What the White House tapes really show - White House Communications Agency and tapes of White House coffees with supporters - includes related article on President's knowledge of goings-on within White House

Washington Monthly, Dec, 1997 by Michael Cottle

As for the agency's colorful history, when approached for this article, staffers of the House subcommittee that ran last year's WHCA hearings expressed total surprise at the agency's past connection to WHMO's secret fund, or indeed that the fund had ever existed. "I don't know anything about that," says Majority Staff Director Robert Charles. "You say you read about it in a book? What is the name of it? Can I get the pages faxed to me?"

Life Inside The Bubble

The lack of interest and knowledge displayed within the president's inner circle about such an omnipresent entity as WHCA may sound a bit odd. But, hey, the White House is an odd place, and the people who occupy it inhabit a different kind of reality. In his 1992 book, What it Takes, Richard Ben Cramer captures the artificial existence to which George Bush -- at the time vice president -- had grown accustomed by his second term:

No one who hadn't lived in the bubble could

know what it was like: ... the minute-by-minute

schedule, instructing him where to stand, whom

to greet; the men in suits and earplugs, always

around, talking into their wrist microphones;

the men in slightly better suits, handing him

typed pages, telling him where he'd be going

and whom he would see, who his friends were

among the crowd and what he was supposed to

tell those friends, what the press would be

asking and what he ought to say in response; the

simple, awesome fact that from the moment he

opened his door in the morning until he retired

for the night, no matter what he chose to do, or

where he went, or what he wanted, he would

never be alone.

Bill Clinton's existence for the past five years has been, if anything, even more unreal. As president of the United States, he is arguably the most powerful man in the world. He is also, by the nature of the job today, one of the nation's biggest celebrities -- a role that only isolates him further. And although on one level, it seems unavoidable that The President be insulated from the rest of the country; on another, such isolation seems untenable. If the president exists in a bubble, how can he really know what's going on in the nation -- and by extension, what needs to be done? Moreover, without a strong desire to reach beyond his artificial environment, the president can lose touch with what is going on even within his own government, addressing only those issues that are allowed to enter his world by an army of aides and assistants. Over the years, various leaders have responded differently to such isolation. Eleanor Roosevelt and former AP reporter Lorena Hickock were but two of the numerous sets of eyes FDR sent into the trenches to gather information on the progress of administration projects such as the WPA. President Truman reportedly sent people out to drive around the country and talk with the public. By contrast, in more recent years, Nixon, Reagan, and Bush were all famous incurious about what was transpiring in the world outside.

Of course, the bubble can have a very real protective value, allowing the president to maintain plausible deniability regarding any "mishaps" that may occur on his watch. (Remember Reagalis professed ignorance regarding the Iran-Contra affair?) The Clinton administration may well be hoping to absolve itself of guilt regarding the WHCA videotapes by maintaining that no one really paid much attention to the agency's activities. Oh, they have some vague sense of what the agency does. But that's about as far as it goes. If this is the case, however, it simply points up a sad truth about the lack of interest -- intentional or not -- that most presidents have in the way the bureaucracy around them is functioning. It would almost be less disheartening to think that the White House was up to a few dirty tricks, but that at least it knew what was going on inside its own government.