The Gatekeepers Who Shaped the Modern White House

Abstract

The Gatekeepers Who Shaped the Modern White House Michael Koncewicz (bio) Kathryn Smith. The Gatekeeper: Missy LeHand, FDR, and the Untold Story of the Partnership That Defined a Presidency. New York: Touchstone, 2016. 341 pp. Images, Notes, Bibliography, and Index. $28.00. Chris Whipple. The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency. New York: Crown, 2017. 361 pp. Images, Notes, Bibliography, and Index. $28.00. White House advisors have received much more attention recently, as the American public has sought to make sense of Donald Trump's unorthodox presidency. As the first President with no prior experience in government or the military, Trump's personnel decisions have reignited the public's interest in those who help shape an administration's agenda. In an effort to find a semblance of stability within an unpredictable presidency, pundits have looked to those who have the President's ear. Two recent books on presidential advisors do much to bring greater insight to those trying to situate the current administration within a longer history of the presidency. Kathryn Smith's The Gatekeeper and Chris Whipple's The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency not only share similar titles, but are linked through their respective portrayals of the figures who did much to affect the trajectory of the American presidency. Although both books are tailor-made for a wider audience, and are bound somewhat by traditional narratives about the Presidents they study, they still provide a deeper understanding of the role that advisors play in the decision-making process inside of the White House. In her book on Franklin D. Roosevelt's longtime private secretary, Marguerite "Missy" LeHand, Kathryn Smith makes a valuable contribution to the recent wave of scholarly works, Hollywood films, and documentaries that mix the private and public lives of the Roosevelts. As a part of FDR's "cuff links gang," LeHand was one of the more influential women to ever work in the White House. "There had never been anyone like Missy in the WH before, and it was a long time before anyone like Missy followed," writes Smith. The only other women—besides first ladies—who wielded as much influence over a [End Page 144] president since Missy were Condoleezza Rice, a national security advisor and secretary of state for George W. Bush, and Barack Obama's senior advisor, Valerie Jarrett (p. 7). Although LeHand was a well-known figure during the Roosevelt presidency, her role as a gatekeeper to FDR has been overlooked by most historians. Smith insists that LeHand was FDR's Chief of Staff without the title, a role that was not formally introduced to the White House until Eisenhower. "Missy might on any given day be directing the work of fifty staffers, writing a check to Franklin Jr.'s doctor for treatments of hemorrhoids, telling the president the wording in a speech "just doesn't sound like you" (p. 157). Throughout the book, Smith shows LeHand was not only a skillful multi-tasker, but was also an intimate advisor to the president on a number of issues. LeHand controlled the President's schedule and patched in his phone calls, but was also perhaps the most trusted figure within his inner circle. With a West Wing office that was the only one connected to the President's, LeHand was frequently the sole person in the room with Roosevelt. Smith situates LeHand at the center of Roosevelt's career, from the time he hired her to work for his 1920 campaign for the vice-presidency to helping plan his presidential library in Hyde Park. LeHand's reach went far beyond organizing the President's appointment book. Smith's research has uncovered new materials that shed light on LeHand's professional duties, her love life, and even the serious heart condition that drastically shortened her life. Throughout the book, Smith makes excellent use of numerous love letters between LeHand and her one-time fiancé, William Bullitt, a diplomat who rose to become FDR's Ambassador to the Soviet Union (1933–1936) and later France (1936–1940). The letters show that LeHand's personal life was both strengthened and compromised by her...