[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1994, Book I)]
[June 27, 1994]
[Pages 1147-1150]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks Announcing Changes in the White House Staff and an 
Exchange With Reporters
June 27, 1994

    The President. Good afternoon. Today I want to announce some changes 
in personnel in the White House that will add strength and vitality to 
this White House and to our administration.
    In the coming months, this White House faces a series of major 
challenges that are critical to the American people. In Congress, we're 
seeking to pass the first major health care reform in history, a 
sweeping crime bill, a signifi-


[[Page 1148]]

cant trade bill, a reemployment act, lobbying and campaign finance 
reform, and welfare reform. We're seeking to pursue our continued 
efforts in economic reform and deficit reduction, producing now 7,000 
jobs a week. Overseas we face serious issues well-known to all of you. 
We've embraced an agenda that is not only daunting but profoundly 
important to the American people. To meet those challenges, here at the 
White House we must use our people as wisely as possible, matching their 
talents to their responsibilities.
    More than a month ago, my Chief of Staff, Mack McLarty, started some 
discussions with me on ideas that he had for a better deployment of our 
people. These provided the basic framework for the decisions I announce 
today. I came home from D-Day determined to proceed with these changes. 
He and I worked with the Vice President and others on these 
recommendations, which I am pleased to announce today.
    Today I'm naming Mack McLarty as Counselor to the President. He has 
been and will continue to be my closest and most trusted personal 
adviser. His new role will permit him to spend much more time as my 
personal representative to the people who are so important to the 
success of this administration's efforts, Democrats and Republicans in 
Congress, constituent groups of all kinds, friends who helped to bring 
me to the White House. In addition, I am asking him to assume greater 
responsibility in shepherding our legislative program through Congress, 
including GATT, health care, and welfare reform, and to help lay the 
groundwork for summits this year with the Latin and Asian leaders.
    Mack McLarty has served this country ably and well as Chief of Staff 
for 18 months. He was reluctant to take the job, and I will always be 
grateful that he did. He selflessly agreed to serve the country, and I 
would say he has a record he can be proud of. We had the most productive 
first year of working with Congress of any administration over three 
decades; the sparking of an economic recovery; 3 years of deficit 
reduction for the first time since the Truman Presidency; breaking 
gridlock on the Brady bill, family leave, assault weapons, and other 
issues; progress in pushing historic plans for health and welfare 
reform. He's run an open White House, treating others and their ideas 
with unfailing courtesy. He has, in short, delivered with the decency, 
integrity, and goodwill that has endeared him to many good people here 
and throughout the Nation. And I thank him for his service.
    I am delighted today to say that Leon Panetta will succeed Mack as 
White House Chief of Staff. Over the past year and a half, he has been a 
pillar of strength for our administration. In the early days, he was a 
prime architect of the economic strategy, an integrated plan that 
reduced the deficit and laid the foundation for sustained economic 
growth. Then he took the lead in formulating and gaining passage of that 
deficit reduction package, the largest in the history of our Republic. 
He will go down in history as the Budget Director who began to slay the 
deficit dragon.
    In an era of tightening budgets, he also found ways to fund many of 
my initiatives to put people first: education, job training, and 
technology. He's worked closely with the Vice President in reinventing 
the Government. He's been an innovative adviser in drawing up a host of 
domestic policies. And he has been a skillful manager of the more than 
500 people who work under his leadership at OMB. As the good citizens of 
Rome have learned, he also speaks pretty good Italian. [Laughter] No one 
in Washington has a better understanding of both ends of Pennsylvania 
Avenue than Leon Panetta. And no one has earned greater respect at both 
ends.
    I am also announcing today that I will nominate Alice Rivlin to be 
the next Director of the Office of Management and Budget. She has been a 
superb deputy at OMB. She's played a major role in helping to run that 
organization and in chairing the President's Management Council and in 
gaining congressional approval of our budgets.
    She brought with her to this administration a long and distinguished 
record. She was, of course, the founding director of the Congressional 
Budget Office, serving there for more than 8 years. And she's written 
pathbreaking studies of fiscal policies while at the Brookings 
Institution. Economists have recognized her leadership and her 
brilliance, electing her in the past as president of the American 
Economic Association. In short, OMB will continue to be in very good 
hands.
    Finally, I want to announce a shorter term assignment. For the past 
year I have drawn heavily upon the counsel of David Gergen. He has been 
a wise and steady voice for bipartisanship, for moderation, and for an 
effective Gov-


