In our weekly meeting with the Director of OPM, the political, polcy meeting, someone mentioned that they were having truble with Strom Thurmond’s office. I was the only South Carolinian there. I had spent five years on Capitol Hill. I knew why they were having trouble getting Strom’s cooperation.
Fortunately I was on my way out of OPM by then and nobody asked me.
You see, Strom had been in Washington for a quarter of a cenury by the time Reagan got there. Strom was there eighteen years after Reagan left. So when his office found out I was Special Assistant for Staffing, they called in a list of reliable people who should be in the permanent civil service as our agents.
They had had trouble with my predecssors, but they thought I would understand. After years of getting put off by earlier Special Assistants, I had to give them the straight poop.
I had to explain to Strom’s office that the official Administration position was that Reagan was going to clean up the entire civil service during his term of office, “We are here to clean up the swamp, not to join the alligators.” So my boss had determined not to have single person on our side in the civil service if he could hstop it.
The silence on the other end of the phone was eloquent.
Every Administration says it is not appointing permanent civil service. Nobody,but nobody, MEANT it. That is part of the game of political power in DC.
So, at the politicals’ meeting, the staff puzzled over why Strom’s office didn’t take us seriously.
If they had asked me, how could I have explained it?
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