Check Your Notes

Here's an old story from the Arizona Republic that I've saved for years. It illustrates the importance of thorough staff work.

Erwin Griswold, former solicitor general of the United States and dean of the Harvard Law School once recounted a story told to him by Joseph Califano:

"It seems that one of the things that President Johnson liked to do was to make brief speeches to various and sundry groups in the Rose Garden at the White House. He had a staff of speech writers and one of them was assigned to prepare these short speeches on the back of index cards and place them on the podium.

"The writer who had been doing this had not proven satisfactory and he had been given notice that at the end of the month his services would be terminated. Well, this one particular morning Califano, who was the President’s chief of staff, thought he should check the cards and this is what he found:

‘You have heard people say that we cannot fight a war half way round the world and still preserve the goals of our Great Society. Well, I say you can, and I will tell you how. You have heard people say that you cannot maintain an economy that makes a job available for everyone and still win the fight against inflation. Well, I say you can, and I will tell you how. You have heard people say we cannot bring racial justice to America without anger and dissension. Well, I say you can, and I will tell you how.

"Califano then picked up the next card and it read, ‘OK Lyndon, you’re on your own.’"