The Gatekeepers summary

The release of the incriminating White House tapes resulted in Nixon resigning on 9 August 1974. It was either that or impeachment.

Nixon's Vice President Gerald Ford assumed the office. He’d need a strong chief of staff to prevent the same mistakes from occurring.

Carter’s successful presidential campaign team was led by Jack Watson – a Harvard Law graduate and Washington insider – together with Hamilton Jordan, a political strategist who’d been Carter’s primary advisor when he was governor of Georgia.

After Carter took office, in 1977, Jordan was moved into Cheney’s old office but he wasn’t given the actual title of chief of staff until 1979. In reality, Carter took on many of the chief of staff’s responsibilities himself. He didn’t want just one person setting his agenda, but he liked the idea of being able to consult a larger team of talented individuals who would advise him equally.

Ronald Reagan became president in early 1981. He'd used his acting and oratory skills to win the presidency, but when it came to actual policy implementation, he found himself in need of support.

Consequently, Reagan appointed James Baker as chief of staff. He was a pragmatist who knew Capitol Hill inside out, and he essentially acted as Reagan’s co-president.

Reagan was succeeded in the presidency by his former Vice President George H. W. Bush in 1989. Bush appointed John Sununu as his chief of staff. Sununu was well connected on Capitol Hill and impressively confident. He seemed to have the right air about him. Sununu's qualities initially helped Bush to a series of early policy victories including environmental regulation.

However, these early successes disguised a deeper problem. Sununu’s confidence was revealed to be little more than arrogance, and he ended up alienating his staff. Consequently, friends were in short supply when trouble struck.

Clinton began his presidency by making the same mistake as Jimmy Carter. He also tried to be his own chief of staff.

Technically he had one – Mack McLarty. But as Clinton’s childhood friend McLarty just couldn’t refuse his president. The result was absolute chaos.

George W. Bush became president in 2001. He chose Andy Card, who’d been a former adviser to Bush senior, as his chief of staff. However, the real power in the White House lay with Vice President Cheney, himself a chief of staff under Ford.

Card found himself organizing day-to-day administration, but it was Cheney who really set the president’s agenda, especially on national security issues.

On the eve of Barack Obama's election victory, he and his advisers started looking for a suitable chief of staff. They needed someone who both knew Washington and wouldn’t be afraid to hassle Obama, especially given that legislation dealing with the 2008 financial crisis needed to be passed urgently.

However, Obama had been elected on a platform of change. His choice of insider Rahm Emanuel was bound to cause friction.