The Last Word<br> <p>Beyond Survival<p><i><font size="2">Presidential nominees must fend for themselves as their nominations inch forward in a tortuous process.</i></font>

The origin of the Survivior's Guide speaks volumes to the difficulties challenging presidential appointees today. Despite an unmistakable demand for information from recent appointees, it took a private foundation, The Pew Charitable Trusts, and a Washington think thank, the Brookings Institution, to address appointment problems through the Presidential Appointee Initiative. With a blue-ribbon advisory board chaired by former Sen. Nancy Kassebaum Baker and former Office of Management and Budget Director Franklin Raines, and a project team led by me, the initiative was launched to fill the void created by an increasingly uncoordinated process. Pew and Brookings stepped in largely because neither Congress nor the executive branch could-or would. The White House Office of Presidential Personnel, which makes first contact with the approximately 3,000 potential appointees recruited by each administration, does not have the staff or institutional memory to guide nominees through the entire process. Nor does the White House Counsel's office, which reviews answers to the White House Personal Data Questionnaire; the Office of Government Ethics, which oversees the financial disclosure process; the FBI, which conducts the security reviews for most nominees; or the Senate committees that hold the confirmation hearings. As a result, presidential nominees must fend for themselves from start to finish.

The forms used in the process are bureaucratic torture. Developed during the McCarthy era in the 1950s to ferret out communists, expanded to catch conflicts of interest in the wake of Watergate and revised again to make sure that nominees have paid their nannies and gardeners, the forms cover every possible embarrassment. The financial disclosure forms ask for the same information as the personal data queries, with just enough variation to demand an entirely new calculation for almost every question. Given the stakes, not the least of which are the legal penalties for mistakes on key forms, it is no surprise that half of the Reagan, Bush and Clinton nominees sought outside help to get their answers right, or that a fifth paid more than $5,000 each for advice on how to cope with these forms. The Survivior's Guide should give nominees a head start on everything from assembling records to navigating their Senate confirmations.

What the Survivior's Guide cannot do, however, is eliminate the bureaucratic delays, overlaps and nitpicking that makes its title so appropriate. Cabinet nominees can get a head start by remembering every place they have lived for the past 15 years, compiling the dates and purposes of all foreign trips during that time, and searching their tax records for all sources of income that exceed $200. They will also have to remember the birth dates of all relatives, living or dead, to make sure each one can be investigated for possible subversive connections; find a high school classmate who can vouch for their behavior in home room; find references from past employers; and provide the names of three people, preferably not among the other names they have dug up, who can speak on their behalf when the FBI comes calling. On top of that, they will have to fill out the White House Personal Data Statement Questionnaire. Alongside understandable questions about associations, they will have to answer questions about their employment, assets, tax liens, political affiliation, lawsuits, bankruptcies, fines, complaints, judgments, domestic help and investigations by federal, state, military or local law enforcement. Worse, they will still have to answer the three most onerous information requests ever invented:

1. Have you had any association with any person, group or business venture that could be used to impugn your character and qualifications for a government position?

2. Do you know anyone or any organization that might-overtly or covertly, fairly or unfairly-criticize your appointment?

3. Please provide any other information, including information about your family, that could suggest a conflict of interest or be a possible source of embarrassment to you, your family or the President.

It is not clear just what constitutes the right answers to such "have you stopped beating your dog" questions. Taken seriously, the questions could drive highly qualified people out of the process. After all, anyone with the slightest experience in public administration or policy will have created enemies along the way.

The Survivior's Guide can prepare nominees for such questions, but only Congress and the President can make the process more accommodating. The fact that nominees desperately need such a guide only confirms the reality that the system has become a barrier not just to recruiting talented Americans into public service, but also to finding a clear picture of each nominee's true qualifications.