Bradley Patterson was appointed the Executive Secretary of the Peace Corps in 1961
Bradley Patterson
Bradley Patterson (A.B.,’42, A.M.,’43) is one of the nation’s foremost authorities on the organization and functioning of the White House staff. In 1954, he helped design an executive secretariat for the White House and then joined President Dwight Eisenhower’s White House staff as Assistant Cabinet Secretary, a new position in which he served until 1961. In the Nixon administration, Patterson served as Executive Assistant to Leonard Garment and in this role worked to develop and implement a new policy of self-determination and strengthening of tribal government for Native Americans. He was a central negotiator for peaceful change during the Alcatraz, BIA building occupation and Wounded Knee crises. In the last of his 14 years on the White House staff, Patterson served as an Assistant Director of the Office of Presidential Personnel under President Gerald Ford.
Patterson has written two books about the White House staff, the most recent being The White House Staff: Inside the West Wing and Beyond, published by the Brookings Institution Press (2001).
He was appointed the Executive Secretary of the Peace Corps in 1961, and in late 1962, Patterson transferred to the Treasury Department as one of the national security affairs advisers in the Office of the Secretary. From 1977 through 1988, he was a senior staff member of the Brookings Institution. He was elected national president of the American Society for Public Administration, is a senior fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration and is a member of the American Political Science Association.
