The Gatekeepers
How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency
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Narrated by:
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Mark Bramhall
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By:
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Chris Whipple
About this listen
Now with a chapter on the chaos in the Trump administration, The New York Times best-selling, behind-the-scenes look at the White House Chiefs of Staff, whose actions - and inactions - have defined the course of our country.
What do Dick Cheney and Rahm Emanuel have in common? Aside from polarizing personalities, both served as chief of staff to the president of the United States - as did Donald Rumsfeld, Leon Panetta, and a relative handful of others. The chiefs of staff, often referred to as "the gatekeepers", wield tremendous power in Washington and beyond; they decide who is allowed to see the president, negotiate with Congress to push POTUS's agenda, and - most crucially - enjoy unparalleled access to the leader of the free world. Each chief can make or break an administration, and each president reveals himself by the chief he picks.
Through extensive, intimate interviews with 18 living chiefs (including Reince Priebus) and two former presidents, award-winning journalist and producer Chris Whipple pulls back the curtain on this unique fraternity. In doing so, he revises our understanding of presidential history, revealing to us how James Baker’s expert managing of the White House, the press, and Capitol Hill paved the way for the Reagan Revolution - and, conversely, how Watergate, the Iraq War, and even the bungled Obamacare rollout might have been prevented by a more effective chief.
Filled with shrewd analysis and never-before-reported details, The Gatekeepers offers an essential portrait of the toughest job in Washington.
©2017 Chris Whipple (P)2017 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Based on unrivalled access to all the key politicians and their advisors - including Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, George Osborne, Nigel Farage and Dominic Cummings, the mastermind of Vote Leave - Shipman has written a political history that reads like a thriller and offers a gripping day-by-day account of what really happened behind the scenes in Downing Street, both Leave campaigns, the Labour Party, Ukip and Britain Stronger in Europe.
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blow by blow, word by word
- By Christian R. Unger on 11-22-18
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Three Days in January
- Dwight Eisenhower's Final Mission
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In this debut history from one of America's most influential political journalists, Bret Baier casts the three days between Dwight Eisenhower's prophetic "farewell address" on the evening of January 17, 1961, and his successor John F. Kennedy's inauguration on the afternoon of January 20 as the final mission of one of modern America's greatest leaders.
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Gently In Manner, Strongly In Deed...
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Nixon's Secrets
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Learn the inside scoop on Watergate, the Ford Pardon, and the 18-minute Gap. Roger Stone, The New York Times best-selling author of The Man Who Killed Kennedy: The Case Against LBJ, gives the inside scoop on Nixon’s rise and fall in Watergate in his new book Nixon’s Secrets. Stone charts Nixon’s rise from election to Congress in 1946 to the White House in 1968 after his razor-thin loss to John Kennedy in 1960, his disastrous campaign for Governor of California in 1962, and the greatest comeback in American Presidential history.
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Great book but....
- By Alan on 11-20-14
By: Roger Stone, and others
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The Path to Power
- The Years of Lyndon Johnson
- By: Robert A. Caro
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 40 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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This is the story of the rise to national power of a desperately poor young man from the Texas Hill Country. The Path to Power reveals in extraordinary detail the genesis of the almost superhuman drive, energy, and ambition that set LBJ apart. It follows him from the Hill Country to New Deal Washington, from his boyhood through the years of the Depression to his debut as Congressman, his heartbreaking defeat in his first race for the Senate, and his attainment, nonetheless, at age 31, of the national power for which he hungered.
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The Best of all Biographies
- By David C. Daggett on 12-14-13
By: Robert A. Caro
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The Briefing
- Politics, the Press, and the President
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- Narrated by: Sean Spicer
- Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
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For more than two decades, Sean Spicer had been a respected political insider, working as a campaign and communications strategist. But in December 2016, he got the call of a lifetime. President-elect Donald J. Trump had chosen him to be the White House press secretary. And life hasn’t been the same since. When he accepted the job, Spicer was far from a household name. But then he walked into the bright lights of the briefing room, and the cameras started rolling. His every word was scrutinized. Every movement was parodied. Every detail became a meme. And that’s just the public side.
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I did not expect to like this non-fiction book!
- By Wayne on 07-30-18
By: Sean Spicer
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The Man Who Ran Washington
- The Life and Times of James A. Baker III
- By: Peter Baker, Susan Glasser
- Narrated by: Michael Quinlan
- Length: 26 hrs and 35 mins
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For a quarter-century, from the end of Watergate to the aftermath of the Cold War, no Republican won the presidency without his help or ran the White House without his advice. James Addison Baker III was the indispensable man for four presidents because he understood better than anyone how to make Washington work at a time when America was shaping events around the world. The Man Who Ran Washington is a pause-resisting portrait of a power broker who influenced America's destiny for generations.
