ABSTRACT
The White House Fellowship is a highly competitive opportunity to participate in and learn about the federal government from a unique perspective. When President Lyndon B. Johnson announced the establishment of the White House Fellows Program in 1964, he stated that "a genuinely free society cannot be a spectator society." A Fellow serves as a special assistant, performing tasks for a Cabinet Secretary, the Vice-President, an Assistant to the President, or for appropriate under or deputy secretaries. The White House Fellowship program is not a direct, federal recruitment program and is not designed to attract people into the federal service in the immediate sense. The educational program is a distinguishing feature of the White House Fellowship. The Fellows participate as a class in a series of off-the-record meetings, usually held two or three times a week throughout the Fellowship year with prominent representatives from both the public and private sectors.
