Word: hartmann
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Robert Hartmann, White House Counsellor and chief speechwriter, was given the assignment of collecting basic ideas from Cabinet members, senior White House staffers, campaign advisers, friendly Senators and Congressmen and old political pals like Melvin Laird and Bryce Harlow. Once the suggestions were compiled, Hartmann went over them with the President, who meanwhile had been studying every presidential acceptance speech since 1948 and jotting down ideas of his own on a yellow notepad...
...Hartmann and five speech writers on his staff shaped the raw material into six separate drafts. Ford read these and underlined in red pencil the passages he liked best. Those he picked went back into the typewriter and emerged as a new, amalgamated version. Only two copies were made-one for Ford, one for Hartmann-in order to prevent leaks and staff kibitzing...
...brought in to improve coordination among Administration spokesmen. He will also continue to perform a delicate but important role-helping to sharpen the President's public statements. Ford, an uninspiring orator, has generally depended for his texts on his old friend and former congressional assistant, Robert Hartmann, Counsellor to the President and his chief speechwriter. Some critics have found Hartmann's drafts to be thin and full of platitudes. Gergen is expected to upgrade presidential pronouncements, though he will still not have direct authority over Hartmann...
Narrow Margin. If Hartmann was a bit nervous about Gergen's expanded role, Press Secretary Ron Nessen was a bit defensive about the newly fortified communications office. Some newsmen have harshly, often unfairly, criticized Nessen-an ex-TV news correspondent for NBC-for his lack of knowledge about White House thinking; some Republicans have accused him of undermining Rogers Morton, Ford's campaign director, whose tendency to put his foot in his mouth has sometimes made it difficult for the White House to support him. But Gergen insisted that his appointment was not designed to undercut anybody...
...chief staff administrator, Richard Cheney, 35, gets generally high marks for making a wide range of people and conflicting ideas accessible to his boss. But the President has done little to ease the tension between Cheney, whose office has had an increasing influence on presidential speeches, and Robert Hartmann, a longtime Ford political adviser and chief speech writer. Recently Ford promoted Cheney Aide David Gergen, 34, to White House special counsel and assigned Stefan Halper, 31, to help Cheney and Gergen assess the political implications of Administration initiatives. However, both Gergen and Halper are former speechwriters, a fact that will...