Unlocking Cabinet Conversations

Back patting, banalities and talk about national issues

It was without doubt a weighty scoop: confidential minutes from a year of Cabinet meetings, mysteriously leaked for publication to the small (circ. 25,000), feisty political weekly the Nation. And the magazine made the most it could of its news beat, trumpeting it on the first page of its first issue with a redesigned format. But the trouble was, as Editor Victor Navasky readily acknowledged, that the 205 pages of confidential documents were enough to "put readers to sleep."

To anyone looking for bombshell revelations of Cabinet officers making national policy, or jealously competing for the President's ear, the minutes were a great disappointment. Written in colorless prose by Cabinet Secretary Jack Watson, they are matter-of-fact summaries of bureaucratic business that took place at Cabinet meetings between March 14, 1977, and March 13, 1978. "Those boring minutes," sighed the Washington Post in a tongue-in-cheek editorial comparing them with the secret transcripts of the Nixon Administration's private moments. "It's hard to hold back the tears of nostalgia."

White House officials, however, insisted that the minutes did not show what really went on at Cabinet sessions. Said Watson: "I wrote them in a manner to protect against leaks, to keep out all sensitive matters, political and otherwise. Given that, it's not surprising that they're boring." That said--and accepted--the minutes manage to provide unexpected glimpses of the Cabinet at work.

According to the documents, Carter's Cabinet meetings include a staggering array of subjects, as many as 52 main topics and 80 subtopics on Nov. 7, 1977. This was one of the longer meetings (1 hr. 53 min.); nonetheless, the Cabinet could spend an average of only 2 min. 10 sec. on each subject. This compression may discourage debate and encourage banalities, like U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young's recorded statement on Oct. 17,1977--in its entirety --that "a very troublesome problem facing the international community is the energy issue."

Moreover, the minutes disclose that Carter and his Cabinet at times discuss unfavorable press notices and congratulate each other on good ones. On Nov. 7, for example, the minutes note, "The President said that he is pleased that three Cabinet members appeared on Sunday television talk shows: Vice President Walter Mondale on Meet the Press, Treasury Secretary W. Michael Blumenthal on Face the Nation and Defense Secretary Harold Brown on Issues and Answers." The main business of the meetings is the description by Cabinet members of their current agendas in brief, almost telegraphic reports. For instance, after attending a conference in Wichita, Kans., Transportation Secretary Brock Adams expressed his concern about "serious rural transportation problems that have never been sufficiently addressed."

The minutes show Carter boosting morale by passing out generous praise. On March 6, the President told Cabinet members that despite the Administration's problems, "he continues to feel confident [because] the Cabinet is a cohesive group whose individual and collective judgment he trusts."

Carter's interest in reducing bureaucracy is a constant theme, and his appointees respond to it eagerly. On Sept. 12, 1977, Secretary of Agriculture Bob Bergland reported that he had attended 45 hours of hearings on the 1978 budget for the Agriculture Department. "At present," the minutes note, "he said that the USDA is 'a mess.' "

More like a coach than a leader, Carter helpfully recommends books and articles to his Cabinet. Some examples: New York Times articles on foreign affairs and David McCullough's history of the Panama Canal, The Path Between the Seas, as well as CIA briefings.

The minutes record only rare instances of dissent. On Sept. 12, 1977, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Patricia Harris told Attorney General Griffin Bell that "she had read an early draft of the Bakke brief and that, in her opinion, it needed considerable improvement." But there were no recorded dissents during several meetings last fall when Secretary of Labor Ray Marshall incorrectly calculated that the odds were against a coal strike, or on Nov. 7, 1977, when Treasury Secretary Blumenthal argued that the position of the dollar abroad "is not as bad as it may appear here."

In a sense, the chief surprise of the minutes is that they contain no surprises. Some of the criticism, debate and groping for new ideas that are notably missing from the summaries doubtless go unrecorded or take place in smaller and more private sessions with Carter. Still, the minutes provide an overall sense of an Administration providing orderly and dedicated, if not exactly brilliant, caretaking--an image that may explain why no one at the White House seemed very upset that the minutes had been made public.

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