mitted to the reorganization of the Executive Office could accomplish within
the constraints of the federal environment. What follows is an organizational
history of the Executive Office of the President from 1953 through 1960 that
assesses the effectiveness of Eisenhower's management of his office.

When Eisenhower came into office the budget bureau told the new presi-
dent that

while the Executive Office of the President has existed since 1789 when President
Washington first assumed office, action taken in 1939 first gave institutional recogni-
tion to the staff units in the office and augmented them. . . . A conscious attempt has
been made to develop procedures among the agencies and the presidential staff units so
that the President can control "choke points" which supply him, through his staff, with
intelligence concerning agency proposals and activities and with controls which he
may exercise. ⁴

The Executive Office came into existence on 1 July 1939 when Congress
approved Reorganization Plan No. 1. ⁵ This plan, which transferred the Bureau
of the Budget and the National Resources Planning Board to this newly created
office, had been sent to Congress earlier that spring by Franklin Roosevelt at
the urging of Louis Brownlow. The proposal was made possible by the Reor-
ganization Act that gave the president the authority to submit reorganization
plans that would have the force of law if both houses of Congress did not reject
them within sixty days. Roosevelt had approved the Reorganization bill on 3
April 1939. ⁶ This law extended to the president the power and funds to ap-
point six personal administrative assistants. The act thus marked the beginning
of a significant White House staff.

The Executive Office of the President ( EOP) was first defined in Executive
Order No. 8248 which Roosevelt signed on 8 September 1939, a few days after
the German invasion of Poland initiated World War II. FDR's purpose in sign-
ing the order was to maintain presidential control of the economic mobiliza-
tion agencies that would be created as the United States responded to the war.
From the president's point of view the most important part of the EOP was the
Office of Emergency Management which served as the organizational home of
the myriad agencies created during the war. ⁷ These mobilization organiza-
tions, whose establishment caused a rapid expansion of the EOP, were never in-
tended to be permanent. When the last of the agencies, the Philippine Alien
Property Administration, was abolished on 15 June 1951 the Office of Emer-
gency Management became inactive. ⁸

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