ABSTRACT
The Science Adviser is recruited into a policy management system that is committed to a political agenda. Accountability is also linked with visibility. There was a time, now long past, when the theologians of Presidential government taught that White House assistants should have a passion for anonymity. Like much of the art of Presidential staff work, it rests on hunch and judgment along with a sharp eye for random clues. The chemistry of staff advice in the White House is affected by still another variant, and it is here that professionalism and political intuition converge with results that are not always foreseeable. This variant is the intensity of issue orientation as it dominates the traffic of advice. A last word might be offered on the subject of “advising advisers” because this is the process through which advice progresses through a relaying and tempering series of stages to the breathless President.
