Page 53 - Leadership Lessons of the White House Fellows

THE PROGRAM

Reiss above all the other Fellows that year to be his special assistant at the
National Security Council. Reiss recalls that “General Powell wasn’t sure
what I’d be able to do for him, but he said if I kept my mouth shut and
my eyes and ears open I would probably learn a lot. That was good advice,
because one of the things he did for me was invite me to the senior staff
meetings every morning, where I had a chance to observe firsthand how a
very skillful leader handled senior staff, and substantively how he handled
policy issues and how he saw his role as protecting and promoting the pres-
ident and the country’s interest,” said Reiss. “I spent a lot of time on the
arms-control side, which was my primary interest at the time, and I also
focused on Asia, the Middle East, and the Soviet Union—I had free run
of anything I wanted to see.”
Indeed, after Reiss completed his Fellowship and became a consultant
to several governmental agencies and departments as well as chief nego-
tiator and general counsel of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development
Organization, Powell tapped him in 2003 to be policy planning director
at the State Department. At his swearing-in ceremony, Powell said, “Back
in 1988, a dashing young national security advisor had the foresight to
choose Mitchell from an impressive crop of White House Fellows as his
special assistant. It’s so gratifying to confirm my own wisdom. It was clear
to me then that Mitchell had the dedication, the brains and the judgment
to be effective. By effective, I don’t just mean in the bureaucratic sense. I
mean how he knows how to get things done that matter to real people. I
wasn’t the first in government and I certainly won’t be the last to recognize
Mitchell’s many talents and put them to good use.” 15

Then there is the case of Robert “Bud” McFarlane (WHF 71–72), who was
President Ronald Reagan’s national security advisor from 1983 to 1985. I
asked Bud if he would have risen to this position on his own if he had not
been a Fellow. “No, I never would have,” he replied. “I was a known quan-
tity, and that was only true because I was a White House Fellow and my
office was physically right next door to Al Haig and Henry Kissinger, so I
had to bump into them every day. In short, the Fellowship put me in a
position to establish relationships that were key to my advancement.”

15 Colin Powell, remarks at Mitchell Reiss’s swearing-in ceremony, October 30, 2003.

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