Albert R. Hunt, Columnist

When Nixon Listened to Liberal Moynihan

Yes, the Nixon administration is a model for a high-level, huge stakes, professional debate over the direction of the country.

December 28, 2014 at 3:31 PM UTC

By Albert R. Hunt

Albert R. Hunt is a former Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He was the executive editor of Bloomberg News, before which he was a reporter, bureau chief and executive Washington editor at the Wall Street Journal.

The president and the professor in 1968.
Photographer: John Duprey/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images

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More power started to be vested in the White House staff in 1969, during Richard Nixon's administration. Today, there are about twice as many full-time White House staff members as there were then.

Yet if more administrations handled domestic issues in the way the Nixon White House did in 1969, there would be many fewer complaints about powerful White House staffs.