How Bureaucracy Works at the Highest Levels

[Vern Edwards]

If you want to know how top notch (i.e., high quality) bureaucracy works at the highest levels, I highly recommend Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers (2003) by the notorious Daniel Ellsberg, who disclosed the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times and the Washington Post and who died last year. It is a very great book. Extremely well written. Ellsberg worked at the highest level within the Pentagon and in the field in Vietnam. It's a thriller and a shocker.

Ellsberg was a war hawk at first, but changed his mind when he saw first-hand what was going on in the Pentagon and Vietnam. He was a superb observer. His insider revelations about how the war started and progressed stunned me. Available in hardcover, paperback, Kindle, and audio book. Essential reading for anyone who works in the bureaucratic world and wants to know how that world really works.

If you and your boss disagree on a prospective policy, and if your boss invites you to go with her to a meeting with her boss, and if her boss asks your opinion, do you say what you really think and lose your boss's confidence, and maybe your job, or do you support your boss's position?

[formerfed]

I read the book maybe 20 years ago and don’t remember much.  I must have borrowed it from someone or a library. Nothing seemed to stand out for me then.  But I’m curious and will read it again.

i did have some disagreements with a prior government boss.  I always liked being responsive to program needs and reacting promptly.  On the other hand, he liked to mull things over, gather large groups to discuss, develop plans, and have regular meetings to discuss progress.  It turned out, agency senior management liked my approach more.  I was often invited to meetings with the agency head and senior staff to discuss acquisitions and he wasn’t.  I felt bad and decided to leave the agency for another job.