The Professor and the President: Daniel Patrick Moynihan in the Nixon White House
Stephen Hess
Brookings Institution Press
When Stephen Hess joined the Nixon White House staff in January 1969 his official title<br>was Deputy Assistant to the President for Urban Affairs, but his role would turn out to<br>be much more complex.<br>As Hess writes in his opening to The Professor and the President, “I am the only<br>person—perhaps in the world—who was a friend of both Richard Nixon and Daniel<br>Patrick Moynihan before they knew each other.”<br>Nixon needed a prominent Democrat in his cabinet. Moynihan needed reentry to<br>Washington's power center. From its origins in a brief political codependence, the<br>relationship blossomed.<br>Nixon grew fascinated by Moynihan, who advised the president on what books to<br>read, to whom he should award the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and how not to<br>redecorate the Oval Office.<br>Moynihan earned Nixon's support in battles with Arthur Burns, the conservative<br>economist who served as counselor to the president. Nixon went on to propose the<br>Family Assistance Plan, one of the most progressive pieces of welfare legislation since<br>the New Deal.