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.