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We Need Baker Now More Than Ever
- By @Gazi2a on 01-08-21
By: Peter Baker, and others
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Camelot's End
- Kennedy vs. Carter and the Fight That Broke the Democratic Party
- By: Jon Ward
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 10 hrs and 26 mins
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The Carter presidency was on life support. The Democrats, desperate to keep power and yearning to resurrect former glory, turned to Ted Kennedy. Camelot's End details the incredible drama of Kennedy's challenge - what led to it, how it unfolded, and its lasting effects - with cinematic sweep. It is a story about what happened to the Democratic Party when the country's long string of successes, luck, and global dominance following World War II ran its course, and how, on a quest to recapture the magic of JFK, Democrats plunged themselves into an intra-party civil war.
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Does character count in political office?
- By marwalk on 07-29-19
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Reagan
- The Life
- By: H. W. Brands
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 31 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Ronald Reagan today is a conservative icon, celebrated for transforming the American domestic agenda and playing a crucial part in ending communism in the Soviet Union. In his masterful new biography, H. W. Brands argues that Reagan, along with FDR, was the most consequential president of the 20th century. Reagan took office at a time when the public sector, after a half century of New Deal liberalism, was widely perceived as bloated and inefficient, an impediment to personal liberty.
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Very little about Reagan
- By Jack Merritt on 07-30-15
By: H. W. Brands
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Three Days in Moscow
- Ronald Reagan and the Fall of the Soviet Empire
- By: Bret Baier, Catherine Whitney
- Narrated by: Bret Baier
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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In Three Days in Moscow, Baier explores the dramatic endgame of America’s long struggle with the Soviet Union and President Ronald Reagan’s central role in shaping the world we live in today. On May 31, 1988, Reagan stood on Russian soil and addressed a packed audience at Moscow State University, delivering a remarkable - yet now largely forgotten - speech that capped his first visit to the Soviet capital.
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Amazing!
- By Brian W. Barton on 05-20-18
By: Bret Baier, and others
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Write It When I'm Gone
- Remarkable Off-the-Record Conversations with Gerald R. Ford
- By: Thomas M. DeFrank
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 8 hrs and 55 mins
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In an extraordinary series of private interviews, conducted over 16 years with the stipulation that they not be released until after Gerald Ford's death, the 38th president of the United States reveals a profoundly different side of himself: funny, reflective, gossipy, strikingly candid, and the stuff of headlines.
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An easy historical listen...
- By Darrell Rupe on 05-26-08
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LBJ's 1968
- Power, Politics, and the Presidency in America's Year of Upheaval
- By: Kyle Longley
- Narrated by: Paul Brion
- Length: 11 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
1968 was an unprecedented year in terms of upheaval on numerous scales: political, military, economic, social, cultural. In the United States, perhaps no one was more undone by the events of 1968 than President Lyndon Baines Johnson. Kyle Longley leads his listeners on a behind-the-scenes tour of what Johnson characterized as the 'year of a continuous nightmare'. Longley explores how LBJ perceived the most significant events of 1968, including the Vietnam War, the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy, and the violent Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
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Worst year in my lifetime - LBJ tragedy of his own making - but not according to this Author.
- By charles wartelle on 05-17-19
By: Kyle Longley
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In the fall of 1999, New York Times education reporter Jacques Steinberg was given an unprecedented opportunity to observe the admissions process at prestigious Wesleyan University. Over the course of nearly a year, Steinberg accompanied admissions officer Ralph Figueroa on a tour to assess and recruit the most promising students in the country. The Gatekeepers follows a diverse group of prospective students as they compete for places in the nation's most elite colleges.
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NOT "COMPLETE"
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At the end of World War II, the United States was considered the victor over tyranny and a champion of freedom. But it was clear—to some—that the Soviet Union was already seeking to expand and foment revolution around the world, and the American government’s strategy in response relied on the secret efforts of a newly formed CIA. Chronicling their fascinating lives, Scott Anderson follows the exploits of four spies. Despite their ambitions, time and again their efforts went awry, thwarted by ham-fisted politicking and ideological rigidity at the highest levels of the government.
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What listeners say about The Gatekeepers
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Philo
- 05-15-17
Great panorama in punchy moments; laugh-out-loud
This book accomplishes so many things, so many ways. It is a flyover of familiar US history through a new lens and with a new pivot:White House Chiefs of Staff. That was a wise choice, as is proven again and again. It gives us a new template or measuring stick to compare to our own times and leadership. We get the big sweep of events and re-experience those pivotal headline moments, as culled from many witnesses and memoirs. Yet, this is all done moment by moment, with a richly "you are there" feeling. Also, this is an excellent set of case studies in top-level organizational governance, good and bad. And it is a great way to spend an afternoon or a few, being enlightened and entertained.
Though there are relatively "good guys" and bad, the author is great about giving scenes more dimensions through the words of several people present, sometimes clashing. (I always found memoirs troubling on account of the hundreds of pages of self-apologia, so I appreciate this author laboring among all those pages to stitch this together.) Here, I never felt I was having my nose rubbed too heavily in one point of view. The moments and the players are each marvelously carved out and given vibrant life. Many eyewitnesses get to roll out their best lines (often causing me to break into big smiles and laughter). I saw unknown sides of many people (such as the courtly James Baker III's repeated expression, "rat-****"). The narratives as delivered here are at once sobering, yet in the very same moment, eerily, tragicomically jarring and strange at turns. Wow, this is our country. Our way of staffing our top leadership plays out in very bizarre ways, and along weird trajectories from Day One of a term. (Some, I reflect, are more surreal than others.) We do need to refresh our leadership, and have a very open field from which to choose our leaders, but this has its costs. It is not ideal for staffing. Or maybe, in some incalculable way, it is good, somewhat like the constant disruption of economic competition and progress can be good. No facile answers are offered here; just great stories.
