"Temporary teams of trusted people are generally sent to all Departments and to major agencies of government to assist in planning and to acquaint the incoming administration with the civil servants and bureaucracy that will remain in place in the new Administration"
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The blandness is the point. Allen’s sentence reads like a procedural memo, but it’s really a theory of power disguised as good governance. “Temporary teams of trusted people” is the tell: in a transition, the most valuable currency isn’t ideology or even expertise, it’s trust. The word gives political cover to what is essentially a controlled incursion into a standing apparatus that can outlast any election.
The line’s strategic intent is to normalize a delicate maneuver: inserting loyal emissaries into every corner of the state without calling it surveillance, capture, or a purge. “Assist in planning” sounds managerial, almost civic-minded, yet the deeper task is mapping. Who actually runs the place? Where are the bottlenecks? Which programs can be steered quickly, and which will resist? Transitions are short; the bureaucracy is permanent. That asymmetry drives the entire logic.
Allen also nods to a hard truth civil servants know well: the “incoming administration” is the temporary one. By emphasizing that the bureaucracy “will remain in place,” he’s implicitly warning political appointees not to confuse electoral victory with institutional control. The subtext is less “learn the ropes” than “learn the terrain.”
Context matters: Allen, a national security adviser shaped by Cold War governance, is describing the handoff as an operation. Government here isn’t a monolith; it’s a network of agencies with memory, incentives, and quiet veto power. The sentence sells an old Washington ritual as a benign onboarding. It’s also an admission that the state’s continuity is both a stabilizer and the first obstacle a new president must negotiate.
The line’s strategic intent is to normalize a delicate maneuver: inserting loyal emissaries into every corner of the state without calling it surveillance, capture, or a purge. “Assist in planning” sounds managerial, almost civic-minded, yet the deeper task is mapping. Who actually runs the place? Where are the bottlenecks? Which programs can be steered quickly, and which will resist? Transitions are short; the bureaucracy is permanent. That asymmetry drives the entire logic.
Allen also nods to a hard truth civil servants know well: the “incoming administration” is the temporary one. By emphasizing that the bureaucracy “will remain in place,” he’s implicitly warning political appointees not to confuse electoral victory with institutional control. The subtext is less “learn the ropes” than “learn the terrain.”
Context matters: Allen, a national security adviser shaped by Cold War governance, is describing the handoff as an operation. Government here isn’t a monolith; it’s a network of agencies with memory, incentives, and quiet veto power. The sentence sells an old Washington ritual as a benign onboarding. It’s also an admission that the state’s continuity is both a stabilizer and the first obstacle a new president must negotiate.
Quote Details
| Topic | Team Building |
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