Nearly 50 years ago, the country weathered a historical presidential transition in turbulent times, as John F. Kennedy bested Richard Nixon in the race to replace Eisenhower. Brookings played a behind-the-scenes role to help ease the transition. “[Brookings] deserves a large share of the credit for history's smoothest transfer of power between opposing parties.” Theodore…

President Lyndon Johnson’s decision not to run for re-election in 1968 preceded one of the most wrenching campaigns in American history, encompassing the assassinations of presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., and culminating in a bitter three-way campaign among Republican Richard Nixon, Democrat Hubert Humphrey and George Wallace…

Following the release of his book Organizing the Presidency in 1976, Stephen Hess got a call from his secretary that Governor Carter was on the phone. He responded, “What Governor Carter? I don’t know any Governor Carter.”It was of course the President-elect, Jimmy Carter, seeking advice across the political aisle. Hess, who first came to Brookings…

Even though the 1988 transition featured a handover from a two-term president (Ronald Reagan) to his own vice president (George H.W. Bush), experts at Brookings recognized that even an intra-party transition between political allies suffered from a lack of communication between outgoing presidential aides and their counterparts in the new administration.Lawrence Korb, who was at…