The First Year of the Clinton Presidency

In first year of the Clinton presidency, much has been made of the need for the new president to set his agenda and achieve as much as possible during the so-called "honeymoon" period when the press and the Congress are supposedly more accepting, more supportive, and more ready to encourage the new administration. Every president is thought to have such a period when the country is behind him, a period that in truth lasts varying lengths of time but which may be thought of as the first 100 days or so of the new administration. An analysis of the presidency of Richard Nixon will show what use he made of this period, how effective he was at setting and communicating his program, and how effective he was at starting to get that program passed. Even if there was not time to pass the program there should have been time to prepare for later passage, and the ultimate fate of Nixon's proposals will show how well he has done the job.

Every president is faced with the need for an agenda on the domestic front and one on the foreign policy front. When Nixon entered the White House, the most important element on the foreign policy front was the Vietnam War, and domestically this war was having a major role as well, contributing to the general unrest in the country and to a public perception of growing lawlessness and anarchy. Nixon was forced to approach foreign policy from a position he would have opposed had he had any real choice: "It was R

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e: "He wanted a moderate, middle-of-the-road Cabinet, and even talked about a national-unity government to meet the crisis the country faced" (Ambrose, p. 236). However, he was rebuffed by all the Democrats he asked except Daniel Patrick Moynihan, named as head of the newly created Urban Affairs Council. Nixon created a domestic policy establishment with different centers of power, often in conflict in a way he believed would be beneficial. Moynihan was the liberal wing. He made John Ehrlichman the White House counsel with primarily domestic responsibilities. He created a new Cabinet-level position of Counsellor to the President and named Arthur Burns, an economist, to fill it, reasoning that Burns's conservatism would be a counterweight to the liberalism of Moynihan. Bob Finch was also intimately involved in domestic policy with the post of Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare. George Shultz became Secretary of Labor; Maurice Stans, Secretary of Commerce; David Kennedy, Secretary of the Treasury (he had been head of the Continental Illinois National Bank and Trust Company of Chicago, and Nixon wanted someone form outside the New York banking community); George Romney, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; Win

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