    RECORD TYPE: PRESIDENTIAL  (TRP NOTES MAIL)

    CREATOR: Elaine C. Kamarck ( CN=Elaine C. Kamarck/O=OVP [ OVP ] )

    CREATION DATE/TIME:13-MAY-1997 18:42:07.00

    SUBJECT:  POTUS lunch memo

    TO: Ron Klain ( CN=Ron Klain/O=OVP [ OVP ] )
    READ:UNKNOWN

    TEXT:
    A few things for the POTUS lunch:

    1) Jobs: Veterans Benefits Administrator.

    	The process calls for a board to select four nominees and send

    them forward to the President for this choice.  The top ranked candidate

    is Joe Thompson, New York regional administrator, winner of the first

    hammer award ever given, responsible for re-engineering the process for

    the whole country.  He is top notch and should get the job.

    	Jesse Brown is pushing the number 4 ranked candidate because he is

    African American.  He is not anyone we know to be a reinventor.

    	Hershel Gober wants you to tell the President that he (Hershel) is

    very much in favor of Joe Thompson but does not want this repeated to

    anyone but the President.

    2) Jobs: Deputy Secretary of Defense.

    	As you know Leon Fuerth likes Hamre.  We have been less than

    impressed with Hamre as a reinventor.  The Generals we know who are

    reinventors are split on Hamre.

    	So far, Hamre is Cohen's favorite.  Given the mixed bag among your

    advisors on this we suggest the following:

    	Say Okay to Hamre if we get an Assistant Secretary of Defense for

    Reinvention.  Assistant Secretary posts need to re either re-designated or

    legislated.  Cohen has wanted to get rid of the Assistant Secretary for

    C3I (which we agree is somewhat of an anachronism.)  We could ask him to

    re-designate that post the reinvention post and then put one of our people

    in there with a direct reporting relationship to Cohen through the DepSec.

    3) IRS Reinvention.

    	I am in the process of drawing up a plan which I hope Larry

    Summers and Bob will buy off on re IRS reinvention.  They continue to have

    every wrong instinct on this.  For instance, they want to get McKinzie to

    do a study of the IRS.  I pointed out that McKinzie would simply find the

    people we already know and ask them what to do.  They will get a much

    better result using their own employees and using McKinzie as

    facilitators.

    	They also want us to limit reinvention to one place.  My argument

    is that that's what we did in reinvention in the first term -- reinvention

    labs etc. and that we are now into the whole agency.

    	Nevertheless we are slowly making progress -- thanks to your

    meeting with Rubin and I may be able to strike a deal with them.