Cabinet Appointments: Nixon and Ford

Abstract

Some six weeks before being elected president, Richard Nixon spoke of the kind of presidency he would like to establish. ‘It’s time we once again had an open administration,’ he declared.¹ Nixon had definite proposals which he intended to implement in order to achieve what he saw as a correct balance between order and openness, action and accountability. Nixon continued:

I also plan to reorganise and strengthen the cabinet… a cabinet made up of the ablest men in America, leaders in their own right and not merely by virtue of appointment — men who will command the public’s respect and the President’s attention by virtue of the power of their intellect and the force of their ideas.²