Former White House Chiefs of Staff to Convene for Washington Event

CONTACT: Margot
Dimond
PHONE: (713) 348-6775
EMAIL: mdimond@rice.edu
or
CONTACT: Sharon
Coleman Jones
PHONE: (202) 691-4016

FORMER WHITE HOUSE CHIEFS OF
STAFF TO CONVENE FOR WASHINGTON EVENT

WHO: 11 Former White House Chiefs of Staff

WHAT: James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy
Forum on the Role of the White House Chief of Staff

WHEN: 9 a.m. – 4 p.m., June 15

WHERE: Woodrow Wilson International Center for
Scholars/Smithsonian Institute, Washington DC

The Forum on the Role of the White House Chief of
Staff is intended to provide information useful to those coming into the White
House in 2001, to produce a lasting body of knowledge about the most important
appointed position in any White House, and to create a public climate that makes
it easier for presidential candidates to carry out meaningful preparations for
governing.

Participating Chiefs of Staff include James A. Baker
III, Howard Baker, Jr., Leon Panetta, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Thomas
McLarty, Kenneth Duberstein, John Sununu, Erskine Bowles, Samuel Skinner and
Jack Watson. They will take part in one or more of four panel discussions,
addressing such topics as “Starting a White House,” “Reorganizing and
Refocusing,” “Reelection and Closing an Administration,” and “The Chief of Staff
in the Governing Community.”

Moderating the panels will be Lee Hamilton, former
U.S. Congressman and director of Wilson Center; Marvin Kalb, former
correspondent and professor, Harvard’s Kennedy School; Bill Plante, White House
Correspondent, CBS News; and Richard E. Neustadt, professor, Harvard’s Kennedy
School.

“The White House Chief of Staff is the most powerful
non-elected person in government, yet until now, each new administration has had
to re-invent the role,” said Edward P. Djerejian, director of the Baker
Institute. “We trust that this forum