[[Page 1149]]

ernment. It has been widely understood that he anticipates returning to 
the private sector in the next few months. I have asked David to stay on 
for the remainder of the year and to concentrate his full energy in the 
foreign policy arena.
    On several occasions in the past, and more and more in recent 
months, I have found him helpful in the formulization, 
conceptualization, and the communication on national security matters. I 
now want him to play a larger role, joining my team as a principal 
adviser in this field. Other members of our foreign policy team have 
expressed their enthusiasm, and David has graciously agreed to serve as 
a special adviser to both the President and the Secretary of State.
    Taken together, I believe these appointments will produce a 
stronger, more energetic, and a unified team for the administration and 
for the daunting challenges ahead.
    I thank all of them for their willingness to serve. I'd like now to 
ask them each in turn to make a few remarks, beginning with Mr. McLarty.

[At this point, Thomas F. (Mack) McLarty, Leon E. Panetta, Alice M. 
Rivlin, and David R. Gergen made brief remarks.]

    Q. Mr. President, despite musical chairs, this may be viewed as a 
repudiation of your team and what you've had so far in the Presidency.
    The President. Well, I long ago gave up trying to determine how it's 
viewed by other people. All I can tell you is, I think it's a real 
tribute to Mr. McLarty that he came to me several weeks ago and 
suggested that we consider this and even mentioned Leon's name to me, 
and we began to talk about it. I think the job of the President is to 
make the White House as effective as possible, which means you have to 
use the people at their highest and best use. I think that's what I'm 
doing. I also think it's--someone might question the decision in light 
of the successes that have been chalked up. I think we have done a good 
job with a huge agenda; I think it's getting bigger and more complex. I 
think that this is the right thing to do at this time, and I think it 
will pay off. That's all I can tell you. My job is to do the best I can 
by the American people and let others do the interpreting.
    Q. Mr. President, recently there was documented in Bob Woodward's 
book a lot of criticism of Mr. Panetta from your political advisers. And 
I guess one question is, how do you feel about that criticism of Mr. 
Panetta's economic policies? Will there be a tension now between your 
political staff? And how do you feel about the decision to have yet 
another of your close Arkansas friends take a step either out or down? 
Sideways?
    The President. He's not going anywhere. He's my closest friend. And 
I don't want to get into that. I can win that argument. But I can't 
comment on Mr. Woodward's book. I don't--``documented'' may be too 
strong a word, but I think that everybody who's worked with Leon Panetta 
has a great deal of respect for him. I thought that the transition 
debates we had over economic policy were good, helpful, and appropriate. 
We were trying to turn a country around after going 12 years in one 
direction.
    He will go down in history as the OMB Director that did, I think, 
virtually the impossible, not only produced the biggest deficit 
reduction package in history, the first two budgets to be adopted on 
time in 17 years, 3 years of deficit reduction in a row for the first 
time since Harry Truman, the first reduction in domestic spending, 
discretionary spending in 25 years but, in spite of all of that, 
substantial increases in Head Start, job training, other education 
investments, and new technologies, the things that I ran to do: bring 
the deficit down, get the economy going, invest in people. So I think--
he's clearly done what I wanted to do. I signed off on those decisions, 
I think he's done well, and I think he's done it with a very effective 
management style. I feel a high level of confidence in him.
    Q. Mr. President, I'm not clear on what you're trying to fix. What 
wasn't happening----
    The President. He is a former Republican, and I'm a Baptist. We set 
great store in deathbed conversions. [Laughter] To me, that makes him 
even more valuable as a Democrat. I'd like to have more people do the 
same thing.
    Q. Mr. President, what are you trying to fix? What wasn't happening 
that you want to happen?
    The President. I think you should let our words speak for 
themselves. I was trying to think of how I could characterize this. This 
is really an attempt to do exactly what I said: find the highest and 
best use for talented people of good will who just want to serve their 
country. And this shows you what a sports--I don't like all the time 
politicians making sports analogies, but

[[Page 1150]]

50 years ago, Army had an all-American backfield of Doc Blanchard and 
Glenn Davis. And one was called Mr. Inside and one was called Mr. 
Outside, reflecting that they had different skills, but they were both 
all-Americans. I think that's what we have today, and I think it's the 
best thing for the country. And I think in the weeks and months ahead, 
we'll see it proved out.
    Thank you.

Note: The President spoke at 3:16 p.m. in the Oval Office at the White 
House.