The White House was once – and will be again – a great place for a young man to work. I did it myself and have never been sorry. Fate was kind and my age was right: it was Harry Truman's White House and I worked for Charlie Murphy – Charles S. Murphy, to give him his due. He was the President's Special Counsel, successor to Clark Clifford in that post and one of Truman's senior aides. Working for Murphy and with him for the President was a fine experience, as unlike Egil Krogh's or Gordon Strachan's as day from night. What made it so is illustrated by a story. And this story is a starting point for looking at the presidency now, by light of Watergate.

Let me state at once the paradox referred to in the title. In nearly all capitalist countries, including Britain and Australia, most important trade unions are partisan in politics. That is, they openly, and as a matter of permanent policy, support a particular political party against its rivals. In a few countries, again including Britain and Australia, they actually become a part of such a party, through affiliation. If we look at the affairs and activities of the trade unions, there is little to suggest that this is an unpopular policy among their members.

The project on which this paper reports is aimed not only at increased understanding of the United States federal budget process, but also at predicting government expenditures in total and by bureau with a view to their determination within United States national econometric models. Estimates of likely expenditures using standard econometric techniques are poor, both in absolute terms and in comparison with our own work. Management of the economy should be improved by the use of predictors based on considering budgeting as a political process that is responsive to economic and social conditions. Use of mathematical models in the social sciences should be furthered, not by arguing their hypothetical utility, but by demonstrating that they work. The proof is in the prediction.

Public support for the existing institutions of government depends in part on public perceptions of the alternatives. This assertion will not come as news in those parts of the world where changing the regime is a regular part of political life. In France, for example, where regimes have been numbered to distinguish them from each other, it is common knowledge that public evaluations of the Fourth Republic depended on comparisons with the Third, that especially in its early years the Fifth Republic was frequently judged by comparison with the Fourth, and that in particularly sophisticated circles these more or less contemporary regimes have been frequently compared with the First and Second Republics.