Word: hernreich
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Though Currie has been Clinton's secretary since 1993, she is not his most powerful gatekeeper. That distinction goes to Nancy Hernreich, the director of Oval Office operations, who has been with Clinton since Arkansas. Hernreich, who recommended Currie for the secretarial job, is the President's scheduler and, with Currie, makes up the last line of defense against those who clamor for Clinton's time. They have a good-cop-bad-cop routine in which Hernreich shuts down access to Clinton while Currie smooths ruffled feathers with a kindly "We'll get back to you, dear." And the lower...
...George Stephanopoulos and the rest of Clinton's rapid-responding, bimbo-squelching "war room" crew. (Her war-room association alone should put to rest the notion that Currie is a political naive.) After Clinton was elected, Currie landed a job with Warren Christopher during the transition. That's when Hernreich recommended that she replace Clinton's longtime secretary, who had decided not to leave Little Rock for Washington. Currie took the job, her husband says, because it seemed like fun. "Betty does what's interesting and what's right," he says...
...usual, Mack McLarty was all business when he arrived at the Oval Office for an appointment and was quickly waved inside by Bill Clinton's longtime doorkeeper, Nancy Hernreich. But the inner sanctum was empty. "Where's the President?" asked McLarty, a senior adviser. "What do you mean?" Hernreich responded with alarm. Before the two could panic, McLarty noticed the French door near Clinton's desk was ajar. Picking up the trail, he went outside. There on the South Lawn, about 30 yds. from the Oval Office, the President of the United States was standing in shirt-sleeves...
...bull sessions continue until someone, usually deputy assistant Nancy Hernreich, clears the room. "I don't have time to meet with the President," says a senior official, who simply walks back to his office when he sees a crowd in the Oval Office. "You could spend a day in there, and some do." Chief of staff Mack McLarty admits that he once had to ask the President to stand up, move away from a group crowded around his desk and into another chair so he could have a "nice, crisp, 10-minute meeting" on schedule...
Just as troubling is Clinton's apparent resistance to discipline. He has extended automatic walk-in rights to the Oval Office -- a privilege that is heavily restricted by most Presidents -- to nearly a dozen people: Hillary, McLarty, Lindsey, Gore, Stephanopoulos, Neel, Nussbaum, economic chief Bob Rubin, personal assistant Nancy Hernreich and National Security Adviser Tony Lake. The open-door policy has forced him to be his own chief of staff and caused the White House to move in too many directions at once, with little coordination...