The Presidency: Job Specs for the Oval Office

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showing it, just the right amount, in public. L.B.J. had little public humor and in private leaned heavily on the set-piece joke ("There was this colored boy once up in front of this judge in Panola County ...").

The President needs to be an optimist. Ford: "You just can't sit back and say this is wrong, it is terrible, that is wrong... and I can't do anything about it." But the President should not be so optimistic that he cannot face unpleasant facts, and spot them early. Reagan doesn't seem to have much of a built-in early-warning system, and neither did Carter.

A President must be capable of thinking in contingencies: What if? Some of the biggest contingencies (What if the Soviet Union did A or B?) get steady attention at the White House. But many scarcely less important possibilities don't.

A President needs an ever fresh curiosity about this big and complicated country. He can help overcome his isolation by seeking and taking advice from a broad circle. But many otherwise courageous people will simply not talk candidly to a President. He may be a very courteous listener, as Carter was, and still be incapable of any real exchange except with a very few intimates.

Reagan is more open as a personality but not notably open to "new" facts.

We want the President to be flexible, pragmatic, capable of compromise—also firm, decisive, principled. Carter was hurt by zigzags. Reagan advisers are said to worry about their man being "Carterized" if he compromises too readily. Conversely, many Republican Congressmen worry about his being "mulish." This is a tough one to win. The President should be able to admit error to himself, once in a while out loud. Theoretically, the public confessions could become too frequent, but that is not a real-life danger.

A crucial executive ability, above all for the Chief Executive of the U.S., is perceptiveness about people. This will bear heavily on the quality of the President's appointments and his ability to mold his people into an effective Administration. He must be shrewd enough to see when infighting is unavoidable, even useful, and when it is destructive. F.D.R., Truman, Ike, J.F.K. and for a time L.B.J. were good managers and motivators of people. Nixon's management methods brought us Watergate. Ford and Carter were weak as people managers. Reagan presided over some outlandish administrative arrangements last year, but the machinery is now running better. An awareness of gaps in his own knowledge and concerns should enter the President's criteria for his staff appointments. Self-knowledge without self-doubt is admittedly a lot to ask.

The President must manage more than people. The fearfully complex systems and institutions in his care need executive oversight and control. It is not enough to say a President "can hire managers"; as he delegates, he must know how to keep track of the delegated work; he must understand what his managers are managing.

A President needs a clear sense of priorities. Reagan has the ability to concentrate his energies and the country's attention. Detractors might say this was because he has less energy to deploy. Carter had prodigious energy and diffused it too widely. Presidents should have the knack for keeping three or four balls in the air, but not the urge to toss