History rhymes, right? Well, never in whole sequences, but pieces of it do. Many of these pieces bear comparison to current events. It was interesting to consider, for example, the outsider-stance and weaknesses of team formation (and overconfident perceptions) present in Jimmy Carter's administration, and the somewhat woeful results in the view of many Americans, though Carter in other ways could not be less like Donald Trump. The clarity of this book makes these thoughts easy for me to access. Likewise the crucial Nixon traits, and indeed the whole Watergate story, is worth revisiting now, dealt up in punchy vignettes here, especially through the lens of Nixon's COS H. R. Haldeman. Despite his great skills and setting a high bar in some ways, Haldeman failed to rein in the worst instincts of Watergate cowboys like Liddy. So too Reagan's seemingly offhand agreement to install COS Donald Regan seemed to lead to big fumblings on events running off the rails with a similar character, Oliver North, in Reagan's time. It is easy amid these tales to think of possibly similar characters in Trump's orbit. Management is SO important! And it is a many-faceted art, as we see here.
This is a book I got caught up in, and burned right through. That's my best compliment.
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6 people found this helpful
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- Christina
- 01-27-18
Really enjoyed it
A wonderful book about the role of the Chief of Staff. Enjoyed it start to finish. The odd fumbled sentences regarding the Oklahoma City Bombing and the strong opinion on Benghazi and Whitewater momentarily took the wind out of its sails, but it’s only a few sentences of the book. Overall, really great.
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- augustine blay
- 05-17-17
great eye opener for new chiefs of staff
Because the function of a chief of staff is difficult to define. this book provides great insight into practical aspects of the job. I loved it. Jim Baker all the way...
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- Gudrun
- 06-15-17
I have recommended this to everyone I Know
This book is so well written that it is accessible to anyone you do not need to know each person in detail. I recommended this book to a friend who does not like non-fiction and lived in England most of her life, and she loved it. Do not hesitate to get this book.
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- Edwin
- 08-07-18
A Great Listen
This was a great book, discussing the history of a position that can determine the success or failure of an American President. America spends so much time focusing on the president that people forget that the staff has to execute the presidents agenda. Having a strong chief of staff is vital for a successful presidency. Mark Bramhall’s narration was calm, informative and entertaining. I’ve listed to it in full or in parts multiple times and will continue to do so. Highly recommended!
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- Loren
- 04-15-17
Great history of the Chief of Staff position
The author goes chronologically from the Nixon Administration through the Obama administration summarizing the tenures of each of the chiefs. He has excellent access to the principals and described many of the highs and lows of the administrations and how those related to the roles of the CoS. He also has good information about the personalities of each of the chiefs and how that either helped them serve their presidents or got in the way.
He makes the case over and over that the modern presidency cannot function without a strong CoS, which was attempted by Carter and Clinton. He also suggests that 'principals' -- CoS who take themselves too seriously do not function well in the job (Sununu and Regan). Finally, his stories also show that presidents are not generally well served by CoS who are too close, as that prevents them from giving bad news or tough advice to the presidents.
Extremely well researched and very interesting read, and each of his major points are generally well supported by interviews from those who were in the position.
The only loose end is that while these characteristics seem necessary, they are not enough to prevent disasters from occurring on their watch, which the author confronts most directly with Haldeman and Nixon. Not the fault of the book, but just a reflection of the fact that both people and the world of politics in Washington are very complicated.
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- Robin H. Atcitty
- 04-10-17
Good
I love the book. I hope that President Trump has a good Chief Of Staff to help him
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- Taylor
- 08-25-17
The story & the reading were fantastic!
I loved this book, and the narration was great! Mark Bramhall's voice is deep and somewhat gravely, and that came off as a little grating to my ears at first. Yet, as I continued to listen, his voice seemed to fit perfectly with the subject matter and was actually quite pleasant.
As for the story itself, I was deeply fascinated in hearing the recounting and unfolding of history. It was also quite interesting to hear events from the point of view of the Chiefs of Staff as well as aids and Cabinet members. This book shed bright light on the important, practical workings of the presidency otherwise unknown or not cared about by the public. I only wish Mr. Whipple could have spent more time on a single Administration, so we could get to know the persons involved and could really see the human effect of the job of the Chief of Staff and of the clashing of such titanic personalities. Perhaps Mr. Whipple should write a sequel with this in mind.
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- Amazon Customer
- 05-27-19
good but dias
the political bias of the author is evident. is telling me the accounts of the chief of staff is fascinating despite his leanings.
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- Faye
- 10-02-18
Riveting!
I loved this book! Couldn't put down. if you haven't already ready read it, you should.
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