Bill Clinton
2001–2005	Ashley Estes Kavanaugh	George W. Bush
2005–2009	Karen E. Keller
2009–2011	Katie Johnson	Barack Obama
2011–2014	Anita Decker Breckenridge
2014–2017	Ferial Govashiri
2017–2019	Madeleine Westerhout	Donald Trump
2019–present	Nick Luna

References

1. Herring, Pendleton (2006). "5". Presidential Leadership. Transaction Publishers. p. 101. ISBN 978-1-4128-0556-8. Retrieved 2009-05-18.
2. "The Presidency: Ted for Ted". Time. 1932-05-09. Retrieved 2009-05-18.
3. "White House – Secretaries To The Presidents". Old and Sold Antiques Digest. 1908. Archived from the original on October 26, 2008. Retrieved 2009-09-05.
4. Burke, John P. "Administration of the White House". Miller Center of Public Affairs. Archived from the original on 2010-11-17. Retrieved 2008-11-06.
5. Watson, Robert P. (2004). "4". Life in the White House. SUNY Press. p. 87. ISBN 978-0-7914-6098-6. Retrieved 2009-05-18.
6. "Big Job". Time. 1929-02-11. Retrieved 2009-05-09.
7. "$7,500 Pay for Tumulty". The New York Times. 1913-02-03. Retrieved 2009-05-18.
8. "Description". Time. 1929-03-04. Retrieved 2009-05-09.
9. "Big Job". Time. 1929-02-11. Retrieved 2009-05-09.

Sources

• The Cosmopolitan. University of Michigan. November 1900 – April 1901. pp. 487–92. Retrieved May 20, 2009.