Reflections on cabinet choices by J.T. Smith

Last week President-elect Trump proved his wish to be a “disrupter” by announcing several capricious and extraordinary choices for some of the most important posts in his cabinet. They included Robert F Kennedy Jr. to serve as Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS); Peter Hegseth to be Secretary of Defense; and Matt Gaetz to be Attorney General.

A half a century ago, I served as Executive Assistant to a prominent Republican public servant, Elliot Richardson, who served sequentially in these three cabinet posts. Trump’s choices caused me to recall and reflect on the experience and qualities that Richardson brought to these posts, and the stark contrast they suggest.

Richardson was paragon of the “Greatest Generation” and very much part of the “elite” that it is now popular to disparage. Descendant of a long line of prominent Boston doctors, he attended Harvard and Harvard Law School, where he was elected President of the Law Review. He interrupted law school to join the Army. He went ashore on D Day at Normandy as a medical officer and walked through a minefield to rescue a wounded companion. After law school, he clerked for a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. In the 1950s he was a Senate staff member and then Assistant Secretary in the new Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW, now HHS). He then became United States Attorney for Massachusetts. After brief service as a partner in Boston’s preeminent law firm, he was elected Lt Governor and subsequently Attorney General of Massachusetts. Before becoming Secretary of HEW in 1970, Richardson served for a year as the U.S. Deputy Secretary of State.

To the job of Secretary of HEW, Richardson brought prior experience as the Department’s Assistant Secretary; expertise in public management from his roles in state government as well as the U.S. State Department; wide knowledge of the interaction of HEW’s programs with state social service, education and health agencies; and a family-based respect for HEW’s medical and public health professionals. He embraced a management style that emphasized respect for, and use of career civil servants. And he delighted in wrestling with the legislative and policy challenges surrounding welfare and health care reforms and vexed issues of civil rights.

The only thing that Richardson and RFK Jr have in common is family roots in Massachusetts. Kennedy has no experience with public management, no respect for civil servants or for public health programs. His vigorous embrace of a series anti-scientific conspiracy myths and other wrong-headed personal attributes should disqualify him from cabinet service even if he had relevant public management experience.

As Secretary of Defense, Richardson brought an understanding of foreign and defense policy from service as the number two officer of the State Department; seasoning as a manager of huge public agencies; heroic military service in WWII; and large respect for the Department’s military and civilian staff. Trump’s nominee, Peter Hegseth, a Fox News weekend commentator, is manifestly unqualified to be Secretary of Defense. He has no experience with which to manage a colossal public agency; has already started to wage culture war against military leadership and has engaged in lamentable public behavior. His military service is not in any way a sufficient qualification for the job.

Richardson brought sparkling credentials to the job of Attorney General—law review president, Supreme Court Clerk, United States Attorney and State Attorney General.

And he courageously defied President Nixon rather than execute an order he knew to be unlawful at the time of the “Saturday Night Massacre.” By horrendous contrast, Matt Gaetz, a morally compromised former legislator, has no relevant legal or public administration experience. He promises to be an agent of “retribution” for the new President.

Richardson was an exceptional representative of an exceptional generation. One cannot expect individuals of his quality to proliferate in later generations. But surely, there are more qualified citizens to fill these roles. The United States Senate should muster the will and courage to vote down these ludicrous selections for leadership of three of the nation’s vital departments. If it doesn’t, the Constitutional order will be in jeopardy and Republican Senators will live in infamy.

J.T. Smith served in the CIA, the Department of Health Education and Welfare, the Department of Defense, the Department of Justice, the Department of Commerce and the Department of State before becoming a partner in the law firm of  Covington & Burling. He retired to Easton in 2005.