WHAT A PRESIDENT SHOULD KNOW

Washington DC - "It would have been difficult four years ago to schedule a meeting with the President to discuss with him the fact that there were too many people in this country getting houses," says Marc Summerlin in response to a question on the crash of the housing market at the book launch of What a President Should Know, which he co-wrote with Lawrence B. Lindsey. "In retrospect this would have made perfect sense."
Marc Summerlin served as Deputy Director of the National Economic Council for President George W. Bush, while Lindsey was Director of the NEC. They both now work for the Lindsey Group, the economic advisory firm based in Washington DC that they co-founded.
Their book,  presented at the Council on Foreign Relations on Monday, offers an insider's look at the Oval Office: Through a review of the history of the office of the Presidency, the authors portray the constraints under which the Executive makes decisions. Summerlin and Lindsey also highlight the difficulties, even for the closest advisers, to have regular visitations with the President. With many competing issues that at all times require urgently the attention of the President, some necessarily end up to the sideline, often those that have longer-term effects.
The history of the architecture of the Oval Office itself stands as a symbol of how access to the President has been restricted through the decades.
The idea of the Oval Office was first conceived under Teddy Roosevelt and was finally built at the beginning of the Presidency of William Taft in 1909, in the shape of an oval precisely because it was the one that allowed for the largest number of doors to be added. Teddy Roosevelt wanted as many people as possible to enjoy direct, walk-in access to him.
Under the first "Imperial Presidency," as Summerlin described Franklin Roosevelt's three-term government of the United States, the West Wing - where the Executive meets - was moved and expanded, and the Oval Office was relocated to a side of the building with only one door opening onto it. "Such change was followed by the creation of the role of the Chief of Staff", said Summerlin at the Council on Foreign Relations, "that from then on strictly regulated access to the President," and with that the flow of information that made its way all the way up to the top.
Today, White House advisers have to fight among themselves to be able to see the President and documents containing important information must be signed by tens of people in order to make it to the desk of the Commander-in-Chief.
The most important advice that Summerlin, and Lindsey, would give the future President is to "truly reinforce those people that are advising him/her honestly, because it is hard to find such people."