Nation: How Nixon's White House Works

Surrounding the outwardly calm White House Oval Office that is the President's citadel is a symbolic battleground pocked with shell holes and scarred with trenches. The tactical objective of the attackers is the President's attention. The besiegers include great institutions and the meekest citizen. There are the representatives of the Federal Government itself: the Cabinet en bloc and as individuals, Senators and Congressmen, military chiefs, economic advisers, satraps of the independent and quasi-independent agencies.

Those are the front-line supplicants, but many others constantly seek to infiltrate the presidential stronghold. They include state governors and city mayors, and the senior national...